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Hi Amy,
Sorry for this late reply but I've just found this forum recently. You've gotten some good replies and I agree with everything said whole-heartledly. One more thing though. You should know that you have the opportunity to decline any referral you do not feel comfortable with. In fact, with our agency - it was a formal procedure for us to ACCEPT the referral we were given. We were sent some photos of our daughter, her medical history (as known by the orphanage) and a letter from the director of orphanage describing our daughter. Well, it took about 40 seconds for us to decide YES! but our agency still strongly encouraged us to have her med records looked at by a doctor familiar with international children. We did so and thank God - all was well. We then had to sign and have notarized several forms to officially accept the match. Point is, we could have declined for any reason up until that point. My understanding is that had we, we would have been placed back in the queue with no hard feelings. Feel confident that you will not be forced to do anything you don't feel comfortable with.
As far the bonding issue, it took all of us about 10 hours to completely bond to one another. I agree with the writer who said it feels like his daughter has always been with them. My daughter has been with us for 1 year (last week) and it feels like she's always been here. I can't remember life before. She was 18mos when she arrived in the US; and is now an extremely Americanized 2 1/2 yo. Good Luck !
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