Weirdness Not Covered in the Manual

Sunday evening, Nov. 27th, I was on my yahoo group that is for us folks that either have adopted or are adopting from the Qianjiang SWI orphanage. There was a new post by a woman who had just returned from China that week. She had adopted a child in 2005 and went back to find her "finding spot" and to visit our orphanage to take pictures and perhaps talk with care takers that may have known her daughter. What she discovered is that our orphanage is now closed and all the children that had been there were moved in mid-September! Where they were moved to...we aren't totally sure. However, we think it is the new huge facility called Chongqing Love Manor over in Chongqing. It is the largest orphanage...well, anywhere, I believe. UNICEF partnered with China to build it and are hoping it will stand as a new model for orphan care. What they are doing is hiring married couples without children to come in and live at the orphanage and form family groups. Each couple is given 2-3 children in their family groups. It is an amazing venture for China. Not all children are being put in family groups and we have no way of knowing if our little Hope is in a family group...or even in that orphanage. It is highly likely she is there though. And if she is, we'd like to believe that it is a good move for her. It's weird to think that the place I thought she was residing at when China offered her to us, she was NOT in fact residing there. I had her in my mind moving about in a multi-story pink building in Qianjiang and it had already been shut down and abandoned at the time of Hope's referral. It feels like she was moved the day I found out, when in reality she has been in the new orphanage for a little over 2 months now. It's hard to explain.

It's the not knowing that grates my nerves. I mean, I know she is being cared for somewhere. But it was nice to wrap my head around a building and location...an address if you will. As a Momma, you just want to know where your kids are. I called my social worker to give her the news. She wasn't "shocked" per se, after all we are talking about China here, but it was new news to her. She is going to check will our liaison Lily in China to see if we can get an update on Hope. She also mentioned that this transition is likely why we have yet to receive an update. Of course now, it may be even harder to get an update since they just moved 500 children to this new orphanage. Who knows if Hope was among those children. Plus with all the newness of this model and such I'm thinking updating waiting American's is not high on their list of things to do. So again...more waiting and not knowing. It wasn't like we weren't warned of weirdness in international adoption...we were warned. However, I never read in any manual or training resource that my child might be moved from the only orphanage they have ever known to some undisclosed location; mayhaps even to a location recently built by UNICEF that will serve as a new orphan care model for all of China. :0)

Having said all of this, the move and her care is not what upsets me the most. What actually upset me was the dashing of all my expectations on the rocks and the possibility losing a huge chunk of Hope's history. Well, in fact, we did lose a lot of her history now that we can never visit the functioning orphanage. Not to say that they would have let us go to the orphanage when we went to go get her. We may not have been allowed to visit and would have to make a subsequent trip to China to be able to tour it and meet the staff. Who knows if the staff would still be there if we returned years later. All these things I know. The real bummer for me is the questions book that I had made for Hope that would help give us some insight into the time she spent there. If none of her care workers followed her to the new orphanage (wherever that is) then we don't have access to anyone that previously cared for her. Hence, sending the book for the care workers to fill out for us is sorta pointless if they never knew Hope until September 2011. So my prayer is that one person, just one person is still with her that has known her from the beginning; and that we will somehow have access to that person. I wait expectantly for the miracle of knowledge to Hope's past and I realize that miracle may never come this side of heaven...but it will come.

So now I am waiting for the questions book to arrive and I have to go buy a soft sided picture book to place family pictures in, as well as some disposable cameras. Then I will box it up, send it to Lily, and then pray she gets it to Hope soon. I know this post sounds really "down" but in actuality I'm not "down" at all. I am quite settled in my spirit and I know that if God's eye is on the sparrow then he surely is looking out for our baby girl. I don't fear for her, in fact, I know that God is preparing her heart and her soul for the move to her forever family. God is faithful and good and we could not be in a better place than in his embrace. Praise be to God who was NOT surprised by this move and who likely orchestrated it anyway!

PA Approval

Okay so we got our PA (Pre- Approval) from China yesterday. This means that China officially is going to begin processing Hope Lynn's adoption and that they consider her to be ours. YAY! While we have known in our hearts she has been ours since the day we saw her, (Wow! Was that only a week ago when she stole our hearts?!) we needed China to "confirm" what we already knew to be true. Whew. Glad it came so quickly and that they didn't freakishly refuse us. So now I am in care package madness...what to send, when to send, how much to send, what can we afford to send. I had already ordered her lovies two days before we got our PA. We love the Angel Dear "blankies" (13"x13") and napping blankets (29"x29"), they are "cashmere soft". Both Noah and Eden have their own Angel Dear lovies. Noah started with a bear, then got a dog, monkey and later bought an elephant with his own money. Eden is primarily a giraffe, but pink lamb was gifted to her. Hope is going to be a pink striped zebra. I got her 3 lovies (gotta have back ups) a napping blanket and a rattle. I realize she is old for a rattle but she likes toys that make noise and all of these things are freakishly soft so they are fun to cuddle.

I Can't Figure Out Privacy on this Blog!!!

I think I might be annoying my friends and family about my blog. I have no idea how to set up permissions and I don't want to have my blog just open to the world, especially since our sweet Hope is a sn child. I don't need ugly comments about cleft lip and well adoption in general. I realize I can set the comments to "review comments first." But still I might have to read mean ones to deny and who wants to do that? I have sent out invitations to the blog before but some people that I previously invited can't access the blog now. So I deleted all the readers and re-invited everyone again. So if you got an annoying re-invite and don't have problems accessing the blog...sorry. I wish the had passwords set up that you can send the password to anyone who wants to read it.

Introducing Hope “Qian Ya” Lynn

 

  

We couldn't be more thrilled! Here is our newest DAUGHTER!!! I still can't believe it! It has been a weird week to say the least and this is how it all started...a phone call from Amy our social worker Monday morning, Nov. 7, 2011. She called and said there was a strange development and a little girl was going to be released soon and they were "watching" her. They did not have her file, meaning they didn't have the rights to her file yet. Their liaison in China, Lily, was going to attempt to secure her file for us if we wanted her. Amy told me she was born June 30, 2010 and her special need was a bi-lateral cleft lip and palete, that's it. Then she asked if I wanted to see her file...meaning photos and all information they had on her till this point, medical assessments etc. Without hesitation I said YES! So I've had these photos above for 4 days now. Amy very clearly warned me to "guard my heart." They didn't know if they would be able to secure her file. I would know something in about a week. I received the email and before I opened it I sent it to Eric and called him. We opened the email at the same time and instantly fell in love with her. Her beautiful dark eyes jumped off that picture and into my heart. I was immediately smitten with her. While bi-lateral cleft lip can be startling to see it was clear she was a beautiful little girl. I read her documentation along with Eric and what follows is taken directly from her file.

1 Process of picking up: Qian Ya (pronounced Chien Ya), female, was found at the gate of the gym in Qianjiang District of Chongqing City on Jun 30, 2010 which was reported to police at once. The police station of public security bureau of Qianjiang District of Chongqing City sent policemen to go to investigate the event. The search by the police station failed to find her birth parents. After all of the procedures were finished, she was sent to Social Welfare Center of Qianjiang District of Chongqing City to be raised upon agreement of civil affairs bureau of Qianjiang District of Chongqing City.

2 In the early days in the institute: On admission the baby wore a baby’s suit without any belongings. The medical staff in Women and Children’s Healthcare Hospital of Qianjiang District did PE for her: height: 45 cm (17.7 inches) weight: 2.9 kg (6.39 lbs), head size: 32 cm (12.6 inches), loud and bright crying, clear mind, regular five organs, normal heart and lungs, deformity of lips and is a child with cleft lip and palate. According to physical growth and umbilical part, medical staff decided her DOB as Jun 30, 2010. She was named Qian Chunlan. Qian means Qian River, Ya is a nice name.

A big prayer of mine answered...she was found the day she was born! Praise you Jesus that you didn't let her sit out alone, cold and hungry for 2 days before someone found her and took care of her!

3. Development; 1) Physical Development: She lives in the institute and adopts a group living and fed by people and supplemented with vitamins and trace elements. Under the good care, at the age of 2 months, she can open her hands to grasp things. At the age of 3 months, she can laugh aloud. Now (at 13 months) she is 69 cm (27.16 inches) in height, 43 cm (16.92 inches) in chest size, 8.6 kg (18.95 lbs) in weight, and 45 cm (17.7 inches) in head size. Now she is in babbling and likes to crawl in the bed. When you approach her, she would give you her hands to ask a cuddling. When you tease her, she would smile. When you call her, she would turn over her head to seek the sounds. She would be very happy at the sight of food. She is very interested in toys making sounds.

4. Comprehensive assessment: She is delicate and pretty, has a ready smile, mild, compliant, active and restless. Although she has deformity, she would grow healthily like other children in the institute. She would not be discriminated. She has normal physical and mental developing and she is very adorable.

We sent her pictures and such to 4 people: My mom, Holly Powell, Cathy Martin, & Brandi Dixon, oh and I showed Lynda one of my favorite Mom's at Noah's gymnastics. We asked for prayer and then we waited. That evening as Eric and I were praying for God's will in both our lives and in the life of Qian Ya, I told Eric, "I know I should guard my heart but I feel like she is ours." Eric replied, "I know, that's because she is our baby." He had spent a majority of his day that day researching what her name meant and the ins and outs of her special needs. I had not. He was certain she was ours.

This morning, Nov. 10, 2011, at 8:11 a.m. Amy called me. When I answered the phone she said, "Hello...we got her." I couldn't breathe. Amy continued in the awkward silence..."Do you need to sit down? You okay?" I laughed and squeeked out that I was okay. "Lily got her file and she is locked in for you guys." Still not much noise out of me, I was in shock. We laughed again and she told me some more details I can't recall that aren't important and then said it was her day off but she was coming into the office to send out LOI (Letter of Intent) to Lily today. I countered her and said she didn't need to do that but she reminded me of our 72 hour window and told me she would feel better knowing that it was taken care of today. Can I tell you how much we LOVE Amy?! She then directed me to call Dr. Jennifer Chambers at the International Adoption Clinic here in Birmingham and get her file reviewed. While Amy did not see anything striking on the file other than cleft lip and palate she advised me to have the clinic review it for us. While this is not mandatory, it is wise, and Eric and I had planned to do this regardless when we got our referral. However, had Amy not mentioned it I would have forgotten about it in my state of shock. So after two phone calls, 3 emails, $450.00, and 3 hours...I was on the phone with Dr. Chambers discussing my child's file...but I'll get to that in a minute.

I called Eric and he answered glummly...I said only this..."We got her!" With his voice rising in both pitch and volume he replied, "Whhhhaaaattt!?" And then he chuckled. I told him I had to call the clinic and get an expensive evaluation done for her and he replied, "Make it happen." We chatted a bit more and he had to go. Then I called Mom, who didn't answer either phone. I then called Dad, who was getting his tires changed at the time but the truck was coming off the lift as we talked. He was excited and quickly got off the phone so he could go find Mom at workout and tell her the news. I need to interject here that my Dad has never gone to my Mom's gym, for any reason. When he showed up at the door of her Yoga class that was in the middle of the relaxation phase, she had to cross the entire room to get to him. She was sure that someone had been injured or died. He told her and she reports wanting to scream but since it was the relaxation period in her class, she didn't feel it appropriate so she just cried instead and then had to explain quietly to the class that all was well. Back to my story...I tired Holly, Cathy, and Brandi and got voicemail for all three. Are you kidding me?! Mom called back in later as did Cathy and Holly; Brandi shot me a text. My Mom apparently had Qian Ya's picture up on her computer all 3 days and told me today that she felt that Qian Ya was ours. My Dad even chimed in that he felt it too, as did Cathy, Brandi and Holly! So what an amazing leading of the Holy Spirit to move in so many people and give us all quiet confirmation that Qian ya would join us all soon!

I went to Eric's office to get signatures from him for 2 more forms Lifeline would need later but I just wanted to see him and get the forms done. While there Dr. Chambers called me back. It was a great phone call. She basically told me that Qian Ya looked great, she has anemia but that is not a shock. Other than her stated special need she looked fine. She even is tracking at the 10th percentile on American growth charts! She told me that Qian Ya is likely to be bigger than Eden. Also, a cool thing to note, Dr. Chamber's daughters are from the same area as our daughter! She has a vested interest in that area and does mission work there and such. She told me that it is an area with two of the minority people groups of China and that Qian Ya is likely one of those two groups, she apparently looks like those of that region. So I am going to keep her in the loop about our trip and of course I will be taking Qian Ya to her when we get home with her.

We haven't told Noah as of the writing of this blog. We are guardedly optimistic, he is a compassionate, kind-hearted, young boy but he IS seven after all. He was initially confused by her photos and expressed concern but then would defend her if I said anything that remotely sounded negative. So I believe he will come around quickly.

So now we wait...we wait about 3 months for China to officially get her through their system and offer her to us formally (LOA-Letter of Acceptance) and then another 3 months or so for the U.S. to accept her and get her put in as a U.S. citizen and then we travel. So the really hard part starts now...waiting...knowing she is out there and we can't get to her yet. Lord keep her safe and healthy until you bring her home to us!

Log In Date!!!

October 26, 2011 is our official log in date for China! Yay! It's a big step because it allows us to begin the matching process! The October shared list came out last night and there was not a match for us on that list. Apparently it was an unusually small list and China is going through some "growing pains" is what is our social worker said. I don't know what that means but I am excited nonetheless. So now we wait upon the Lord to reveal to us in his timing the child he picked out before He created the world to be in our family. We are in prayer about who our child will be and dream of when we will all be together. We pray peace for our hearts in the waiting.