Referral Day: Thursday January 5, 2006

Welcome to Delaney's adoption website. We will be posting details of our adoption journey as well as our trip to China so that our family and friends can follow our journey to bring our daughter Delaney Marie home. The most recent updates and photos are at the top of the page-scroll down to post.

Wow, what a roller coaster ride the past year and a half has been, we thought this day would never come. We initially heard referrals were to come on Tuesday 1/3/06, what a long day with no referral. Wednesday looked hopeful, then we heard the agency referral packets were "misdirected" to the wrong place-how disappointing.

Here it is Thursday, January 5, 2006-Bill and I are at work eagerly waiting for referral news. My coworkers are on alert for the phone call and they know to hunt me down if someone calls for me or the consequences could be life threatening. I had a doctor's appointment at 2pm and I had a strong feeling I would get the call while I was there. Don' t you know at 1:50pm as I was waiting for Bill in the parking lot of the medical office my cell phone rings and it is Harrah's (adoption agency) to give us the good news about our daughter. I was shaking, full of emotion as I was writing all the details about her. Once we received the news we were anxious to see her picture which would be e-mailed to us in a couple hours. Once home Michael and I frantically tried to open her picture in the e-mail and could not. Bill shortly came to the rescue and we were able to view her beautiful picture that we waited so long for.

DELANEY MARIE ZHI FITZGERALD

Chinese Name: Huai Dong Zhi

She is in the Huainan Children's Children Welfare Institute, Anhui Province in China. She was born June 9, 2004 (19 months old). Wt. 22lbs, Ht. 30". She is a deep/moderate sleeper, stands alone, walks with holding on, imitates words, knows what "NO" means, is timid, shy and quiet. She likes to listen to music and play, gets along with others, sometimes impatient and energetic. Sounds like a perfect child to us.

We are in love and can't wait to hold her in our arms and love her for the rest of our lives. Michael is acting like the proud big brother telling all his friends and asking for a picture to share with teachers, classmates and friends.