THE RENEGADES!!

I thought I would talk a bit about 5 important,  new friends,  in my life. There is a big delay, for many reasons,  in non special needs adoption right now.  We realized we just wanted to adopt a child,and got on our agency's list for adopting a child with special needs at the end of 2008.  We also increased the age we desired to a 2-4 yo.  We got behind about 200 people in our agency's special needs line,  expecting to wait about 1 year.  In early Sept,  someone posted, on an agency yahoo group,  that they were told the wait would be 18 months.  Wait?  I thought we only had 3 more months to wait--I called,  confirmed the truth,  and was pretty sad.  We prayed and talked and decided we would pursue switching agencies,  an option that had just opened by China a few months prior.  2 evenings later,  a lady posted on RQ--rumor queen (chinaadopttalk.com)  a forum for all things related to chinese adoption.  Her agency had just posted a new list of kids available for adoption,  and 1 girl was the age and had the special need we felt most comfortable with,  cleft lip and palate.  I posted on my agency's yahoo group that we were considering looking at other agencies. I received almost 10 private messages asking for more information.  Then we we received PA--preapproval,  to adopt AG,  I posted again,  and received more messages from people frustrated with the long wait.  Some agencies had no wait for kids with special needs. Ours had 18-24 month wait.  Then on another yahoo group,  someone posted about a new list of cuties on an agency, waiting for adoption.  I forwarded the info to the people who had messaged me,  4 of those found their children,  and the 5th found their child by talking to one of 4.  All 5 hope to travel in 6-8 weeks!  maybe even travel together!  2 of the kids are from the same orphanage,  and know each other.  
     So early in the process I introduced the ladies to each other,  we began to email almost daily,  and have called ourselves,  most appropriately I believe,  THE RENEGADES,  because we bucked the "safe" route and the status quo,  and chose to fight and find our children by actively looking.  We are all very different,  come from midwest and east,  some have other kids,  different ages, different professions. But we have the same passion to bring our kids home.  1 of these new friends just sent me a ladybug locket with AG's pic in it--so special!  So S, C, J, D, and K,  I appreciate all of you and the friendship we all share.  S snidely told me today I had better post on our blog more in China than I am now.  One reason I don't is I am emailing them!  I have never laughed so much at emails as I do when I read some of their posts. THE RENEGADES--sometimes its good to stop waiting and fight and pursue!