INTRODUCING…

We are overjoyed to announce that we have a beautiful little boy waiting for us in China!

So, what can we tell you?

He’s absolutely adorable!

He has a lovely Chinese name and—we think—an equally terrific English name, Michael. We’ll call him Mike or Mikey or Mickey or Michelangelo or Namesake of the Great Archangel Michael or just plain Michael.

We’ll travel to bring him home just as soon as two governments on opposite sides of the world tell us we can. The official estimate? Four to nine months to travel. The unofficial one? We’d like to bring him home as soon as we can—and before his second birthday, which we think is a very real possibility. Wouldn’t it be fun to have to decide whether to buy him a seat on that plane?

You’re probably wondering why there are all these words and no photos here. We have decided not to post photos of Michael here because our agency seemed nervous about it, and that made us nervous.

But, trust me, he’s cute, cute, cute. He has deep, dark eyes, very little hair, and a look of mischief about him that reminds us more than a little of another boy we know. He looks stunning in the Mickey Mouse shirt and Winnie-the-Pooh socks and multi-colored pants he’s wearing in his photos. In one he looks more serious, posing bravely for the photographer, and in one he’s playing with a plastic hand-clapper toy and laughing out loud, his face lit up in delight. That’s Louis’s favorite photo. The other day he asked to see “the laughing boy.”

Because we aren’t sharing photos—and trust me when I say this is very hard—I asked his almost 8-year-old cousin Julia to draw a picture of him.

 

See? He is unbelievably cute.

He’s also the answer to our prayers.

Even before we met Louis, we had hoped to return to China to adopt a second child. I remember standing in the lobby of the building where the U.S. Consulate is, and telling two of the adoptive dads with me that it was possible our second child was already alive in China. (Looking back on that arduous but marvelous trip, it’s hard to believe I was thinking that then, but I was.) Within a few weeks of bringing Louis home, we knew we wanted to grow our family. We just had to wait until the right time. We started the process last summer, sent our dossier to China Jan. 21, and it was logged in on Jan. 26.

Then we waited almost two months for the phone to ring. On Tuesday afternoon, just when I had decided we might not be matched until after Easter, my cell phone rang with THE CALL!

For months I have been saying that I hoped our boy would bring his name with him the way Louis brought his. Louis was Louis from the first moments we looked at his photograph. But for days I assumed Michael had not brought his name with him. The English names closest to his Chinese name just didn’t feel right for him.

Then one night, I jokingly said to John, “He’s wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt. Let’s call him Mickey.” 

Suddenly we found ourselves discussing Michael, which had—surprisingly—not made the long list of name options. So, our little guy did bring his name. It just took us a few days to realize it.

So we have a name—at least a first name—for our son. Our goal for this week is to assemble a photo album and send it to Michael to introduce him to his forever family.

He'll get a glimpse of us--and his big brother.

We can’t wait to meet Michael—and he’s already tugging pretty hard on that red thread connecting him to his Mama and Baba!