March 27

I KNOW...its May, not March...but read on dear friends... There really is something about March 27...it seems to keep coming up in my life, like a sign...Its like God is giving me some hints about important stuff by making things happen on certain days or other kinds of 'coincidences' that tie into March 27th for me. In the China Adoption community (lots of us connect via blogs, internet groups and forums and stuff) we adopters like to call these coincidences or events 'red threads' - in honor of a little saying that is loosely connected to a Chinese legend (the legend isn't about adoption, its about marriage...but adopters have seem to have molded it around themselves). Here is the poem:

Anyway, back to March 27. My Emma was born on March 27, 2005. My fiesty and sweet Grandma Buck had passed away one year earlier, March 27, 2004 and My dear uncle Randy, one year prior to that in 2003. This year on March 27, 2009, not only did my beautiful daughter turn 4 years old, but we had another very special event as an answer to lots of prayers and waiting in making our family complete...

That beautiful boy is RJ Ping Broberg. (By the way, the RJ stands for Robert Joseph - my dad is Robert and my mom's dad was Joseph) Date of Birth: January 12, 2007 Place of Birth: Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China Chinese name: Lan Yan Ping

On March 27 I sent in my letter to the Central China Adoption Agency (the Chinese agency who places Chinese children for adoption) with a request that we be allowed to add RJ to our family. My agency had called the day before asking if I would be interested in looking at a file of a little boy, just over 2 years old. They stated that they knew I was looking for a younger baby, but thought I might still be interested in looking. But, they said, just a warning...once you see this picture it will be awfully hard to resist! Thats o.k. I said...I'll just take a little peek. Boy were they right!! It was love at first sight. Even though I was trying to be logical and non-emotionally attached...I just felt something, like I knew that this was the child waiting to be part of our family. My agency only gave me until noon the next day...March 27... to decide for sure. I had already decided to take the day off for Emma's birthday - so that gave me a chance to really talk with my family and contemplate in the quiet (well, as quiet as it gets with Emma around! :)) By noon I felt certain and I was ready to send in my request to the CCAA...and I did.

Before posting anything about this, I wanted to be sure that the CCAA was going to let me go forward...so I waited until today May 26, when I received my Letter of Acceptance (LOA).

Now I wait for Travel Approval (TA) and then I will be off to China. Hopefully no later than August! Pray for us. I am SOOOOO ready to have RJ with me and Emma and all the rest of my wonderful family and friends.

Here are a few more pictures (taken around August 2008):