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.
This handsome young man enjoys drawing and does well in school. He came into care as a newborn, and his cleft lip and palate were treated surgically in 2005. Hunter has had extensive speech therapy, but his speech is still unclear at times. Well liked by his peers, Hunter was the first child to raise his hand and introduce himself at camp. He needs a family experienced in parenting past his age and who can provide him with the medical care or therapies he may require.
