We Have a Daughter!

Yep, it's true!

We received the call from our adoption agency yesterday at around 11:30 a.m. letting us know that they had a special needs baby for us. She is 11 months old and has congenital cleft lip and palate. For those of you not familiar with this condition, a cleft lip is a separation of the two sides of the lip and a cleft palate is is an opening in the roof of the mouth in which the two sides of the palate did not fuse, or join together, as the unborn baby was developing.

In the United States, clefts occur in 1 in 700 to 1,000 births, making it one of the most common major birth defects. Clefts occur more often in kids of Asian, Latino, or Native American descent. The good news is that both cleft lip and cleft palate are treatable. Most kids born with these can have reconstructive surgery within the first 12 to 18 months of life to correct the defect. Our daughter (Wow, that sounded cool!) has not had surgery, for which we are grateful. Some of the best Pediatric Plastic Surgeons, specializing in the repair of clefts are right here in San Diego. We can't wait to bring her home! Click on the link to Operation Smile on the left to learn more about this condition.

Here are just a few of the things in her developmental report:

• She was born on September 14, 2008 - both of our boys were born on the 14th. Dylan-August 14th, Dustin-October 14th. Now we will have August, September, and October babies! She weighed 8lbs. 8oz. and was 19 inches long.
  
• She was found abandoned on October 14, 2008 - Dustin's B-day. She was brought to the local orphanage after being found, but shortly after, placed in a foster home where she has obviously flourished despite her cleft lip and palate as she is a beautiful, chunky baby, weighing 18 pounds!
  
• Her name is Dang Xin Ju- we had always planned on naming our daughter Dani - so close!
  
• She learned to roll over when she was 4 months old and could sit up byherself at 7 months. She wakes up at 6:00 a.m and goes to bed at 9:00 p.m. She takes three to four naps a day (Yes!) for about a half an hour to an hour. She especially likes to play outside.

Stay tuned for pictures. We will post them once we sign the official Letter of Acceptance (hopefully in the next couple of weeks). After we sign, it is sent to China after which they will review our dossier and issue us a travel Visa to come and get her. We will probably travel in the next 4-8 weeks to get her. To say that we are excited is a gross understatement!