I don't think we would do well in Vegas these days.....

Well folks, even though the odds were in our favor we have again not received a referral in the newest package of 38 that were found. We both were very sad but we do have a small silver lining.

In China when a child is abandoned the authorities place an ad in a local newspaper in most provinces. This is usually the earliest photo taken of the baby. There are a couple of services that search archives of these records for adoptive families and you can purchase this picture which is referred to as a finding ad. It usually takes about a month to hear word back as to whether there is an ad for your child. Some do not have them or sometimes they cannot locate them. When I received Katie's information I immediately placed an order for that ad. Well last night I found out that Brian Stuy, the owner of Research China heard about our situation and offered the families a very quick turn around on the photo. Last night he called me from China to tell me that he found Katie's ad and sent it to me by 5:00 am. I was very moved that he would do this for us. Because the quality of this photo is very poor until they digitally enhance it Marc and I made the decision to wait and see if the referral photo came in today. If it did not then we would look at the finding ad. After we receieved the bad news and we composed ourselves we looked at the photo. We both fell in love. The image is poor but our Katie is beautiful. I am not going to be able to post it here as it just would never come through properly. I cannot wait to be able to proudly introduce Katie Starr HongShan Weinstock to all of you.