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.

Putting the Pieces Together...

Sifting through the information in a Special Needs file can be a daunting task. It is not easy to put aside emotion and dig in to the data before you and analyze. Many people utilize physicians and other health care specialists and get conflicting opinions or discouraging information that really makes it difficult to hold onto the excitement and move forward with confidence. First time parents really struggle with what they should be worried about particularly if they lack exposure to children with medical issues. The terminology is frightening. Growth curves, percentiles, milestones...it's a lot. Especially when you are looking at the beautiful face of a child and wondering "Am I your mommy?, Can I give you what you need?"

That being said, there are many tools available to adoptive parents to help them dig through the information at hand when they get the much anticipated file. I am talking about the info one has to know. The stuff that will become rote when the precious pumpkin is home and going to regular  doctor appointments, etc. I am in no way recommending that this info replaces your physician recommendations or usurps it in any way. I am saying there are tools available to really help you get to know your potential child's level of development and ability.

When a young child visits the pediatrician routine measurements are taken for height, weight and head circumference. These measurements are plotted on a graph and physician's watch for consistency and balance in the growth curve to be assured that the child is developing properly. Chinese children are relatively smaller than the average American child so when their measurements are plotted on the CDC graphs the results are often alarming.

The Magic Foundation offers many types of growth charts for different ethnicities and medical circumstances that you can use for reference. Additionally, a quick growth calculator using who (World Health Organization) data allows you to plug in numbers and it gives you a percentile based on global standards.

The next thing to comb through are development and any abilities that may be listed for the child. The CDC offers a chart and a printable checklist for developmental milestones that a child should reach by each age/stage of development. When working with this checklist keep in mind that it is expected for an institutionalized child to lose one month of development for every three months institutionalized. Therefore, when my referral for a 36 month old child came through I would be reviewing milestones up to 24 months old on the chart. If she exceeded that target it was a bonus. I did the same for older SOG (state of growth) reports in her file. If she had an exam at 18 months of age, I compare her abilities to the 12 month milestone targets and so on.

Important notes:
Information can be contradictory. You might get an update stating that a child is in therapy for poor gross motor skills with a video of the child walking and throwing a ball (with mastery.)
My referral had a statement that read "this child is unable to speak" but the boxes for "puts 3-5 words together" were checked off.
When the boxes aren't checked it does not mean they cannot do it. It probably means it was not observed. We had many unchecked boxes for things that we saw her doing in pictures and video.
Please also check the age when the exam took place. Do not be alarmed if you read that the child is unable to walk and simple math shows they are only seven months old at the time.
Some common sense needs to be applied.

This is especially important when looking at files for children with the very vague neuro diagnoses. For example Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (impossible to verify with an unwitnessed birth), Brain Damage Syndrome, Low IQ (no valid test methods exist for young children), Low Intelligence, Poor Brain Development, etc. These sweet babies require extra time and attention when their files are under consideration. The labels applied to them sound very intimidating and it is often difficult to find the supporting evidence for these diagnoses. You have to look past the labels and search for their abilities. Many of these babies have institutional delays that are normal under the circumstances in which they have been living. These are the miracle babies that come home and flourish with good nutrition and the love of a family.

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

Who is baba?

…or daddy?

When we first received her file both Holly and I discussed it over time while waiting for updated information but we already knew that she was the one. I have looked at her picture on my phone, on my desktop at work and at home on the iPad as well as on the refrigerator many, many times. I have watched her video again and again every day since we have received her file. I can remember every step she makes as well as all of her expressions. Holly picked up a sigh that she makes when she starts to walk and we both know this video inside and out. I had major concerns with the lack of smiling that I have seen but I have learned so much from our Facebook friends in the adoption community. So many people have generously chimed in with their own experiences. In the weeks that have passed I feel like I can imagine what she is thinking in her pictures. I feel like I have known her, then I realize she doesn't have a clue about who I am. She doesn’t really have the concept of parents or family, she hasn’t experienced it. We look at her photos and imagine what she is doing at the moment they were taken, where she is headed, what she is thinking... LOL We imagine that a little twinkle in her eye as she glances to the left might indicate that she is about to dart off after a friend that was in the previous picture but has left the camera’s view. She gazes so intensely at the camera that it feels like she is looking right at us. We feel like we know so much about her already from simply reading documents, looking at pictures and a quick video. It’s funny, although I feel like I know her and that she knows me nothing could be further from the truth. All of our assumptions about her personality might be completely wrong and of course she does not really know me.

Though, she may know my face…

Holly and I put our care package together and sent our photo's in a little book a few weeks ago. I so wonder what she thinks when she looks at the bald funny looking man smiling at her in those pictures. Does she smile like I do when I look at her photo?  Does she have any idea how much her life is going to change? I wish she knew how badly I want her home. I am so ready to have her here getting the love and attention that she needs and deserves.  

I want her life with us to begin RIGHT NOW. I worry about the day she will meet us. I wonder if she will want to be in my arms as much as I want to hold her. Will she be scared of me? I have learned that some children will go to one parent and not the other.  If she prefers one parent over the other I want it to be Holly that first day because I don't want her to feel left out. 

After all Holly can have that one day no problem and then I will get a lifetime with Daddy's little girl!

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! 

Delilah Video!

Okay. This is our one and only video of our princess. We think she is about two here, based on the pictures and developmental info we have.

My two favorite moments are 7 seconds in when she lets out a big sigh like they are asking so much of her to have her cross the room. (Diva?)

...and of course the end when she looks up and it's eyelashes for days. 

L.O.V.E.

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.