'Mealea has brought so much joy to our lives'

With their hearts pounding, Greg and Diane Cole opened up the email from the Cambodian orphanage. Attached was a photograph of a three-week-old baby girl, pictured fast asleep and swaddled in a blanket. The couple stared at the screen and melted as they took in the tiny bundle, studying her little rosebud lips and shock of dark hair.

"We just knew the minute we saw her that she was our daughter, " recalls Diane, 42. "She looked so beautiful. It was like your baby being passed to you in the maternity unit and looking into the eyes of your daughter for the first time. After all that time, we couldn't believe that she could be ours."

Now 15 months old, little Mealea is cuddled up to her mummy on the sofa and is happily munching on a rice cake.

Dressed in a flowered pinafore and bright pink shoes, she looks adorable.

The pair are visiting Diane's sister Pam and husband James at their home near Darlington.

"She's absolutely loving seeing all her cousins and aunties and uncles, aren't you?" says Diane, affectionately stroking her daughter's hair and getting a huge toothy grin in return.

Diane was 37 and working for a lettings agency in Darlington when she married Greg, a major with the 26th Regiment Royal Artillery, then based at Catterick. The couple turned to adoption after unsuccessfully trying for a family of their own and enduring five gruelling attempts at IVF (in vitro fertilisation).

"When we looked at adopting in the UK, we quickly realised that there were plenty of older children but adopting a toddler or baby was going to be almost impossible or take a very long time, " says Diane. "So we started looking at overseas."

The first stage of the adoption process was to get a home study, usually carried out by the local authority. But because they were based abroad at Herford, near Hanover, Germany, where they still live, there was no British authority to complete the study. After four months of red tape, they were finally assessed by the charity SSAFA, (the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association) in September 2002. This involved six to seven home visits and "lots of homework", including the impact on them and their extended family of adopting a south east Asian child.

"We're both white, so we had to consider that we would be a walking advert that we had adopted, " says Diane. "But once we had decided to adopt overseas, all we could see were these two dark little children sitting on our bed. We just wanted to give a loving home to needy children."

The couple's case went to an adoption panel in Germany in June last year, where they were approved and the papers were sent off to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES).

Usually, the department took up to six months to process applications, but within a month the papers had been rubber stamped. They had been given approval to adopt a girl under 18 months of age, twin girls or a twin boy and girl.

Delighted, the couple embarked on a two week recce of Cambodia in August, where they found the Kais Village Community orphanage in the Kompong Speu province, run by a Cambodian man and his British wife. The pair were both impressed with the standard of care and the new school which had been built for the older children.

Two weeks after they returned to Germany, they received the news they had been hoping and praying for.

"We were told they had had a little girl brought in with dark hair, very petite, and that they had instantly put our name against hers, " says Diane."We knew then that it was meant to be."

But before Mealea, pronounced Meelia, was theirs, the couple had a nervewracking 90 days to wait - a window in case the mother or her family came back to claim the baby.

Events took a dramatic twist. Just when they were expecting an email saying the 90 days were up, Diane received notice that Britain had temporarily suspended the adoption of Cambodian children amid concerns people were buying them illegally. It looked like they could lose Mealea.

Diane was beside herself, and away from Greg, who was on exercise in France.

"I felt like I'd lost my daughter, " she says. "We'd had a series of photographs over the three months as she'd been growing. The room that we were preparing at home was not a room for the baby, it was a room for Mealea. It brought back all the unsuccessful IVF feelings and I felt sick to the pit of my stomach.

It was hard for Greg too, who felt useless at the end of a telephone."

After lots of frantic telephone calls, Diane eventually received an email from the DfES. "It said that we could proceed because we had got so far down the route but we would be the last couple to go through the system, " she says.

"We couldn't believe it."

The couple flew out to Cambodia and arrived at the orphanage on Christmas Day.

"I hadn't slept much on the flight and I can remember thinking 'this is okay, I don't think I'm going to get emotional', " she says. "I felt very in control. We walked in and looked up and there was Mealea in the arms of her nanny. I recognised her straight away and just burst into tears."

Greg, 38, and Diane spent the next few days researching as much of Mealea's history as they could, visiting the village chief who had brought her to the orphanage and gathering photographs and video footage. The research was important to them to give their daughter a sense of identity. They compiled a "life book" containing her history and bits of memorabilia, such as their plane tickets, and made plans to bring her back to Cambodia, when she is old enough to appreciate her heritage.

After four days, the couple took their baby daughter to Phnom Penh for a brief adoption ceremony before she was finally theirs. They spent the next few days at their hotel, getting to know their new addition.

"She settled very well, " says Diane. "I would sing to her and we took her swimming and she loved it. We realised we had a very contented little girl. When we brought her home she was an angel and slept for about ten hours on the flight.

"We very quickly got her into a routine at home and it works really well for her. We limited visits to begin with so she knew we were the special people in her life."

By Easter, she had met all her new cousins, aunties, uncles and grandparents, who are just as besotted with her as her new parents.

But then it is hard not to be. In her auntie Pam's living room, the contented toddler grins widely at her mummy, as she manoeuvres her miniature pink push chair past a wooden chest.

"She's certainly a charmer, " smiles Diane. "She's got lots of little friends back home and she loves going swimming and singing."

The couple are looking at adopting overseas again to complete their family, but are looking instead to China or Kazakhstan. Before then, they are looking forward to a family Christmas together in Darlington.

"Mealea is the thing that I'm most proud of in my life, " says Diane.

"I would say to anyone that you have to be determined and stick at it, but it is so worth it in the end. She has brought so much joy to our lives."

Contact details: Overseas Adoption Helpline - provides independent, accurate information and advice. Advice line - 0870 516 8742 or www. oah. org. uk.

OASIS (Overseas Adoption Support and Information Services) - 0870 241 7069 or www. adoptionoverseas. org; SSAFA Forces Help - 020 7463 9229 or email adoption@ssafa. org. uk