3 Monthiversary....

We met Zoey three months ago today.

As I have said before...she casually and quietly walked across the room and into our arms.

She came prepared and seemed to know we were "her people."

She grieved, quietly at first.

As she has learned to trust us she has opened up and let us in to the true depth of her emotion.

We are so privileged to take these important steps toward attachment and bonding with her.

Just as she has shared her grief and confusion with us; 

she also shares her joy.

The last three months have been a whirlwind of emotion 

and learning about who our mighty girl really is.

This child packs 36+ feet of personality in her 36 inch frame.

In fact her personality is so huge that I sometimes forget how little she truly is.

She is bright, fierce, funny, strong willed, silly and in non stop motion from sunrise through sun down.

She sings, dances and marches to the beat of her own drum all day long! 

We are blessed beyond measure to be a part of her story.

It's all about perspective....

Our Sweet Girls

That mop of shiny black hair on the left is Mary. She is teaching our Zoey how to say Mommy, Daddy and brother while pointing to our pictures in a photo album that we sent to Zoey. This is a screenshot from the video we received after sending a care package to Zoey. I worked hard to capture this moment because I absolutely adore the way Zoey looks at her in this very moment.

We have shared the story about the nine year old girl that we have been pursuing in addition to Zoey. The one they said was "unadoptable." We begged for the orphanage officials to make a file for her. She is adoptable! We will adopt her! THIS is the girl. This is Mary. Mary is not her Chinese name. I cannot share her Chinese name or any photographs that identify her until and unless we have approval to adopt her.

We made it very clear to our agency and to everyone we know that with two boys in college and a third almost there, we would definitely not be able to afford two trips to China. Our best hope of bringing both girls home would be in convincing Mary's orphanage to prepare her file very expeditiously. Her orphanage agreed to make a file and we prayed, prepared and prayed some more. We knew this was out of our hands at this point.

Well, we reached a milestone in our adoption process. We received our I800A approval. That is approval from US Customs and Immigration that says we are suitable to adopt a child from a Hague Convention country or in our case: two children. We are taking the steps to Authenticate our approval and when we finish that process it will be sent to our agency in Colorado. This will complete the dossier process on our end. Our agency will then triple check our documents, bind them in a file, translate everything and ship it off to China. We will finally, blessedly, officially be DTC (Dossier to China) this month. With this knowledge and bearing in mind that timing is of the essence in order to pull off a concurrent adoption, I asked our agency to check on Mary's file for international adoption. Our agency rep got back to me today and said it's coming along slowly and she will check back in a few months...few months???
We should be traveling to China in a few months.
I asked her what this means for our chance at a concurrent adoption.
She said it's not likely.
Not likely.
That's a punch to the gut.
Now what?

I told Pete. We were both devastated. I kind of sat here all afternoon steeping in my own misery and then I thought about a post that I read yesterday that was written be a sweet friend and fellow adoptive mom Nicci Scarborough. In the post she talked bout people who said they always wanted to adopt but could not afford it. I went back and re-read it. She said:

That’s a problem with perspective. If you look at it as though you ARE a parent of a child living in deplorable conditions, who yearns for a home, who desperately needs to be shown love in order to grow healthy and strong, if your heart tells you that you ARE a child’s parent and you’ve decided to see it from that angle, then how much money could stand in the way of you going to get your child? What would you do if your child was being held half way across the world? What would you pay to ransom him/her? What is that life worth to you? Would you say, “Darn, my child is living apart from me. I’m not sure if she’s being adequately cared for, but probably not. I just can’t come up with the money to go get her and bring her home.” What WOULDN’T you do if that were the case? What could possibly keep a parent from their child?

In answer to that. Nothing. Nothing will keep us from fighting for this file. Nothing will keep us from pursuing this adoption. We will do whatever we have to do in order to bring both of our girls home. Keep us in your prayers please. All of us. Pete and I, Zoey and most especially Mary.

Thank you.

Putting the Cart Before the Horse....

I posted this picture on facebook this weekend.

Seems innocent enough, right?

Well...I guess I got ahead of myself 

and caused some confusion for some people

because we got questions, lots of questions.

As most of you know, 

we fell in love with a little girl 

and we asked our social worker, our agency 

and the powers that be if we could adopt her and make her our daughter.

This would be in addition to the little girl 

that we were already madly in love with.

Our sweet Zoey.

We are asking to adopt two.

Sisters! How fun!

If you have read my blog then you know 

that when we inquired about this second child,

we were initially given an answer that we did not want to hear.

They said she had no file.

They said she was unadoptable.

We pleaded with our agency to advocate on our behalf

and they did.

Our agency got back to us,

they will make a file.

There is an asterisk, however.

The file may take months. 

It may not. It is at their discretion.

Our adoption of Zoey is proceeding as planned.

We are not delaying any part of our adoption process.

We are full steam ahead.

We are hoping against hope and praying feverently

that a file for our sweet 9 year old will be done expeditiously.

If we receive her file quickly (a referral)

and then we send our Letter of Intent to adopt her quickly (LOI)

and then we receive Pre-Approval to adopt her (PA)

before our family's file that includes our homestudy, USCIS approval

and all of our background documents (our Dossier)

gets logged in to the 

China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption 

(CCCWA),

then we can adopt both girls together.

Our Dossier should be logged in with CCCWA next month.

October that is. 

We need her file by then so we can adopt them together.

They are in the same medical foster care setting.

I don't know how we will fly all the way around the world 

to the very place where both girls are 

and only come home with 

one.

I do feel that we are on a path of great purpose.

I have tremendous faith that this will work out.

I am not without fear though I do have faith.

If you are the praying sort please join us in prayer 

that her file will be complete and come to us in time. 

Thank you for that.

So bottom line:

We did not get her file yet.

The folks in China are working on it. 

We do not have PA or any official assignment of her file.

We are not putting any part of our current adoption of Zoey 

on hold in anticipation of receiving that file.

We are hoping and praying that it comes in time.

We do have a trundle bed

as well as 

a set of matching shirts 

for two little girls 

that we hope 

to make 

sisters.

The name on her door...

Someone has a new bedroom.

I bet you could guess who.

 if you knew her name!

;)

Watch 'til the end...

We have been anxious 

to make the perfect little space 

for the little girl

that has occupied our hearts 

for so long now.

We still have some

more work to do.

We need new closet doors, 

an area rug, 

closet organizers 

and lots of toys....

It's a great start though.

We quite literally woke up one day 

and said "lets do her bedroom."

(you can verify the spontaneity

 with my bed head 

and Pete's flashy AC*DC pajama pants!)

We are so happy that we did it.

We open the door and imagine 

our little girl enjoying the space 

that we created for her.

Yes. We cry.

All of the time.

 BIG FAT tears of joy and anticipation 

and gratitude.


the video on you tube (if you don't have flash)

Sigh...

I have been a bit emotional lately. 

I joke and say that I am "paper pregnant" and it's "adoption hormones" but truthfully, there is a lot going on. 

Our boys are great. 

They are making tough decisions about their lives and exploring their place in the world and these are necessary though never easy growing pains. 

I dropped Taylor off at Mass Maritime Academy this past weekend. 

He is at orientation. 

Orientation is run boot camp style to prepare them for life in a regimental academy. 

It's very disciplined. 

I took his i-phone home with me. 

He is cut off from the outside world. 

We are allowed a little glimpse in to his new world as the school does an orientation blog with daily updates on the training of the cadet candidates. 

You can follow at:

http://mma2014orientation.blogspot.com/?m=1

Taylor is in 1st Company. 

This is a tremendous  opportunity. Admission was more selective this year than ever before. 

Between the blockbuster Captain Phillips casting light on the merchant marine life and US News and World Report naming MMA a "best value" in education, the admissions competition was tough. 

We are so proud of Taylor for making it in. 

Nevertheless, it was really difficult to drive away on Saturday. 

Harder than I had imagined. 

My stepdaughter from my first marriage is getting married to a wonderful man this December. We went to try on dresses at the beginning of the month and she looked so beautiful. She radiated in her final choice. Her beauty, from the inside out, was jaw dropping. Tears? Whoo! Her wedding day is going to knock me out! 

It was just a minute ago that she was twirling in special occasion dresses. When Betty was little that was how she judged a dress: by the swirly-twirlyness of the skirt. I can tell you that her standards have changed BUT she did get a fabulous skirt! 

Betty's hair and make-up trial. She is going to take everyone's breath away on 12/14. 

On the adoption front we are kicked in to high gear. Our homestudy is done! We are sending it off to the USCIS for processing, which usually takes 4-6 weeks. They will give us our biometrics fingerprinting appointment and after that we will prepare to send our dossier to our agency to be reviewed and hopefully sent to China! That's a pretty big deal in our world. The DTC (dossier to China) date is a huge milestone. It puts us in the fourth quarter! 

We have had a few emotional set backs. We realized that we will not, in all likelihood, have our dossier to China by 9/14. 

That is the due date. 

Our agency assured us that this is fine and they are prepared to submit a request for an extension on our behalf. This is a routine procedure and does not reflect negatively on us...but it was difficult to accept. 

We just really want to bring our sweet girl home. 

We also lost our SW right after our homestudy was completed.  

We became really attached to her and were looking forward to doing post placement visits with her but we do wish her well in all future endeavors. 

She was super awesome to work with and came in clutch at the eleventh hour to change our adoption approval to "two children."

And YES...

You read that right. 

Two children. 

Because:

We saw a little girl. 

She is bright, beautiful and super sweet. Nine years old. 

She is at the same hospital as our Yiman. We were each thinking about her privately and then found that we were both thinking the same thing.  

We couldn't shake the image of her. 

Our conversations of "too bad we couldn't" quickly turned to "why can't we?" 

Then Pete said the magic words every wife wants to hear "it can't hurt to look into it, just in case". 

Well, that's a done deal, amiright?

After speaking with our children and our extended family we spoke with our SW and we were approved for two! 

We got the little girl's information and gave it to our agency. They were happy to try to locate her adoption file. 

We started talking bedroom furniture, names, schools, doctors and treatment. 

In other words, we were in this. 

110%

That is, until we weren't in it. 

She has no file for international adoption at this time. 

She never has. 

Nine years old. 

I prayed so hard that this would not be the news I heard. 

Soul crushing. 

I wrote an impassioned plea to my agency. 

I begged to see if a file might be made soon. 

Even if not for us...for someone. 

She deserves a family. 

I am waiting for their reply. 

We are really having a hard time finding peace with this turn of events. 

So ready...

Preparing her space here...

There is something sacred about what we are doing right now.

We are preparing a room for our sweet girl.

Cleaning, painting, decorating and arranging...

Nesting.

It is so very special, so tangible, to clear a space in our home 

and dedicate that space to the little person coming in to our lives.

She had space in our hearts before we knew who she was.

Even before we knew her face or her name, 

we knew that we loved her 

with all of our heart and soul.

It is way too cool to walk through the house and see her door open. 

It brings me joy. 

I can't tell you how many times a day I open the door 

and just stand there, taking it all in.

***

I applied for my first passport in this process.

I have never left my country before.

The very first stamp in  my passport will come 

from our trip to China to meet our daughter. 

This dawned on me as I waited for my photo to print and 

I became so emotional at the Old Bridge Library.

Like....

heart palpitations, giddy, tear eyed and fast talking emotional.

The lovely lady that helped me was so sweet. 

She talked to me about the adoption 

and told me stories about her children.

She told me she would be thinking of us and keeping us in her prayers.

She is just one of many well wishers that we have  met.

We have met so many wonderful people throughout this process. 

I am so impressed and overwhelmed with the kindness of others. 

***

We joined a Secret Pal program in one of our facebook groups.

It works like a Secret Santa program...

we are given info on an adopting family 

and another adopting family is given our info. 

We send little gift packages to each other once a month until it's time to travel. 

We keep our identity secret until then. 

It's a fun way to pass time while we wait for the myriad of paperwork processes. 

We sent our first Secret Pal package in July 

and we also received our first Secret Pal package in July....

we loved it!

Thanks Secret Pal! 

;)

***

We sent another care package to YiMan.

We used Ann at Red Thread again. 

We just love her service.

No great cake this time!

We really hope we get a few new pictures.

The package includes some hair bows since her hair is growing out, 

I can't wait to see the little bows in her hair!

SO....that's what has been going on in the Emory's adoption world.

We are hoping to be DTC soon! 

(that stands for Dossier to China)

It is a huge milestone in the process.

It puts us in the homestretch...hurry up and wait time!

<3 br="">

Updates, News and Pictures!!!

Okay...who remembers the care package that we sent in March?

We tracked that package to Beijing and it arrived there on 4/5/2014. That's where tracking ends.
We never heard if it was delivered or if our sweet girl received any of her things. We asked around on our private fb group for families that have adopted children at the Rehab Hospital and the consensus was clear that children did not receive their packages until they were sent back to their home SWI to prepare for adoption day. That's months off. All of the wonderful people in the group were kind enough to note that packages and parties sent directly to the hospital via the third party providers in China made it through. There were a few recommendations and we chose to work with Ann at Red Thread China. Please look at her web site.She came highly  recommended and I cannot stress enough how happy we are with her service. Truly. She was very patient with our questions, she was helpful in determining which items we should choose and personally attended to every detail! I just love her! On Friday May 9th we sent payment for a Forever Family Cake Party. On Saturday May 10th I received an email that said "Happy Mothers Day" in the subject line. I opened it to see this:

 Could you just die? I almost did.

 Our girl LOVES her cake!

 So pretty in pink.

There is a 1:46 video but blogger is not letting me upload it. 

Basically, we see that she is a lefty! They keep trying to make her put the fork in her right hand but she transfers back. She has nice table manners. She is calm and very observant. She sticks up for her little friends! The little girl in yellow that is to her right had an empty plate and our YiMan got the Nanny's attention and got her some cake! Such a good girl. We clearly hear a man in the room calling her "YiMan" and she responds to it, so we know that she knows that name. 

Her motor skills and self care skills are awesome. 

We are so blessed!

Along with the cake, she also got this:

In the bottom right hand corner of this picture there is a jade red thread bracelet. It's one half to a mommy/daughter set. The other half is en route to me. I really hope they let her wear it and we will both have them on when we meet. The picture pillow is designed to help her get familiar with our faces. There is a translated letter to her and to the nannies. A flash drive with instructions for pics and files. A can of biscuits for the nannies and the panda's. So cute! I hope she gets to enjoy these things.

If that wasn't enough for ya' - there is a BONUS!

I randomly checked my email yesterday and saw a message from the Waiting Child department at our agency...WE GOT AN UPDATE!!! She is still at the Rehab Hospital. We got measurements, pictures and development updates! What we are told: She is 28 pounds (2 pound gain since February). She is 34.25 inches tall. (1 inch gain since February) We got our first foot measurements! We can start thinking about shoes!!! 12 cm (about 4.7 inches) sooooo tiny!!!  They say that she does not need a diaper. She can take her shoes off/put them on independently. Feed herself. She has three meals and three snacks a day and sleeps from 7:30 pm thru 6:30 am (but one of her snacks takes place in that time frame??? GeGe Peter just said that he can help her out with that! LOL)  She is introverted, has stranger anxiety and answers to YiMan or ManMan.  She continues to attend ST and OT. She puts 3-5 word sentences together. The best part:

 We are going crazy now! 

We really cannot get through this process fast enough!

Her hair is growing so fast!

(is that a P and an H on the mittens on her shirt?)

Kid's got a mean poker face!

She is going to give GeGe Taylor a run for his money with that stare down!

Seriously?

Can't stand the cuteness.

The face!!!!

We are so in love.

P.S. We are also playing the name game! 

Shhhh! Don't tell!

Fundraising Progress and Our Current State of Being...

We had a few big fundraisers over the last two weeks. If you follow along on fb you have seen the posts.

On Saturday 4/26 I did a vendor fair at my son's high school and on Saturday we had our first Garage Sale. We raised some money for our adoption fund and we are pretty excited about that. We got a few flat out donations and "keep the change" customers that really touched us with their generosity. In total we raised about $600. Our Fundraiser Thermometer is starting to move!

We met some terrific people. We had a banner with this blog name on it at both events and we handed out story cards to people that expressed an interest. We met people in our community that have been touched by adoption, that are interested in adoption and that support our adoption. We met a woman whose sister left the corporate world to start an orphanage in Haiti. So many people shared their stories and expressed an interest in ours. Many people told us that they will keep us in their prayers. We had a really great time. It fills your soul to have people from all different backgrounds be so happy and supportive and caring...for us, for our family and for our little girl.

We plan to do a few more yard sales. It was a nice way to enjoy the beautiful weather and get to know some of our neighbors. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to both of our Moms for staying all day and helping us out and to Michael for being there all day to carry things to cars for people, set up, pack up and he even made some sales! Very importantly we owe BIG to our friends and family members that donated items for us to sell! Christine, Tanya and Lu, Cathy and Gil we sold every donated item!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH for your generosity! Each of the people that donated to our fundraiser will get puzzle pieces with their names on them as they are all definitely a big piece of our journey!

Adoption process wise...it's a waiting game. We have paperwork pending, child abuse clearances are out and I am obsessively refreshing my feed for updated photos of Delilah or some news that she got the care package that we sent her. The hospital and/or the orphanage is under no obligation to take photographs or send us an update but many people do get pics and they are PRECIOUS! So we are hoping!

The Vendor Fair

 

Our First Yard Sale

Great Little Guy...

Well. We have not posted in a while. We have a lot going on and we both feel kind of overwhelmed and underwater. Pete has been crazy busy with a lot of pressure from changes at work and of course that brings residual stress and those effects. I have had a huge reduction in hours as one of my routine patients has become critically ill and has been in the PICU for a few weeks. I am praying so ferverently for this sweet baby to be healed and whole. He has been through so much in his six months of life.

On the home front we have Peter, the oldest, wrapping up his first year in college. He is driving, has a job, lifting weights and staying busy in his fist year post high school. My guy Taylor finishing up his senior year in high school with prom, picnics, graduation and his last high school lacrosse season while simultaneously attending placement testing, orientation and uniform measurements in preparation for his first year at Mass Maritime Academy. The youngest (Michael) is wrapping up his first year in high school and getting ready for football next year. Freshman year was a huge transformative year for him. We are so impressed with all of our boys and so proud of all of them. 

On the adoption front, we are plugging through our homestudy and dossier paperwork. We have most of our references done. We wrote our autobiographies a few weeks ago. That was tough! 

Exciting news: An internet friend referred me to a film about someone that does missionary work at the hospital where Zhao YiMan has lived since she was five months old. There are a couple of documentaries about this couple and the work they do. I watched the films. I was floored. I will do a seperate post about that in a day or so. It really had a profound effect on me and I want to do it justice. Additionally, I would like to share the documentary video and for some reason I am having a hard time doing that on the mobile app.  

Now, I reached out to someone who knew someone, who in turn knew someone that works with our Zhao YiMan. I was not sure what to expect, if anything and much to my delight I awoke to a few new pics of our sweet baby enjoying a snack. She has a mass of shiny black hair on the top of her head and the back and sides are shaved. She looks like a little rocker chick. LOL. They are clear beautiful pictures that make me feel like I can just reach in and touch her. This breaks my heart because of course, I can't. 

I was told that she "is a great little guy" by someone that knows her and plays with her! PLAYS with her! Of course I had to giggle. There is no gender assignment in the orphanage system. They all have their heads shaved, they share clothes, they are often called by nicknames/pet names and Mandarin Chinese is gender neutral! He said "I always thought your daughter was a boy. Funny. I never thought to ask." This really made me giggle and warmed my heart. 

This Saturday we also received Delilah's finding ad from Brian Stuy at http://research-china.org 

I have blogged about finding ads in the past. I really wanted to find her ad on my own and I tried for weeks but I was going in circles. It's like a needle in a haystack! Her ad was in a small paper that never even came up in my baidu searches. I am so grateful for the service that Brian provides. This is a vital piece of YiMan's history and precious to us. We do not plan to share it publically. We feel that it's deeply personal and a tragic part of her life story. I do encourage all adoptive parents to search finding ads online. It is very eye opening and sobering. 

In closing, I just wanted to share one of the newest pics of our little punk rocker Delilah YiMan. Word on the street:  she's a great little guy! 

Doin' Work...

Well...it's adoption prep for days around these parts. It IS a labor of love but it is also a ton of work! We started out with a blog redesign. We went with a dynamic format to help our readers with a more user friendly interface. We sincerely hope everyone likes it!

We kicked off the puzzle piece fundraiser this weekend. The fundraiser had its own page! If you check out the navbar on the main page of the blog you will see a few interesting stand alone pages. One of them is all shouty caps with: PUZZLE PIECE FUNDRAISER. Hard to miss! We are so excited to get this puzzle put together and marvel at all of the awesome people that are on this journey with us! (Thank you!) 

42 pieces sold already!!! WOO HOOOO!

Next stop Trenton, NJ!!! We picked up some certified vital records in Trenton and we took them right over to the NJ State Treasurers Office to be Apostilled and I can pick them up Monday! We were excited to find out that they discount document processing for adoptive families!!! Everyone we dealt with was super nice and very helpful. 

We had a great evening at home. We worked on paperwork while we watched Frozen. LOVED IT! Let It Goooooooo! My new mantra!

eBay sales are really starting to pick up so we had LOTS of shipping to do on Saturday. Our postmaster is awesome but even with his help, I am still making shipping mistakes. I have to improve on shipping calculations so I don't eat up half of the funds we raise with errors!

After shipping it was Care Package Time!!!! YAY! I have been dying for care package time. We had a blast at Babies R' Us. Well...Pete was mostly nervous; I had a blast. He had a difficult time picking things out for Delilah Yi Man. He is worried that he won't know what she will like because he never raised a girl! I told him not to worry girls just want everything in the store like every other kid!!! You can't go wrong. Everything will be fine. LOL. I think we did well! We have a gorgeous bunny, a small photo book for babies, a super soft and cozy blanket, chocolate for the nannies, lollipops to share with friends and yogurt melts for the babies!

There is also a disposable camera. The hope is that they will use the camera to take pictures of Delilah in her daily routine and then return the camera to us when we go to China.

The photo album is the most important part to us. If she does not get to keep anything else, we truly hope she gets to have this. 

We will add an outfit and some clothing items over the next few days and we will ship before the week is over! This is so exciting!

I forgot to mention that Pete just had to throw in the Dallas Cowboys Beanie Bear (to the left of the box) for an extra personal touch! ;) I told him that he may never see it again but he said it will be worth it if we get a picture back and she is holding it. (plus he has two Cowboys beanies and she really needs to know about the Cowboys, right?)

While at Babies R' Us I was able to pick up this much coveted outfit that I have been wanting for Delilah. My cousin Melissa just picked this up for her daughter and I thought it was adorable, Pete said that I have to stop buying clothes as we don't know what her size will be when we actually bring her home...I keep trying to explain that if she stays on the fifth percentile it's predictable! He doesn't get it! I want to shop! ;)

I can't wait until next spring to put this on her!

Oh, we were also surprised with Delilah's first baby from her grandparents!!!! Bitty Baby arrived this weekend and she will be put away until Delilah Yi Man is home and can get her from GiGi and PopPop in person. Too cute! 

On Sunday we started to prep and organize our handmade items for sale for adoptio fundraising. Our neice Tiffany came over and helped us out. That was a lot of fun. We have a facebook photo album with the items that are for sale.

Well, this is my hubby at the end of a very long day. He is admiring our photo labeling work! 

yaaaaaaawwwwnnnnn

Time for sleep! 

Thanks for reading. 

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

What more could anyone want?
I have a beautiful wife who is my best friend.
My three boys that I love and adore are intelligent handsome young men.
My family is loving and supportive, as are my friends.
I have a great job.
Is there anything that is missing?

YES.... my daughter!

Holly and I met when our kids were young boys. We never had a daughter.

When we found her through our agency we knew immediately that she would soon be our child.
We have completed the preliminary steps and yesterday we got big news! The childrens welfare agency that is responsible for adoptions in China agrees!





They have issued our PA, this is a document from China that tells us and our agency that based on the current information we have provided with them and the plan we have presented to care for this child we may proceed with the adoption process! Her file is locked.

SHE IS OURS!

Without further delay, let me introduce you to my princess

Delilah Zhao YiMan Emory

3 years old and waiting for us in the Henan Province.

Telling my dad about the adoption

How do I tell him?

What will he say?

Will he be supportive?

Will he discourage me?

He would only be looking out for his son.

I feel I need to tell the story before I can tell you just how my Dad reacted to my telling him about my daughter that lives in China waiting for me to bring her home. This was a dream of mine forever, even before Holly and I met and although everyone in my family was supportive I was afraid that my Dad may not be. It all starts with his life.

My dad was one of several children that didn't grow up together. From what we understand he had two younger sisters, one younger brother and one older brother. I never met any of them; all of them at various times were put into orphanages or foster homes. My Dad did meet his youngest brother, but let me start from the beginning.

My father was in foster care since he was a baby. He lived with a woman that was being paid to raise him by his mother, Helen. This woman really liked my dad, but after a few years his mother Helen didn't want to pay for the care that my Dad was given. Why didn't his mother take care of him or any of his other siblings? She liked her freedom, she liked to drink and party. As I have been told, she lived a wild life. At the time he was two and a half years old and his mother made the decision that she would stop paying for care and place my Dad into an orphanage. He doesn't remember this. He does remember that over the next 13 years he was beaten, bounced from orphanage to foster home and back. Eventually, my Dad wanted to know why his mother would give him up. He never knew her because he was so young when she placed him in the system. After years of abuse he decided to escape; he was 15 years old. He ran away from St Mary's Orphanage in Valesburg, NJ and was on the run. He made it in the newspapers and after a short period of time was caught by the police while he was pan handling. It was not the only time he ran away. Previously he had run away from a foster home in Bayonne, NJ. He was beaten with a hanger in this home and obviously neglected. He doesn't remember eating a normal meal there; he only remembers that they fed him devil dogs. The foster mother never left the house and they told him that he was a paycheck. When he ran away he was looking for an escape as well trying to find his mother and some answers. Once again he was picked up and returned to the orphanage.

Since he had been trying to escape several times they contacted his mother Helen. She came to the orphanage; she walked in the place in all black with a veil over her face. She never greeted him with love, she just told him to stop making trouble. She took him out of the orphanage and made him come live with her. Although he wanted to go to school and learn, she wanted him to go to work and earn a buck for her. He was only 16 years old. After one month he just couldn't take all the parties that she hosted with all of the drinking. He left and found an apartment and job on his own. I cant imagine this! My kids are young men (or boys) Peter Jr is 20, Taylor is 18 and Michael is 14. None of these kids could survive nor would I want them to try. How did he do it?

My dad learned that he had a younger brother named Glen that was 6 years old at the time. Glen lived in a foster home in Newark near my Dad. He finally was able to meet Glen and promised him he would save all of his money from working at Bamburgers in Newark, NJ. He wanted to get his little brother out of this dirty apartment complex. It was his only sibling that he would ever meet. My Dad would frequently go to the apartment to see his brother. One night my Dad woke in the middle of the night in a deep sweat and just couldn't sleep, he had no idea why. Later that morning, while he was at work, his supervisor called him into the office to tell him that his brother had died in a fire the previous night. To this day my Dad has never gotten over the loss of his baby brother.

My Dad continued on his journey alone, finally meeting my Mom. While they were dating my Dad found out that his biological father lived near my Mom's house. He also found out that his father was a bartender nearby. Both of my parents went to the bar together so that he could finally get to meet his Dad. When they approached this man (my grandfather) my Dad told him that his mom was Helen and that he was his son. The man responded "please can we keep this between us?" He went on to tell my dad that his wife doesn't know and that he would prefer to keep it that way. How devastating is it that my Dad had a mother that never cared and a father that would prefer to keep him a secret? Eventually, his wife would find out and while I was a baby at some point he did meet me but shortly after I was born he passed away and never left a thing for my dad.

The woman that took care of my dad until he was two and a half was occasionally involved in his life. When he was a young man she had promised my Dad that she would be alive to see my dad get married. She made it and she was so proud. She loved my dad like he was her child. The night of the wedding she had a great time laughed and danced. She went home that night, went to bed and died in her sleep. She kept her word.

Throughout the years my dad never complained about his life. He never allowed my sisters or myself to speak a bad word about his mother. He continued to care for her until she passed away in the mid 90's. He is an amazing man. He never had the privilege to have an education, to have a parent (not to mention two) that loved him or cared for him, never shared a dinner with his parents, sat on Santa's lap as a child, never met his other siblings, never threw a ball with his dad, learned to use a hammer, have friends in school never was able to live the life of a boy. He became a man overnight.

We take so much for granted. 

When I told my dad about our adoption his response was: "That's great!"

My dad never had the privilege of an education like most of us and yet he is brighter and quicker than many. He is super excited and thinks it's perfect that I am doing this. After I told him, he watched me play with my Godson Thomas and kept saying "this is great" again. He had so many questions! He may have had even more questions than I originally had. He has been so engaged with the process and has new questions for me all the time. It was such a special moment that really is hard for me to put into words. I can't wait for us to have our daughter home and for my father to see her and to connect with her. 

I have been  thinking about my dads life, where it has taken him and where he came from. He knows that my mother saved his life and kept it all together for him. Before her, he never had anything stable throughout his life.

I have been wondering what my daughter might be thinking and maybe there was a connection to what my dad had thought all those years. I asked my dad what he wished for when he was in the orphanage. Did he wish he could be with a family? have his own room and toys like most kids? go to school and make friends or play a sport? He said he never thought about it because he never knew what any of that was. It all just passed him by. He missed so many of the wonderful things that all children should experience with their parents.

In looking at this situation I am even more eager to get her home. How devastating that a child doesn't know what it is to be loved by a parent? It is so upsetting that a child can be used for financial gain or worse. When my Dad was in the orphanage all of those years he wondered why he was there but had no idea about anything outside the orphanage. He had lived 16 years of his life not having a family and when he was out he didn't have one until he met my Mom. She saved him. She was the first person that would be family for him. Now I have a daughter that's waiting for her family and there are so many more children that do not have a family. It breaks my heart. This process cant happen soon enough.