Jill Warnke

Janet and Pete Warnke saw a bulletin about Chinese adoption in their Catholic church bulletin in Irvington, New York. They attended a support group run by the mother of two girls adopted from China and quickly decided to move forward.

Janet, a secretary at a local middle school, and Pete, a police officer, said they never thought twice about adopting a child from another country.

`I knew there was a need for homes for these children, as there are for children of all types, so I was very interested to find out more,` Pete says. `The first meeting I went to I was hooked. I just jumped head first into it. For us, it just clicked right away. We started the paperwork very soon after our first meeting. We went every month, made good friends. Seeing the new kids come home all the time really kept me going. It was a long pregnancy for me, in a ense. I waited a long time.`

They did the six months worth of paperwork necessary for the application. Because the pace of placements had slowed dramatically by late 2005-2006, they waited 29 waits for their referral (the news from the agency that they had been matched with a baby).

The day that the referral came, they were both at work.

`I was on a traffic stop in our town and my phone rang and it was our friend Mary, who also was waiting on a referral,` Pete says. `She was very excited on the phone. 'We got the call. We got the call!' I immediately released the traffic offender. I didn't give him a ticket. I said, 'You're free to go!'`