Where is she and how old is she??

After the "what happens after referral" questions. Almost everyone asks, what province will your baby be from and how old will she be? Well to put it simply, we don’t know… and we won’t know till we get our referral. The referral will include all kinds of good information. Our baby’s name, health information, age, what orphanage she is currently at, if she has been in foster care. They also include cute things like, she likes music and long naps (I hope that is true in our case).
On the age subject… we request a baby girl AYAP (as young as possible) but it is just a request. We are approved 0-24 month per China’s guidelines. So we really don’t know. Some months there are a lot of younger babies referred 7-12 months, other months 14-20 month old babies. We of course would like a baby AYAP to make sure she has the best care during those important development months and to help with attachment and bonding. Either way little baby or toddler we realize there will be developmental delays from living in an orphanage and have been reading, reading, reading how to best handle those challenges and get her on track. I’ll do another post on delays and attachment once we are a little closer.
Once we accept our referral then our agency will ask for updated health information from the orphanage and we will be able to send a care package. Most people send a disposable camera and hope that it will come home with their baby. Some nannies at the orphanages will do this, others won’t so it is really luck of the draw. We will also include a little photo album with pictures of us, our dogs, Ava, our sisters, grandma and grandpa labeled in Chinese. That is my next “to do” project. Some people recommend sending a blanket that you have slept with, I’m not sure about that one. We will send some toys and some clothes too. Nothing made in China, apparently that is a no-no there. I think that will actually be a really fun project putting together the care package once we know who and where she is.