A China travel group reconnects

Would I recognize the girls? Will Tara make friends? These were some of the thoughts twirling around in my mind as we drove to Boulder, Colorado for the reunion of our China travel group, Guangdong 5-06. Had it been four years since our journey to China? I remembered meeting most of the parents in our group in Beijing in 2006 during orientation. All of the parents had an expectant aura about them. We were shown recent photos of the girls and even though the girls had grown so much since they were last photographed, each of the parents recognized their daughter instantly. The bond had already formed.

In 2008, our group had a two-year reunion in Chicago, but unfortunately my family was unable to attend. So it would be four years since I had seen the girls. I tried to go through the images of the babies we had seen at the hotel in Guangzhou. We were only together for 12 days but went through so much in just a short time— the joys, the crying, the sleepless nights, the endless paperwork and the outstanding Holt staff support.

When we finally made it to Boulder for the reunion, we walked in and instantly recognized our group. It took me a few minutes, but I started to recognize the girls. Although they had changed tremendously, the early personalities I had seen in China gave them all away. Four years had not changed the shy smile, the twinkling in the eyes, the certain exasperated look. I could not stop a few tears of joy at the sight of these beautiful, happy and adorable girls.

Tara made friends immediately and we spent the next two days going shopping, sightseeing and having a blast. It was with a heavy heart that we drove away from Boulder, but with the hope of seeing them again perhaps in two years. Tara still talks about her sisters from China and is making plans for our next reunion. I hope that the bond these girls have will continue to grow and will be a source of strength to them as they mature and navigate through life.

Have you ever reunited with your travel group?  Share your story with our managing editor, e-mail her here.

Our journey began three years ago when we decided to adopt from China. We had put off having children until we were in a position to provide a good home. Lisa’s sister , who had already started her China adoption process, shared her experience with us, and we felt like this was a good way for us to begin.

After six months of beginning to assemble a dossier for China, we became discouraged by the wait times and decided that adopting a child from Mongolia may be a better option.  After much time and expense, our agency sent our completed dossier to Mongolia. Many months passed without much information.  Then, one night, we were told that our agency would no longer be handling adoptions in Mongolia.

It was hard to describe how we felt at the time–stunned, depressed.

Three months later we realized that we still wanted to have a little girl, and our hearts were set on a toddler. We considered domestic adoption, investigated it with our social worker and came to the realization that we could adopt an infant, but there would be many unknowns.

After considering this for a time, we decided that we wanted to adopt a young girl with minor special needs from China. We were told that the wait times for these children are much shorter. After all of this time we had come full circle!  Deciding on the needs that we were willing to accept for our family was not easy. After much deliberation and investigation, we informed Holt that a child with bilateral or unilateral cleft lip and palate would be a good fit for our family.

Our referral came through in record time!  When we finally arrived in China, our guide took us to the Social Welfare office to meet Kate and have the “hand off”.  Of course we had seen many heart warming hand offs on the Internet, but ours was a little different.  Lisa and I were all tears of joy to meet “Chun-Chun” (pronounced Chew-in-Chew-in).  She, however, wanted nothing to do with us.  She wailed each time someone pointed to us and said “Ba-Ba, Ma-Ma”.  Finally, I took her in my lap and tried to console her.  She just went limp and wailed at the ceiling.

The next two weeks really put Lisa and me to the test.  There were many tears, and we felt really inadequate…but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Today Kate is a vivacious three-year-old.  She gives us hugs and kisses, whispers very important things in our ears, swims like a fish, and surprises us with entire sentences in English.  She has to watch “Cinderella” every day and tells me: “No, that’s not a monkey in the mirror.  That’s Kate!”

Follow Gary and Lisa’s journey to Kate on their “Coming Home with Kate” blog

By Gary and Lisa Falkenberg

By: Ivy Shaffer-Marks

When a tiny, sweet 11-month-old baby girl was placed in my arms, she quickly looked back at the only faces she had known and started to cry. I wrapped my arms around her tightly and tried to console her soft whimpers. My emotions took over, and tears of joy streamed down my face. At that moment I knew that this was my daughter.

Two months after we switched to Holt’s China Child of Promise option we had a child. Her cleft lip had been repaired, and she still needed her palate repaired. Other issues such as hearing and speech were not a big concern because of reassuring medical updates. To us, this baby was the most beautiful child we had ever seen.

Since her arrival home a year ago, we have had many more wonderful moments as we watch our daughter learn to speak and grow into a spunky toddler.

There is so much to say about the China Child of Promise option; I simply do not have enough accolades for the program nor the staff that seemed to hold my hand during the entire trip. For me, a dream had come true; I finally had a child, a little girl. We named her Kira.

I can only encourage future parents to consider this option as a wonderful means to find your forever child. Our lives are so full of happiness and love for our daughter; we would definitely choose this option again.

Journey Through Adoption (April 2007-March 2009)

April 2007–Dani and I are ecstatic about this very personal decision to adopt and elated beyond words that one day in our future a little girl, born half way across the world, will wait for us to become her forever parents. This is a journey that involves love, patience and finding the inner strength to endure the seemingly endless months of waiting. Currently we are six months since our dossier was sent to China, and every month brings us closer to our little ladybug!

Why do I call her our Ladybug? It’s easy. One day this past fall, I came home from work and found all these pretty little ladybugs flying about our front door. I smiled to myself as I know that ladybugs bring good fortune and hoped that this was a Red Thread Connection to our daughter. Yes, there are definitely connections that only those of us in this process can relate to.

July 2007–I am going to try and mark this month as a true milestone in our adoption process. As I said earlier, most women would have already delivered at nine months, while those of us in the adoption journey endure a longer pregnancy. However, with a bit of humor, faith and patience, we are all hoping this wait shortens up.

August 2007*–My husband came home to tell me that he had called Holt to let them know we were willing to consider a child with medical issues. This meant that we would not lose our place in line for a child who had no identified special healthcare needs, and our dossier would be pulled from the waiting pile and reviewed in this new light.

We told Holt that we preferred a younger girl with cleft lip/cleft palate. We anticipated a referral anywhere from three to six months after Holt received their next dossiers of waiting children, and we could only hope that there would be a little girl waiting for us. Truthfully, I could no longer bear watching the standard match wait list get longer every month.

September 2007*–I got a call from my husband saying that Holt had offered us a referral of a little 8-month-old girl from Hunan province. She had a repaired cleft lip, but would need palate surgery. I remember laughing and crying at the same time while trying to remain calm. Of course Dani couldn’t wait to open the file and see her picture, and after he did, I made him describe every detail. He said her face brought tears to his eyes and that “this was our baby.”

We reside in New Jersey and have access to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), their International Adoption team and the cleft lip and palate team. We had the doctor review our daughters’ medical documents before we signed the final paperwork. We also asked Holt if they had another adoption specialist we could run questions through and indeed we were provided with a physician in Chicago, who listened to my concerns and said: “Go get your daughter.” With that said, we started to pack!

*Excerpts from the Winter 2008 edition of Holt International magazine

January 7th 2008 (Gotcha Day)– Dani and I set out on a 2-hour flight to Changsha, Hunan in the early afternoon. The Assistant Director of Kira’s orphanage brought her to the Civil Affairs office which was a 3-hour long bus trip, so I wasn’t expecting a very happy “hey Mom, where have you been all this time”, a smile would have sufficed.

Needless to say, we were prepared for Kira’s anxiety as well as ours. I could see Kira with her caretakers as we approached the office. She seemed so content after a long day…then the “hand off” took place.

It took two caretakers to pry Kira away from them and give her to me. She just cried and cried and kept looking for the only familiar faces she knew. I knew how much we loved her, but she had no idea who we were and why she was leaving the only people she knew. At one point I handed her back to the caregiver.. As Kira calmed down, another caregiver showed me the original note that Kira was found with, as well as the hat she was wearing. I couldn’t believe they saved them; it will be such a special keepsake for Kira. The little hat and note took me completely off guard and made me think of her birth mother, who knew she had to relinquish her because of her cleft lip and palate. Well, obviously that’s a story to tell Kira when she is older.

Now as I sit and write this journal a tiny little girl, our daughter, is sleeping soundly in her little crib behind me. It feels so good; I just can’t believe she is ours!

January 16th 2008–We had to get up very early this morning to fly back to Beijing where we will leave for home tomorrow. We are so exhausted and happy and can’t wait to get home. We have met some of the most incredible people along this journey, most of whom I will always remember. We feel that not only did we adopt our daughter, but an entire group of families and their children as well.

March 2008–Today all I could do is watch as the nurse took my baby girl back to the operating room to have her palate repaired. All I know is that despite the fact she got “giggle juice” she wasn’t giggling and just stared at me with those big brown eyes as I tried not to cry.

Though this is a much-needed surgery that will allow her to speak and eat properly, I was still worried and couldn’t wait till it was over. The moment the doctor came out and said he was finished, I think I finally unclenched my teeth. All I can say is the Cleft Lip/Palate Team at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) are incredibly gifted professionals and knew not only how to treat Kira, but her parents, as well. Our plastic surgeon was wonderful and so was the staff.

October 2008–Just a few minutes ago I spotted a ladybug in the window. I pointed it out to Kira who loves ladybugs and she stared at it till she crawled all the way up out of sight! The oddest thing is that today I am participating in Holt’s Webinar to talk about my process in the China Child of Promise program. In addition we are considering a sister for Kira, just not sure when the timing will be right. Perhaps that little ladybug was trying to tell me something.

Currently my delightful child does not like to share my attention of affection. She is also very speech delayed and gets frustrated trying to communicate. However, I believe every child is unique and different and will speak when they want. I mean hey I do enough speaking for the two of us! She is saying a few two-syllable words, which is great. She absolutely understands everything and sometimes she amazes me with the funny things she does. Like today, she put her little socks in her shoes just the way I do for her. She dresses herself, puts her shoes on and combs her hair. She watches attentively at everything I do and tries to be a big girl by imitating me. You are such a beautiful child Kira.

February 2009-I am consumed with love for Kira and can’t help but admit it! While she does the funniest things to entertain herself and me, she’s starting to talk also, which is a big milestone for her. She can clearly say “no” in the dainty voice of hers, and has a vocabulary of about 28 words (very good from ten in September). She knows her colors, shapes and can do calculus without a calculator (just making sure this isn’t a boring post). I am a proud momma, knowing that Kira’s cleft palate isn’t standing in her way of verbally making her point known.

March 2009– Kira continues to amaze us everyday! She’s a bright, engaging child, who is now well on her way to speaking. After an early intervention evaluation determined she didn’t need speech therapy, we took the suggestion of the CHOP Adoption team to seek out a private medical speech evaluation as Kira was displaying immense frustration at her inability to communicate. We made the appointment and wouldn’t you know it…she started imitating more and more sounds and words.

Normally children have a vocabulary of about 200 by age two. Her speech evaluation determined she fell in the average range compared to children who have only heard English for 15 months. In just a short couple of months her vocabulary is now approaching 90 words and she’s making two-word sentences.

It’s been a little more than a year since the day we met our daughter.  She has come a long way, from her growth and nutritional status to her overt connection and bond with me. I love her so much; I simply can’t put it into words. She’s the center of my life, my world and a dream come true. We are so happy we chose this path to adopt our daughter and now look forward to providing her a normal, loving and happy life!

Excerpts from the blog of Leslie Albers

2008 Update

There was a day that we were concerned about Zoie’s speech progress and hung on every word she uttered and analyzed how it sounded. Those days are long gone. We used to worry about other people understanding her, and now she carries on conversations with everyone she meets and they seem to understand her just fine. “Chatterbox” is how we would describe her now. Although she arrived from China with a repaired cleft lip and unrepaired cleft palate at the age of 22 months, she was never as delayed as we expected with her speech.  Her palate was repaired when she was 2 years old, and she has received speech therapy for most of the two years that she has been home. Most of that time, she has only gone once a week.  She has progressed better and faster than we could have hoped. Her cleft is a non-issue. She will have to have a bone graft in her cleft gumline at around 8 years of age, and quite a bit of orthodontic work as well. Other than that, she is a happy, funny, sweet, smart, and beautiful 4-year-old who has brought much joy to our family. She is a princess to her big brothers and the sunshine in the hearts of her father and me. We always say, she may have been “special needs,” but we were the ones who “especially needed” her and are so happy to have her in our lives.

Our First Year with Zoie (Sept. 2006 to August 2007)

Sept. 1, 2006: We arrived in Los Angeles last night, and Zoie became an American citizen! Multiple signs in our yard welcomed us home. It was so exciting to walk into Zoie’s room with her. She loves her room!

October 2006: Brother Eric is her best buddy and is so patient with her. He is great with teaching her baby signs. She knows over 40 signs now.

The palate repair and lip revision took place October 10. We spent two nights in the hospital. Zoie turned 2 the day after we got home. The day did not pass without some contemplation on my part of how fortunate we are to have Zoie in our life, and how blessed she is to have a “China Mama” who loved her enough to give her life. I think about what it must have been like for her birth mother, and about the decision she made to risk going to jail or worse in order to give her daughter a chance at the medical care that she needed.

We could not be filled with more gratitude to God for this gift or to Zoie’s “China Mama” for her sacrifice.

Thanksgiving 2006: Gratitude… thankful appreciation. How can I count our many blessings? On November 27, we will celebrate 100 days with Zoie. She continues to be a source of joy and awe for the entire family. She continues to adjust to all the changes in her life and takes everything in stride. How wonderful to see the world through the eyes of a 2-year-old and remember what a fascinating place it is. The boys love her and are so proud to be her brothers. Everything she does they say, “Did you see that?” She is completely and totally grafted into this family, and we would all move mountains for her. I am so glad that I was able to take three months off work to spend with her.

Zoie’s daycare is fabulous, and she loves it. She qualified medically for six months of speech therapy, and they will be going to her daycare two times per month. We will continue to work with her at home. She is completely healed from surgery and her palate looks great. Her lip also has less bulk and less of a “bump.” We are pleased with the results and glad to have that behind us. We are grateful for our kids, our strong family bond, our health, and this amazing new family member who reminds all of us every day how special we all are and how important having a family is.

Christmas 2006: Last Christmas visions of our future daughter danced in our heads, but we did not know who she was or what she looked like. Our hearts ached to love her, but we had no idea how our hearts would overflow with love for her.

Last December 4, Zoie had her lip repair done in China. She was in the hospital from December 2 to 23. This makes me so sad. I have no idea if anyone was able to be with her and hold her. I just can’t imagine her being alone, and I pray she wasn’t.

This December 4, she was visiting the huge craniofacial team here in Memphis. They all thought she was doing great and her lip and palate repairs were exceptional. We are continuing her speech therapy two times per month. Although she is still 8–10 months behind, she is becoming more verbal and really trying to work out her sounds. The sign language comes in handy when we can’t understand her words. She will use the word and the sign. On words we understand, she has dropped the sign, which is great progress. She has learned to say the word “no” very well and loves to say it loud and often. She is still so good and well behaved. She wraps everyone around her little finger. Continue Reading »

Excerpts from the blog of Kathy Rees

On this blog I wrote a post about the China Child of Promise Option, otherwise known as children with minor or correctable special needs. Not one of us knows anything about these children, which means that in a very real sense every one of them could be classified as a special needs child. All of them have been exposed to institutionalization behaviors, have bonding issues and will regress when we get them home! A child in the “standard process” may in the long run have just as many if not more unseen problems than a child from the China Child of Promise Option, who may have a minor/correctable condition.

We knew when we accepted Jazzy’s referral that she had an extra toe on each foot. But when Rick and I made our decision, we told ourselves to remember that was just something that we knew about her health. We fully expected there to be more, and there was. As soon as we got her home we took a stool sample and found Giardia (intestinal parasite infection). She may or may not have gotten it at the orphanage, as she was kept by whom we presume to be her birth parents for the first 10 months of her life before being abandoned at the bus station.

Jazzy will have to have both extra toes removed plus the whole right foot has to be narrowed. Both legs will have to be casted from the knee down if not the hip down for about 10 days. Because they have to reshape and reconstruct the one foot the surgeon does not want her walking at all, which is why he is casting both feet. It will be a one-day surgery, and then she can go home.

The surgery will be done in January. I asked if we needed to be concerned about her losing any feeling in that foot, thus affecting her ability to walk, and the surgeon said absolutely not.  Having copies of her X-rays, we can see the one toe has no bone, and he will basically treat it like a skin tag. He will just snip it off and put in a few sutures that will dissolve and do not even have to be removed. The other toe has no bone connecting it to the joint.  It just has a bone in the toe itself, which is good. But he does have to make an incision part way down the side of the foot and cut it down. Sounds scary to me, but he assures us that it is not complicated at all.

I had always focused on the possibility of the toes being removed and had not even thought about the fact that the entire foot on the right side really was completely abnormal. The good news is that the surgery will be done all in the same day, she will heal fast (within 10 days), and her feet will then be completely normal, no more “special needs.” It will all be done and over with, and she can go on and live her life as if it had never even happened. Because she had a medical condition, it only took us a year, start to finish, to get her, and now she will be completely normal. That to me is unbelievable! And when she is 16 and can buy those pretty silver, dainty sequined shoes, she won’t even give it a second thought, but I sure will! I guess the abnormally wide foot is a bigger issue than the extra toes and would have caused her all kinds of problems later in life, so here we go! Rick and I will divide up the time it takes for her to heal and stay home with her. She is not going to like not being able to get up and walk, that is for sure! She will go through some pain and will not be a happy camper for two to three weeks, but it is only two to three weeks out of her life for a lifetime of benefit!

We cannot lose sight of the fact that these babies have been exposed to numerous environmental and genetic factors that are unique and vastly different, and yet at the same time common in regards to being exposed to the same environmental experiences at an orphanage. Through our collective post-China discoveries, we can help each other uncover some of the missing health pieces, regardless of whether it is Giardia, TB or the recent milk health issues in China. No, we cannot panic and yet we also have to do everything we can to make sure we catch all we can as early as possible.

As I look down into the face of my daughter, who is sleeping next to me because she woke up early in her crib this morning, I know that no matter whatever we find or do not find in regards to her health condition, we are in it for the long haul. And we will never regret adopting her no matter what lies ahead for us; we had to go to get her and to do whatever it took to get her. We strongly believe that we were destined to adopt not just any child but this child. She is our daughter, and we love her with every fiber of our beings. And we will do everything we possibly can to keep her safe and well!

Editor’s Note:  Kathy Rees is a special education professional with a B.A. in teaching mentally impaired students, an M.A. in teaching emotionally impaired students, and an M.A. in special education administration. You can read more of her blog at http://www.jazzyrose.blogspot.com/

When a long-waiting couple opened their hearts to a boy, their assignment came quickly.

Excerpts from the blog of Lisa Ronda

We started out our adoption process only open to a girl, as young and healthy as possible. So to end our adoption with a boy who was 2 1/2 years old with a minor special need was sort of our “surprise” ending.

We were just over two years into our adoption when we decided to talk with Kris Bales, our Holt social worker, and just learn a little more about adopting a child with minor healthcare conditions, now known as the China Child of Promise Option. We figured asking a few questions couldn’t hurt anything.

Kris mentioned that if we were open to a boy, we might be matched more quickly, as most families in the program were not open to boy adoptions. We knew that we would be adopting a second child from China as soon as we finished our first adoption. So we decided if we were matched with a boy this time, we could always request a match with a girl next time.

We opened up the age range to include 2 years and under, boy or girl with minor healthcare needs. Within several weeks we were presented with Zhao Jian Hui, now named Aaron. His healthcare need was unfamiliar to us, but after discussing his medical records with our pediatrician, we felt that it was within the scope of what we were able to take care of.

Aaron’s medical condition was completely corrected with a minor surgery. He is wonderful and very healthy. We feel so blessed to have been matched with him and are so thankful that God placed it in our hearts to open our match criteria when He did, so that Aaron could be brought into our family!

Aaron is our second son, and Josiah, who is biological, is older. Their bond was slow to develop; but after they had a little time to work through some “turf” issues, they have become the best of friends. They are 12 months apart and share June birthdays.

Curiosity About Boys
We get a lot of interesting comments from friends, family and strangers about adopting a boy from China. We hear things like, “It must be hard to get a boy from China!” “How did you get a boy out of China?” “I didn’t know you could adopt a boy from China.” “You’re really lucky to get a boy from China.”

To that I say, “Yes, we were!”

Because families adopting from China have so little background information on their children, it’s hard to put a story together for their child about how he or she came to be a part of the family.

I suppose it’s a little easier to explain to a girl from China about the family planning policies and the economic situation elderly parents are in if they don’t have a son to care for them, etc. You can create some “pat answers” based on Chinese culture and customs and guess why parents who loved their baby enough to choose life for them, were faced with such a painful decision to find parents for a child that they were unable to raise in a system that doesn’t allow them to make an adoption plan legally. I struggled with how we would handle those types of questions someday for a boy who was adopted from China since there is such a strong stereotype about Chinese boys being wanted with the girls being unwanted.

I still don’t have any really easy answers to those tough questions that might come someday, but I know that Aaron’s birth mother loved him enough to choose birth over abortion. She left a sweet note with him that read, “Poor son was born on June 17, 2005. We can’t afford to raise him. We hope some kind-hearted people could adopt him. Thanks a lot!”

She also chose a very safe, beautiful place for him to be found so that he could be placed into an adopted family. These are all things we are thankful for even though there are so many pieces to his story that will remain unknown.

He was found in the brushwood near a pavilion in a beautiful park on West Lake. Because he was found in the grasses of a park on the water, we immediately thought of baby Moses, who was adopted into a family of another culture and used mightily by God. It is our prayer that Aaron will identify not only with his Chinese past and our family, but also with God’s forever 
family.