Please help us welcome Melissa Mei-Li Shan-Xia Lowary to our family. She was born on 29 April 1996 in Wu Xi City which is in the JiangsuProvince. She was 62.5 cm tall and weighed 6.1 kg when the physical was taken (6 June 1996). She will join my wife (Maureen) and I (Jim) along with my daughter (Miriam), as soon as Maureen and I are allowed to go to China and pick her up.

We received "the call" on 16 April 1997 that said we almost had a referral, but the CAC wanted the referral back! It seems that they thought that we were either no longer using Dillon International as our agency, or that we were not interested in China anymore!! We quickly drafted a letter to the CAC stating that this was not the case. We were very much interested in China and that Dillon was still our agency. By late Friday afternoon our agency was informed that the CAC had discovered the problem and would have our referral by Monday. So while waiting on "Pins and Needles" over the weekend we decided to take a trip to St. Louis to look for furniture for her room. On Monday we did received "another call" telling us that her name was Xi Shan-Xia (which means Coral Sunset) and her birthday, but it wasn't until Friday that we received our picture of our newest addition to the family. Now we wait for travel approval, get her room ready, and yes the other all important task of figuring out how to pack everything that we and Melissa will need for two weeks into as few bags as possible (this might be the biggest hurdle yet!!).

To see the complete "Melissa's Story" follow this link   Forward.