She's Walking! She's Walking!!

Adriana surprised both of us last night by letting go of the back of Dan's recliner and took a couple of steps all on her own.  I was on the couch and couldn't see her and Dan was watching to see what she as up to when I heard his voice raise on octave or two and shouted "she's walking!"  By the time I turned around, she had fallen.  We took her into our bedroom where it's carpeted and sat about 6 feet away from one another.  She was taking about 3-5 steps each time before we'd catch her.  This is the first time she has done this without our help or trying to provoke her to walk.  Big, big milestone!  We are so happy.

 Her next doctor appointment is November 8th and I'll be excited to tell the doctor she is walking.  Also, we have a 6 month post placement visit by our social worker scheduled for Saturday, October 29th.  We'll be thrilled to tell her she is walking.  For those who don't know, China requires a 6 and 12 month post placement visit by a licensed social worker.  Other countries have stricter policies and some require visits until the children are 18 years old.  When we started the process almost 6 years ago, we signed a contract to comply with the post placement visits.  Most agencies have you sign a contract because they don't want to lose their standing with China and apparently China takes these reports very seriously.

Also, we are re-adopting Adriana in the U.S.  The adoption was finalized in China on May 16th, however it is strongly recommended to re-adopt in the U.S. as to lessen future problems with registering her in school, getting her driver's license, etc.  We found out that a home study has to be done within 2 months of the court date so we can use our post placement report.  We got a court date of November 21st for Adriana's re-adoption.  The court fees were nominal and we'll end up with an adoption decree and a WI birth certificate.  We can't wait for the 6 and 12 month post placements visits to be over with......then we'll be DONE!!!!

We'll try and take some pictures of her walking this weekend.  In the meantime, here are some pictures we took a couple of weeks ago before a Packer game.