Chloe Bloom     Cricket’s Song     A Silent Miracle     I will not leave you as orphans...     Fear, Hope and Joy     Heart to Heart     Love Does Funny Things     Our Miracle     An Unexpected Journey

Our Super Guys     Just One Look!     Adding to Their Family     And Then There Were Seven     The Right Thing     The Neverending (Adoption) Story     Our Broken Road     Our Daughter Ellise Bai Hua     Our Roller Coaster Ride to Our Daughter

 

Chloe
By Donna Bloom

Mao Xiao Pin’s picture appeared on my computer, looking so very serious for one so young. There was a reason for that serious look, and it was all too obvious. The little girl in the picture was covered with dark patches of skin, some very tiny, but others like large blotches of black paint. Her hair was shaved very short, so she did not even have bangs and long hair to conceal the extent of her condition. The accompanying letter identified her as a 6-year-old girl from Maoming, China. It asked for donations to help pay the cost of surgery for her. She was born with a condition called congenital hairy nevus (overgrown mole tissue). Without the surgery, she would be deemed unadoptable, and would spend the rest of her childhood in the orphanage. 

I thought how about how unfair it was. Beyond the blotched skin, I saw the face of an adorable little girl who deserved a family of her own. Initially, I simply attempted to raise funds for her surgery. Within the month, however, I was beginning to think of the possibility of adopting Mao Xiao Pin. I was pretty sure I wanted her to be a part of our family, but my husband Ken was a little more hesitant. We were already parents to a 10-year-old biological daughter and a 5-year-old daughter adopted from China a year-and-a-half earlier. Ken was worried that we would go broke trying to adopt again, and was also concerned about how the girls would all get along. Our 10-year-old, Catherine, had been very excited to have her younger sister, Sara, join us in 2001, but after the newness wore off, she discovered that she would actually have to share Mom and Dad with this new sister. That, along with a 5-year difference in ages between Catherine and Sara, had caused some rocky moments. But when we asked Catherine how she would feel about a new sister, she didn’t object. Sara, on the other hand, was ecstatic. There were no kids her age in the neighborhood, and she really wanted someone nearer her age she could play with. Ken and I had a heart-to-heart talk about adopting Xiao Pin, and when he saw how committed I was to her, he agreed to go ahead with the adoption. 

So began our second journey into the mountain of paperwork and the emotional ups and downs of waiting for our new daughter. Only this time it was different, because we knew already who she was. And we were exceptionally fortunate to receive two video tapes. In the first one, she was quite shy, but sang several songs with her sweet, quiet voice, and demonstrated that she could write Chinese characters. In the second, we got to see her birthday party - at a McDonalds!

At home, we hurried through the paperwork process as quickly as we could. I was told that the waiting child program would be much quicker than the normal process. It still seemed achingly slow. All I could think about was that our daughter was so far away and waiting for us, and that it would be that much longer until she could get the medical help she needed. From my investigations, I knew there was a slight, but very real, chance that the nevus could turn cancerous. I searched for information about treating this condition, and found the website for the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, where they had a doctor who specialized in treating nevus. There were numerous before-and-after photos of children who had undergone surgery for this condition. The results were amazing! This seemed like an excellent place, but first I wanted to see what was in our own local area. A plastic surgeon in Salt Lake City suggested I might want to try Shriners Hospital, as they would cover all costs if she was approved for their program. Xiao Pin was accepted by Shriners, but after talking with the doctors, I felt that Xiao Pin would be better off going to the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, as they were much more experienced with her condition. 

Our hopes for a spring trip to China to get Xiao Pin were dashed when SARS took over the news. Each day we watched the news for signs of a let-up in the disease. Finally, in July, we were told we would be going soon. Sara and I eagerly began packing for our trip. As a self-employed business owner, Ken was forced to stay home and work. 

At last, on August 3rd, Sara and I boarded the plane that would take us to Hong Kong. We were both excited to be returning to China, and we wondered what Xiao Pin would be feeling. Would she be excited? Scared? When we finally arrived in Hong Kong, we very much enjoyed our tour of this fascinating city, but everyone in our group had the same thought - only one day ‘til we could hold our new daughters in our arms!

Following our Hong Kong-Guangzhou flight, we barely had time to settle into our rooms before heading to the registrar’s office to meet our children. I wondered if Xiao Pin would like us? We had sent small presents and letters to her while we were waiting to travel; we heard back that she was concerned about how we would talk to each other. Also, she had never been around pets, and we have, shall we say, numerous pets. All the families were shown to a room to wait for their daughters. One by one, the babies were brought in. Babies cried, new parents cried. It was such a joyful time. But where was Xiao Pin? We were told that she had just arrived and was still sleeping. So, we took pictures of the other families and waited. At long last, our name was called and we were shown into another room where Mao Xiao Pin, her nanny, and the director of the orphanage were waiting. She was tearful and very quiet. It was heartbreaking to see her pain. We sat with her for a long time while the director and nanny talked with her and gave her a little photo album. When they finally had to leave, she burst into tears. Sara didn’t understand why she was crying, so I tried to explain to her that although Xiao Pin had lived in an orphanage all her life, it was still the only family she knew. 

During the bus ride back to our hotel, Xiao Pin stared out the window, tears rolling down her face. It was our guide, Jason, who suggested we get off the bus at McDonald’s for dinner and play time. Good ol’ McDonalds did the trick! The girls were soon laughing, giggling, and running up and down the playground. When asked what she wanted to eat, Xiao Pin pointed at all the ice cream items!

I soon found that, although aware she looks different, Xiao Pin handles the stares of strangers by just ignoring them. She and Sara have become close, and are so close in size, they seem like twins. Upon our return home, Xiao Pin (now known as Chloe) quickly made friends with neighborhood children. She also enjoyed Sunday School and joined Sara right away in her tumbling class. When we began homeschool this fall, I found she was very bright. She had just finished kindergarten in China, but she could write many Chinese characters, the English alphabet, and her addition and subtraction tables. Her teacher had sent her school work with her, and she had very high grades. To honor the girls’ Chinese heritage, a couple of us Ogden area families get together with a teacher for Chinese class. The girls love the class. They not only get to play with their Chinese friends, they are learning to read, write, speak, and sing more Mandarin.

So now we wait for February, when Xiao Pin will undergo her first surgery. I cannot wait until she is able to look in the mirror and see the same beautiful face I already see. 

Cricket’s Song

By Sally Bidleman

 

Sweating and groaning and creaking through my first marathon, I could never imagine that it was to be the best preparation possible for the role of motherhood.  But there it was, the Big Sur coastline spread out before me with its embrace of infinity, those welcome aid stations, an occasional grand piano played by a pro, and even cheering crowds.  Mostly though, a marathon is work; one foot plodding along after the other, never giving up, trusting that something Never Done Before can be done.

After that came Tucker, our first-born, feisty and magnetic and red-headed. 

Next came Scout Li Ting, 14 months old when we adopted her from the Chinese orphanage in Gaoming City.  She was temperamentally Tucker’s clone; what were the chances?

And then a year later, we discovered CCAI.  I read about the Waiting Child Program and asked my husband Cliff if he’d be interested in completing the interest form.  I remember clearly saying, “It'll be some time before we hear back...but we have time...” At this point, Cliff rolled his eyes.  Naturally, I assumed that meant, “Sure, Sally, fill out that form asap!”

We filled out the Medical Conditions Checklist and came to “blind.”  This seemed acceptable; after all, I didn’t see the writing on a school blackboard until 5th grade, when it was discovered that I’d missed every eye exam given.  My need for glasses proved a great relief to my parents, who had feared I was mentally deficient!

A month later, I got a call from Deniece at CCAI.  I copied her words down on Post-its.  Please note that her rep with us remains unimpugned; every word she said turned out to be true!  She told us she’d just gotten a referral for a little three-year-old girl named Zeng Xiao Jiu.  She said Xiao Jiu was “extremely intelligent” (so of course she’d fit right into our family!!), “active, open, friendly, very articulate, likes to sing and dance...knows the words to 20 songs by heart.  She takes pre-school very seriously...she’s in a fabulous orphanage - Changsha...and...  she...appears...to be blind!”

Her picture showed a beautiful child dressed in red, clutching a pink plastic elephant.  Every night for a week that picture went under Cliff’s pillow while we contacted various and sundry Knowledgeable Professionals to discuss adopting Xiao Jiu. 

Principal re: mainstreaming: No problem!  Ophthalmologist who’d adopted: Be extremely cautious!  Tucker: Sure!  As long as I can go to China too!  Scout: Series of incomprehensible utterances interpreted to be in the affirmative.  Social Worker: Are you sure?  You’re such an active family.  I don’t think it’d be a good match...

But of course the answer was never really in doubt.  That’s why I married Cliff.  He’s got heart and he’s got courage.  And a great grin.  What’s that quote by Helen Keller?  “Life’s either a great adventure or it’s nothing...”  Correct! And Anais Nin’s words, “Life expands in proportion to your courage.”  Check!

We called Deniece a week later and accepted.  Then we received final confirmation Xiao Jiu was “our family.”  A new report came in to CCAI, saying she’s an “easy child but CAN BE STUBBORN OR MAD.”  Yes!  We had no experience with placidity, but we were comfortable with frisky!

Consulting my notes from the perspective of time, I find things happened fast (felt slow!) after that. 

We received another report about Xiao Jiu: she had an amazingly good memory, it said.  (True!  She memorizes my grocery list in one try and my husband gives HER directions so I won’t get lost navigating the increasingly complex thoroughfares of San Diego.)  The report also said she walks and runs well.  (Yes!  She can do a 12-minute mile today and loves those grand jetes in ballet class.) It said, “She has a very strong ability to understand adults.”  (Sure, she thinks she IS one!)

Then came fingerprinting for INS.  I had a “ridge break” which caused great perplexity during the Live Scan.  Next was fingerprinting at the County Office of Education for the Home Study, DOJ, and the child abuse registry.  A few weeks later we received official approval from China to adopt Xiao Jiu. 

When our Home Study was complete, it was faxed to the INS and our paperwork was expedited.  There followed a quick trip to Sacramento to get our papers signed, then to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco. 

After that my notes get cryptic in direct proportion to the frenzy of activity going on! 12/13 Travel Notice.  12/18 Last day at work.  12/22 Flew to Guangzhou.  12/24 Arrived Guangzhou.  Flew to Changsha.  12/24 adoption completed - what a Christmas Eve!

Finally, there we were in two hotel rooms in Changsha: Grandma Jo, Cliff, me, Xiao Jiu (3), Tucker (8), and Scout Li Ting (2).  It started to snow.  (None of the children had seen snow before; Tucker enjoyed pelting his dad with a snowball work-of-art.)

There had been some uncertainty as to whether Xiao Jiu could distinguish shapes, light, and dark.  After a few dramatic crashes, we had our answer.  Xiao Jiu remained stoic.  Unless someone spoke in Mandarin, that is.  Then she would engage in delighted conversation culminating in hysterical sobbing when the speaker departed. 

One morning we woke up to evidence of minor exsanguination; we discovered Xiao Jiu picks her nose during times of great stress with the expected result.

We were told over and over again how bright Xiao Jiu was by everyone who spoke to her in Mandarin.  She was learning English fast...  After we flew back to Guangzhou, we’d walk the streets near the White Swan Hotel.  Tucker held each girl’s hand and chanted whatever came to mind.  As a result, Xiao Jiu’s first English words were, “Chicken, chicken, noodle, noodle,” and “Follow, follow, chicken noodle.”

This year on Christmas Eve we celebrate three years with Cricket Xiao Jiu.  We added the name “Cricket” with the blessing of her orphanage officials; they laughed and said it suited her well since she was happy and chirpy “like a cricket.”  Cricket has embraced everything from consumption of cooked seaweed and spam (when we lived in Hawaii) to learning Morse Code.  She just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Little House on the Prairie. In fact her biggest Braille challenge is not reading...which comes easily to her...but the lifting of the massive Braille tomes!

Here maybe is something that says it all: when we met Cricket, she didn’t know how to hug.  Her arms would limply touch mine and she couldn’t or wouldn’t hold on.  Now she jumps into my arms, holds on tight and gives the best imitation of a monkey screech I have EVER heard. 

Joie d’ vivre.  That intangible essence we asked Deniece to find for us.  The common denominator of all three of our children.  We are truly blessed and wish everyone who reads this the joy of finding their own true and unique family.

A Silent Miracle

 

By Wendy Docter & Elaine Post

As Told to Sarah Harmon

 

This is the story of four profoundly deaf friends in an orphanage in Nanjing, China, who found themselves true sisters in two homes in Michigan only a mile apart.

 

With four birth children at home, Wendy and Art Docter first found themselves on the road to adoption in 1994.  After bringing home their first Chinese daughter, Anye Wu, in 1996, they were surprised to learn that she was moderately to profoundly deaf.  Little did this family know that Anye Wu would be the crack in the door to a much longer adoption journey.

 

One day, Wendy called Deniece Hess at CCAI about a little girl in the Waiting Child Program named You Ya.  After learning more, Wendy surmised her family would not be traveling this road.  You Ya was so profoundly deaf that the family could not communicate without sign language, and none of them knew sign language.  However, the family felt God’s will made clear to them, and in July 2002, eight-year-old You Ya, now Amy Lin, was united with her new family.  While in China, Art and Wendy felt their hearts moved by the children Amy was leaving behind in the orphanage.  Amy had had a makeshift family comprised of three other deaf girls including You Mei, Amy’s best friend.  In all of Amy’s pictures, these two girls were holding hands.  After Amy and her new family headed home, You Mei was not forgotten.

 

The Docters’ good friends, Charles & Elaine Post, were thrilled to welcome Amy home.  Like second parents to the Docters’ children, the two families shared a deep love and respect for one another.  When the Posts saw pictures of Amy’s friend You Mei, they knew that this eleven-year-old girl, with the sad face, was meant for them.  Once she was on CCAI’s Waiting Child list, the Post family quickly went to work on the paperwork to adopt You Mei, who, now known as Anna Mei, came home on Valentine’s Day 2004 to three excited older sisters.  Amy and Anna, once best friends in an orphanage in China, were reunited in the United States two years later, as part of families who lived only one mile apart.

 

But the miracle didn’t end there.

 

When Anna arrived home, she and Amy began praying and praying for their other two friends to find homes in the United States as well.  Anna had been given a goodbye letter from her friend Chu Zhi Lin just before she left China.  In it, Chu Zhi Lin expressed how much she wanted a family too.  Wishing they could have taken Chu Zhi Lin home with them from China the first time, Elaine called Deniece Hess at CCAI to see if adopting Chu Zhi Lin would be possible.

 

The Chinese government does not allow children fourteen or older to be adopted internationally, so the Posts and Docters began a race against time.  Chu Zhi Lin and the fourth girl left in the orphanage, Yang Shao, had only months before they turned fourteen and lost the chance to be adopted forever. 

 

In what can only be described as a miraculous set of circumstances, the two girls appeared on the list of Waiting Children, and the Post and Docter families compiled two more dossiers in a matter of weeks and sent them to China after the Posts had been home with Anna for only one month.  The Chinese government, in light of the amazing opportunity these last two girls had to be adopted before turning fourteen, gave special permission for the one-year-after-placement rule to be waived.  Elaine and Wendy traveled to China together to meet their newest daughters, Grace and Summer.  Grace was adopted with just three days to spare before her fourteenth birthday.

 

One can only imagine what must have been running through the minds of four profoundly deaf teenage girls, reunited thousands of miles away from the orphanage in which they forged their first “family.”  Walking down the airport concourse, surrounded by mobs of people with balloons and banners, was surely overwhelming, but also what their families describe as an incredible moment brought together by the hand of God.  Reunited with their husbands after a long adoption trip, Elaine and Wendy finally felt they would be a family again, able to weather any storms.

 

Now, almost one year later, all four girls have received cochlear implants.  Through a processor worn behind the ear (like a hearing aid) to a system implanted inside the head, the neurons send a signal to the nerve for the brain to respond.  As Wendy describes it, receiving a cochlear implant is not like automatic hearing, but rather like being born.  Just as an infant learns to respond to her mother’s voice and make beginning ba ba ba sounds, so must a deaf person learn to respond to and interpret the sounds received via the implant.  While the process is slow and communication is crude at first, Wendy likens the implant to one of the greatest gifts in the world.  The girls now have the opportunity to communicate in a world of sound.  Blessed with a cochlear implant team near their homes, the Docters and Posts are hopeful for even more improved hearing technology in the future. 

 

The four girls thrive in their Oral Deaf School, all in the same class.  They have blended with their families beautifully and love their siblings dearly, but the road was not always easy.  Wendy feels that no family can be prepared for the damage done to older children existing in an orphanage for so long.  The four girls were found abandoned between the ages of three and six, and occasionally they deal emotionally with life issues in this age range.  When a family adopts an older child, says Wendy, along with it comes the great brokenness of their past.  Part of that, for these girls, is never having dealt with their own abandonment, since, being deaf, they had no clear way to communicate this with others.  The girls referred to their abandonment as “being thrown away” in sign language. 

 

Elaine knows it’s natural to expect issues brought about by a thirteen-year-old child being part of a family for the first time after having fended for herself for her whole life.  She advises that families need to be aware of and prepared for these kinds of issues for older children.  Rather than discouraging families from traveling down the road of an older child adoption, she advises prayerful consideration along with education and support for families considering an older child.

 

The Post and Docter families believe that orphan children are not forgotten by their Creator.  They draw strength not only from each other, but also from the God who put this miraculous adoption journey together.  Four daughters of China, reunited in America, receiving love, family, hearing – a not-so-silent miracle anymore.

 

Amazing Adoption Story

By Kim Anderson

 

  

When I learned of the plight of the many orphans in China , especially the ones with special needs, it occurred to my heart that we had room for another child.  Our daughter was in college and our son was 15.  Our house was big enough, but were we willing to open our home?  We prayed about it.  In the meantime, a friend sent a newsletter from a Christian group who supports an orphanage in China.  It had a photo of a little boy with albinism about 18 months old.  I showed it to my husband and he got tears in his eyes.  We started that day putting together a dossier designed around this little boy.  We found an agency close by and began our journey to adopt our son.  We started in February of 2002 and were DTC 6/24/02. 

    

To become educated about the process and make the wait go by with others in my situation, I joined a couple of email groups.  One day in mid-December an email went out asking if anyone would consider adopting a 13-year-old girl who would soon turn 14.  She would no longer be allowed to be adopted after her birthday, which was in February.  I thought about it for a moment and then decided that I would love to help but we wanted to adopt our little boy.  The email gnawed at me all morning and by lunchtime I was calling my husband.  He suggested I call Deniece at CCAI (the contact person for this little girl).  That afternoon I called my agency and told them that we were considering this little girl.  Their suggestion was to pray about it over the weekend.  Our family decided to earnestly pray and on Sunday during church our pastor was preaching on John 14.  As I looked down my eyes went immediately to John 14:18: “I will not leave you as orphans.  I will come to you.”  I knew it was out of context, but I also knew what we were going to do. 

    

We switched from our agency to CCAI to make the adoption happen.  And it did happen.  We left on January 10 to meet our little girl on the 12^th.  She was small and had a limp.  She cried when she had to be left with us.  She was a 13-year-old little girl who had never known parents but had grown up with the love of her “sisters and brothers” and nannies in the remote province of Qinghai.  It was clear that this was not going to be easy.  She held hands with the interpreter most of the time and with the orphanage workers when we were involved with paperwork.  At the end of the week she said goodbye to her “family” at the orphanage and I cried.  She loved them and they were all so sad to see her go.  I felt like we were ripping her away.  What were we doing to her?  It was the same story in Guangzhou.  She clung to the interpreter and wouldn’t even walk with us.  I cried when I wasn’t in her sight.  One day we caught her in the bathroom calling her orphanage long distance on the phone.  I had no idea this would be so hard.  Everyone had cute babies who seemed to have bonded right away, and we had a daughter who in our perception didn’t want any part of us. 

    

Once we got home, we knew we had a severe communication problem.  I called CCAI and they found people in the office to talk to her and comfort her as she grieved for the only life she had ever known.  She would cry in her room but not in front of us.  She was pleasant, but we knew she wasn’t happy.  She finally explained to one of her friends at CCAI that she wanted to go to school.  We put her in a small private Christian school and she began to meet children who were genuinely nice to her, and she slowly began to speak a little English.  She also began to blend into our family: she cared for the pets, joked around with her older brother, and took pride in her room.  She resisted anything American, and always indicated that China’s way was much better.  Everyone encouraged us, though, saying the transition takes time.  CCAI got us through many days with the people in their office who were her friends and spoke Chinese to her. 

    

We had enrolled her in a local Chinese school right away so she could be around people she could talk to in her language on a weekly basis.  She eventually became resistant to going because she was so advanced and was bored with the work.  We also found out that a few of the children there
made fun of her affliction.  I think she was shocked to have come to America where no one even seemed to notice her affliction, only to be made fun of by the Chinese children in her Chinese school.  In China, she was stared at and considered imperfect because of her leg.  In America, she is just another person.  She has noticed that America does a lot for handicapped people.  Summer came and her sister came home from college.  The two bio kids fought over who would get to take her to the latest movie releases.  She became a sister to them and a functional part of the family.  She was beginning to speak more and more English.  I home schooled her regularly, trying to teach the fundamentals of the English language.  She tried hard, but it is difficult to learn rules about a language you don’t know how to speak.  We decided to put her in public school in the fall. 

    

We were overjoyed that HuYang was placed in the very best classes with the very best teachers that our local middle school had to offer.  She is taking band.  We recently attended a concert she was in and I got tears in my eyes as I remembered where she was a year ago.  She has learned so much and is so genuinely happy.  Because of her handicap, she is not able to do PE.  Her ESL teacher realized that she is gifted in art and saw to it that she was placed in art.  She is the only student in the entire school who takes art and band.  She is special.  Everyone in the school knows her, and she is cared for by the students and teachers. 

    

We recently took her to see another doctor for her leg.  He offered three possible scenarios.  We thought she would not want to do much since she doesn’t really seem to trust Americans, especially doctors.  (She had been through a lot in China in this area.)  On the long trip home we explained that he could do a little and her leg would work a lot better or he could do a lot and it would take about a year and a half of surgery and being wheelchair bound, but she would look more like normal.  Without a moment’s thought, she said she wanted to be normal.  We are now pursuing the extended treatment that was offered so our little girl can look like the other little girls. 

    

HuYang is planning a big Chinese New Year celebration and inviting her American friends to enjoy it with her.  She is happy and well adjusted.  A year ago I never thought it would be this way.  We love her so much and I wasn’t sure she would ever adjust or be happy.  Now she seems to love the best of America and the best of China.  We nurture her “Chineseness.”  HuYang was working on her homework the other night when she got a phone call from another 13-year-old girl from her orphanage who was recently adopted.  They laughed and talked for almost an hour.  After she hung up I asked her how her friend was adjusting.  She said in her best English, “I tell her at first it be hard but you be really, really happy soon.”

    

And that is not the end of the story.  When we got home from China, Deniece, the Child Match Manager and mom to an older adopted daughter, began to search for the little boy we had “left behind.”  Through her persistency, he was finally located on a newly posted Waiting Child list at another agency.  We are DTC 12/10/03 for him and hope to have him home in March.

    

Fear, Hope and Joy

by Teresa and Boyd Colbry

I always enjoy reading the amazing adoption stories in CCAI Circle magazine.  The other day, my husband handed me the latest CCAI Circle and said “Our son Jack’s story is amazing too, we should tell it!”  We wrote this on the best of days, Christmas Day of 2003.  A day for hope, a day for children.

We have three biological children, Hillary 12, Seth 10, and Grant 6.  We always knew that adoption was in our future.  In April of 2001 we adopted Lian from Fuling, Chongqing.  I remember crying with joy as we saw her for the first time on our computer screen, our little girl!   We were thinking that she would be our last child, but I remember making comments to my husband when we were still in China: “Maybe an older child next time?”  He didn’t say much, maybe thinking that when I got home to four children my crazy idea would go away!

Three months after we returned from China I saw a little boy with albinism on the CCAI waiting child list.  Out of curiosity, I decided to spend come time researching albinism.  Based upon the information I gathered, I believed that our family would be able to care for a child with the disease.  I picked up the phone and called CCAI Waiting Child Manager Deniece, but was told that he had been matched with another family.

 

A couple more months passed.  Lian was doing great with her sisters.  Boyd and I were convinced that the idea of adopting another child was not crazy after all.  We decided to go for it.  I filled out the waiting child form and, you know what, checked the albinism box as one of the possible medication conditions that we would be open to.  Very quickly Deniece called us, informing us that a four-year-old boy named Zou Yue Xiao in Beijing with albinism was available.   We told her: “Send his information to us and let us take a look at him.”  Zou Yue Xiao was a very cute boy and from the information we were provided, he sounded like a great kid.

 

But for our 5th child to have a special need… He was an older child. Could we really do it?

 

The sleepless nights began, and friends and family began to question our sanity.  We began to wonder ourselves.  We went to bed many nights saying no, and then waking to only talk about him some more.

We started sending questions to Beijing Orphanage through CCAI and getting short answers back.  All of our questions were answered, but not enough to help us make this big decision.  We consulted with more doctors, talked with people with albinism, and did more internet research.  We also have a lot of worries about his personality, behavior, and attachment issues.  We wanted to talk to someone who had possibly met him and might give us a personal impression of him.  CCAI sent us a list of about twenty families who had adopted older children.  Randomly, we chose to call a family who had adopted a four-year-old.  The child’s mom Lynn graciously answered my call.  Within minutes I found out that Lynn’s child was from Beijing Orphanage.  When she heard me talking about adopting a four-year-old albinal boy from Beijing, Lynn began to cry.  She knew who Zou Yue Xiao was!  Her daughter and Zou Yue Xiao were friends at the orphanage!  We couldn’t believe it. We began to cry too! 

 

Lynn was with an internet support group for Beijing adoptive families.  Through that group we learned that some other families had also met Zou Yue Xiao, and had photos and stories of a bright, outgoing, respectful and very loved little boy!  These families called us to say how remarkable and sweet they found him to be.   Now we knew, without any doubt that we needed to go and get him.  When we told our decision to our kids, they tackled us in the kitchen.  They were so excited!  We finally were able to sleep at night!

We got such a gamete of responses to our news, from “crazy,” to blank stares, and to sheer happiness for us and for him.  We had thought about it, talked about it, prayed about it and researched it to death.  We were so unsure:  five kids, a bigger house, homework, piano, hockey, baseball, basketball, soccer, college…  There are mountains to climb.  We know, we know.  

 

We rushed through the paperwork, were stalled by SARS, but finally traveled in July 2003.  We took our two oldest children with us to help Jack, Zou Yue Xiao’s new name, feel more comfortable.  Jack greeted us formally and fearlessly at the orphanage. Within minutes of meeting him, the rest of our fears were gone.  He was right for us, he was in the right place, he had a family now, and he was on the floor playing with his siblings.

Now home for five months already, Jack has constantly amazed us with his intelligence, love and determination.  He goes to school, his takes on English incredibly fast, and he is so happy and eager to please.  Jack asks for “big hugs” numerous times a day.  He gives the best hugs, wrapping his legs and arms around you kind of hugs.  A few nights ago as my husband was putting him to bed, Jack gave him a big hug and told him “thank you for being my daddy.”  Well Jack, thank you for being our little precious boy!

Heart to Heart

By Joshua Zhong

 

The day we decided to open an adoption agency, September 15, 1992, I joked with Lily that we needed to be prepared for taking ten or twenty children into our own home in case some of the adoptions didn’t work out.  Thank God that has never happened!  J  However, Lily and I, as well as our twin children Art and Amy, always wanted to expand our own family through China adoption.  Over the past ten years, we talked about it once in awhile and every time we fell short of making an affirmative decision.  This was mainly because of two reasons:  One, our daughter Amy wanted a little baby and Lily and I wanted a two- or three-year-old toddler (so we wouldn’t have to deal with poopy diapers – just kidding!).  Plus, the increasing workload and responsibility at CCAI had left us with very little extra energy to focus on something that would demand 100% of our attention.  So time went by.

 

One day a few months ago, I learned that thirty special need children’s information had just arrived in our Waiting Child Department.  Like everyone else in the office, I was very excited and went to the conference room where children’s information was being reviewed.  As soon as I walked in the room, I noticed a little girl’s picture on the top of the pile.  “She is so beautiful!”  I burst out.

 

“Don’t you think she would fit into your family perfectly?” asked Deniece Hess, our passionate Waiting Child Program Manager.  I looked at Lily, who was standing across the table looking at me with a smile. 

 

“She asked me the same question.  So what do you think?”  Lily asked.  I responded with a tentative, “Why not?”  Then Lily and I left the conference room and went back to our own offices, like nothing had happened.  By the end of the day, Deniece had placed a file on Lily’s desk.  In it was the girl’s information and some photos.

 

The next morning our whole family flew to Nashville for a scheduled adoption conference.  As soon as we checked in at our hotel, I got a call from Dr. Max Mitchell, a pediatric cardiologist at Denver Children’s Hospital and the Chairperson on CCAI’s Charity Fund Committee.  “I heard that you are considering adopting a nine year-old girl with congenital heart disease,” he said.  I listened quietly, not sure what to say.  “I have reviewed her basic medical information sent to me from Deniece,” Max continued.  “She seems fine.  I will be happy to help her when she is here.”

 

I was not able to go to sleep that night.  The little girl’s face had stuck in my mind.  I closed my eyes and prayed…  When I opened my eyes, tears were pouring out uncontrollably.  God had spoken to me: “She is yours to love.  Take her.”

 

The next morning, I gathered my family.  Holding the girl’s photo, I asked, “What would you think if we brought this nine-year-old girl into our home?”  “Nine?!!!”  Art and Amy looked at each other with eyes wide open, then looked at her picture.  “I guess,” they said simultaneously.  This is teenager-speak for “yes.”  I turned to Lily.  Before I opened my mouth, she said, “Why not?!  I was just waiting on all of you.”

 

Four days later, we returned to our office, made an official adoption announcement to our staff, and turned in our Application for Adoption.  Yes, even the co-founders needed to fill out the application.  J

 

This was what we knew about her:  She was born July 21, 1995, with congenital heart disease called Tetralogy of Fallot.  She was found abandoned at Beijing Aviation Hospital when she was four months old.  She was delivered to the Beijing Orphanage and was named Hua Gao Jie.  Hua means China.  (All the children registered at Beijing Orphanage in 1995 were surnamed Hua.)  Gao is the name of the police station that received the report of her abandonment.  Jie is her first name, given by the orphanage, which means pure.  After about one year at the orphanage, she was placed in a foster home in the countryside, three hours’ drive from the city.  The foster family was also caring for two blind children when Gao Jie arrived.  She stayed with her foster parents for almost six years, and she “often got sick.”  In August 2001, she received heart surgery.  To better provide for her post-surgery needs and to enable her to go to school, the orphanage took her back from her foster home soon after her surgery.  In 2002 the orphanage decided to send her file to the China Center of Adoption Affairs, hoping to find an international adoptive family for her.  Unfortunately, due to her age and heart condition, no agency was able to find a family for her, until her file arrived at CCAI. 

 

There was no doubt that God was preparing her for our family.

 

Yes, just like every adoptive family, we had to go through the long and frustrating process of dossier compilation, fingerprinting, home study, and parenting training, etc…  The process has given us a new perspective and appreciation for the hardship our adoptive families have to endure to fulfill their dream for a child.

 

To make a long story short, we went to China in late October and hugged Gao Jie for the first time on October 25, 2004, our forever family day.  She came to us with a big smile.  Her new name is Anna Jie Zhong.  She is smart, independent (she does her own pigtails and washes her own socks!), outgoing, and always ready to greet you with a smile.  We are prepared for some challenges down the road, but right now we are focusing on treasuring every moment and enjoying the wonder she brings to our family.  By the way, as I am writing this story for you, Anna is at her first day at High Plain Elementary School.  I am afraid that a few months from now, she will follow her brother and sister’s example to correct my Chinglish.

 

We want to thank our staff who supported us during this very emotional process.  We thank all the families who have been praying for us.  We thank Anna’s birth mom, her foster parents, her orphanage caretakers, and doctors.  Above all, we thank God for His wonderful gift of life and love.  We are truly blessed. 

 

 

Amazing Adoption Story

By Mary McShane Vaughn and Jim Vaughn

 

I woke up in a cold sweat that first night, panicked.  How could I even begin to raise this child?  She needed a mother who knew about medical treatment, who had experience raising children, who could nurse her back to health.  In short, someone a whole lot better than me.  I chided God that night in the darkened hotel room in Fuzhou, “No offense, but I think you could have chosen a much better mother for this little girl.  What were You thinking, entrusting this tiny, sickly child to ME?  I have absolutely no skills!”

 

We had met our daughter Long Fu Qing earlier that evening in July 1996 in the Hot Springs Hotel in Fuzhou.  At two and a half, she was the oldest child in our group of ten.  I was so happy to finally hold her, but when I lifted her up that first time, she was skin and bones.  She was 30 months old and weighed 17.5 pounds.  When we undressed her for bed, we saw that her belly was so distended that her ribs flared out to accommodate it, and we could count every rib in her back.  Her patchy hair felt dead, her skin was sallow, and those eyes!  They were like black saucers in that tiny gaunt face.  She seemed like an otherworldly creature to me as she sat perfectly erect, quiet and still on the bed.

 

Long Fu Qing was officially renamed Colleen the next day.  She didn’t smile or make a sound for two more days afterwards.  When she finally did laugh, it was a heartbreaking, rusty kind of sound.  That laugh brought tears to our eyes and to those of the other new parents who heard it.  Jim and I both realized we were deeply in love with this tiny child.

 

Love does funny things.  I developed some new skills, quick.  I learned about medical treatment, and about raising children, and my husband and I began slowly nursing Colleen back to health.  With drugs, the campylobacter and giardia were eradicated from her digestive system; we had what turned out to be a festering cherry seed removed from her nasal cavity; and we put olive oil and butter on practically everything Colleen ate, doctor’s orders.

 

Jim and I were privileged to witness the miraculous change in Colleen’s appearance and health over the next several months.  Her hair slowly became shiny and full, her skin began to glow, and the sad, rusty laugh was now easy and natural.  Colleen was curious, loving, easy-going and so joyful!  And, boy, could she eat!

 

Five years later, after Colleen’s two older brothers were out of the house and in college, we started to feel a tug from China again.  We got a call from Deniece Hess, telling us that CCAI had just started a Waiting Child Program, and the first group of 10 children had arrived.  We had expressed interest in a possible waiting child before because of our experience with Colleen.  I asked if there were any girls with malnutrition on the list.  “No, but there is a three year old with a heart problem.”  We didn’t want to sign up for heart problems.  Too scary!  Amazingly, we requested her file anyway. 

 

Dr. Max Mitchell was kind enough to talk to us at length about Wu Lan’s medical file.  She had Tetralogy of Fallot.  During the consultation, he gave us a potent piece of advice.  He said that if we wanted to maximize the impact we would have on a child’s life, then adopting Wu Lan was our answer.  That’s exactly what we wanted to do!  We met with the head of cardiothoracic surgery at the children’s hospital in Atlanta and chose a pediatric cardiologist.  According to her blood work and echo, Wu Lan could wait six months for her repair operation.  We finished our dossier within a few weeks, and anxiously waited for our travel approval.

 

The wait was not kind to Wu Lan.  Her condition worsened, and by the time we got to Suzhou in October 2001, she was seriously ill.  We were told to expect “Tet spells,” or periods of low oxygen which would cause her to first turn blue and then to squat down to push more blood to her lungs.  We had forgotten to ask how often this should happen.  It happened all the time.  Wu Lan was in trouble.

 

Wu Lan, now Kate, had a cardiology appointment scheduled for the Friday two weeks after we got home.  She never made it to the appointment.  A week after we got back to Atlanta, Kate had a very bad Tet spell, so we took her to our local hospital.  The doctor took one look at her O₂ saturation level, and called for both the helicopter and the ambulance to take her to the children’s hospital.  The ambulance got there first.  Kate was rushed to CICU where she spent the weekend, and the surgeon we had met earlier operated on her first thing Monday morning.  The nurse later told us that Kate had only had a few more months before her organs would have shut down.  We had wanted a chance to impact a child’s life, but this was a little more impact than we had been counting on.

 

Five days after her surgery, Kate was released from the hospital and was literally running in the backyard that afternoon.  She had felt bad every day of her life, and even though she was sore, the fact that she could actually run was exhilarating to her.  It was an honor to watch her every day as she reclaimed her childhood.  Max Mitchell had been right.

 

Kate was a timid, sweet child and just idolized her sister Colleen.  Colleen and Kate were very close, but Colleen, four years older, often had to leave Kate behind for school activities.  We decided in June 2003 that it was time to adopt another heart-baby.  Almost immediately we got a call from Deniece about a four-year-old girl who had a repaired double outlet right ventricle.  The charity Altrusa had brought Hong Tie Hua and three other children to Shanghai for heart surgery in 2001.  By that time, Hong Tie Hua could not even get out of bed.  The doctors in Shanghai had concluded that they could not repair her heart, so she was flown to NYU Medical Center for her successful surgery in October 2001.  Our cardiologist told us that this condition was not as easily corrected as Kate’s, and it would involve lifelong, periodic follow up operations to replace the shunt and artificial valve she needed.  We had already gone through the open-heart surgery process, and knew the surgeon and the hospital.  She would need another operation soon, and how else would she get it?  Hong Tie Hua became Caroline in March 2004. 

 

Caroline is Kate’s opposite in so many ways.  She is a confident, take charge kind of girl!  Luckily, her personality meshes well with her sister’s and they play together peacefully for hours.  Caroline is being monitored, and will most likely require another open-heart surgery next year.  She has the strong will and spirit to make it through just fine.

 

Our family is not quite finished.  We applied again for another heart-baby late last year and got an email from Deniece about a three-year-old boy who has a very serious condition.  Our cardiologist, who is now a family friend, looked over the file, and told us that Xin Zi Long was inoperable.  But, the doctor said that his condition is stable, and he would experience a slow decline over many decades.  That would buy our son time to wait until technology advances enough to make heart-lung transplants safer and more reliable.  The doctor said that Zi Long won’t be a soccer player, but rather, he could play the guitar and become valedictorian.  That suits us just fine!  We are finishing our dossier and hope to bring “Mick” home this summer.

 

Their medical issues are an intrinsic part of this adoption story, but frankly, that is the least interesting thing about our children.  All three girls are gifted gymnasts; Colleen (11) is a math whiz and dotes on both children and animals; Kate (7) is a talented dancer and spelling champ, and, it turns out, quite a drama queen; Caroline (5) is amazingly bright and eager to learn, and has a flare for fashion.  A lot has happened since that frantic night in Fuzhou nine years ago.  I still (rightfully) doubt my parenting skills, but at least now I’m too busy to panic about it.

 

An Unexpected Journey

By Melissa Rowan

 

Our adoption journey actually began many years ago.  We had discussed the possibility of adoption early in our marriage, however, after our three older children were born within four years, the thought slipped our minds amidst the masses of diapers, laundry, etc.  When our daughter Katie was four years old, she decided she didn’t like being the only girl sandwiched between two boys and began a crusade for a baby sister.  No matter how much we explained to her that we would not have any more children, she would not be persuaded.  She declared she would just keep asking God for a baby sister until He gave her one.  Pray she did – for six years! 

 

When Katie was ten years old (and her brothers Jacob and John were twelve and eight), our desire for another child began to grow and we decided it was time to begin checking into the possibility of adoption.  In the beginning, our only certainty was that we would adopt a girl.  I was busy checking into agencies and researching international vs. domestic adoptions, yet nothing seemed to click.  One day my husband Andy met a new co-worker, who told Andy about his experience with CCAI and the situation of baby girls in China.  We checked out CCAI’s website that evening, and immediately we knew which direction our adoption journey would take us.

 

In early September 2001, we completed the application forms and got them ready to mail to CCAI.  Andy put the forms in his briefcase on September 10 and planned to pick up a letter I needed from my physician the next day.  Well, we all know what September 11^th brought.  Andy is a psychologist with the Air Force and was on the Critical Incident Response Team that dealt with the situation at the Pentagon.  Our forms stayed in his briefcase as his days and nights were spent at the Pentagon.  Initially we were shocked and afraid to go forward with the adoption.  But after praying about it, we went ahead and mailed in our forms and were thrilled to hear Kathi’s voice just a few days later telling us we’d been approved.

 

I wish we could say that September 11^th was the only hurdle in our process, but alas, it was only the beginning.  Our paperwork took us much longer than we had expected.  Reports that should have been back in four to six weeks took five months instead.  Our fingerprints had to be redone multiple times due to problems reading them.  Even though we had signed our home study contract in October, we were unable to get an appointment for our interviews until January.  These and many other hurdles were our lot for this adoption process.  The funniest of all was on April 2, 2002.  I was sure it was April Fool’s Day a day late.  I had to get county certification of my papers and went to the County Clerk’s Office only to find a closed building.  The rumor was that a crane had fallen on the building.  My friend Karen quipped, “Well, Melissa, only the hand of God can move a crane, so we know this must be His plan again.”  She was so right and I laughed rather than becoming frustrated at the latest – and by far most outrageous hurdle.  (I later learned that it was an AC unit that the crane had dropped, causing a Freon spill, so the building was closed for clean up.)  Finally, on April 25, 2002, our dossier arrived in China.

 

After the difficult process of completing the dossier, we thought we could just sit back and wait for our referral.  “This part will be smooth sailing,” we told ourselves.  Once again, we were wrong.  We received word from the Air Force in February we’d be moving to Okinawa, Japan, in the summer and began to prepare for an overseas move coinciding with the arrival of our new daughter.  We were expecting a match in May and a move in August, so even though it was close, we thought it would still work out to bring her home before our move.  Again, we were mistaken.  SARS had come along and further complicated things.  The CCAA had made our match on May 7 but was not mailing any referrals until travel to Beijing was considered safe.  We were in limbo.  To top it off, as a member of the Armed Forces, Andy had orders NOT to travel to China, so we knew he would not be able to go.

 

When we first began our adoption planning, we had called our very dear friends, Don and Marielle Larson, and asked them to be our sounding board and pray for us in making our decision.  A few weeks after that, they called us and told us they were going to go along on the journey and adopt as well!  Don, also a member of the Air Force, was under the same orders and would not be able to travel either.  Our families requested girls from the same orphanage so we could travel together. 

 

As we waited for word of the referral, our Okinawa assignment was cancelled.  Now we had the uncertainty not only of when we could bring our Elizabeth home, but to where.

                                                                                                             

On June 27, we finally received our match.  Our joy at seeing our beautiful daughter’s face was doubled when we learned that the Larsons had also received a referral from the same orphanage!  On July 14 we headed west to Idaho.  I checked e-mail at every hotel that had Internet access and made many calls to CCAI and the Larsons.  Sarah at CCAI even faxed the child information sheet to me at a hotel en route.  On August 1, we moved into our new home and on August 14, I left for China to pick up Elizabeth.  Even though the military orders had been lifted, due to all the uncertainties and the timing of our move, we decided it was best for me to go alone.  I was blessed with an excellent travel companion and of course, the Larsons were along as well.

 

I struggled with each hurdle we faced.  We were so anxious to bring our new daughter home and each delay and setback was so painful.  I am now able to look back and see how each of our hurdles was perfectly orchestrated so that we would be matched with Elizabeth and she would be brought home at the best possible time.  She is so perfect for our family that no other child would have been right.  Had I been in charge, as I had wanted, it might have been a much smoother journey.  However, it would not have been so perfect. 

 

Our adoption journey for Elizabeth is coming to an end as we finish her one year Post Placement Report.  However, our adoption journey as a family continues.  We hope to bring home another daughter next summer.  Perhaps this time will be smooth sailing??!!

 

Just One Look!

By Stacy Steele

 

Our adoption story began in 2003, when I approached my husband and said, “We need to adopt.”  It was something we had always talked about doing.  So I called a local social worker in town and talked to her about adoption.  She quickly told us about CCAI and how wonderful they were.  She said she had worked with a lot of agencies but none had compared to CCAI.  I was so excited and felt like this was an agency we could work with.  And so our adventure began.

 

After having our application approved, we started the never-ending paperwork.  Along the way we discovered the Waiting Child Program.  I was interested in learning more, so I called Deniece Hess and talked to her for a long time.  After telling my husband all about it, we thought this was something we could do.  Over the course of several weeks I talked to Deniece several times.  She probably thought I would NEVER run out of questions!  One of the questions I asked was, “how do you pick the right child?”  Deniece told me when I came across the right child for us, I would just know.  I thought ok, there are all these children’s profiles, how in the world could I pick just one?  And then it happened.  One day I was talking to Deniece on the phone and she started to go through some profiles that were not listed on the website.  She started telling me about a little girl who was deaf.  She had been dropped off at the orphanage when she was four.  She was now almost six.  Some of the Beijing staff had met her and said she was sweet, beautiful and one of their favorites.  I thought to myself, “we could handle a deaf child.”  I had taken a sign language class a few years back so I asked Deniece to send me her profile.  She said I should get it in an e-mail in about ten minutes.

 

After the ten long minutes passed, I opened my e-mail and started downloading the picture of this little girl.  All I could see was the top of her head and I started crying.  As her face came on the screen, I knew this was our little girl.  She looked perfect to me.  I called my husband and told him to come home; I had just found our girl.  Then before he could get home, I called Deniece (yes, still crying) and told her she was right, when you see the right child you just know it.  My husband walked in the door, took one look at the picture and agreed she was the one.  When our three biological children saw her little face, they thought she was cute.  We already had a name picked out for her - Anna.

 

Deniece got more paperwork going for us and soon the China Center of Adoption Affairs approved us for Anna.  We got busy getting ready for her to come home.  In February of 2004 we went to China to get our daughter.  We were scared to death, in a foreign country, tired from the long flight, and thinking we had lost our minds.  We got checked into our hotel and I immediately went to bed sick to my stomach.  My husband worked with our representative (Marian) to get things ready to get Anna the next morning.  At 2 am I woke up feeling better and jumped up in a frenzy, trying to get unpacked and get things ready for the next morning.  I eventually went back to sleep, but when it was time to go in the morning, I was a nervous wreck.  Marian reassured me that everything was going to be ok and what I was feeling was normal.  We got to the orphanage and before we could get settled and get our cameras out, we saw Anna.  I cried.  She was perfect.  I smiled at her and she took my hand and smiled back.  That was it.  I was in love.  After a couple of days of having her, we knew our children back home were going to get along with her just fine.  She was such a pleasant child.

 

When we got home, our adjustment to a new family member was easy.  Everyone got along great.  We all, including Anna, started learning signing as fast as we could.  We got her enrolled in a deaf school and life was great.  People at church said she acted like she had been in our family her whole life.  And one day my son said to me, “you know, I forget Anna is Chinese and Deaf, she just seems like another sister to me!”  We just didn’t realize how adopting a child would change our lives.  We wanted to change a child’s life; little did we know it would turn ours upside down.  We LOVED China and the people.  And learning about Deaf culture was wonderful.  So, after having Anna for three months I felt like we needed to go back again.

 

I called Deniece and she said we could work on another adoption, but the dossier couldn’t be sent to China until we had Anna home for a year.  I said ok.  We started our paperwork but knew we could work at a slower pace this time.  We knew we wanted a little boy and we wanted to name him Eli.  We also knew we wanted to do the Waiting Child Program again.  So once again, I started looking at the profiles of waiting children.  I also filled out another Medical Conditions Checklist for Deniece.  She said she should be getting another batch of profiles in a couple of months.  I said we had plenty of time to find our son.

 

A few weeks later, I felt compelled to look at the waiting child profiles on the web again.  I knew there were no new ones.  But I also liked to see if the children on there had found families.  As I logged on, a little face I had never seen before caught my attention.  There was something about his eyes; it was like he was saying, “Hi Mom, it’s me Eli.”  I called my husband so he could log on at work.  I didn’t say much to him other than look at this little boy’s picture.  He saw it and said, “He looks like what I pictured our Eli to look like.”

 

It was after hours for CCAI so I couldn’t call to get his profile.  All night, all I could think about was this little boy’s eyes.  There was just something about them.

 

The next day I called Deniece and asked for his profile.  She said he had a heart condition and that he had had surgery when he was a year old.  The doctors said he had been healthy since then.  He was now three years old.  When we received his profile, we looked over it and knew he was meant to be our child. 

 

In May of 2005 we flew to China with Anna and our oldest daughter Morgan to get Eli.  I was really worried that he would take a long time to adjust to us because he had been in foster care since his surgery.  For three years his foster parents had been his family, and now he was going to be taken away and given to another family he didn’t know.  The afternoon we got him, he was crying.  Our representative James said to just love on him and take things slow.  We had expected the worst before we even got to China.  But amazingly enough, after about fifteen minutes he stopped crying and that was the end of that.  He started talking away to us in Mandarin.  We had learned a little Mandarin, but not enough to understand him.  James took us back to the hotel and said we needed some time with him alone and said he would call us later.  When James called later he heard a happy boy in the background.  He said “I can’t believe how well he is doing; you don’t need me!”  Eli did great for the rest of the trip.

 

When we got home, he met his two brothers and climbed into his new bed to go to sleep.  He has adjusted great, just like his sister.  He’s learned English and sign language fast.  He is very loving, has a great sense of humor, and is a great addition to our family.  In the few short months he has been here, he has brought tremendous joy into our family.  We can’t imagine life without him or Anna.  Thank you CCAI for helping us add on to our family.

Amazing Adoption Story

By Myra Stroup, as told to Sarah Harmon

 

With two birth sons at home, Adam (18) and Stuart (16), Greg and Myra Stroup were considering adding to their family.  Deniece Hess, Manager of the Waiting Child Program at CCAI, approached Greg and Myra with a first for CCAI – siblings!  CCAI has placed sixteen sets of twins (out of 5,800 adoptions!), but never a set of older siblings.  Knowing how important it is to keep siblings together, Greg and Myra carefully considered bringing these precious children into their home. 

 

Sister and brother Xin Sha Rou and Xin Sha Yang were brought to the Urumqi Orphanage in Xinjiang Province in 2001 when they were seven and five years old.  Their birth parents had abandoned them on the street.  When Greg and Myra first saw the children’s pictures and information, it was heart-wrenching for them to read their stories, but they also understood how much their birth parents must have loved them in trying give these children a better chance in an adoptive home.  Greg remembers being particularly touched when he read that little Sha Yang would “charge across the room like a little ox” when something provoked him.

 

Greg and Myra talked with their sons and the rest of their family, and everyone agreed that these children belonged in their family.  Near empty-nesters, Greg and Myra were about to plunge into an entirely new and priceless family dynamic!

 

After accepting Sha Rou and Sha Yang in November 2003, the Stroups began their dossier.  The process went smoothly and they collected and certified all their dossier documents.  When they were ready to send their documents to the Chinese consulate for authentication, they carefully packed them into a FedEx envelope for Greg to drop off on his way home from taking Adam and Stuart to school.  Greg put the envelope in his truck and went back in the house to hurry the boys up.  When they came out of the house, Greg’s truck was gone!  It had been stolen, along with their almost-completed dossier.

 

Greg and Myra had to basically start their dossier over, but it finally went to China.  As they waited for the CCAA to officially approve them, they learned that Sha Rou had been sent to a school for dance in Beijing and Sha Yang to a school for martial arts in Wuhan, Hubei.  Their orphanage housed predominately special needs children, and the orphanage director realized they were operating on a much different level.  Myra felt that this was a positive decision, since based on their life experiences, they would not have come so far had they stayed in the orphanage.

 

The children were not brought back from their schools to Urumqi until two days before their new parents arrived, which made the whole experience more challenging.  The entire family started to get to know one another in Urumqi.  Greg and Myra learned as much as they could about their children’s birthplace and carefully watched what the children ate, in the hopes of replicating it at home.  They also purchased keepsakes to give to their children when they were older.

 

Sha Rou and Sha Yang did beautifully on the plane ride home.  Sha Yang even chanted “USA, USA!” as the plane took off.  Greg and Myra were especially taken aback by their courage.  There were no tears, no looks back – only anticipation for their new home.

 

At home, Greg and Myra found new challenges, the biggest ones with language and food.  Even the water didn’t taste right to Sha Rou and Sha Yang, now Isabella Sha Rou and Anthony Sha Yang.  At least Sprite was familiar, but at first they wouldn’t touch milk or cheese.  Now they have Cheerios for breakfast every day.  They have made incredible adjustments in terms of school and family life as well.  At school, Sha Yang has the lead in a play and Sha Rou giggles with her new girlfriends.  The principal is stunned by their abilities, especially with English.  Whenever something appears to be a barrier, it turns out to be an amazing experience for them.

 

Greg and Myra are especially fortunate to live next door to Myra’s sister and brother-in-law with Myra’s father living right behind them.  Sha Rou tells her mom that when she was in China, she prayed for a father and mother to fly to get her.  Now she is thankful for not only a Baba and Mama who love her, but three houses who love her!  Greg and Myra feel particularly lucky to have the support of their immediate and extended family.  Their oldest son Adam picks up his new Chinese siblings from school so that everyone will know they have a BIG brother and can’t be picked on!

 

Looking back on their adoption, Myra feels her family is extraordinary only because of her children.  Sha Rou and Sha Yang were the ones who learned English, tried different foods, and made the adjustments.  Myra, a Program Manager for Denver Human Services and Parent Training Manager/Educator and social worker for CCAI, remembers feeling concerned that she would not have the skills to parent these children.  She has learned that it’s different to parent older adopted children than birth children, but she was pleasantly surprised at the experience. 

 

The biggest challenge, in Myra’s eyes, was adjusting her parenting style.  As a parent educator, Myra helps new parents learn how parenting styles affect children and their relationships with their parents.  In order to parent these siblings, Myra and Greg had to become very firm and establish themselves as the “parents.”  Adopted at an older age, there was no basis for respect in the parent-child relationship, and Myra and Greg had to consistently remind their children that they needed to listen.  They quickly learned that attachment was a process that involved the parents just as much as the children.  They were also surprised that Sha Rou and Sha Yang were not as close as they had expected.  They cared for each other, like when Sha Rou used to give her share of meat to Sha Yang, before she accepted that there was enough for both.  Now they fight like any siblings, but they have learned to use their words instead of their hands.

 

The Stroups found that the greatest joys in adopting older children lay in introducing them to things that American children normally encounter at a younger age.  They are so aware and so much fun.  Imagine taking an eight-year-old to a donut shop for the first time.  As he stands thoroughly amazed at all the colors and flavors and choices available, you tell your child that you’ll take him again next week!  Picture your ten-year-old seeing her first birthday cake, after she asked the orphanage to tell her new mom that she’s never had one.  Now try to explain why she only gets one a year!  Being able to share these experiences with an older child, who has the cognitive abilities to say “wow,” is beyond priceless.

 

Greg and Myra’s advice to other parents considering adopting older children is to keep an open mind.  Older children can bring much joy to a family.  Parents must be flexible and willing to make adjustments themselves in order to create a successful relationship.  Sticky moments are reality as the family adjusts, but with preparation for the challenges ahead, families may be pleasantly surprised.  Each day has been an adventure!  Some are easy and some are tough.  Adopting these children has been a life-enriching experience, and Sha Rou and Sha Yang have already touched many people’s hearts in their short time in Colorado. 

And Then There Were Seven

by Tim Trussell (with plenty of help from Val)

 

In 1970, when we were first married, people would ask the standard question, “And, how many children do you want?”  We would in turn reply, matter-of-factly, “Two... a girl and a boy.”  The world we knew when we were 19 and 20 was pretty much patterned after the Donna Reed Show.  So, as luck would have it... a year later we had a beautiful son.  We named him Tim.  Then there was one.  Fifteen months later, just like Donna Reed, along comes our gorgeous daughter, Laura.  Then there were two.  Finally we had another wonderful son, Chris.  Then there were three. 

           

When the kids were into their teens, we looked into Foster Care.  In our state, Foster Care has a department called “shelter,” a term used when dealing with children that have just been removed from their home, due to neglect or abuse, while the court decides what the next step will be.  And so, the parade of babies began.  During the next two years we cared for about 30 babies for various lengths of time.  Then, one day in 1990, a beautiful two-week-old Hispanic baby girl came to our home.  We became very much in love with her and it was like a miracle when she became legally free for adoption.  Her name is Shadaia.  Now there were four. 

 

After the adoption was final, we returned to shelter and foster care.  Five more years came and went, and lightning was about to strike again.  This time it was a beautiful two-week-old Native American baby girl.  Her name is Maria.  Now there were five. 

 

By this time our first three were grown and had left the nest.  Grandkids had begun to appear and here we were raising our own little ones, who were younger than a couple of our grandchildren.  Then, one Sunday afternoon in August of 2001, out of the blue Val said, “Let’s look into foreign adoption – how about China?!”  By that afternoon we were completing applications and getting our first glimpse of what a dossier is. 

 

Knowing that there are fewer loving homes seeking orphan children with special needs, our application sought a child under five who had medical problems.  We were DTC in November 2001, and the long wait began.  About a year later, Val called me, screaming, “we have our new daughter, we have our new daughter!!”  One day before Thanksgiving 2002, we boarded a plane for Taiyuan in Shanxi Province.  Our new daughter was Ji Man Dang, a 10-month-old baby girl who was born with a defective heart.  Her condition was called Tricuspid Atresia, and she had only one ventricle.  Consequently her heart beats more than twice the normal rate in an effort to supply sufficient oxygen to her body.  Because of her heart defect, we knew that she was going to need many prayers to beat the odds.  So, we named her Prayerie.  Upon our return to Utah, we immediately met with the heart team at Children’s Primary Hospital in Salt Lake City.  We sat in silence as they told us her heart could not be repaired.  At some point down life’s road, Prayerie will need either a heart and lung transplant or some type of mechanical support device, yet to be invented.  In the meantime, we make sure we cherish every moment.  Then there were six.

 

Spring passed and Prayerie settled in extremely well.  One night in August of 2003, Val was scrolling through the pictures of the beautiful children waiting for families in the Waiting Child Program through CCAI.  I heard Val say, “just come and look at this beautiful little four-year-old girl named Li Jian Rong.”  Li Jian was born with genetic scoliosis.  She was missing two ribs and her spine had a 30-degree curvature at the top.  About ten minutes later we made the decision to bring her home. 

 

After another paper chase, we were DTC December 2003.  We had our final travel approval, bags were packed and by the door, all arrangements made, and we were ready to bring home Li Jian.  Four days before we were to leave, my cell phone rang.  It was Val telling me in a very somber voice that she had just been diagnosed with cancer.  I literally could not stand and the whole world went dark.  Val had gone to her doctor the preceding week for a backache problem, when she mentioned a small symptom.  The doctor thought it was probably nothing but wanted to check it out anyway.  That morning the test results came back indicating Val did in fact have uterine cancer.  I immediately called CCAI.  From that very first moment, Deniece, Pam, and others reacted with compassionate professionalism.  They comforted us and handled the situation with great caring.  On Friday the 13^th, instead of getting on a plane to bring Li Jian home, we were sitting in the surgeon’s office, as he described the upcoming hysterectomy operation and what the possible outcomes could be. 

 

We pushed very hard to get the surgery scheduled as soon as possible.  The operation went smoothly and on Thursday, February 19, the doctor walked into Val’s room, after two agonizing days of waiting.  He said, “Pathology says we got it all and you are done.  No further treatment is needed.”  The relief and joy we felt at that moment cannot be described.  On Saturday morning, Val came home to begin the healing process.  On March 22, only four and half weeks since Val’s operation, we were finally on the plane to China. 

 

We brought Maria and Prayerie with us to Hangzhou to meet Aurora Min.  Then there were seven.  After we returned home, took her to visit one of the premier orthopedic surgeons in the United States at Primary Children’s Hospital – Doctor John Smith.  We were happy to learn that Aurora is a good candidate for a “titanium rib operation.”  It involves vertically attaching titanium splints to her ribs, that can be adjusted as she grows, to encourage her spine to straighten and also stop further deterioration.  She will have the operation in the early fall.

 

So, I end this story by saying we will be about 70 when we finish raising our kids.  We would do it all over again in a second.  There could be no greater reward in life than all the love we receive from all of our children, every single day.

The Right Thing
By Steve Kane

I remember looking at my wife eye to eye in the alley behind the public hospital in Zhanjiang . We both felt like we were in a movie, two westerners alone in a teeming southeastern Chinese city. The sites and sounds were all there too, with the hoards of passersby, the heavy ozone layer of dirty air, the sounds of the strange cars and motorcycles that jammed the streets almost out of view. We had just been told that our little girl was dying and there was nothing to do but wait. We’d already bonded with this beautiful adopted child of ours, eight weeks earlier when we received our match by CCAI way back in Denver .

We weren’t really alone. Our guide from CCAI, Raymond, took great care to make sure our little girl was cared for at the hospital. He had driven us to the hospital, about three miles from the hotel in Zhanjiang . Our daughter Mallory had been given to us less than 24 hours before this, and at first she seemed fine. Nearly ten months old, she weighed in at a “robust” 11 pounds and eagerly clung to her new mom as we drove back to the hotel. She drank a few bottles that day and slept through the night, but the next morning we knew something was terribly wrong. We found blood in her diaper; my wife’s nursing experience kicked in at once, directing us to seek out Raymond and the doctor at the hotel.

All of that had led us here, to the public hospital and the alley. The news at first was uncertain. The doctors who visited took vitals and read the chart, finally giving her IV fluids to fight the dysentery attacking this small, frail girl we hardly knew. The doctors rarely spoke to us, and when they did, we had to rely on Raymond to translate.

Finally one doctor spoke English and explained that her heart was being smothered by the fluids they were giving her, but fluids that had to be given to her because of the dehydration caused by the dysentery. My own public health training informed me that children die, a lot of children die, in many third world countries because of this ailment. My positive side assured me these people in China dealt with this all the time, that they knew what they were doing. The pessimist pointed out that maybe it was true they dealt with it all the time, but that didn’t mean much now with the news that the treatment was likely killing her. The English-speaking doctor gave a sad smile and went away, leaving us alone with our little girl on the emergency room platform. She was burning with fever, and my wife kept a constant vigil as the hospital nurses endeavored to keep piles of blankets on our baby girl. When some friends arrived from Group 79, friends who had just received their own child and should’ve been back with that child in the hotel, we seized the opportunity. We bid a retreat to the outside.

Once on the street, we decided we had to talk somewhere, somewhere where no one else could hear, not that they would understand, of course. We went around to the back of the hospital and just stared at each other. It was there that we knew we couldn’t give up. Mallory was ours, no matter what happened. If she was dying, then it was our little girl who was dying. We didn’t go to China with its 1.3 billion people to get just anyone. We were there to get her.

Fast forward to today. As bad as that experience was, it set Lisa and me on a path that would forever change us and our family. We felt compelled to adopt three more times. As many who do this know, we get approached by strangers who tell us we are special, that we are “great” for adopting four children from another country. That our children are beautiful. And like most who adopt, we find the comments somewhat odd, a little out of place. We don’t see our four as “adopted,” let alone from a different country or of a different race. Sometimes, when there is enough time to reflect, then we do think about how blessed we are and about the opportunity that has been given to us, from God, from Lily and Josh, from everyone at CCAI, to be able to go and add to our family with these special kids. But we don’t think of them as different from us. But most who do it already know that.

You see, once you go over there and get your child, things will never be the same. You may find yourself going back to China . Maybe a lot. Money concerns, or the size of your house, or the ability to parent more than one or two or three adopted children, those things get put in their place. Yes, you have to consider the practical side, and you need to jump through all those hoops. But once there, or back here with your child, you realize that those things were minor. The odd looks you may get from your friends or family at the beginning are replaced with acceptance at the end.

And that’s why we did what we did! After returning home with our second adopted child, Shelby, we were approached by Deniece Hess regarding a little boy in the waiting child program. We couldn’t say no. What better way to cheat fate, than to not only adopt a child, but to adopt one with a special need? We chose child number three, our son Alex, with a bad heart. We watched Max the surgeon fix that heart, and now Alex plays sports and eats junk food and watches too much TV. And then, from the Waiting Child list, we chose his best friend from the same orphanage in Shantou , who had been left behind when the other children had been adopted, our daughter Avery who has Hepatitis B. The circle in a way was complete with her arrival. It made no sense for us to adopt Avery. It was a financial disaster, we were moving into a new house, we had hardly time to take Alex in, when the opportunity arose. Like a mountain.

So we climbed it, and adopted her, and now she goes to school with Alex and Matthew, and Shelby, who’s our second adopted child and who runs our family from the bottom up. And when I saw Avery hold Alex’s hand as they crossed the playground at their school in Littleton , I knew it was right. That somehow we had made the right decision for her. And for us.

And what about Mallory? Rewind back to the alley, and our decision to stay with her, as if doing so would make any difference. We couldn’t save her, that wasn’t up to us. We had to depend on Josh and Lily and Raymond and Mr. Lee, and some special folks in Group 79, Chris, Sara, and Linda, who drove with us back and forth in those cramped taxis, and who stayed with us throughout. And of course those marvelous Chinese doctors at the hospital.

Her life was just one in hundreds at that hospital. But Mallory made it through that first night, and then the second night, and then the third. We stayed there for four days, and each morning she seemed to get a little stronger. Finally, they let us take her home.

Today Mallory dances. She loves ballet and jazz and lyrical dance. We watch her perform with a couple of her friends, Madison and Alyson, who were also adopted from China . We watch her and somehow we forget that moment in the Chinese alley when we were set on a course.

You don’t adopt because you are led by the nose by some calling or vision. You don’t adopt because you feel the need because of the emptiness in your life. You do it because it is the right thing to do. You’ll get those little rewards, and if it is like most adoptions, you’ll fly over there and get your child, and you’ll come back and continue with the family thing. But if you’re lucky, really lucky, you might get to brush against the world these little ones are from. You’ll see for a moment what you are pulling them from, a culture that is both beautiful and harsh. And if you see that, then you’ll know it is the right thing to do.

 

Picture Caption:
At front, from left: Callie, 5 (G379), Benjamin, 23 mos (G964), Sydney , 3 (G605)
At back, from left: Jenna, 8 (G108), Jody, Addison, Samuel, 8

The Neverending (Adoption) Story
By Jody Goering

Our adoption story starts in 1997 and doesn’t really end until 2006. Or does it? In 1997 we had been trying to have children for several years when we decided that was enough and found CCAI. We met Joshua and Lily and knew we were in the right place. So by early 1998 we had sent our dossier off to China and had begun the long wait. It was early in the year when we found out that we were indeed pregnant and were due in September. The words still ring in my ears when my husband realized our situation and said “Ah, I guess we will have twins!” That was what I had hoped to hear and the wait then became for TWO. We figured we had at least a six-month window after our son was born before we’d even get the referral of our daughter, waiting so far away.

That, as we all know, is only a myth when it comes to the world of China adoption. That precious timeline changes every day. Fast forward to August 28, 1998 : we are in the hospital and we are delivering our son. Samuel was so little, and being a new parent was so exciting and scary. I’d just finally settled down and my husband had gone home for the night to feed the dogs and get some rest. Then at around 11:00 pm the room phone rings with this frantic man on the other end, almost in tears. “You won’t believe it, you’re a mommy,” the voice says. I said, “Now, they gave me the painkillers; are you sure you are all right?” My husband laughs and says, “You have a son and now you have a daughter.” CCAI had been calling and calling all day. They left messages at our home, our work offices, and on our cell phones. “We have this beautiful little baby girl waiting for you.” “Where are you?” “She is so cute.” “She has Kramer hair.” Kramer hair? ( Seinfeld Kramer hair). “What are the odds you are in the hospital?” said the last call. (CCAI had known about our pregnancy all along, since at the time having another child didn’t change any requirements.) We saw our daughter’s picture for the first time in the hospital while a CCAI representative held our newborn son. We traveled eight weeks later to meet Jenna while my sisters watched our two-month-old son Sam. Now at ages 8 and 8 and a half, Jenna and Sam are more like twins then I ever imagined. That is the beginning of our journey into adoption and China . You would think that would be enough and the journey would end there. No.

The next chapter came a few years later when we decided to add a third child to our family. When we started the process for Callie, referrals were coming in about 8 to 9 months, so we slowed down our paperchase and took our time. We thought easily we’d be home by fall of 2001. But the wait time increased and increased and became very frustrating. We thought maybe we’d get our referral for Christmas, but that came and went. Then things slowed to two weeks of referrals being delivered at a time. Well into the fourteenth month, we finally got that call. It was for Callie, a fifteen-month-old little girl from Hubei . We downloaded that little picture and there she was, in layer after layer of clothing, looking like a football player in a blue sweater. Of course we thought that we’d have eight weeks to get things together for travel. But to our surprise and amazement, our Travel Notice came within two weeks and we were off to China in less than four weeks! You would think we were seasoned parents and were ready for anything, but when we met our daughter we were handed a screaming, crying baby who could run. She cried for nearly four days straight and wanted nothing to do with Mommy. But we were patient and on day five, a smile blossomed and a hug or two came our way. When we returned to the civil affairs office to complete the paperwork, her nannies were present and wanted to hold her. We figured she loved them so much she’d be happy to see them and have a chance to say goodbye. But when I handed her to them, she clung to my clothes and yelled, “Mama, Mama.” I cried in delight and joy and told the nannies “xie xie,” for they had given me such a wonderful gift that day. My daughter was my daughter now forever and we both knew it.

Now surely you would think the journey would end there. But we were barely home before we knew that our family was still not complete. Without hesitation, we hurried through our next dossier, dreading the long wait. This time we were matched with another wonderful little girl. Things had changed yet again with referrals and this time our referral came in about nine months. Sydney came to us at eleven months old and was this bobbing little head in a white picture with a white sweater on. She was adorable and we knew that the CCAA had again matched us with the right child. Soon Travel Notices started rolling in, but not for our group. Our daughter was from Hunan and Travel Notices had been suspended because of a measles outbreak. We waited a full two months to before we traveled Our youngest daughter was thirteen months old when we met her, and the wait after the referral seemed the hardest to get through. You have a photo, you have a face, and you know she is waiting. But soon we were united with Sydney . Her favorite thing to do in China was to hold anything to her ear like a cell phone and yell “ wei wei .” Today she is one smiley, happy, fun little girl of three.

Deep sigh; our family is complete. Would you close that door? No, not many of us do. So after attending the Denver reunion in 2005, we told Deniece Hess that maybe in a year we might look into the Waiting Child Program. “Maybe,” we said. In August, I got this email asking if I might be able to help CCAI. Did I know of anyone looking to adopt a little boy? He’s adorable and our hearts are just so taken by him. If you know anyone, please send them our way. Well, I opened the picture and yes, my heart went there too. What an amazing thing if I could actually help this baby find a home. But for some reason I just kept looking at this little boy. So unbeknownst to my husband, I sent an email to Deniece asking how long I personally could hold onto this information, and more importantly how long did he have before his file was returned to China ? The email came: “you have some time, but don’t wait too long.” As I gazed at this little guy, wondering if it was possible, my youngest daughter walked in and looked at the picture. She smiled and said, “Mommy, who is that?” I told her he was a little boy needing a forever family. She blurted out what I was thinking; we have more room – you have to bring him home. The next step was to email Daddy, who was away at work teaching in Texas . Addison introduces his children in his introductions when teaching and shows a photo to the class on the monitor in the front of the room, so the class pretty much knows he has adopted three little girls from China . All I sent was this little boy’s picture and the medical information to him with a note: “Isn’t he adorable?” Not realizing the overhead monitor was on in the classroom, he opened the email, splashing the child’s picture all over for the classroom to see. There were several “aaahhhs” and “isn’t he cute” comments. Then someone asked who he was and Addison said “Well, I’m not sure. He needs a home.” As you might suspect, the class said without hesitation, “You are going to get him, right?” He was toast after that and when I told him on the phone that the kids had already named him, there was no turning back. Benjamin came to us in April 2006 with a heart condition, but is doing so extremely well.

2006 ends our amazing adoption journey. Or does it…? That door never does close, you know. Whether we adopt again or merely try to help others adopt, we know that our lives will always be part of adoption and China . The red thread never ends; we all just become more intertwined within it.

 

 

Our Broken Road
By Christianne Green

“Every long lost dream led me to where you are. Others that broke my heart, they were like northern stars pointing me on my way into your loving arms. This much I know is true, that God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you.”

From the first time I heard it, I fell in love with this Rascall Flatts ballad, but over the last several months it has taken on a new meaning. Two years ago, we gave birth to a beautiful, tiny, perfect little girl, Emily Anne. She was born at just 20 weeks gestation – too small to live. We were devastated. It was our second stillborn baby in just over a year – our Jacob Michael had also been born too early to survive. Though we had already been blessed with three beautiful, healthy children, the loss of these babies seemed too much to bear, and I wondered if my broken heart would ever be whole again.

Shortly after Emily’s death, we began talking about adoption. After a lot of research and prayer, we both knew that our child was in China. In fact, Jeremy felt like his answer was that there were TWO girls for us there! Hmmm… could we be getting twins? We excitedly began the process of researching agencies, and felt that CCAI was perfect for us. We requested the application form and began the process of adopting a healthy infant (or two). I longed to hold a baby and felt that with our three little ones, adopting a child with special needs wouldn’t be the best course for our family. Still, I couldn’t help myself from looking at the Waiting Child list on CCAI’s website. One day, just days after filling out our application, a new photo was posted of a two-year-old little girl. I clicked on it and read her special need to be “pathological changes to the retina.” Her file explained that she was completely blind. BLIND. The word seemed so huge and ominous and something that I definitely wasn’t equipped to deal with. Still, there was something about this girl…

I called Jeremy and casually mentioned that there was a cute little blind girl on the website. That night he looked at her picture and also felt that same something, but we didn’t discuss it and I really didn’t think it to be an option. However, over the next few days, experiences were given to us that let us both KNOW, beyond a doubt, that this was our little girl. It was overwhelming and scary, but the peace we felt was undeniable, and within days we called CCAI with a “YES! This is our daughter!”

We named her Elizabeth Mei Green – our little “Elli Mei.” Just weeks after finding her photo on the website, another little girl caught our eye. Her name was Wang Chun Ling, and she was 7 years old. Again, there was just something special about her. I followed her file closely and was dismayed when one day it said that her file was going to be returned to China. How could that be? She was so darling and perfect and beautiful. Though she had an extremely serious heart condition, we had thought that surely someone was going to snatch her right up. We prayed about it and just knew we had to ask if we could bring both girls home from China. The answer was no. We were so sad, knowing she might never find a family of her own, and kept her in our hearts.

In the meantime, we busied ourselves with the piles of paperwork for Elli and were just overcome with excitement to bring her home. We began a website for her at www.elizabethmei.com and began recording our feelings and experiences. One of my favorite journal entries on that site was from our five-year-old son, Parker. He had asked if he could write it all by himself, so I had left the room. I came back and was touched by the words he had written: “DEAR ELIZABETH I LOVEYOU I HOP THAT YOU WIL CUM SON YOU WILL BE A GRAT SISDR I WL PLA WITH YOU YOU WILL BLES MI HORT I WILL TECH YOU A BAOT JESIS FROM PARKER” Somehow, he knew that she would indeed bless his heart, as she has blessed all of ours.

February 26 was a day that I will never forget. After months of waiting and praying for this sweet little girl, I finally got to live the moment I had dreamed about. We walked into a room at the Civil Affairs Office and there she was, in her foster mother’s arms – our newest angel and most perfect little girl – Elizabeth Mei Green. The night before, we had been given an update on her. It had said that she didn’t talk, only walked in circles, and was very somber. However, as they placed her in my arms, this little girl who we had prayed for so earnestly seemed to know that she was home. She threw back her head and began to laugh. This continued for the entire time we were there. We were crying, her foster mother was crying – it was one of the most joyous moments of our lives.

Our time in China was amazingly wonderful, but even better was coming home to our children and being a complete family. As she slept during the day while trying to adjust to the time, our other three children would just lie there and stare at her in awe – hardly believing she was finally home. I knew that she had found her way into their hearts forever when Parker, who had been so nervous about her blindness at first, walked in one day with what I think is one of the most beautiful expressions of love I’ve ever heard. “Mom, if you could catch blindness, I would still want Elli.”

Now we have been home with our Elli for nearly eight months. In just five days, we will be leaving for China again. Yes, that “special something” we had felt for that other little girl was very real. Her file was resent to another agency and although many, many families looked at her file and loved her so dearly, her heart condition made it too hard to place her. The CCAA made an exception for us, and in January, right in the middle of Elli’s adoption, we were pre-approved to adopt her. Our Graci Kate is coming home! Anyone wishing to follow the story of an older child adoption is welcome to look at her site at www.goingbackforgraci.com.

Just over a month ago, we moved from our home in Tennessee to Utah so we could be closer to our extended families. We decided to have our babies’ bodies moved here to be closer to us. They were put together into a new casket so they could be transported. When we went to the cemetery for the burial, it was just Jeremy, Elli and me. Their casket had been placed by the plot so we could have some time alone with them. It is important to note that Elli’s communication is severely delayed. Though she will parrot words that we say, she never, ever says any words spontaneously. I sat on the ground with Elli in my lap and placed her hands on the casket. She immediately became giddy with excitement and just laughed. I told her that Jacob and Emily were in there. She said their names, and then said, “Happy, happy, happy, happy!” Over and over she would touch the casket and giggle and say “happy!” I believe that she was letting us know something very important. Not only are our Jacob and Emily happy, but that she is happy because of them. Our broken road was indeed blessed. We have two northern stars, and they led us straight into the loving arms of Elizabeth Mei Green.

 

Our Daughter Ellise Bai Hua... An Older Child Adoption Story

By Tracy Burleson

 

Where do we begin with our adoption story?  We made the decision to finally adopt a sister for our daughter in 2006. We didn’t complete the paperwork until April of 2007.  We choose CCAI because of their exemplary reputation with other adoptive families.  We also liked the fact that the Josh and Lily are Chinese and that they are also an adoptive family.  We can’t even express how nice it was during the process to talk to someone who had adopted AND/OR actually visited China .  Our first adoption agency had neither of these.   Little did we know at the time that fate had led us to CCAI for even bigger reasons…

 

After our dossier was in China , we met a seven year old named (Wen) in our Families with Children from China (FCC) group.  Wen had a friend in China that she cried for whenever she was sad or upset.  Her name was Bai Hua.  A Chinese-speaking friend inquired about Bai Hua and was told that she was an 11-year-old girl that had some trouble with walking but that she was a very sweet child and that they could not seem to find a family for her within China .  The friend recommended that they try to list her for adoption internationally.  Bai Hua’s caregivers were encouraged by the conversation and started gathering the paperwork needed to get her listed.  With this exciting news Wen’s mother was on a mission; she was determined to make sure that Bai Hua was adopted.  We briefly spoke with Wen’s mother about Bai Hua and she shared with us the photos that Wen had taken in China of her friend.  At that time, all we knew about Bai Hua was that she was 11 and that she had some trouble walking.  We also had the picture of her that just melted our heart.  So, we asked CCAI to watch for her on the waiting child list; since we knew that her file would be sent, and because of her age, she would end up there. 

 

In the meantime, we began to educate ourselves on older child adoption.  We completed the DVD series “Because They Waited” from http://www.heartofthematterseminars.com/because_they_waited.htm and several online courses with http://www.bgcenterschool.org/index.shtml.  We indeed learned lots about older child international adoptions and how challenging they can be.  We still felt like our family had the patience and the fortitude to endure whatever came our way.  So, we continued to wait and hope that her file would be assigned to CCAI .

 

Seven months after we asked CCAI to watch for her file… we got a call from Deniece Hess telling us that they were assigned her file! 

 

We were so excited and immediately scheduled a visit with our International Adoption Clinic at our Children’s Hospital to review her files.  Her diagnosis was spastic cerebral palsy affecting her lower limbs.  She had had two or three surgeries but details of only one of the surgeries were available.  Cerebral palsy has such a huge spectrum of possible effects and she appeared, from all of her photos and what the orphanage said about her, to be functioning on a very high level.  She seemed to just have some difficulty walking, especially on uneven surfaces.  Her limited ability to walk meant that she also never attended school outside of her orphanage.  To me, her limited schooling was a much bigger issue than her cerebral palsy special need. 

 

Did I mention that we had a five-year-old at home?  So, we were talking about breaking birth order as well.  After lots of discussion, we decided that families are made every day and that they do not all get made the traditional way.  Our five-year-old was also interested in having a sister that she could do things with immediately.  We were also prepared with a plan to protect our youngest if problems arose.

 

So, to make a long story short, we did accept Bai Hua’s referral.  We traveled to China to bring Bai Hua home one year after finding out about her.  Since day one she is has been very calm and easygoing (even with her little sister who wants to kiss her all the time).  We feel that her caregivers prepared her very well for her transition.  She is happy to have a family and tries most every food and experience once… well, except mashed potatoes.  J  Her absolute favorite thing to do is to take a dip in the swimming pool.  She loved this from day one, even though the Victory Hotel swimming pool was freezing cold in Guangzhou !  We make sure we go to the swimming pool several times a week now that we are home.  She is a wonderful addition to our family.  We could not have anticipated that she would be so wonderfully perfect for our family. 

 

Her friend Wen was waiting for her at the airport when we arrived at home and they see each other regularly.  We not only made a commitment to Bai Hua, but we also made a commitment to Wen.  We will always make sure that these children are able to see each other and that they maintain their friendship for as long as they wish.

 

Are we glad that we did this?  Oh yes… we followed our heart and our heart led us down the right path once again!  Bai Hua is a wonderfully sweet and easygoing child who is determined and eager to learn.  We could not be happier.  She is doing great with her English learning.  We have been doing some traditional learning in phonics and she is picking it up quite quickly.  She is also using Rosetta Stone language software and this has helped some.  She is definitely able to get her point across when she needs to.  Our biggest challenge has been getting across our feelings and understanding her feelings. She not only has a different language but comes from a unique culture as well.  We do know that all of this will come in time…  We just have to continue to be patient.  Babel Fish, the online translator, has been very valuable for conveying moderately complex issues (like we have to go to the dentist today and have a cavity filled).  Written language has made it much easier to communicate with her.  This is something that is not available with a child that does not yet read.

 

As far as the cerebral palsy goes, we had a great visit with a physical therapist through our international adoption clinic.  She seems to think that Bai Hua will see great improvements in her gait with Botox injections.  It also appears that she might have repaired club feet.  We have our appointment with the CP clinic at our Children’s Hospital coming up and will know more then.  She is excited to hear what can be done to help her gait and so are we! 

 

We look forward to all of the years in the future with Bai Hua!

 

 

Our Miracle
By the Adcox Family

The word “miracle” is defined by Webster’s as 1: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs; 2: an extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment. Our journey to bring our son Benjamin home is a living testament to tha t d efinition and that miracles do exist.

Our miracle began as many do, among the ordinary. It was Monday, October 20 th – a Monday like any other, yet little did we know that this day would be the start of a faith-testing adventure that would last four weeks.

The call from CCAI came at 11:00 am . We were told that our son, with whom we had been matched since August 6 th, had some serious medical issues develop. We needed to get a doctor’s advice and make a decision on what we wanted to do. For us, there was never a hesitation; we had already been given this precious gift, and Ben was already a part of our family.

Within minutes, CCAI had emailed the report to us, and we had it in the hands of our doctor for review and prognosis. Our doctor said that the worst case scenario (based on the medical report) was that Benjamin, if left untreated, might not survive past Thanksgiving. However, our dossier was not yet complete; we were still waiting for our US immigration approval. Logically, there was no way we could have Benjamin home in four weeks. Little did we know that we would be holding him in three.

If it had been just the miracle that we had somehow been led to this new doctor, who stopped what she was doing to evaluate Ben’s report and write letters to the necessary agencies within hours. Or if it had been the miracle that a case worker at the US Department of Homeland Security, who, after hearing Ben’s story from us, expedited and completed our I-797C in a matter of hours. Or if had just been that our home study was the first perfect home study she had seen – no revisions were needed. Or if it had only been the miracle that so many people at CCAI dropped what they were doing to drive to the Secretary of State’s office and FedEx, or translate and send off our dossier within two days, or call the National Visa Center 10 times a day for us, or the guides in China arguing with doctors in Chinese to get the necessary vaccines so that we could come home. Or if it had been the miracle that China would be willing to accept our dossier, review it and send our LOA seven days later. Or if it had been the miracle that the orphanage was willing and able to do whatever it took to get Ben’s paperwork ready for adoption. Or if it had been the miracle that Henan Province was able and willing to complete our adoption process and get Ben’s passport all done within two days. Or if it had been the miracle that 24 hours from our consulate appointment, the National Visa Center finally emailed the necessary visa information to the US Consulate in Guangzhou .

If it had just been one of these miracles, it would have been amazing. But to have them all happen at the precise last minute, to have every door open when it should have remained closed, to have every “I” dotted and “t” crossed without a second to spare, to have what would appear to be insurmountable mountains moved with a blink of an eye is nothing less than the most unbelievable miracle any one could every hope to witness, let alone live through within a matter of weeks. We began this adventure on October 20 th, left for China on November 8 th, held Benjamin for the first time on November 10 th, adopted him on his birthday (November 11 th), and returned home on November 19 th – 29 days after we received that call.

To go back to Webster’s definition, bringing home Ben was an “extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” We are home now, and Ben has been receiving all the medical treatment that he needs. He is a happy, healthy bundle of joy in our family. We cannot imagine life without him. To simply say thank you does not even begin to explain how much we truly appreciate what was done by so many to make all of this happen. But thank you CCAI , and thanks to all of the thousands of you for your thoughts, support, and prayers.

 

 

Our Roller Coaster Ride to Our Daughter

In October 2005, we found out we were pregnant with our third child. This was a complete surprise to us, and we were thrilled. We already had two boys and wondered if this child was to be our daughter! A month later, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I had a miscarriage. I have never experienced such loss before… an emptiness that I couldn’t explain. I knew that God was with me and that He had a plan, but I had no clue what it might be.

After the miscarriage I decided that I didn’t want to “try” again for another child… but I still had a desire in my heart for another child, a daughter. A few months passed and a special came on TV about foster care. I began talking with my husband about the possibility of fostering or adopting a child. At the time we realized that our boys were probably too young to understand the foster process, but that I would continue to do some research into adoption, both domestic and International.

Speed ahead several more months and we’re sitting at a meeting for parents interested in adopting from China. That next Thanksgiving, a year after our miscarriage, we were accepted into our agency’s program and began the journey to adopt. Ah ha! God’s plan is starting to make sense now!

Shortly into the adoption process (a process that includes TONS of paperwork), the timeline for waiting for a match (when is when a child is matched with a family) started to increase dramatically. By the time our paperwork had been accepted by China (on March 19, 2007), many people were predicting the wait would extend from the current wait of 18 months to a very long three to five years. From early on I just felt like we would have our daughter before the 2008 Olympics, which were to be held in China. So now what was I to think? Once again, I knew the Lord had to have a reason for all of this… so it was time for me to just sit back and enjoy the ride, or at least try to!

Within a couple of months I began to feel like I was missing something… I just knew our daughter had already been born, and that we’d be traveling to get her in the summer of 2008, but how could that be? I also started to read more information about our agency’s Waiting Child Program, which finds homes for children with special needs. At first, this program intimidated me… but then, after doing more research, I realized that “special needs” could be something as simple as a birthmark. Both of our boys would be considered special needs, one due to a heart murmur and the other for a skin tag on his ear.

After much prayer and many long talks, my husband and I submitted the necessary paperwork to apply for the Waiting Child Program. We were accepted into that program on June 19, 2007. Once again it was time to sit back and wait while they tried to match us with a child (which was roughly taking about 10-12 months). The next 8 months were full of twists and turns. Many times I saw a child on our agency’s website that had yet to find a family because his or her needs did not match with a particular family. I prayed and asked if this was our child… but each time it just didn’t feel “right.” Shortly after thinking about these children, he or she would soon find a forever family, and I knew that I had my answer. No, this was not our child.

Then, on February 18, 2008, I saw her… a sweet child with plump cheeks. A child whose special needs did not match with any family’s file that was currently waiting. This child was diagnosed with myelomeningocele (a form of Spina Bifida – we now know she actually has lipomyelomeningocele). She was already two years old and had very sad eyes. We had never even discussed the possibility of adopting a child with Spina Bifida… why was I so drawn to this child? It was already after office hours, so I emailed the WCP ladies and left voice mails asking to review this child’s file. I had never requested a file before, but I just knew I had to learn more about this girl. Then I went to bed and prayed…

The next morning I had to go to a meeting… I asked someone at the meeting if I could please check my email to see if I had gotten a response about reviewing the file. Sure enough I did… I was told that her file was not completely translated, but that we would be added to the list of families waiting to review her file. It would probably be at least a week till we heard anything, if we heard anything at all. Much to my surprise, I got a call later that afternoon asking if we were still interested in reviewing the file. Of course we were!!!! The file had just been translated and was being sent to my email address. We were told to look over everything and call back in the morning to let them know what we thought.

We looked over the file that night (at an Olive Garden while eating dinner with family) and decided we needed to contact some specialists to find out what we were really dealing with… I poured over all the pictures that were sent to us and began to fall in love with this child. Could we really be her parents? Could we handle her needs and provide the best possible care for her? I tried to prepare myself for bad news from the specialists, but instead heard nothing but positive things. God opened even more doors when we found out that one of our friends works directly with children with Spina Bifida at the local children’s hospital… and the children’s hospital even has a special program specifically for children with Spina Bifida. God gave us a clear answer. Yes, this is the child that is meant to be our daughter.

On June 10, 2008, we met our daughter for the first time. She cried and screamed, and we cried and screamed (on the inside) with her. This sweet child was about to be taken away from everything she knew and everyone she ever knew. No, an orphanage setting is not the best, but it’s all she knew, and now she was grieving for the people that had cared for her over the past 27 months. We struggled through the next few days as she got to know us, but two and a half weeks after we left home to go to China (and many, many hours on a plane), we returned with our daughter... well before the start of the Olympic Games! She has already undergone one surgery to de-tether her spinal cord… and she will have many more doctor appointments in the near future, but we know that God has chosen us to be her family, and through all the ups and downs and twists and turns, He will be with us and guide us as we continue our lives with our beautiful little girl.

Our Super Guys

Like many families, we started our journey of China adoption thinking that we would surely become parents of a baby girl. Our five-year-old daughter, Leigh, talked about her new baby sister-to-be all the time and tucked her Mei-Mei doll into bed at night. We kept the boxes of girl things, especially all the fun little dresses and tights from our daughter's preschool Dress Period, and planned on the girls sharing a room. We made up lists of great girl names. Our family and friends were so excited to hear that we would one day have a new daughter, and so were we.

Being older, experienced (ahem) parents, we were very open to an older child, birth-order younger than our daughter but not a baby was fine with us. From the start, we also wondered if we might be able to be parents of a waiting child. But we didn't know anything, and we were scared. Scared of what having a child with a "special need" might mean, and scared that we would not be able to give such a child the care that she needed. We decided to finish our dossier as soon as we could, then take our time learning about the waiting child program. In early March 2006, our dossier was logged in officially, in the traditional program. With that done, we began to find out about the waiting kids

First thing we discovered, to our great surprise, was that there were as many boys as girls waiting for families. This made sense when we thought about it; any child can be born with a medical need or physical difference. It took a little considering, for all of us, since we'd lived with the idea of our daughter and sister from China for so long, but once we'd let the thought bloom, we happily wrote "either" on the waiting child form.

That decided, we turned to the medical conditions checklist. Where to start? We live in Maine, in a rural part of the state, so distance to certain kinds of specialized care was a concern. Living and working here, for a small company and ourselves, means that we have liveable incomes and decent insurance, nothing more.

We felt that we'd have to make very sure that we could responsibly provide any care our child would need. That put common conditions like cleft lip/cleft palate on the "research more" list, simply because of the possible care requirements for this SN. Minor heart? Sure, half my family, including me, fits that SN. Missing digits, limbs? Well, John's a boatbuilder and carpenter, plenty of missing fingers in that group. And I was an accident-prone kid, so I was familiar with living at least temporarily with one hand, one leg, fewer working fingers, etc. So that was a sure yes. We worked our way through the list, putting yes where we were sure, maybe or "not yet" where we needed to do more research, and no where we felt certain that we would not be able to provide proper care. It was a start.

At this point, it felt very very strange and not at all right to be thinking about our child as a "Special Need." We looked at the list, we looked at each other. "We can do this!" So we sent off what I believe may be the most annotated checklist in Waiting Child program history, and started working on where to find the second bedroom required to change our home study to girl or boy.

And we talked to people. We talked to doctors and other specialists, we talked to other families experienced with particular needs. We talked to our social worker, we read all kinds of books on attachment and other possible issues. We researched needs on the internet, we joined Yahoo groups and asked and learned. We got all kinds of responses from the experts, friends, and family, mostly positive but a few that were positively breathtaking, such as "Why would you want a broken one? " from an adoption professional. Talk about a spine-stiffener; these are kids we are talking about, whole people with their entire lives ahead of them, wonderful human beings who deserve the love and care of a family forever.

A few months later, I was cooking dinner when the cell phone rang. The cell was out in the car, but I dropped the spoon and ran. I don't know why, we were not even dreaming of a referral, and I never run for the cell outside of office hours. But it was Sarah on the phone, ready to tell us about a little boy, twenty-one months old, with a missing right forearm. Did we want to see the file? Yes! The photos, too? Oh, yeah! So we all gathered around the family computer, and took our first look at a wide-eyed, well-insulated, worried little boy named Qian FuZhong. Our daughter took one look. "My sister is a BOY!?! I don't WANT a brother!!!" The idea was one thing; reality quite another. Well, we said, we're not sure and we'll all take some time to think. She stomped, she yelled, she ate supper. Looked at the pictures again. "He's kinda cute, for a boy." At bedtime, she tucked ZhongZhong into bed. Next day: "Well, a brother will be okay. What if my sister had been a really girly-girl who liked pink and all that and was scared of bugs. I'd hate that!" We talked to our orthopedists, they said that it looked like a simple matter of the rest of arm failing to finish itself, just happened, no genetic or other issues. But it wouldn't have mattered; ZhongZhong was our son. He joined our family in Nanjing, Jiangsu in late November 2006.

As we walked the streets of Guangzhou with our new son and his sister, John and I realized that we would be back. While there, we spent time with families who had adopted older children and talked about the idea of a child who would fit between our two, since they were four years apart in age. Then we came home to learn to be a new family together.

In the spring of 2007, we happened to look at the website of another agency, one that our friends were working with. Listed on their waiting child page was the following: Boy, 5 1/2, congenitally severed left forearm, malformed toes. Some pretty cold words for a whole little person. No photo. We talked to our friends and everyone else, we offered to share our experiences with any family that inquired about him. It was too soon for us, barely six months home with our new son. Just too soon. We very sadly said good-bye to the idea of him as our son.

No one asked about him. After three months, his file went back to China. A little while later, someone on the CCAI Waiting Child Yahoo group mentioned that there were six new kids on the website who had not found their families yet, so we clicked over to see. And there, to our complete and beyond utter astonishment, was a little boy, about six, missing left forearm and malformed toes. Could it be? Of all the agencies that could have received his file, it showed up with CCAI, the only other place we would ever look? And there was a referral photo, a stoic little guy with a small but brave smile that seemed to say "I don't know exactly what I'm doing here or what you people want, but I'm gonna get through it and get back to my life."

We talked. A lot. To say we weren't ready to take on another adoption was a huge understatement. But . . . maybe somehow. . . . The next morning, John said "You are emailing Sarah, right?" And we did: "He's with CCAI, now?" Yes, indeed, it was the same boy. Le XiaoTie turned six in August, had been living with the same foster family in Leping, Jiangxi since he was a tiny baby. We looked over the medical information, talked with the doctors. They confirmed our initial idea that his limb differences were caused by amniotic banding, which just happens. Still not at all sure how we were going to pay for everything, we held hands, jumped off the cliff, and said yes to our son TieTie.

We had plenty of time to pull things together, since we started our paper chase in earnest when we received our PA and it took us six months to send off our dossier. But we could not have done it without the amazing help and direct support of CCAI. Family and friends pitched in, we fundraised, we looked under the couch cushions (again) and at the last, we inhaled deeply and handed over the Visa card. With the help of CCAI's travel department and in-country reps, we arranged the least expensive trip to China possible.

In late June 2006, one very good and game but also scared, confused, and angry six-year-old boy joined our family. TieTie wasn't the least bit sure about any of us, but we met him in the hotel playroom and he decided that racing zippy little pull-back cars and bouncing balloons with us was fun. The next day we worked through the official procedures with only a few major meltdowns. Then he slept, and slept. And woke up covered with spots. Ah, no, not chicken pox. Yes, indeed, chicken pox. You won't read about "bonding" with your new child by living five to a regular room in the Hotel Eternity for more days than you dreamed possible, playing with Ultraman guys (which one is Ultraman Taro, again?) and watching epic dramas on television, but you know what—it works. So does the moment your new son decides that having you apply anti-itch ointment to his spots, all of them, everywhere, is a good idea. And that first airplane ride: "Feiji! DA feiji!" ["Airplane! BIG airplane!"] And laughing at Mama's funny, lousy Mandarin and making jokes: "Mama ma!" ["Mama horse!"] Piggyback rides were fun!

And so now, a year later, we are now a family of five. It's been easy, it's been tough, it's been a new life for all of us. And we would not have missed any of it for the world. And we cannot imagine being without them, our two wonderful sons.

Ruth and John

Note: You may have noticed that we haven't spent any time at all going over what having two guys with limb differences in our family has meant. That's because it truly is a non-issue in all ways that matter. Medically, our guys are healthy kids, they've needed no special care whatsoever. Day to day, they do some things differently but they do pretty much everything they want to do. Someday they may want a prosthetic for something specific, such as playing the violin or a certain sport, but like most congenital arm amputees, they do very very well just as they were born. As our doctor explained, only about seventy percent of folks with an arm that ends at elbow or above, like Zhong, reject a prosthetic; ninety percent of folks who have some forearm, like TieTie, do. So we just try to keep up with them!