Adoption Again

I really have no idea where to start world's longest blog post.  There are quite a few people out there who know about this but there are lots of others I haven't even mentioned it to.  I think I wanted to keep it quiet for a while.  Because of our infertility issues we have always been very forthcoming with information that we might have otherwise kept private.  When your family and friends are hoping and praying you are getting a baby it's just cruel to keep them waiting.  Now after about 10 years of trying to grow our family I feel like we've come full circle.  After failed fertility treatments ending in a natural pregnancy, a domestic adoption, and successful IVF we have three amazing boys.  Now we are truly trying it all and are adding a beautiful baby girl to our family through international adoption....that's right we are adopting a baby girl from China!  We hope to travel in the next 8 weeks or so to bring her home.

Without further adieu here's our soon-to-be newest addition Leah Mei.

Leah was born in Nanyang, Henan, China on November 6, 2010.  She recently celebrated her first and last birthday as an orphan.  She is currently in foster care under the direction of the Nanyang Social Welfare Institute (her orphanage).  Her Chinese name is Dang Mei.  In China surnames, Dang in her case, are first.  Apparently, that is the surname given to all children in her orphanage.  Her first name is Mei (pronounced May).  Mandarin Chinese is quite confusing and characters are used in combination to mean different things but the character used in her name means rose.  We like the name Leah (pronounced lee-uh) and we are keeping Mei as her middle name.  We have been referring to her as Baby Mei for nearly the last three months so that will definitely stick.  In fact, the kids are still warming up to Leah and Luke says he's going to call her Katie!

Despite the fact that I have yet to write down a word about this we have been consumed by this process for months.  Our travel date is now fast approaching, and I feel like I have really neglected recording all the details and emotions of this process, but on the other hand it has been nice to savor it ourselves.  The time has come though and I'm worried my memory will fail me, so I want to get it all down to share with my daughter someday.

This process began for us back in March of 2011.  We attended a seminar for couples adopting through LDSFS.  At the seminar we heard the bleak news about numbers of placements, available babies, etc.  They presented us with information about other agencies and programs.  I left that night with my old doubts and somewhat guilty feelings about adopting again through LDS.  Looking around that room there were so many childless couples and couples that financially might only be able to adopt with LDS. I questioned again whether we should be throwing our hats into that ring when we have been so blessed with our boys.  Jer and I started to talk other options.

International adoption is something that wasn't really in my realm of serious consideration (for lots of reasons) when we adopted the first time but now I found myself really thinking about it.  After some internet research it immediately seemed that the most stable, reliable program was with China, and I was captivated by the beautiful Chinese children.  Sadly there are over half a million Chinese orphans.  It didn't take long for me to find out that the traditional Chinese adoption program has all but ground to a halt.  What used to take less than 2 years now takes 7 plus.  A couple putting their papers in now could realistically wait 8 years or more for a referral!  I was sad to think we had lost our chance.

A little more reading though led me to the Waiting Child program.  This is a program for Chinese children with identified special needs.  The referral process is different, and the timeline is much quicker. I'll be totally honest--the term "special need" was pretty scary at first.  A speedier timeline is obviously not a reason to go this route.  After some discussion and a look at the types of needs we may be asked to consider we realized that this was something we were open to.  I must add here that Jer is so awesome and when I bring up these seemingly crazy (at first) ideas he is quick to get on board and be supportive. We researched some agencies and chose the one that our neighbors used to adopt their daughter who is Luke's age.  It has been a great choice and since we submitted our initial application in April there has been no looking back.

One of the first steps was to submit a medical checklist.  This is where you check yes, no, or maybe to a variety of conditions. This was hard.  Both Jer and I felt guilty as we checked no to lots of things, but we also knew we needed to be realistic and consider our capability and our young family.  We ended up with a pretty restricted list open to some fairly minor and/or correctable conditions.  We began working on our home study in May and were done with our four home visits and all the paperwork by the beginning of June.  We had to use a local agency for this part and ran into some trouble (that could be a whole other post but I have cooled off by now so I'll take the high road), but we eventually got our home study back at the end of July.

 I must say that the amount of paperwork involved in this process has been incredible.  It puts a domestic adoption to shame.  It has been extremely overwhelming at times.  We have been fingerprinted and background checked at the local, state, and federal levels.  Jer's old "shooting the sling shot on the mission" incident even required some additional paperwork.  We have accounted for our whereabouts and actions in every place we've each lived since the age of 18.  We have disclosed every aspect of our marriage, finances, home life...you get the idea.  It is an invasive process.  I also was introduced to the process of "sealing" all our official documents i.e. marriage license, birth certificates, etc. which involves getting them notarized, sending them off to your state Secretary of State, then the US State Department, and then the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. via a courier.  Jer's coworker is a notary and that has been a lifesaver.  We got physicals including blood work, and we participated in 10 hours of online adoption training which was actually very informative.  Once we had our home study in hand we were able to send in our I800A which is the initial immigration paperwork you file with United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS).  In the meantime we sent everything else in our dossier (the collection of documents you present to China) to our agency for review.  When we received our USCIS approval we got a copy sealed and sent the last few things to our agency.  They reviewed it quickly and submitted our dossier to China on October 21, 2011.  I have become very familiar with both the post office and the UPS store, and I have rushed to the mailbox or front door in anticipation quite a few times now.

The awesome thing is that in the meantime we received a referral!  I knew we would need to be very close to complete on our dossier to get a referral because we wanted a girl around 12-18 months.  Believe it or not, in the Waiting Child program as opposed to Chinese adoptions in general, there are more boys available.  On October 6, 2011, we got that life changing call from our agency.  I was totally shocked it had happened so soon.  Sarah from our agency asked us if we would be interested in reviewing the file of a little girl.  She told me her name, dob, area of China, and read to me a little from the short bio they have on her.  She also told me that her special need was a missing lower left arm.  This was a need we had identified as a "maybe" on our list, and I was a little surprised.  I told her we absolutely wanted to look at it, and she told me she would email everything they had including a few pictures.

When I checked my email a few minutes later I opened up the picture above and the one below as well as a head shot and a close up of her arm.  I immediately thought she was beautiful, my eyes were swimming, and I couldn't believe it.  I forwarded it to Jer at work.  He called me a few minutes later and we both agreed she was an amazing little girl.  We certainly made it a matter of prayer and much discussion, but we both fell hard for her right away.  It has been our feeling all along that the referral process is not arbitrary.  We were given Leah's referral for a reason.  She was meant to be ours. We talked it over endlessly that night and the next day, prayed intensely, consulted two different pediatricians, and decided to tell the boys about it the following Monday.    They were so excited--Luke in particular.  We asked them if they noticed anything different about her picture and Luke immediately mentioned her arm.  We asked them how they felt about it, and they had questions but were not overly concerned.  They do think about it and Seth has asked me several times "why God made her that way," but they have no doubts about bringing her home and loving her as their little sister.  I too have spent lots of time researching her special need (more about this in a new post) and just pondering in general about these special Chinese children.  (About 85% of kids in Chinese orphanages have a special need.)  I haven't come to any conclusions, but I do know that a loving Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us and for whatever reason this is part of Leah's plan.  I know she must have been a very valiant soul to be sent to Earth under challenging circumstances, and I'm convinced my baby girl is a fighter already.  She is a child of God, and I can't wait to let her know that and make her a part of our forever family.

We have since realized that all children from Leah's orphanage have one of these green background pictures...often in this same basket. I'm glad that Leah is wearing a diaper--many of them I've seen have Chinese split pants on with nothing underneath.  And the black smudge on her nose is just in the picture...she has a perfect little nose!

We told our parents, TJ and Amy, and a few close friends and neighbors right away but otherwise have kept this news mostly to ourselves until the last month or so.  Our families have been so supportive and are excited for this new grandbaby.  We are all anxious to bring her home and it has been difficult to see her birthday and the holidays come and go with her still in China.  The process is moving along as quickly as it can, it's just not fast enough!

Well the adversary always tries to stop good things from happening, and we have had our share of roadblocks in this process.  Above and beyond her arm a big concern for us was (and is) Leah's size.  Our pediatricians were convinced the stats we received initially could not be at six months.  Her labs looked good but her weight was just over 8 lbs.  Shortly after we sent our Letter of Intent (LOI) to China on October 14, 2011 we received an update.  This confirmed the fact that her size stats were correct and incredibly tiny.  In October at 11 months Leah weighed just over 12 lbs and was just over 25 inches long--obviously the size of a much younger baby.  We were worried and a 30 second video clip we received added to our worries.  On the one hand Leah responds to her caregivers and smiles in the video which was great, but she also seemed to always clench her hand and we never saw her open it or use it.  We were worried that maybe her only hand was dysfunctional in some way.  We were absolutely heartsick but told our agency we needed more information about her hand.  The boys had been praying for baby Mei nightly and were already asking when their sister was coming home.  It was gut wrenching because we felt we were in limbo.  As this was happening we received our pre approval (PA) from China on October 25, 2011.  This basically locked Leah's file to us and made her unavailable to anyone else.

Our agency was so wonderful.  They validated our concerns and wanted us to have the information we needed.  Unfortunately even in this digital age it is not easy to communicate with Chinese orphanages.  Updates are few and far between and at the orphanage's discretion.  After over three agonizing weeks, including a very sad discussion with our boys about the possibility that Leah may not be ours, we received the much needed update.  It was in the form of a few sentences and another short video.  It shows Leah reaching out for a wrapped candy and bringing it to her mouth.  Her hand seems to function normally, and the information states that she uses it to hold her bottle, pick up objects, etc.

These are a few pictures from our October update.  This is Leah at 11 months old.

Leah with her foster mom.  Her head looks quite flat on the back which is common among orphaned babies because they spend a lot of time lying on their backs unattended.

She has such beautiful, somber eyes.  They look right into you.  I'm hoping we can put a smile on her face soon.

Chinese children from Nanyang are always dressed in these puffy suits.  Yes, those tiny baby socks are baggy on her.  After receiving the update we consulted with the doctors once again.  They agreed she was extremely small but didn't think it indicated a larger problem.  They felt like her development was okay for a baby in an institutional setting (developmental delays are very common among Chinese orphans).  Basically their final opinion was that she was a very small, beautiful girl that should be able to grow and thrive in a family situation.

At 11 months Leah could:
**roll over
**sit up
**stand up with help
**say mama and baba
**hold her bottle and pick up objects
**smile and laugh
**respond to her name and babble
**had two teeth, main food was milk

I still worry about her incessantly, but ultimately the decision was not really about medical opinions it was about the spirit and what we felt was right.  We know Leah is meant to be a part of our family, and we are prepared to cross further bridges as we come to them.  It is our hope that she will develop and thrive in a loving, nurturing family.  We are taking a leap of faith.  I must say though that I think about her constantly.  She is always at the back of my mind which is what I attribute my current "brain deadness" to--it's worse than pregnancy brain.  I wonder what she is doing, if she is growing, if she is being loved.  I pray constantly for her well being and ask Heavenly Father to open her heart to love us.  Please feel free to join us in praying for Leah.  I so appreciate the love and faith of others on her behalf.

In the midst of our little crisis we received the awesome news that our dossier was logged in in China very quickly.  Our official Log In Date (LID) was October 26, 2011.  That is a huge step in this process!  At that point we were told our wait to bring her home would be 4-6 months.  Fortunately Leah is in foster care and has been since shortly after she entered the orphanage when she was only a few weeks old.  It seems that she is attached to her foster mother.  I am so grateful she has had this relationship in her life.  I am so sad to tear her away from it.  I love this picture of the two of them together.  My heart aches for the sadness they will both feel when it is time for Leah to come home, but I am so happy that she has been loved and should be able to bond with us because of this relationship.  Her foster care is sponsored through our agency, and we have now taken that over.  Believe it or not, for only $40 a month you can provide for the needs of a Chinese child.

I wish I had more pictures to complete this post, but we haven't got any updates since the beginning of November.  I check my email multiple times per day hoping for one.  We have sent her two care packages now, and I don't even know if she has received them.  Please.  Please.  Please.  In the meantime I have been busy  with the never ending paperwork.  The next big milestone was the Letter Seeking Confirmation from Adopter (LOA) which we received from China on December 5, 2011--reducing the timeline to 11-15 weeks.  This was an exciting one, and I should have taken a picture of this event.  Jer and I signed this official document that has our names and Dang Mei's on it and sent it back to our agency for return to China.  At this point we also submitted our I800 to USCIS.  This typically takes 2-4 weeks to process, and I just received our I800 provisional approval today!  We are getting close now.  We now continue to do more paperwork, get visas, and eventually receive our travel approval.  At that point we can organize our trip.  We will be traveling to China for two weeks!  I am dying about leaving the boys for that long, but I am so anxious to go and meet Leah.  It will be nice to have the uninterrupted time to bond with her before we get back to our crazy house!

There's no way to write about this entire experience in one entry, but this is a good start.  Now I need to start writing frequently with more details and updates.  I hope this post hasn't sounded too clinical.  This has been a very emotionally charged process filled with lots of ups and downs.  I am just now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about holding my baby girl soon.  I really am longing just to hold her close and tell her I love her.  It's hard to think of your baby so far away, living in poverty, without her family.  I have learned a lot throughout this process, and it has certainly been an experience that has helped me grow in a lot of ways.  It has opened my eyes to orphans and to a culture I knew next to nothing about.  I have truly been touched by the experiences of other families that I have talked to and read about on blogs.  This process has blessed so many lives, and it is about to bless ours!  It will be so nice when our days of Googling Earth and reading blogs of others who have adopted from China to get inspiration and find scraps of information are in the past, and we are holding our baby in the flesh.   Pray for our sweet baby Mei.