One year ago...Josie's story

On July 31, 2007, we found our Josie on a waiting child list with a different agency than the one we were currently involved with. We had been logged in with our agency and the CCAA for over a year and I was tired of waiting for my daughter. After years of fertility issues and the disappointment of not being matched with waiting children with our current agency, I was ready to go elsewhere. Without Chris even knowing, I contacted this new agency and asked to see Josie’s medical files. The social worker agreed that they would work with us, but there was a family currently interested in this child. We were second in line. If the family decided against her, we would have the opportunity to put our letter of intention in motion. I said a few prayers and started researching her heart condition.


Just look at her referral picture. I knew she was our daughter the moment I laid eyes on her.



I just needed to convince my husband that this little girl was worth the risk. If we pursued her, we’d be starting over. That meant, pulling our files with our current agency, resubmitting them with our new agency, getting a new login date, paying new fees (in essence starting completely over). It was risky and I had knots in my stomach worrying about the whole thing falling apart, but I was ready to take the risk.

It didn’t take Chris long to agree that she was worth it. We contacted our local Children’s Hospital to have her medical files reviewed. Her condition was treatable, but she definitely needed heart surgery. We then contacted Chris’s medical insurance to make sure her treatment would be covered. She would be. Now, we just needed the green-light from this new agency that she was really available. It was longest five days of my life.

Five days later, we were told that the other family was not going to pursue her. She was our daughter, if we were interested. Are you kidding? YES! Close her file to anyone else!!! From that point on, we had our work cut out for us. We needed to write a letter to our current agency asking them to release our dossier from the CCAA so that it could be resubmitted with our new agency. We also needed to update our dossier with all kinds of paperwork that would soon be expiring. Chris spent the last month of his summer break running errands, meeting with our new social worker to update our homestudy and driving to our capital office across the state to get the new paperwork sealed. I won’t bore you with the timeline, but it took seven months from start to finish to have Josie in our arms. There's a special family (you know who you are) that we are deeply connected with because of Josie. Thank you. God works in mysterious ways.

I’ll leave you with the video introduction we shot last September of Emma introducing her little sister to the rest of the world.