In honor of National Glaucoma Awareness Month, the waiting children with glaucoma shared over the next few days are eligible for an additional $1,000 grant with Madison Adoption Associates. It is Madison’s hope and prayer that these grants will help ease some of the financial burden so that families can say “Yes!”

(If you haven’t already seen Harlow’s post, you can find it here.)

Thadd is an adorable little boy, born in August of 2012. Thadd’s nannies want to cuddle and kiss him whenever they see his big eyes and smile. They say that he’s still adorable even when he is angry and stomps his feet. When he’s upset, Thadd’s nannies cuddle him and he will quickly return to will smiling and playing. Thadd enjoys watching TV, playing with cups and spoons, and playing in the water. He likes to hold onto his quilt tightly when he sleeps.

Thadd was born with glaucoma and received surgery for it in March of 2016. His caregivers were given eye drops for him to use afterwards. At first he was very sensitive to light after surgery but, with time, his vision has improved.

He is also listed as having esotropia and choroidal detachment of his right eye. Thadd has been attending preschool at his orphanage. He is very curious about new things and loves to play. Thadd can feed himself with a spoon and drink from a cup. His speech was said to be delayed at the time his file was prepared, but he loves music and signing.

We’re hoping to see about getting an update to see how Thadd is doing now!

January is Glaucoma Awareness Month, and to celebrate that, Thadd now has a $1,500 agency grant for his adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year (January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Thadd needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Thadd, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

In honor of National Glaucoma Awareness Month, the waiting children with glaucoma shared over the next few days are eligible for an additional $1,000 grant with Madison Adoption Associates. It is Madison’s hope and prayer that these grants will help ease some of the financial burden so that families can say “Yes!”

Beautiful Harlow was born in April 2013 and found abandoned when she was about a month old. Harlow’s original report said: Harlow giggles when she is tickled and enjoys listening to music and playing with dolls. She loves to hold her doll in her arms and play with it too. She is close to her caregivers and likes when they play with her. Her caretakers describe her as smiley and extroverted.

Harlow has been diagnosed with congenital retinal degeneration. She is blind, but she does have some light sensitivity. Harlow really has untreated glaucoma, despite what her file says. Harlow often rubs her eyes due to the pain of the untreated eyes. Harlow is not walking yet, but she could scoot around in a baby walker, sit independently, crawl, and stand with support. She was babbling, but was not saying many words. Harlow can locate the directions of sounds. She can feed herself finger foods, like steamed buns, and hold her bottle to drink.

In March of 2017, MAA received a very hard to read update for Harlow – probably one of the worst updates we have ever received for a child. You can see that full update below.

Precious Harlow desperately needs a family to pour love into her and get her the medical care she so very much needs!

You can see a March 2017 video here and an older video from when she was going by a different advocacy name.

Written update from March 2017:

1. How is her mental ability compared to peers of the same age?
Her hearing and vision are affected. Low mental ability.

2. How does the special need affect her health?
It affects everything.

3. Is she potty trained?
She’s in diapers.

4. Please describe her personality in details.
No personality.

5. Is she well behaved and obedient?
She likes rubbing her eyes and is not very obedient.

6. How are her gross motor skills? Can she walk, run, jump, and walk upstairs and downstairs by herself? Can she kick a ball? Can she pick up a ball? Any limited functions?
She can do a lot in the crib. She cannot walk by herself. She does not like being trained to walk.

7. How are her fine motor skills? Can she draw or scribble on paper? Can she pick up little things with her fingers?
She cannot see, so she cannot do these.

8. Is she in any kind of school? If so, what school? Can she catch up in school?
No.

9. How is her emotional development? Is the child attached to anyone? Who is she close to? Does she care for other people?
She cannot see or hear. She plays by herself and is not attached to anyone.

10. How are her social skills? Does she get along well with other children and adults?
She plays by herself.

11. Is she under foster care or living in the orphanage?
Orphanage.

12. Updated Measurements:
Height：1.05 m
Weight：15.8 kg
Head circ：48.1 cm
Chest circ：50.1 cm
Number of Teeth: 20

13. How is the language ability of the child? What can she say? Can she speak one word, two words or sentences? Can she express her needs well? Is her language ability the same as peers of the same age?
She isn’t talking.

14. Can the child follow directions of adults? One step, two steps, or three steps?
No.

15. Anything else you think the family should know about the child?
No.

16. Is the child on any medication?
No.

Sarah Hansen in MAA’s home office wrote this blog about Harlow upon receiving this devastating update.

Harlow has over $4,000 in grants via Reece’s Rainbow and a $1,500 agency grant for her adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year (January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Harlow needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Harlow, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Ella, born in April of 2012, is described as the happiest girl at the orphanage. Diagnosed with delays and an abnormal CT scan, she has updated photos, videos and information that paint a picture of how very well she is doing now.

Someone who has met and spent a lot of time with Ella over the years shared their thoughts about her:

Ella’s name fits as you can see from her photos. She is beautiful. She loves to be held and puts her arms up as soon as I walk in the room. And as much as her name sounds dainty, she is a chunky monkey! And honestly, she will go to anyone who will just love on her. She is adored by everyone. She has the best cheeks for kissing, and is willing to let you kiss all over them..and her belly and anything else you are willing to love on. Her belly laughs are contagious.

Shaylyn loves Ella. She said sometimes Ella sleepwalks and climbs in her bed. I don’t think that bothers her one bit. She is like a little mama to her and she wants me to see all the cuteness that is Ella too! I love Ella. Everybody loves Ella! I don’t understand epilepsy or seizures or the effects of all that, but I do understand that this sweet girl needs a family to love her through life. She is going to bless the hearts of whoever has her, no matter what her medical file says.

According to Ella’s file, she came into care at the approximate age of two. Her birth family had left medical records indicating that she had epilepsy. She had no seizures for awhile after coming into care, but she did eventually have some when she got a cold or was in poor physical condition. The seizures would happen over a period of 5-6 days and last for 2-3 minutes each. She was taken to the doctor and prescribed oxcarbazepine, 1/2 tablet for each seizure, vitamin B, one tablet each time, and a magnesium Valproate Sustained Release Tablet, 1/2 tablet each time.

She is a good eater and sleeper. Ella loves to be loved on. She wants to be held and to hold her caretakers hands. She also loves playing in and with water. She can say mama and she can imitate the caretaker’s simple words and when counting. She knows what number comes after 1 and what number comes after 3.

She can feed herself, but does need some assistance with toileting. Ella can follow simple instructions and she likes playing with other kids and scribbling with water color pens. Ella likes being pretty. She really likes to wear beautiful clothes and comb her hair.

Since being on medication, she has had no epileptic seizures for a long time. As long as she stays healthy and is not sick, her epilepsy is well managed. Ella’s file officially diagnoses her as having delays and a CT scan showed dysplasia of white matter in the brain – all other areas were normal.

New videos of Ella can be seen here:
Ella 1
Ella 2

Written update from November 29, 2018:

1.How is her mental ability compared to peers of the same age?
Behind

2. How does the special need affect her health?
She catches colds easily. Once she catches a cold, she will have seizures and looks sick. She needs to rest for a long time.

3. Is she potty trained?
Yes, but sometimes she needs to be reminded.

4. Please describe her personality in details.
She is quiet, easygoing, and a cute little girl.

5. Is she well behaved and obedient?
She is well behaved and obedient.

6. How are her gross motor skills? Can she walk, run, jump, or walk upstairs and downstairs by herself? Can she kick a ball? Can she pick up a ball? Any limited functions?
She can walk, run, jump, and go upstairs and downstairs. No limitations.

7. How are her fine motor skills? Can she draw or scribble on paper? Can she pick up little things with her fingers?
She can scribble, draw, and can pick up tiny objects. No limitations.

8. Is she in any kind of school? If so, what school? Can she catch up in school?
She is receiving pre-school in the orphanage.

9. How is her emotional development? Is the child attached to anyone? Who is she close to? Does she care for other people?
She is bonded to familiar caretakers and to her teachers. She is easygoing and obedient.

10. How are her social skills? Does she get along well with other children and adults?
She can get along well with others.

11. Is she under foster care or living in the orphanage?
She lives in the orphanage.

12. Updated Measurements:
Height:108 cm
Head circ: 49 cm
Chest circ: 54.5 cm
Foot length: 17 cm
Weight: 17.5 kg
Number of teeth: 12 on top and 12 on bottom

13. How is the language ability of the child? What can she say? Can she speak one word, two words or sentences? Can she express her needs well? Is her language ability the same as peers of the same age?
Her language is very delayed compared to peers of the same age. She can only say two characters each time, like “mama,” “ayi,” or “gege.” She can follow the teachers to count numbers. She cannot express herself well.

14. Can the child follow directions of adults? One step, two steps, or three steps?
She can understand simple directions, like going somewhere, come here, take the water cup here, etc.

15. Is the child on any medication?
She is on anti epilepsy medicine: 1. Magnesium Valproate Sustained Release Tablets 2. Oxcarbazepine Tablets, one pill per day, one time a day.

16. What is the daily schedule of the child?
7:00 get up
8:00 breakfast
12:00 lunch
6:00 dinner
15:00-16:30 pre school
21:00 go to bed

17. What does the child eat? Can she feed herself? Does the child eat with chopsticks, a spoon, or a bottle?
She eats noodles and buns for breakfast. She eats rice, meat, and vegetables for dinner. She can feed herself with chopsticks and a spoon.

18. Does the child know any English?
No

19. Does the child want to be adopted? Does the child understand what adoption means?
She does not understand.

20. What color does the child like?
No preference

21. What activity does the child like to do?
She likes playing with other children, running, biking, and patting the balls.

22. What is the favorite toy of the child?
Balls

Ella is from a former Madison partnership orphanage. There is a $1,000 agency grant for Ella’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year (January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

If you are interested in reviewing Ella’s file or in adopting Ella, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Keane, born June of 2011, is a smart boy with bright eyes and the sweetest, shy smile.

Keane was born with meningocele and hydrocephalus. He has had surgery to treat both. A recent update, which included this photo (below) and this video, reported that he is very respectful to adults in his life and that he is independent with his self-care. His caretakers say that he is not a picky eater and that he likes talking with other people.

Keane has normal motor development. He can run, jump, go up and down stairs, and play sports. He participates in outdoor activities daily. He attends kindergarten in a public school setting.

Keane has normal communication and language skills. He is very helpful at school and with his caretakers, often helping them to do things he can do. He helps on his own initiative even!

Keane sounds like an amazing little boy who would do so well in a forever family!

Be sure not to miss the adorable video of Keane singing and dancing here.

There is a $500 agency grant with Madison Adoption Associates for Keane’s adoption. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year (January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Keane needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Keane, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Do you have friends who are a newly adoptive family and want to show them some love? (If they are still in the paperwork process, start here.)

Every family is unique, but one thing is certain: they needed you while they were in process and they need you now. Their knees are wobbly because the ground keeps shifting beneath their feet. They have pushed, prayed and hustled their way through a grueling paperwork process, survived a beautifully exhausting adoption trip, and are finally home. Ideally, it would be rest time, but nope. It’s go time in a big way with their new child. It’s the celebratory finish line of a marathon. But, before you can fire the confetti cannon, they’re neck deep in the exhaustingly beautiful work of transitioning as a family.

These are some ways that your family can help carry the weight in a way that fits your wiring. Meals are incredible, but there are many other ways to serve and support. The key is moving beyond, “Let me know what I can do.”“Love does.”

1. Grace. Drop off a bag of paper plates, cups, and bowls, with a note saying, “Treat yourself to lots grace. This is not easy. For however messy your house is, grace. For how frazzled you feel as a parent, grace. For whatever feelings pop up, grace. For any tasks you aren’t getting to, grace.”

2. Prayer. Pray like crazy and then let them know you’ve been on your knees. Ask, “How can I be praying now that you are home?” Add the family’s name to your prayer list and then snap a photo. Or, when you see the family, say, “Our family prayed for you last night.” Send a card with specifics on how you are praying.

3. Laughter. It’s all so weighty with emotions and change. Write a giggle prescription with a funny movie invite, hilarious meme, comedian clip, or ridiculous kid story. Drop off movie candy and a Redbox comedy.

4. Ask questions. Do you want to help, but are unsure how? Tell them. Try, “I really want to stand with you in this. What would help you?” Or, want to talk about how it feels to adopt, but not sure what to say? Try, “I can’t imagine what this process is like for you. How are you feeling? What are you learning?”

The good news? You are off the hook. You aren’t expected to say the right things, or even to relate. Honesty is a gift. Just say, “How is everybody doing with all this change?”

Also, ask about their wishes. Are they planning to follow certain protocol as they work on attachment? Are they keeping their world small? Do they prefer that you not touch or hold their child? Would they prefer that gifts and meals be left at the door? Or, do they want you to come over and stay awhile? Are they feeling trapped and lonely or content and needing family space? When you are out with them, ask, “Do you want to talk about all this, or would you rather escape a bit and laugh?” Ask.

5. Celebrate. Rejoice with them. Send a text full of emojis, show up with celebratory chocolate, or take the family out for ice cream. When hosting a family dinner, or are out with friends, make a toast. Offer a “family addition” gift shower. Sometimes families adopt an older child, and they miss the gift of being “showered” like new parents. The adoption process can be grueling, and everyone likes to feel celebrated.

6. Be a Fairy. Call yourself the “fruit fairy” and drop off a bowl of fresh, cut fruit every now and then, or be the “muffin fairy” on Saturday mornings.

7. Welcome. Airport welcome parties are a fun surprise for weary families. Tie balloons to their mailbox or make a sign for the door. Have your kids write “Welcome the Neighborhood” cards. Drop off a “welcome” basket to the new family member.

8. Support Siblings. Being a sibling in this process is a hard gig. Offer to have them over for the day or take them to a park or movie. Add them into something your family is already doing. Offer a carpool or activity ride. So much centers around the adoption. Giving everyone love and time weighs heavily on the parents, so you’d be a blessing.

9. Listen. They might love to hear, “I’d like to grab some coffee and hear about how all this has been for you.” Or, “Let’s go on a walk and talk about how I can help you through this.” Parents in this process have a thousand thoughts swirling, decisions to make, and faith lessons to process. Offer your ear.

10. Coffee Runner. Sometimes a well timed Starbucks run can be life.

11. Offer grace. Let them “feel their feels” without judgment. Tell them, “I know this is hard.” It’s both a happy and crazy hard time. Know that sometimes, even though a parent has worked hard to adopt their child, the fear, doubt and sadness can come on strong. Post-adoption depression is as common as post-partum depression. Life feels upside down. Acknowledge the duality of the feelings.

12. Laundry Angel. Be the beloved laundry helper. Tell them to leave their laundry on the porch and then return it fresh and folded. If they feel weird about undies, tell them to leave them out and not let that get in the way of help.

13. Learn. Try to understand the process of adding a child who has known trauma to a family. Simply ask, “Will you need to parent differently? How can we support all of you as you adjust?” Attempting to “get” what they are dealing will be appreciated. Be open to learning something new and show them that you don’t assume that this is like having a biological child.

14. Meals. Start a meal train with their food wishes in mind. Do they hate noodles? Gluten free? Would they prefer that meals be placed in a cooler on the porch? Just consider that this family is tired, kid-focused and over extended. They might not have the energy for long chats. They may need the food dropped off by five because small people eat early.

Meal help is huge emotional and physical support. Keep it simple and kid-friendly. It’s ok to hit up the grocery deli or give a gift card.

15. Groceries. Drop off kid-friendly groceries. Stock the fridge while they are on their adoption trip, so they don’t return home foodless. Offer to make a Costco or Publix run. Or, offer to pick up their Walmart.com order. Give a gift certificate for Instacart or Shipt.

16. Cleaning. Pay for a cleaning service. Or, do you love to clean? They’ll love you forever and always.

17. Gifts. Gifts are thoughtful, but never have to be expensive. Consider diapers, clothes, kid toiletries, picture books about adoption, bars of good chocolate or flowers from your yard.

18. Pet Help. Help make those walks happen.

19. Errands. While you are already out, what might they need? A dry-cleaning pick-up?

20. Encourage. Text or send notes over time. Let them know you are thinking of them as they figure out family life.

Know that this family might resist help. I encourage you to gently, but respectfully, push a little, while still respecting their attachment wishes. Accepting help is hard. Some want help but are too overloaded to know what to ask for. Others attack challenges with fierce independence. Try saying, “Please let us bless you and play a part in this special process. If it would help you, let us do this.” That said, if you gently push and they decline, that’s OK. You can simply reply with, “If you change your mind, it would bless us to help. We’ll be on our knees for you.”

You’ve read this list and are pursuing ways to show love to an adoptive family, thank you for being a good friend. They need you.

Photo credit: Unsplash

Alexa is a beautiful girl with so much potential! She was born in June of 2010, but didn’t come into the care of her orphanage until around four years of age. She was very sad, which is to be expected, but gradually adjusted to life in the orphanage. As she adjusted, she became much more optimistic and social.

She is described by her caretakers as cheerful, talkative, calm, sensible, clever, and adorable. She works hard and is very independent. Alexa can take care of her own needs and enjoys helping take care of the other children as well. She has become a big sister figure to many in the orphanage. Her orphanage says she is very smart and that she likes to study. At the time her file was prepared, she could count and write numbers. Alexa likes to draw, sing, play with dolls, and play games in class. She can often be found with a smile on her face too!

Alexa was diagnosed as having disabled lower limbs. She uses a walker to get around. Her hands and arms are flexible. She has a good appetite and is not a picky eater. Alexa is a very determined young lady who is going to thrive in a family with access to the resources she needs.

A new video of Alexa can be found here.

Written update from December 2018:

1. How is her mental ability compared to peers of the same age?
She has normal intelligence and good learning ability. She is able to quickly master new things and has a strong curiosity and initiative.

2. How does the special need affect her health?
Both lower limbs are affected, but she can walk with a walker. She has good life self-help skills and can also use both of her hands well, such as to hold a wall for support with walking.

3. Is she potty trained?
Yes.

4. Please describe her personality in details.
She is cheerful and lively. She likes to make new friends, loves to laugh, likes all novelty things.

5. Is she well behaved and obedient?
Yes

6. How are her gross motor skills? Can she walk, run, jump, or walk upstairs and downstairs by herself? Can she kick a ball? Can she pick up a ball? Any limited functions?
Lower limbs limited. She can walk with a walker. Her hands are fine.

7. How are her fine motor skills? Can she draw or scribble on paper? Can she pick up little things with her fingers?
Excellent

8. Is she in any kind of school? If so, what school? Can she catch up in school?
She doesn’t go to school.

9. How is her emotional development? Is the child attached to anyone? Who is she close to? Does she care for other people?
Her emotional development is good. She loves to laugh, likes to take care of the other children, and has good attachment with familiar people.

10. How are her social skills? Does she get along well with other children and adults?
Very good.

11. Is she under foster care or living in the orphanage?
She has always lived in the orphanage.

12. Updated Measurements:
Height: 122 cm
Head circ: 51 cm
Chest circ: 67 cm
Foot length: 22 cm
Weight: 29 kg
Number of teeth: 22

13. How is the language ability of the child? What can she say? Can she speak one word, two words or sentences? Can she express her needs well? Is her language ability the same as peers of the same age?
She has excellent language skills and is able to communicate normally.

There is a $1,000 agency grant for Alexa’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Alexa needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Alexa, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Piper is a smiley and joyful girl, born in September of 2010. She is described by her caretakers as obedient and active, but is sometimes sensitive and impatient. Piper has good self-care skills and is able to dress, toilet, and eat independently. She likes to play with other children and is gentle with them.

Piper also likes to watch and learn how to help out around the orphanage with things such as mopping, folding laundry, and getting clothes out for the children while they are being bathed by the caretakers. She is praised often for her helpfulness!

Piper is diagnosed as having cerebral palsy and motor delays, but her motor development has continued to improve over the years. She likes to write and draw and will really take her time to do it well. Piper gets along well with her caretakers and is very interactive with them. She loves to pose for photos, which often makes her caretakers laugh.

Piper is attending school in the orphanage. She sometimes struggles with focusing and is working to improve her expressive abilities. She speaks less than the other children and won’t always answer questions. Piper’s language skills are improving. She still uses short expressions of one-three words mostly. She does have good comprehension and cognition abilities.

Piper has grown up in two different orphanages. She’s making great progress, but is missing out on all that a stable and loving family could provide!

New videos of Piper:
Piper 1
Piper 2
Piper 3
Piper 4

Older video:
Piper 5

Written update from December 2018:

1.How is her mental ability compared to peers of the same age?
Behind normal kids. Her overall ability cannot be compared with normal kids.

2. How does the special need affect her health?
Mental and mobility are affected.

3. Is she potty trained?
Yes.

4. Please describe her personality in details.
She is active, happy, and social. She gets along well with other kids and adults. Sometimes she will be unreasonable, but it will not last for long. Then she will be happy again. She gets a temper easily, but gets happy easily. She is polite. She greets people happily when she sees them.

5. Is she well behaved and obedient?
She is little. She is learning and growing. She knows how to behave. She sometimes has conflicts with other kids, but will get over it. She does not have any bad behavior. She has real personality, but she can accept guidance from teachers.

6. How are her gross motor skills? Can she walk, run, jump, or walk upstairs and downstairs by herself? Can she kick a ball? Can she pick up a ball? Any limited functions?
She has CP. Her right side movement is limited, but she can walk well. She can run slowly and jump a little. She is energetic, strong, and active.

7. How are her fine motor skills? Can she draw or scribble on paper? Can she pick up little things with her fingers?
Her right side is limited, but her right hand and foot can do most motor skills. If she gets proper PT, her right hand should gain most fine motor skills. Her left side is fine.

8. Is she in any kind of school? If so, what school? Can she catch up in school?
She is receiving special education in the orphanage.

9. How is her emotional development? Is the child attached to anyone? Who is she close to? Does she care for other people?
Normal. She is close to her caretakers. Her best friends are Li Bao qi and Chen Xiao ling in the same room. When other kids cry, she will try to soothe them.

10.How are her social skills? Does she get along well with other children and adults?
Good. She gets along well with others. She loves her caretakers. She likes playing with her caretaker and with the other kids.

11. Is she under foster care or living in the orphanage?
She has always lived in an orphanage.

12. Updated Measurements:
Height: 103 cm
Head circ: 50 cm
Chest circ: 55 cm
Foot length: 17 cm
Weight: 17.5 kg
Number of teeth: 24

13. How is the language ability of the child? What can she say? Can she speak one word, two words or sentences? Can she express her needs well? Is her language ability the same as peers of the same age?
Good. She can say whole sentences and express her needs. Her language is behind healthy kids her age.

14. Can the child follow directions of adults? One step, two steps, or three steps?
Yes, she can.

15. Is the child on any medication?
Only for colds.

16. What is the daily schedule of the child?
6:30 get up
7:30 breakfast
8:45 study and PT
10:30 free time
11:30 lunch
13:00 14:30 nap
14:45 study and PT
16:30 free time 17:00 dinner 21:00 go to bed

17. What does the child eat? Can she feed herself? Does the child eat with chopsticks, a spoon, or a bottle?
For breakfast, she eats congee, bread, and an egg. For lunch, she eats rice, noodles, fish, meat, vegetables, etc. She feeds herself with a spoon and drinks with a cup.

18. Does the child know any English?
No.

19. Does the child want to be adopted? Does the child understand what adoption means?
She wants to be adopted and have parents.

20. What color does the child like?
No preference.

21. What activity does the child like to do?
Any sports.

22. What is the favorite toy of the child?
She likes puzzles, biking, and anything that’s fun really.

There is a $1,000 agency grant with Madison Adoption Associates for Piper’s adoption. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year (January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Piper needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Piper, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Dawson is a smart, handsome, and optimistic boy, born in April of 2007 with congenital heart disease, specifically TGA (for which he has since had surgery), VSD, and pulmonary atresia.

From 2010 until 2013, Dawson lived in the orphanage. In May of 2013, Dawson entered a foster family and he still resides with his foster mom today.

Dawson loves to learn and study. He has a good memory and he learns children’s songs and numbers quickly. Dawson is independent with his self-care skills and is a very clean and tidy boy. He is not a picky eater either. Dawson is also a very helpful child. He will help his foster mother clean the floor, fold laundry, and do other things he is able to do.

He gets along well with his other foster siblings and is helpful in caring for his younger siblings as well. Dawson really likes to sing to his foster mom and siblings, play outside, and ride bikes.

An August 2018 update stated that Dawson received the Senning procedure in June of 2016 for his TGA. Since that procedure, Dawson’s face, lips, and fingers have gotten more color and he doesn’t get out of breath as easily. He can run, jump, and go up and down stairs.

Dawson was in grade two of a public school as of the last report. He is said to have excellent intelligence, memory, and language skills and even knows a fair amount of English words.

He is absolutely loved by everyone who knows him. Dawson is a great kid who needs a family that will be his forever!

Video of Dawson (from August 2018) can be seen here.

*The videos below are from September 2016 when Dawson was listed with another agency.
Dawson 2
Dawson 3
Dawson 4
Dawson 5

There is a $1,000 agency grant with Madison Adoption Associates for Dawson’s adoption. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year (January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Dawson needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Dawson, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

It’s a New Year.

Maybe 2018 was lovely to you and you’re holding tightly to it because you’re afraid times this good can’t hold. You held your baby for the first time, bought a new house that you’re pretty sure you’re going to live the rest of your life in, worked some kinks out of your marriage, lost weight.

Maybe 2018 was filled with triumphs and rainbows. Maybe it’s the best one yet.

But maybe 2018 was a total bugger and you’re more than ready to usher it out. Maybe you fell into depression or lost a job or are sitting on your couch right now, wondering how in the holy name of Jesus your life flew off the rails like it did. Maybe your kid got lots of attention for all the wrong reasons, maybe your spouse strayed, maybe your dog died or your grandma or every plant on your window sill. Maybe it feels like your very soul itself is withering up.

Whether you are hanging on to 2018 like it’s water and you’re dying of thirst or you’re standing at the door ready to kick it’s butt out, there is truth I feel compelled to speak to you and it’s this: life is this great, incredible, ever-changing thing that ebbs and flows and does them both without your permission. No matter what season you’re in right now, it won’t last. That can be a threat or a promise, but it’s truth.

These days will give way to more days that will be different, good and bad. If you’re sunk down so deep in pain and dark thoughts, they will end. If you’re riding higher than a kite on happiness and contentment, they will end too. That is the beautiful thing about this life.

So today, I offer you this on a fancy platter because I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve so everything has to be fancy: if you hate the spot you’re in right this minute, hang on. If you love the spot you’re in right this minute, hang on. As I type, my husband and 5/6s of my Smalls are at our Children’s Museum with one of my loves and her family and I’m here, in all my fancy costume jewelry and chandelier earrings because one of my Smalls is having crippling anxiety and can’t see his way to leaving the house.

This is not how I planned this day. But next year will be a whole different story and I’ll be 100% here for it. This won’t last. This season will always give way to a new season with it’s ups and downs and we need them both, the ups and the downs, in order to be ok. You need them both. Without the ups the downs would kill you and without the downs, the ups wouldn’t feel nearly as wonderful.

So buckle up, Buttercup, because 2019 is here – with you or without you. And it’ll be full of good things and some bad sprinkled in. Yes, 2019 will be a mixed bag, as they all are. So, march your bad self over to the door, throw it open and welcome it in. Wear your fanciest jewelry and speak in a British accent. If you have a fur stole or a boa, do it up. Politely thank 2018 for the lessons you learned and then stand aside and let 2019 roll in.

2019 is not a thief who comes in the night, stealing your stuff and setting off your alarms. It’s a welcome guest you sit at the head of the table. And sometimes it’ll use it’s best manners and sometimes it’ll put it’s stanky feet up on your Nana’s damask table cloth and pick it’s teef in front of you.

Yes, 2019 will be a mixed bag, but you are so ready.

Bring it.

Tesia is an adorable little girl, born in November of 2014 with low muscular tension. She cannot stand on her own, but does like to move around in a walker. Tesia doesn’t yet speak any words, but she can understand, follow instructions, and respond when called.

Tesia is a quiet, obedient, and smiley little girl who gets along well with others. She likes listening to music and playing with toys. Her favorite toys are rag dolls.

Tesia needs a loving family and access to good medical care/resources. We are hoping Tesia is home with her family to celebrate her 5th birthday!

Videos of Tesia from when she was listed with other agencies (first two are from September 2018):
Tesia 1
Tesia 2
Tesia 3

Update from September 2018:
Height: 90 cm
Weight: 10.8 kg
Head circumference: 50 cm
Chest circumference: 51 cm
Number of teeth: 18
Foot length: 13 cm

Tesia has been healthy overall. She does not get colds/fevers easily. She does not have any new medical information or additional diagnosis. She has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. She does not have any scars or indications of surgery. She cannot walk and stand by herself. She isn’t potty trained. She cannot talk yet. She doesn’t recognize any colors. She can’t feed herself using a spoon or chopsticks. She lives at the baby section of our orphanage for the whole time.

There is a $500 agency grant for Tesia’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Tesia needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Tesia, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Handsome Liam, born February of 2016, has low vision and mild cerebral palsy. Liam has been under the care of Bethel since December of 2016. He can see and recognize faces, reaches out for toys he sees around him, and will go towards a toy or caregiver across the room.

He is not blind, but does have lower vision. As to the cerebral palsy, it is a very mild case as he is now walking well and even running! His balance is still off a bit, but he’s receiving physical therapy through the orphanage. Liam can also crawl efficiently, sit independently, and feed himself.

He is attached to his teachers and caregivers and will cry if he feels he is not getting attention. He loves to explore and to play with toy, throwing them off the table like a typical two-year-old. Liam has grown close to his foster family and is making huge gains because of them and his time at Bethel and he lights up when his foster father comes to pick him up at the end of the day!

Liam’s language development is delayed, but he’s making noises and babbling and has really started to love exploring sounds. He is able to say ‘mama’ when he needs help. He is also a very curious boy and will investigate sounds and voices that intrigue him. Each Liam sees someone he loves, he makes a “gegege” sound.

Liam has made huge gains and has learned so much since December of 2016 – a real transformation. We hope Liam’s forever family sees him soon and can’t wait to watch him further transform under their care!

Videos of Liam can be seen here:
Liam 1
Liam 2
Liam 3

There is a $500 agency grant for Liam’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Liam needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Liam, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Beatrice is a beautiful girl, born in June of 2016, with a precious smile and gentle spirit. She was living in a foster family sponsored by Love Without Boundaries, where she had an older foster sister who absolutely adored her.

Her latest update, which you can read below, reports that she is back in the care of the orphanage. Beatrice’s caretakers say she is active, lovely, and outgoing. Beatrice likes listening to music, playing with toys, and playing interactive games with her caretakers. She loves to be held and hugged. She is very obedient and is a very good eater and sleeper.

She can sit, crawl, and roll over on her own, but she has limited use of her lower limbs. Her fine motor skills are great! Beatrice can say 1-2 words at a time, but her language skills are reported to be delayed. She is easy to get along with and has good relationships with her caretakers and the other children.

Beatrice’s official diagnosis is postoperative meningocele. In June of 2016, Beatrice underwent surgery to repair a tethered cord. She does receive physical therapy at the orphanage. Because Beatrice is so young, it is impossible to know at this time how her need will affect her future, but it is believed that she is paralyzed and will likely be incontinent and need to use a wheelchair to get around.

Beatrice is from a former partnership orphanage of Madison Adoption Associates and it is our hope that she can come home to her forever family as soon as possible!

New video of Beatrice:
Beatrice new

Older videos:
Beatrice 1
Beatrice 2
Beatrice 3
Beatrice 4
Beatrice 5
Beatrice 6
Beatrice 7
Beatrice 8
Beatrice 9

Written update from November 26th, 2018:

1. How is her mental ability compared to peers of the same age?
Lower than kids the same age.

2. How does the special need affect her health?
Her lower limbs cannot move.

3. Is she potty trained?
No

4. Please describe her personality in details.
Good personality, but sometimes she has a temper.

5. Is she well behaved and obedient?
Yes

6. How are her gross motor skills? Can she walk, run, jump, walk upstairs and downstairs by herself? Can she kick a ball? Can she pick up a ball? Any limited functions?
She can sit, roll over, and crawl with normal upper limbs, but her lower limbs have limited functions.

7. How are her fine motor skills? Can she draw or scribble on paper? Can she pick up little things with her fingers?
Great! She can do those things.

8. Is she in any kind of school?
No schooling. She receives physical therapy in the orphanage.

9. How is her emotional development? Is the child attached to anyone? Who is she close to? Does she care for other people?
Good! She is quite attached to her caretakers and therapists and knows how to care for others.

10. How are her social skills? Does she get along well with other children and adults?
Good. She gets along well with others.

11. Is she in foster care or living in the orphanage?
In the orphanage

12. Updated Measurements:
Height: 77 cm
Weight：11.5 kg
Head circ.: 49 cm
Chest circ.: 57 cm
Foot length: 14 cm
Number of teeth: 17

13. How is the language ability of the child? What can she say? Can she speak one word, two words or sentences? Can she express her needs well? Is her language ability the same as peers of the same age?
She can speak Mama, Papa, Nainai (granny), and Ayi. She doesn’t speak much and doesn’t know how to express herself. She speaks two words each time. When she wants something, she will say “Ah Ah.” Her language ability is a little lower than other kids the same age.

14. Can the child follow directions of adults? One step, two steps, or three steps?
She can, but is limited to using her upper limbs.

15. Is the child on any medication?
No.

16. What is the daily schedule of the child?
Have lunch at 7:00 am，receive therapy between 8:30 and 10:00 am, afterwards drink formula and rice cereal at 10:00，lunch at 11:00 am，receive therapy between 14:30 and 16:30 pm, then drink formula and rice cereal at 15:00 pm，dinner at 17:00, and drink formula and rice cereal at 19:00 pm

17. What does the child eat? Can she feed herself? Does the child eat with chopsticks, a spoon, or a bottle?
Everything. She is not picky. She needs to be fed with a spoon.

18. Does the child know any English?
No

19. Does the child want to be adopted? Does the child understand what adoption means?
She doesn’t understand it.

20. What color does the child like?
Bright colors.

21. What activity does the child like to do?
Play with toys and play with adults.

22. What is the favorite toy of the child?
Dolls and balls

Beatrice needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Beatrice, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

…and behold, the same star that they had seen before reappeared, the star they had been watching for, planning for, waiting for. With amazement that all they believed was true was true indeed, they moved forward, and it led them, shining brightly above them and before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. Overcome as they realized, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. They went into the place and saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshipped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts — gold and frankincense and myrrh. 

It was the most important event in all the history of the world, an event that literally cut time into two: before this moment and every day after this moment. God entered the world. Of course, He had already been here; from the beginning of time, He had been here, but not like this. It was no longer God and then us; now, God was among us in the form of a newborn baby.

God publicly announced His arrival into the world through a triumphant angel chorus, a life-changing, world-changing spectacle witnessed by unsuspecting men working late. They were unshaven, unbathed, unschooled, with little means and seemingly little to offer. I don’t imagine they were spending their time pining for Jesus; they were doing their job guarding sheep. And, yet, God chose them, gave them all the fanfare the world around them would never had thought they deserved, and allowed them the great honor to be among the first guests beside the makeshift crib of the incarnate God.

They shared that holy stable nursery space with men so very different from themselves. Magi, wise men, or three kings – whatever name you want to give them — it wasn’t just their means that made them different from the shepherds beside them, though that difference must have been significant. Unlike the unsuspecting shepherds, this moment was one they had been waiting for. I imagine it had been the focus of their professional careers, creating blueprints of the skies, anticipating the day that the words of old Scriptures would prove to be true. I wonder if at points during the years of anticipation, they had experienced days of creeping doubt, of wondering if what they were doing mattered, if they’d live to see the Messiah come, if He would ever come.

The announcement came to the shepherds with such sensational fullness that they shielded their ears and eyes. But, to the wise men, the ones who were waiting for it, it came through quiet light alone, a bright but silent star in the sky. The only noise was their own gasps of realization that the day had come and the scurry of their feet as they packed their food and drink and treasures to seek and find the King of the Jews.

When they did, they were overwhelmed with emotion and rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. The original words in Greek translate to they joyed a great joy, very much. It was a joy so big that they fell down and worshipped. Then, they opened their bags and offered their gifts.

Ponder with me for just a moment, wonder with me and imagine what words they may have said when they lowered their heads and lifted their treasures to a tiny baby.

We are overwhelmed. We have waited so long for you, journeyed so far for you. Now, you are here, and we are here not to get what you can give us. We know you can give us so much. But, we are here simply to be with you. We adore you. We want to offer you these gifts, not to earn your favor or to get anything in return. No, we give our treasures to demonstrate and magnify our affection and enjoyment of you. When we give you that which you do not need which we could have enjoyed ourselves, hear us say that you are our treasure, not any material things. And, when we give you that which you do not need which we could have enjoyed ourselves, may we experience more that you are our treasure, not any material things, and may our joy and enjoyment grow bigger, very much.

We know little about the men who followed yonder star. Matthew is the only one who tells us their story. But, even with what little that we know, they serve as an example for the rest of time. They wrapped the first Christmas gifts, prompted by love and joy, and offered them with no strings attached which prompted more joy.

There are odd scraps of leftover wrapping paper laying like confetti on my table and empty rolls of tape beside a tower of colorful packages tied up with string. They make me smile and my heart beat a little fast. I don’t get to hand any to Jesus, but I do get to give them to the people He gave me, the people He set together in this home to be a family, to share a name that says we belong together.

I give my children these gifts not because they were good and earned them or out of some hope or expectation that they now will be in response. I give my children these gifts not because they need them. It is my job every day to get and give them what they need; it’s what I do. I give them these gifts, things they do not need, things purchased with money I could have enjoyed in some way myself, to say that they are my treasures. As I say that, even if their response is less than, even if they only smile a little or not at all, if they don’t overflow with affection in kind, I’m still going to say it. As I say it and practice it, I feel it more and more.

You are my treasure.
You are my treasure.
You are my treasure.
You are my treasure.

And, I believe that He sees it all, and He is pleased. He is pleased with me. He is overcome with affection for me and my intention to love the ones He has placed in my care even when it’s hard. And, He joys a great joy, very much.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains

Repeat the sounding joy.



No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.

As I sit down and reflect on all the gifts that my Lord has bestowed upon my family and I, there are too many to count. Yet I know that, on so many days, I forget. My mind soars in other directions and I lose sight of these gifts. Or perhaps… as I have realized with our most recent adoption.. sometimes His gift is not one that I first viewed as a gift. It was hidden.

But after pushing back lies, refocusing my eyes on things eternal, I see it.

The gift.

We have adopted two beautiful daughters from China. Our first adoption in 2016 and our second adoption just a few months ago in August. Both of these adoptions I can without a doubt say were a gift to our family.

How has adoption been a gift to our family? The ways are too many to count. But today, I want to highlight a gift that may not be so obvious. A gift from adoption that, if I am being completely honest, is sometimes hard to see as a gift.

The gift of the unknown.

When you start your adoption journey, you may think you know how it will all play out. You envision and pray for your child, and you plan every detail in your mind. But then, as one step leads to another, you start to realize the lack of control you have in this crazy process. You quickly realize it has nothing to do with you or your plan.

But one foot in front of the other – you press on – trusting that the fire that sparked you to first say Yes will continue to blaze. Even when the days seem dark and the day you finally meet your child seems too very far away.

It seems so unknown.

And then your day finally comes… the day you have dreamed of. When you finally get to hold your child. The details of this day are so unique for each family, and so unknown.

Will my child cling to me?
Will she smile?
Will my child shut down in silence?
Will he scream in fear?
Will my child who I have stared at for so long be what I envisioned them to be?
Will she love me?

Unknown. Every detail so unknown until the veil is pulled back and this picture you have been staring at comes alive right before your eyes.

This past August, we adopted our second daughter, Charli Ying. The days leading up to her joining our family were again filled with unknowns. In August, my mother-in-law and I boarded the plane and headed to China to bring our Charli home. This time was very different than our first adoption. The “transition” was very smooth and full of peace and joy. I slowly got to know Charli and reveled in the softness and gentleness that her personality revealed.

But this time, as the days went on in China… my mind began to race more and more. Quite honestly, I was very scared of her health and what all was exactly going on. I just wanted to get her home. I wanted to get her to a doctor and I wanted answers. I told myself that I was going to be OK with whatever the answers were, but I wanted her home and I wanted answers so we could have a plan.

We had a beautiful two weeks in China but I was so glad to be home. We found ourselves in the cardiologist office less than 24 hours and received the best news we could have. Her heart had been repaired beautifully in China and it was strong. Thank you, Jesus.

I remember the relief of that washed over me as I heard the news. I like to go back and remember this day. A day of victory for Charli. You see, her fight didn’t end in that cardiologist’s office. And it is still not over yet. She has a lot of fighting still left to do. The outcomes of this fight – the exact days we will see victories, or when we will see setbacks – are unknown.

So how is a world of unknowns a gift? How is each diagnosis or each appointment that goes by where I hear the words “we just don’t know yet”… how is that a gift?

Because no matter how unknown this world is to us, it is known to Him. He knows every detail. There are no surprises to Him. He knows. He is our constant that doesn’t change.

So these unknowns, though many days may leave me in tears, really should be pushing my eyes back to the Lord. Because I have no other guarantee but Him.

So when I get frustrated that I can’t get answers, when I feel defeated that no one seems to know exactly what the future holds… a gentle voice reminds me to let go. I may not be able to fix everything. I may not get the exact answers I want. I may not get any answers. But one thing remains the same: these unknowns are known to Him. So may I fix my eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. May my hope not be in any physician, or any medication. May my hope be Christ Jesus alone.

So where is your Hope? And what will you do with these days we have been given here on earth? If tomorrow is no guarantee, if life for all of us, is really a world of unknowns, what are you going to do with those unknowns?

This Christmas, I am thankful for the gift of unknowns. May this road of uncertainty draw me closer to the Lord than I could ever imagine.

And, though so many answers to questions I have are unknown, I do know one thing. Charli is loved. That is one thing I can promise her. I can promise her my love. And – more than that – I can promise her that she was fearfully and wonderfully made perfect by a God who loves her more than I will ever be able to.

Thank you Lord for this hidden gift. The one tucked back behind the Christmas tree, not visible to all. May this little hidden gift light a fire in my heart for You.

And may it burn so brightly that all the world will see the goodness of Your love.

– guest post by Ashley: email || blog

Hold onto your hearts! Maya, born May of 2014, is a beautiful little girl who almost always wears that gorgeous smile. She was born with cerebral dysplasia and found to have Hep B in June of 2016. She went into the hospital shortly after and now takes regular medication, allowing her condition to be stable.

When Maya was young, the orphanage found her muscular tension to be high and, in December of 2015, they sent her to Angel Home Foundation to receive better care and rehabilitation. With regular rehabilitation, Maya has been making great progress. She can pick up things with her hands and feed herself.

Her condition has caused athetosis of all four limbs. This has affected her balance and coordination. She can now stand alone for several minutes and walk a few steps by herself. With the support of hand rails, Maya can go up and down stairs. If she uses her walker, she can go everywhere she wants to go!

Maya can understand everything that is said to her, but has language delays. She is starting to say 1-2 words at a time, though her pronunciation is not always clear. Maya loves to laugh and is a happy and determined little girl. She knows how to get attention and loves being held.

With a loving family, proper medical care, and continued therapy, Maya is going to continue to make progress and thrive!

We can’t wait to see who Maya’s lucky family will be!

Videos of Maya can be seen here:
Maya 1
Maya 2
Maya 3
Maya 4

Written update from October 2017:

1. How is her mental ability compared to peers the same age?
Her mental is behind kids of her age, but she can understand many directions and language. If the teachers do not take her to class, she will be very sad. When she hears the voice of her PT teacher, she will crawl to the door. If the teacher takes other kids, she will cry loudly. She knows her name.

2. How does the special need affect her health?
She has Hep B so she is on three kinds of medicine each day and her dishes are separated from others. She is in good health and rarely gets sick.

3. Is she potty trained?
She is still in diapers and has small underwear on top of the diaper.

4. Please describe her personality in details.
She will be very happy if others say she is a pretty girl. Sometimes she will fight for toys with other kids. She is not afraid of strangers. She is outgoing. Sometimes she can be sensitive. She knows strangers and familiar people. If strangers flirt with her, she will also smile. She is impatient. If she sees something she likes, she will try her best to crawl there to grab it though her body does not coordinate well. PT is a boring process. If she feels unhappy, she will lie on the ground and keep crying and will not get up whatever you try.

5. Is she well behaved and obedient?
She is obedient and well behaved.

6. How are her gross motor skills? Can she walk, run, jump, and walk upstairs and downstairs by herself? Can she kick a ball? Can she pick up a ball? Any limited functions?
She can roll over on the ground, can sit up, can crawl, and can change from sitting to standing up and then sitting down. She cannot walk, jump, run, or go upstairs or downstairs yet.

7. How are her fine motor skills? Can she draw or scribble on paper? Can she pick up little things with her fingers?
She cannot control her fingers well. She can scribble, can hold a pen and blocks, and can sometimes pick up tiny objects.

8. Is she in any kind of school? If so, what school? Can she catch up in school?
No school yet, but she receives PT for about two hours each day.

9. How is her emotional development? Is the child attached to anyone? Who is she close to? Does she care for other people?
Good, she is attached to the therapist.

10. How are her social skills? Does she get along well with other children and adults?
She can get along well with other kids, but she is still little and her motor skills are poor so she does not know how to play with others.

11. Is she under foster care or living in the orphanage? If foster, when did she enter the foster home? How does she do there? Has it been the same foster home all the time?
She has been in Angel Foster Home since Dec.14,2015.

12. Updated Measurements:
Weight: 12.5 kg
Height: 88 cm
Head: 46 cm
Chest: 49.5 cm
Foot length: 13 cm
Number of teeth: 10 teeth on top, 10 below

13. How is the language ability of the child? What can she say? Can she speak one word, two words or sentences? Can she express her needs well? Is her language ability the same as peers the same age?
Behind. She can only say some two character words like “ayi”, “yeye”. She cannot express her needs.

14. Can the child follow directions of adults? One step, two steps, or three steps?
One step. She can feel the tone and emotion in the language.

15. Is the child on any medication?
Entecavir, one time a day, 2/5 pill each time Five ester capsule, twice a day, 1 capsule each time, glycyrrhizic acid two amine enteric coated tablet, 3 times a day, 3/5 pill each time Doctor said to start these this month for 3 months. Her next appointment is December.

16. What is the daily schedule of the child?
7:00-7:30 get up
7:30-8:00 breakfast; playing outdoor
9:30 snacks (fruit, snacks), playing indoor
11:00-11:30 lunch
12:00-2:30 nap; playing indoor
16:00 extra meal and water (fruit)
17:00-17:30 dinner, playing outdoor
19:30 200 ml formula
20:00-20:30 go to bed

17. What does the child eat? Can she feed herself? Does the child eat with chopsticks, spoon, or a bottle?
She eats normal food and feeds herself with a spoon, but eats slowly. She will spill food on the table and drinks with a bottle by herself.

18. Does the child know any English?
No

19. Does the child want to be adopted? Does the child understand what adoption means?
No, she doesn’t understand.

20. What color does the child like?
No favorite colors. Due to her language delay, she cannot express herself well.

21. What activity does the child like to do?
She likes the twisty car, playing outdoors, and going on the slide.

22. What is the favorite toy of the child?
N/A

There is a $1,000 agency grant with Madison Adoption Associates for Maya’s adoption. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year (January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Maya needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Maya, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Many people associate blindness with sadness, darkness and inability. But our experience with this need has been the opposite. Adopting our sweet boy who is legally blind has brought our lives so much joy, light and recognition of his amazing abilities.

We did not set out to adopt a child who is blind. We sincerely thought a child who could not see would be very difficult to raise. But over the past two years we have found quite the opposite is true.

From the very first day we met our seven year old son in the capital of his province in China, he engaged us with a gentle hug to get a “feel” for us. We brought him a light up car and he loved getting it so close to his eyes so he could see the light. His orphanage had prepared him well for his new family, and he was happy to go with us. He immediately began learning English. I would count the steps as I held his hand and we went up or down.

Within a few days, he was counting with me. We listened to music and he would dance and begin to sing the English words. He learned English at lightning speed and refused to even listen to anything in Mandarin because he wanted to learn to communicate with us. Since learning English, he has talked non-stop. He is curious to learn about everything around him and how it works. He has such a creative mind and wants to be an inventor one day!

While in China, we were able to go back to his orphanage to say good bye. He was able to say good bye to his best friend. Earlier this year we were able to visit his friend who was adopted by a family here in the US. It was a sweet reunion!

The first weeks home were wonderful and tiring all at the same time, as he transitioned into our family and we were all exhausted from jetlag. We were prepared for the transition to be difficult, but he fit right into our family from day one! I was able to stay home with him for several weeks and we spent lots of time bonding over Christmas music, baking cookies, and playing toys.

After about six weeks home, with some trepidation on my part, he went to his first day at school. Our area has one of the absolute best programs for the visually impaired and he began to learn Braille and orientation and mobility skills immediately. This has been amazing for him and he is picking up on both Braille and cane skills quickly. Learning to read and get around independently has opened up a whole new world for our son and he has flourished in his new independence.

I am thankful every day for his wonderful vision team who loves him and pushes him to do everything to the best of his ability. They set high standards and he works hard every day to reach those goals. He doesn’t love school (because he would rather be home with mom), but he goes every day and puts in his best effort. In just two years, he has almost caught up to his third grade level in all areas.

Many people are concerned about how a child who is blind can keep up the pace with others in the same class. We have learned about so much new technology for those who are blind. Our son is learning to use refreshable Braille, which connects to a tablet and he can read what is on the internet. There is audio description for movies and voice over on many devices. The possibilities are endless, and it helps that our son loves technology of any sort!

We know that adoption is not always easy, but the adoption of our son has been nothing short of beautiful. We have worked through some difficult days, including sensory issues and overwhelming feelings at times, but most days with our son are wonderful. We sometimes even forget he is blind. He is a normal boy who loves to ride his bike, ride his scooter, and ride horses all at a fast speed!

He loves to climb up high on the playground equipment and swing as high as he can. He loves to play video games and we often hear him laughing as he plays. He loves Christmas more than anyone I know. He loves the lights, the music, and especially the gifts. His favorite Christmas movie is Home Alone 2, and hearing him laugh while watching it will undoubtedly light up your day.

Our son is light and joy to anyone who meets him and gives smiles that will melt your heart. He is happy, smart and funny. He is generous and kind to others. He has a heart that is filled with joy, despite his circumstances. He is definitely a treasure and we feel so blessed to call him son.

I often look at the faces of other kids who are waiting for families and wonder what other treasures are just waiting to be found. Children with visual impairments or who are blind are often overlooked because of the stigma of blindness.

Don’t let fear of the unknown keep you from stepping out. Our lives and the lives of those around us have been changed by adopting this precious little boy, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

– guest post by Jenna

Siam is a sweet little boy, born in March of 2015, with an engaging personality and a cute toothy smile. Siam was under the care of Show Hope, but unfortunately had to return to his orphanage in December of 2017.

Siam was very close to his friends at Maria’s Big House of Hope and adored by his caretakers. They said that he had a fun and happy personality. Siam was known to love parties to celebrate the various Chinese holidays, where he enjoyed snacking and coloring with his friends. Siam loved to run around and have his nannies chase after him.

His caretakers noted his resilience and how much he had overcome to be able to run and play. In preschool, Siam was the “class clown.” He would sometimes sing loudly in class. The other children would join in and they would all break out in giggles.

Siam is sometimes hesitant to try new things, but his caretakers were always proud of how brave he would be to try them anyways. One day, Siam went to McDonald’s. He was unsure of the french fries at first, but after his first bite he discovered that he loved them! He was also a little apprehensive about swimming, but bravely gave it a try and ended up having such a fun time!

Siam is missed dearly. It is the hope of everyone at Maria’s Big House of Hope that he find his forever family very soon so he doesn’t have to stay in the orphanage any longer than necessary.

Siam was diagnosed as having eversion of both feet, genital malformation, and developmental delays. He had made huge progress while at Maria’s. We’re hoping to get an update to see how he’s doing now that he’s been back at the orphanage almost a year.

Numerous posts are dedicated to Siam at Show Hope – you can read much more about him there.

There is a $500 agency grant for Siam’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Siam needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Siam, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

When people are considering special needs adoption they usually look over a list and decide what they are comfortable with. Looking at the long lists of possible medical needs fearful thoughts can overwhelm even the bravest hearts. Sometimes the uncertainty of needs, often based on misinformation, can generate an automatic “No, not that need”.

Here’s an honest look at hydrocephalus from our very personal perspective.

In June of 2011 our 4th oldest daughter, Emma, found a little baby girl dying in the corner of an orphanage in Africa. Emma and my husband, Dwight, were leading a mission team to care for the orphans when she discovered this little one.

Emma had frantically searched the orphanage for my husband calling, “Daddy this baby is dying, we have to do something!” My husband took one look at the fragile body before running to the office to speak to the director to advocate for her care and pleading for the ability to take her to the hospital for testing.

He learned from the director that this dying baby girl was actually 13 months old and weighed a mere six pounds. Most of her six pounds was carried in the weight of her head, enormously large from what looked to be hydrocephalus.

While there in-country Dwight and Emma’s primary focus became this baby girl. They were desperate to see her not just live but thrive and know the love of Jesus! Looking at her it was easy to tell that life had been painfully difficult for her.

I will never forget the phone call from my husband minutes after Emma found her. He pleaded with me through tears to write a post pleading with blog friends around the world to pray for her! I cried as he talked of her and immediately took to the blog world to implore my friends to pray for her. Within hours there were thousands of people around the world praying for God to heal her and for her to live!

During the two weeks there Dwight was allowed to take her for an MRI. He held her medically fragile dying body and pleaded with the Lord to preserve her life. He sang the familiar children’s song to her over and over, “Oh how I love Jesus….”

He called another missionary to ask what more he could do for her as she had clearly been starved to nearly death. The missionary whose specialty was malnourished little ones explained that with untreated hydrocephalus the pressure in the brain is great, causing her to vomit up the large bottles fed by the orphanage. She encouraged him to train the nannies to give her tiny amounts all day long. He did all she mentioned while continuing to whisper to her the song, “Oh how I love Jesus…”

The two weeks passed quickly and as Dwight, Emma and the rest of the team were leaving the country he met with the director one last time and pleaded with her that we would be willing to do anything, anything, anything for this baby girl. We would wire money for medical care, hospitalizations and surgeries – we wanted him to be sure not to let money ever stand in the way of her care!

As the mission team flew back to the States, Dwight and Emma flew to West Africa where he would teach a pastor’s conference. The entire week we prayed in earnest for that baby girl. She was so desperately sick and we had no idea how she was or if she was even still alive!

Once Dwight and Emma landed in Chicago and cleared immigration, they settled in to wait for their last flight home. While there he opened his email and found a letter from the director:

“The doctors for the orphanage have reviewed the tests you took her for while you were here. They said that there is no hope for her. They have even said we should not bother to feed her as she will never be able to do anything. Pastor Dwight, you said that you and Linny would be willing to do anything. Would you be willing to adopt her and believe with me that God is going to heal her?”

Dwight called me and read me the email and we both cried. Our prayers were being answered and at that moment we couldn’t get to our sweet baby girl fast enough!

Two-and-a-half-months later, with paperwork on the US side completed, Emma and I landed to bring her home. It then took 7.5 weeks in country to complete the paperwork on that side, but she was alive and her mommy and one of her big sisters were now there with her! We chose the name “Ruby Grace” for her as a pure ruby is of more value than a diamond of similar size! Gem-quality rubies have incredibly remarkable value! We longed for the world to know that no matter how broken she was, she had infinite value to God and to us!

And clearly, it was only His grace that had sustained her.

As it turns out Ruby does have a rare form of hydrocephalus, called multiloculated hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus usually presents itself with one pocket of water in the brain and a shunt is often placed in the brain to drain the water for the rest of one’s life. However our sweet baby girl has over 14 pockets of water! Because Ruby’s form of hydrocephalus is so rare and complex she now has had five brain surgeries.

The first three surgeries were to fenestrate through the walls of all the pockets of water. Fenestration is where a hole is surgically made and cauterized in the wall of the pocket allowing each pocket of water to “communicate” with the others including the one with the shunt. During her fourth brain surgery a shunt was inserted into one of the pockets and, because of the fenestrations, most of the pockets are able to drain through the single shunt.

Hydrocephalus is often thought of a “scary” diagnosis but, now, having Ruby home for the last seven years I will eagerly advocate for treasures with hydrocephalus (or multiloculated hydrocephalus) and if I were able, I would adopt another dozen treasures with it! It is not “too scary” or to be feared.

No doubt Ruby’s case is by far one of the worst (if not the worst) our neurosurgeon here in Phoenix has ever seen. In fact he later told us that when he first saw her MRI he had to take a few days to just think, because he “had no idea what to do”.

Ruby quickly became his favorite (his words not mine) and his staff echoes his sentiments.

As horrible as it is, our precious Ruby had also suffered unconscionable and despicable abuse before she was abandoned and all of that has greatly complicated her health. She is also a quadriplegic due to cerebral palsy, has epilepsy and was diagnosed with cortical blindness (which God has healed!).

Ruby is a rare treasure and a delight to all who know her. Her gleeful personality brings joy to even strangers who meet her! And frankly she is a prankster. Whoever said “non-verbal” kids can’t have enormous personalities and be full of shenanigans has definitely not met our Ruby!

In the midst of all her diagnoses and surgeries the joy that Ruby has brought our family is immeasurable! She stole our hearts as a broken baby and our love for her is unmatched! Ruby’s exuberance for life is heard throughout our home daily.

Although she is considered non-verbal – she “talks” all day long! She lets everyone know what she thinks with her sounds and the few words she has been able to master so far! The word that she uses all day long is “Good!”

It’s amazing how many questions can be answered with “good!”

“How did you sleep Ruby?”
“Good!”

“Are you ready to get your diaper changed?”
“Good!”

“Are you excited to go see your friends at church?”
At that question she wiggles her body with joy while squealing a loud, emphatic and prolonged, “Goooooooood!”

Each case of hydrocephalus is unique, but we unequivocally declare that God is always astoundingly faithful, He is the giver of magnificently good things and He is undeniably the healing God.

In fact a couple of years ago her neurosurgeon asked me to do a symposium with him at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Near the end of the symposium Dr. S opened up the large crowd for a time of questions or comments. A parent in the audience stood to mention that their neonatologist told them that they should abort the baby she had been carrying (but instead carried to term) and according to the neonatologist “children with hydrocephalus are a burden”.

Ruby’s neurosurgeon was definitely stunned at the comment and as he responded he gestured to where I was sitting and began while choking back tears, “Personally, knowing Ruby has added great value to my life and…” (pausing as he became very emotional) “I can’t imagine my life without Ruby. It’s hard for me to understand how anyone could think that children with hydrocephalus are a burden. Ruby has brought me such great joy.”

Ruby’s case is definitely an extreme one greatly affected by many other factors. However, Ruby’s multiloculated hydrocephalus does not define her. By God’s miraculous power and grace Ruby thrives, continues to heal, brings constant joy to our home and is a delight to all who know her.

Ruby is also one of our three “lifers” (we have the thrill of caring for her for the rest of our lives). And I will forever shout it from the mountaintops my gratefulness to my astoundingly faithful God that I have the profound privilege of being her mommy!

He is truly the giver of magnificently good things!

Our story begins when I was in middle school and took a basic sign language class. I loved this manual language, and it’s amazing how the signs stuck with me for the next 25 years. But my husband was the first one of the two of us who had a heart for adoption. Between us, God began molding our hearts into the family He desired us to become.

We used baby signs to encourage our three biological children to communicate as babies and toddlers, and even though we weren’t fluent (not even close!) and had only one connection to the Deaf community, we felt that God told us to say “yes” to a child from China who was deaf.

RenYu, now named Graham, had just turned four years old when we travelled across the globe to get him. We fought so much fear during the months leading up to travel, knowing that we were not trained to teach someone a first language when we were amateurs still learning it as a second language.

I especially needed to grieve the fact that he would probably never know music. We are a very musical family, some of our favorite family memories are because of music, and it has been so therapeutic during difficult times. We were facing a forever future of Deafness in our family – not just a simple surgery or two to endure.

It was the middle of summer when we went to China. Meeting this little boy was a small taste of heaven, and he gave us the cutest little shy smile when we invited him onto our laps in that government office building. His demeanor changed quickly though as we brought him with us onto the elevator and out the doors into a strange van, without the familiar mamas he had learned to trust and follow. He refused to be held, and we could tell he was nervous by the loud grinding of his teeth as we travelled the streets of Shanghai.

We discovered that our son had learned to be extremely independent, but thankfully the little toys we brought and the big brother who came along kept him close by our family during the tumultuous change he experienced during the transition to the United States and a new family.

Since coming home, we have experienced many of your highs and lows in welcoming a preschooler as a new son and sibling. However, this seemed so different from other stories we heard. We naively thought that our son would be an enthusiastic sponge as he saw language on our hands and with our bodies. We thought surely his new language acquisition would be even faster than most hearing Chinese adoptees… he didn’t have a language to unlearn!

And this is where we found we were gravely wrong. When a child is not given any language, they don’t understand what language does. They don’t understand the meaning of language. They’ve gotten along “fine” without it, why start something new now?

Hearing children who learn a new language already have a language base to start from, they have purpose and merely shift that purpose into new sounds. They know what a question is, they know what an answer is, they know that they can ask and answer. They know that people have names, objects have names, and places have names. They can differentiate imaginary language from reality, and give reason to their emotions. Graham needed to understand the importance of a communication that wasn’t biting, taking, screaming, or withdrawing.

Our family had taken three sign language classes together before and immediately after the adoption, and were working together and with Graham to improve vocabulary and exposure. However, after a year with us, he only initiated a small vocabulary of signs – maybe 25 – and most of those were food related. He loved to learn food signs, but anything else was completely uninteresting. He did not notice animals, we were suspecting that he was color blind, he disliked watching cartoons, and he hated looking at books.

He was enrolled in our school district’s early childhood education program four days a week with a sign language interpreter, and gradually learned proper classroom behavior. We spent that year learning to draw him out by doing his favorite activities: tickling, bathing and swimming, games of chase, and cooking or baking in the kitchen.

During the first few months home, Graham did undergo a couple of long, inconclusive hearing tests before we finally made the trek to the Children’s Hospital for a sedated ABR (auditory brainstem response) test. They concluded that yes, he had profound hearing loss in both ears.

After much research and observation, we then pursued the steps needed for cochlear implants. A month before his fifth birthday, surgery was performed in both ears. This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever made. If you haven’t heard, there is a lot of disagreement about surgery for cochlear implants, as well as many unknowns about the results of such an invasive surgery. The decision we made for our son would, without a doubt, impact him positively and negatively for the rest of his life. We bore the responsibility to decide whether the unknown “pros” would outweigh the unknown “cons”.

Our personal decision rested on the surgeon’s diagnosis of the cause of his deafness and the potential for vision loss later in life; the permanence of our circle of support from hearing friends, family, and fellow adoptive families, and our desire to provide Graham with every opportunity available to him, allowing him to ultimately make the choice to retain or decline his “hearing” ability after presented with the technology.

One month after surgery was “activation”. This is when the implants get connected with the outer equipment (processors) that enables access to sound. What an exciting day!

Graham, per his usual tendency to show little emotion, expressed only a little interest. But he was always aware that something was happening, showing some anxiety, and even showed some excitement when hearing Daddy’s voice for the first time.

Thus began the next step in the narrative of his story.

Since activation 16 months ago, Graham has for the most part let us know that he prefers to keep his processors off, which means he does not want to hear what is happening around him. We have phases of him keeping them on without argument for much of the day, and then phases where every time he’s out of sight he pulls them right off. Sometimes they will be off (creatively attached to his glasses though, because we are afraid to lose them!), but he will connect them for just a second out of curiosity of what is happening around him. Lately, he might keep them on unless he hears music or a truck driving by.

By now, many other children will be trying to form words with their voice, but Graham has not wanted to do that. By now, many other deaf children will be expressing themselves and seeking answers to questions in sign language. Graham occasionally asks us for a snack, or asks where a sibling is during a game of hide-and-seek, but rarely do we see another question formed on his hands.

This year he is in full-day kindergarten, and his interpreter has done a fabulous job of including the other children and teaching them sign language. They pick it up quickly. Graham’s receptive skills are getting better, but for a 6-year-old (2-year-old to language), he is still only at about 135 vocabulary words right now that he initiates. We are hopeful that his language explosion will come, and he will excitedly seek out answers to questions about how, why, what, where, and who.

Having a deaf child means adjustments to family life that were normal for us for many years. Deaf children don’t find amusement in rhyming books, so we need to get creative in finding ways to sign a story that captures the attention similar to rhyming might for a hearing child. We need to be very intentional in giving information, because Graham doesn’t receive information as easily as the rest of the family when they hear about the plans for the day. We need to express our feelings to him specifically so that he understands when we are playing and when we are not. We need to be intentional about teaching how interactions work with a cashier or a stranger or a librarian.

These are all things we are still learning and internalizing ourselves, and we have a long way to go before I can say we have provided full access to our deaf son. Even the habit of providing interpreters for him at doctor’s appointments hasn’t been established – partly because of his resistance to communication and his habit of ignoring anyone who is trying to sign to him.

So, is being deaf his main special need? No, I don’t believe so. Being deaf means that he will communicate differently – his first language will not be English or Chinese. Being deaf means that he will need a few different accommodations to daily life, school, and work. Things need to either be visual or felt. Being deaf means that he will feel more comfortable and let his guard down with people who communicate in sign language.

Graham’s primary special need is language delay. This has been and continues to be the biggest barrier to learning, affection, and communication. Being adopted and deaf has posed some very unique challenges that we have all needed to navigate together.

Life with Graham has been one of the most fulfilling, but hardest, things we have experienced as a family. To see him play with his pretend cookies and watch as suddenly the concept of color clicks in his mind (nope, not color blind!), to see his drawing transform from scribbles to the letters of his name, and then to drawing a stick person within a span of three months…amazing.

He used to wait in his bed every morning for someone to come get him, and just in the last month he has felt the freedom to come running down the hall and snuggle with mom and dad in our bed before the day starts (I mean, real snuggles!). This lifts me up like nothing else ever could!

Change is happening – it always has been – but sometimes we are too close to the struggle to see the victories. As our hearts have broken for the children without families and without language, as we work through a second adoption process to bring one of these little ones home, we hope and pray that the world will become more vivid to our Graham.

We hope that he will have friendships that last.
We hope that the people who have shown an interest in him will not give up while he slowly develops an interest in them.
We hope that he will understand that abstract concept, but so real concept, of Jesus’ love and care for him.

It is days like these that we see the clock ticking and feel an urgency like never before. God bless our precious boy.

– guest post by Jennifer

Leta is a precious little girl, born in April of 2016 with Down syndrome. Leta can sit, crawl, walk, play clapping hand games, and pick up small objects with her fingers. She likes to play with toy drums, rattles, and the toy piano. If Leta hears music, she will be happy and shake her body to the beat. If another child takes her toys, Leta will hide from them and find another toy to play with instead of crying. She is quiet, obedient, and has a beautiful smile.

Leta makes one syllable sounds and responds to others asking for her toys or food. She likes snuggling and hugs from her caregivers. Leta is a good eater and is not picky. She does have a red birthmark on her left arm. Don’t miss Leta’s video below from this past August!

Watch a video of Leta here.

There is a $1,500 agency grant for Leta’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child. She also has an account on Reece’s Rainbow, where she goes by Delia.

Leta needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Leta, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, “Adoption is a gift”. People respond with a smile and a nod of their heads. Sometimes I get to go a little deeper and share details of our story and how we came to be the parents of a child with significant physical and mental disabilities. Usually people respond with something like, “Yes, I’m sure he is a gift!” or “Your family is such a gift to him!”

What I really want to do is to grab their hands, look them in the eyes, and tell them the truth:
Adoption is the hardest thing I have ever done. Adoption has required me to walk daily, often hand in hand, with suffering. Adoption has transformed my life.

And that is the greatest, most unexpected gift.

Five years ago, when we saw a sweet little face on a waiting child list, my heart said yes before my head could even catch up. What followed was a whirlwind of praying, paperwork, and raising funds. Thirteen months later we stood in a hot stuffy room in China, waiting to meet the little boy who only existed to us in a few roughly translated words, medical explanations and pictures.

I was not ready for what lay ahead. I was not prepared for the complete and total surgery Jesus was about to do on my life and heart. Because when that little boy was put in my arms, stiff and smelly and drooling, something shattered inside me. My hopes and dreams and misplaced savior complex died.

And the reality of parenting a child with severe special needs came rushing in. I felt the weight of his suffering and his broken life, and it became my own.

We came home and life felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable. But I smiled and held it together. I told myself that his lack of speech and his mental delays were mostly orphanage related. I kept on doing all the things: the making him special foods, and taking him to appointments, and smiling and singing and hoping.

But I was dying inside. My heart was struggling with love and I didn’t know what to do about it.

All I could see was this child who was so much more than we anticipated.
A child who couldn’t speak to us.
A child who was having uncontrollable seizures and living in a fog of confusion.
A child who still wore diapers, long past potty training age.
A child would never live independently.

I was suffering. I felt like a total failure because our adoption was not the feel good story I had imagined. My son was suffering. I watched as he struggled to do things that came so easily to his peers. I prayed for wisdom as we dealt with medical issues. I sat through the IEP meetings that so glaringly highlighted his shortcomings. I held him as he sobbed and sobbed, no words available to explain the deep sorrow in his soul.

And through it all God was holding fast to me. He was weaving the story I couldn’t see, preparing me for the gift I didn’t realize I even needed. The pouring out of my life on behalf of someone else. The gift of dying to myself.

For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21

One of my favorite Bible verses. But as God began to knit our life back together I came to realize that I was only now beginning to understand it.

I hadn’t understood that God often calls us to something so much bigger and harder than we could ever imagine. And when we walk in that suffering, when we embrace it and run to it and drop to our knees and cry out to Jesus through it, we get something so much better.

We get Christ.

One of my favorite worship songs repeats the lyrics “Hallelujah, all I have is Christ! Hallelujah, Jesus is my life.”

This is what adoption has given me. This is the unexpected gift of the struggle. We get to walk hand in hand with a God who can meet every need. We get to see the transforming power of love, hope, and the perseverance of faith. We get the hard work and privilege of dying to ourselves… sometimes daily, sometimes minute by minute. And in return, we experience a bigger portion of Christ.

I fell in love with my son. And in the process, I fell deeply in love with Jesus.

This is the unexpected gift of adoption. The same incredible gift we celebrate at Christmas. God is with us. We get Jesus!

And hallelujah, He alone is enough.

– guest post by René

Klodia, born in September of 2007, is a sweet girl who loves playing games and chatting with her primary caretaker. She is cooperative and gets along well with other children.

Klodia is outgoing and helpful. She likes to smile and laugh and when she does you can see her adorable dimples!

Klodia wakes up at 6:30, has breakfast at 7:00, goes to school at 7:30, has lunch at 12:00, takes a nap at 13:00, goes to school at 14:00, has supper at 18:00, does homework at 19:00, and goes to bed at 21:00. She is active in many outdoor activities. She can run and jump, but is best at jumping rope. She can jump more than 100 jumps per time.

Her language development is right on target with peers her age. She communicates well with everyone and can express her feelings well too. Klodia is currently studying in 3rd grade and she is keeping up with her peers there. She has no problems finishing her homework.

Klodia is from an orphanage that partners with Madison Adoption Associates. Her orphanage wasn’t sure what diagnosis to give her. When she was a baby, they thought possibly Down syndrome, but that is not accurate. They say she is currently healthy, but has a facial difference. A physician who looked at Klodia’s pictures and videos mentioned hypertelorism, though she has not been formally diagnosed.

Klodia’s orphanage feels that she is healthy and has said that she really wants to be adopted!

This past summer, Klodia and a couple of her friends from the orphanage participated in a Bring Me Hope camp. Klodia’s Bring Me Hope volunteer said: “Klodia was very very scared at first, but once we assured her she was safe, she blossomed. Klodia is so fast to learn the rules of card games, movements to songs, and English words. She remembered the path to the dining hall after the first time and it is a long, complicated way. She loved the waterside and tactile crafts, like slime and kinetic sand. She eats more than any teen boy, including every vegetable put in front of her. She is a wonderful child.”

Videos of her can be seen here:
Klodia 1
Klodia 2
Klodia 3

There is a $1,000 agency grant for Klodia’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Klodia has a $3,000 grant available with Love Without Boundaries as well!

Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

To connect with a family that has adopted a child with hypertelorism, click here.

Klodia needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Klodia, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

This morning at 8 AM….

My little girl and I… together rocking in a chair.

Her tiny little body cozy against mine, her head confidently against my chest, her breath in the same rhythm as mine, both enjoying this very precious moment.

Mother and daughter…. united in a harmony that I couldn’t imagine before.

Life is wonderful.

It’s now five months since En-Fan is at home.

She was already in our hearts for a very long time, but she really arrived on June 12th. Since then, our house is filled with a new energy. She brought us a basket full of happiness in so many different ways for each one of our family.

But to be honest… we almost didn’t get her, due to our fears.

Let me tell you why.

We live in a country (Belgium, so sorry if my English is not top…) where it is not allowed to look into waiting children files. We can’t fall in love with a picture of a child or be reassured by a smiling face.

In our country, the matching is done by the adoption agency, and as a parent, you have no access at all to the Shared Lists nor to pictures or any other detail regarding child profiles. As a would-be adoptive parent, you define your child profile in general terms, like age range and the medical needs you think you can handle. And then, it’s up to the person handling your file in the adoption agency and all you can do is wait until the matching happens. The specific special need, the age, boy or girl, it’s all out of your hands.

It’s important to know that in the months preceding to the final steps of our adoption procedure, my husband and I both felt already a strong spiritual connection with our child. We didn’t know the age exactly, we didn’t know the medical condition nor if it was a boy or girl, but we had a strong feeling that there was one particular child meant to be ours.

But who?
And how could we find her or him?

The only thing we could do was open ourselves to as many special needs as possible to make a match happen. Preparing our file and the child’s profile, we kept this in mind. We tried to include as many special needs as we thought we could handle. We wanted to have the largest possible child profile.

But then something very strange happened… I don’t know exactly what it was, but suddenly fear took over…

This long list with all the possible diseases, syndromes, and medical conditions caused panic attacks.

Could we handle this?
Would it affect the life of our other three children?

Instead of seeing a child with medical issues, we just saw the medical issues… So we freaked out and let fear win.

We decided we could handle the minor special needs, but the major ones? No way. So we “protected” ourselves and signed a file with special needs within our comfort zone.

Fear took over.
We replaced trust by control.
We took the safe way.

So we signed the necessary papers to complete our file. And then, instead of feeling relieved and comfortable, we felt miserable.

A strange feeling came over us… our child, that lovely little child who had already been waiting for us for such a long time, and that matched with us on every level, didn’t “match” with our file.

It wasn’t a rational thought, it was an intuitive feeling.

We restricted ourselves so hard that we had blocked the way to our child… that’s how we felt.

So we decided to listen to our hearts and to trust God, knowing He won’t place us or our family in a situation we couldn’t handle and began to talk about changing the papers – again. My husband and I had a very long and emotional talk together and finally, we decided to step out of our comfort zone.

We contacted our adoption agency to widen our child’s profile, what is normally not possible during the procedure in our country, but we can be very convincing when it really matters. 🙂

The moment we got the permission to widen the special needs profile, we felt a relief and a sense of trust.

Only three days later the phone call that we will remember forever came: “We have a child for you!”

There she was.
A two and a half-year-old with a big smile.
A sense of self-confidence that we didn’t expect at her age.
Her eyes sparkled with joy.

And we realized that maybe we have a lot to give to this child… but what a treasure she has to give to us!

Three months later we brought her home, to her three older brothers, all caring for her (like the little adults they already are) and playing with her (as the children they still are).

En-Fan connected with us from the very first moment… It was love at first sight, not only with us as her parents but also with her brothers. My eldest son (16 years old), who at first was not so enthusiastic about his little sister, sat on the bed with me the first night home and said, “Mom, I can’t believe it myself, but I love her already so much!”

And she opened her little heart in the same way.

Guess what were the first words she said? The names of her brothers.

Although the connection was immediately there, every new day she learns with us that connection can have a deeper dimension and we are so grateful for that. God sent her our way to bring endless joy and pleasure.

We are so glad that we listened to our heart and not to our fears.

We also learned that special needs, written down on paper in a medical file, do not always match reality.

En-Fan had a diagnosis of malformations on four limbs.
Officially she couldn’t walk, couldn’t speak and couldn’t use her hands very well.
There were developmental issues.
Her length and weight were below the standards.

On paper, she was obviously a girl with major special needs. In reality, she has only minor ones.

In China, she already got surgery for her clubfoot (done very well) and now she can walk like everyone else. Her length and weight recovered to normal standards in a few months and there are no big developmental issues left. Her hands will always keep a certain fixed flexion, but functionally, there are no big limits.

I know that sometimes it is the opposite (that the medical condition is worse than the file mentions) but we had the other way around experience.

We can also say that China has looked well after our little girl… and we are so grateful for that.

So now as we are looking forward to the Christmas season, we are grateful that we can finally celebrate it as a complete family!

– guest post by Wendy: email || Facebook

MaryKate is a sweet, spunky, sensible, talkative, and optimistic girl, born in December of 2007. She gets along well with the other children and she enjoys playing aeroplane chess, singling, dancing, and building things with Legos. She does not enjoy running.

MaryKate was born with beta thalassemia major and being adopted would absolutely extend, if not save, her life. She has been getting transfusions, but not nearly as often as she should be. She is also in great need of iron chelation medication.

Her file mentioned a heart defect – VSD – as a baby, but it likely resolved on its own as it has not been brought up since.

MaryKate is very responsible and mature for her age. She likes to help her caretakers and teachers. She is independent when it comes to her self care. She can be a little shy at first, but quickly warms up. Many adoptive parents and advocates who have met MaryKate adore her and recall her to be sweet and smart.

MaryKate communicates and answers questions well. She attends school at the orphanage and can recite poetry, do addition and subtraction problems, and sing the 26-letter alphabet song in English. MaryKate is obedient and does well in math, reading, Chinese, and English.

Her favorite foods are chips, chocolate, and cake, but she also likes grapes, apples, and bananas. She has been to Disney in 2015 and absolutely loved it! She loves Mickey Mouse and hopes to one day be able to go to Disney again!

MaryKate would love a family of her own and she desperately needs access to regular transfusions and chelation medication. A family for MaryKate will change her life, but truly save her life too!

You can see a video from when MaryKate was listed with another agency (with a different advocacy name) here. Password is stephanie and is case sensitive. And a short clip from a traveling family who met MaryKate can be seen here.

There is a $1,000 agency grant for MaryKate’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. The Cooley’s Anemia Foundation would also give a $1,000 grant for her adoption! Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

MaryKate needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting MaryKate, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

November is the month we all focus on being grateful and giving thanks. Everyone loves a thankful person. It can make or break our day.

“God gave us a gift of 86,400 seconds in a day. Have you used one to say, ‘thank you’?” ~ William Ward

As a mom of ten children, I need help daily. I can boss and order everyone around which is not edifying, and later backfires on me when I hear it coming out of my children’s mouths to each other. Or I can say thank you to encourage my children to do about anything.

I thank my children for everything from brushing their teeth to putting their glass in the dishwasher. It works on my husband too. Being thankful yields more benefits than maybe you’ve ever thought.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I want to share five ways that saying Thank You can change your day for the better.

1. Always thank someone for even the little things they do well, correctly, or carefully.

I have taught my children so many things just by saying thank you.

“Thank you for cleaning your table spot and putting you dishes in the dishwasher. Now your area will be clean when we start school.”

Telling them why you are thankful makes them feel like they have an important role in helping that they may not have realized. Kids aren’t always able to process cause and effect so verbalizing it builds self-help skills as well as self-confidence.

2. Catch them doing something you want them to repeat in the future and thank them for it.

“Thank you for coming downstairs so quietly. You didn’t even wake up your sister.”

What was learned from that one statement? Mom expects me to come downstairs quietly, I did a good job, and I think I will do that again next time.

3. Encourage a behavior you want by thanking them BEFORE they do it.

After breakfast we have three chores to do before we start school: Make bed, get dressed, and brush teeth. To get the ball rolling I might say, “Thank you for getting you morning chores done and meeting me in the family room for morning time.”

Two things are happening. One, I am thanking them for what I need them to do, and two, I’m giving them an incentive to get back down for the next thing. Works almost every time.

4. Thank them in front of each other and everyone tends to follow.

If I thank one for putting their shoes on the shoe shelf, it never fails that someone goes back to put their shoes away.

“Thank you for always cleaning your room after play time. You won’t have to go back and do it later.” I am ‘still’ hoping this will rub off on the little girls… I’ll keep trying.

5. Remind them to say thank you for all things as well.

As parents, we have a responsibility to our children to teach them thankfulness. It takes intentional direction for thankfulness to be automatic. You know it is clicking when one thanks another without being reminded. Until then, keep reminding.

I am beginning to hear sprinkles of it throughout our day, and yes, I even thank them for thanking each other. Did I say I am sometimes an ‘over thanker’? It worked in my classroom when I taught school, and it is working in our family.

Lady Bird Johnson said, “Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.”

I couldn’t agree more. I believe thanking our family will create thankful people, making the world a more beautiful place. Children don’t learn to be thankful being told to do so, they learn by seeing or hearing it being lived out in front of them. Scott and I are intentional in thanking each other in front of our kids. They see the thankfulness in the person saying it and witness the positive reaction in the person receiving the gratitude.

Our children are watching us constantly. You know as well as I do, they will repeat your words and behavior whether it is good or bad. Being thankful in front of them is a very good thing!

Call to Action

1. Read books and stories.

A great way to highlight thankfulness is in books and stories you read together as a family.

This week we were listening to Little Britches on Audible, and we heard the father say, “The best boss is the one who bosses the least.” I wrote it down, so we could talk about it. When we finished listening, I read the quote again and asked what they thought it meant. The discussion finally led to our being thankful for less bossing and more thankfulness in our family. Kids don’t need a boss, they need an encourager.

2. Celebrate Thankful Thursday.

Doesn’t social media go wild celebrating Thankful Thursday? Make it an extra special day to be thankful on Thursdays. Write notes, call someone and thank them for something ordinary, or count the thank yous in a day. Making something intentional and light hearted can increase the repetition of it much more likely.

3. Bring it all back to God and His Will for our Lives.

Colossians 3:15 says, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”

The number one word I see in that scripture is Peace. Isn’t that what we all crave and long for? The Bible offers peace to a thankful person. Peace and thanks go hand and hand. I can’t think of a better reason to be shouting thank yous all day long!

Peace is the heart of Jesus, and we all need more of Him.

I would love to know if this transforms your family. I’m pretty sure it will!

Calvin is the cutest little boy, born in December of 2012 with complex CHD: dextrocardia, complete VSD and ASD-B type, DORV.

Calvin lives in a loving foster family on the orphanage grounds.He is active, likes talking, and is full of curiosity. Calvin is described as smart and is said to have strong study abilities. He likes playing with toy guns and cars. He also enjoys listening and dancing to music.

Calvin reads others’ facial expressions well and is very polite, always happy to greet people. He has normal motor skills. Calvin is toilet trained and is also a good eater. He likes rice, noodles, eggs, chicken wings, watermelon, bananas, and apples. Calvin really needs a family that will be his forever and one that can get him access to the medical care he needs for his heart!

There is a $500 agency grant for Calvin’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Calvin needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Calvin, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

This November we are highlighting the work of NGOs in China doing work on behalf of orphans. I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of any. How can this be? Meredith Toering is one my favorite Instagrammers, but I don’t know her or the precious work she’s doing for kiddos with heart issues beyond that. Maggie had her palate repaired while we were in process with her and recovered at Peace Home in Beijing, run by our agency Holt International. But beyond that I have only glimpses from other people’s pages. And our China babies did not benefit from great starts, which so many organizations are working tirelessly to give to orphans in China.

So, while I’m absolutely not a wealth of information when it comes to NGOs working in China, I can say this: that you, dear reader, if you have adopted or are praying about it, if you have delivered a meal to a just-just-home adoptive family, if you’ve helped fundraise or raised awareness of the plight of the orphan in China: you are my favorite NGO.

Every time we share a link that highlights a child for whom time is running out, we do the work.
Every time we fill in a square, buy an auction item, send a check, we do the work.
Every time you ask yourself if there is room for one more at your dinner table, commit to praying about it, or fill that chair, you are doing the work.

Let us not forget that if we all followed the wild call of the holy spirit to go and make orphans into sons and daughters, we could change the world.

No, seriously. Change the world.

So here’s my challenge to you and to me…

1. If you have an empty chair around your table, or the money to buy one and stick there, that you commit to praying if Father has someone in mind to fill it.

2. As part of your preps for the coming Christmas season, you find a way to bless those who are on the ground in China doing the precious work of helping these babies until we get there.

For our family, this looks like shopping from Holt International’s catalog, where one can spend anywhere from $17 to $1,700 and everything in between and it all goes to blessing the socks off people who are in crisis. And it’s tangible, which makes it a winner with kids.

Our family draws names on December 1st of a family member we can serve until Christmas Eve, when the first gift we open will be from our newly-revealed Secret Servant. This year, those gifts will be chosen from the Holt catalog because we are swimming in stuff and what we need so much more than trinkets is to know that we are teaching our kids what it is to give.

However you chose to work this out, invite your kids into this conversation with you. Let them work through the discrepancy between them and the rest of the world; they need to know that. And then have an honest conversation about how we can stretch ourselves to help because maybe the best gift we can give Jesus this season is supporting the people he’s called to China.

And maybe the best gift we can give is to offer to go ourselves.

After all, he left heaven (HEAVEN!) to come to us, so that we might be gathered into those strong arms, poor orphans that we are. He came so that we can be called sons and daughters in a world that is fighting to keep us spiritual orphans.

This is the greatest gift. What shall we do with it?

Look at that sweet smile!

Adorable Naomi, born April of 2010, is a gentle and shy girl who likes to help take care of the younger children. She loves her teachers and is especially good about sharing her toys and food with the other children. Naomi is quiet, but she does speak in sentences and can ask and answer questions.

When she came to the orphanage, she had a scar on her lower back that doctors determined was from surgery for spina bifida. An MRI from August of 2016 showed she has a tethered cord. She can walk with braces on her legs and support of a push toy or walker.

Naomi’s balance has continued to improve over the years. She does use a wheelchair sometimes and she can control it very well.

Naomi receives her schooling through the orphanage and has learned how to count and recognize colors. She obeys the rules and cooperates with the other children to finish group projects. She can dress and undress herself and is very good about cleaning up after herself too.

Naomi really enjoys going outdoors and playing with and making towers with blocks. Naomi could thrive in a loving family with access to good medical care and educational supports!

See videos of Naomi here:
Naomi 1
Naomi 2

There is a $1,000 agency grant for Naomi’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Naomi needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Naomi, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Down syndrome is scary.

I said that to myself five years ago. It took me awhile to admit it. But I was pretty opposed to all lifelong diagnoses.

I had very little information about Down syndrome back then. And the information gaps gave my imagination plenty of space to run freely. I saw the shadows in the woods, tolerable at a distance, but I dare not move closer.

I was afraid. I was afraid of the shortness of life that often accompanies a Down syndrome diagnosis. Afraid of poor quality of life. Afraid of the social torment people with this diagnosis endure. Afraid I didn’t have what it would take to be a parent of a person with a lifelong diagnosis.

I could tell you all the reasons you shouldn’t be afraid, but they won’t apply to some of you and I’m certain to miss some of the specifics that others of you are really looking for. I can’t do it all in five minutes or less. I wish we could meet for coffee or share a few meals together (which we love doing if we can make the logistics happen). The concerns are varied but there are some things that are universal and those are the best things to talk about here.

Emotional or Practical? Which is Right?

Prospective moms and dads seem to come at the adoption process differently. For the most part, at least with the families I know, a mom’s initial approach to adopting is entwined with her emotionally enriched nature to nurture. Dads are emotional, too. I would argue our approaches are almost always emotional. Though not initially with an intent to nurture, we’re bent to ensure we’re protecting the margins, and that propensity is driven by emotion. There’s a lot wrapped up in this… it’s financial, practical; it’s family dynamics, potential lifestyle changes, etc.

None of these are necessarily deal-breakers, but they all need to be considered…
Will we have to buy a new car?
Do we need to change our vacation strategy?
Are we saving enough?
Are my parents still going to come visit?
Will our friends stick around for the chaos?
What about the day-to-day?
Do changes need to happen at work to accommodate a new child with potentially chronic medical needs?

It’s scary for us dads. We don’t say it. But I promise you, it is. Scary doesn’t mean choosing adoption is wrong. In fact, often, it probably means it’s right. But here’s the one thing we need you to know, wives. Us dads… we’re not cold or slow to the idea. We are practical, methodical, maybe even cautious. But we are not cowardly.

It may sound like spin, but wives, please try to understand. We’re all trying to mitigate our own fears to best position our family for the prospect of a healthy transition into life as the family of a person with a lifelong diagnosis. I’m certain there are wise things to be poured in to your hearts moms, but I’m a dad and I think the boys need to hear me today.

Two Ways I Struck Out and One Time I Didn’t

First of all, dads… you’re doing a great job. You may not be hitting home runs. You might even be striking out. But you’re stepping up to the plate and taking swings. Now, if all you’re doing is striking out, we might need to work on some things because you’ve got to at least get on base if you ever hope to win the game. I want to help you. Dads, here are two ways I struck out. And this one time when I didn’t. Learn from my mistakes and help your wife and family…

It is my nature to process internally. I read, reason, contemplate, read more, adjust my reasoning and finally settle my mind and heart. Nothing terribly unhealthy about this. Lots of brilliant people do it. Much of science and significant scientific discoveries follow this process.

But your wife’s heart and your family are not science experiments. They are your very own flesh and bone (Genesis 2:23). Your job as husband is as cultivator. It’s what a husband is. Someone who cultivates. Not just someone who contemplates. Contemplation in isolation is healthy. Cultivation requires planning, faith, exposure, discipline, protection, attention. Cultivation requires intimacy. And intimacy cannot happen in isolation. So sure, do what you need to learn and prepare, and then do what I didn’t do… offer your thoughts and feelings to your wife. Let her in. Ask her for her perspective. This will likely require you move back into contemplation (reading, learning, reasoning, etc.) but make sure you re-emerge to connect your wife to your process.

Emotions are a real thing. They’re important. I don’t think they should have all the power, but they need to be given a voice and given their place. I don’t show the world what I’m really feeling most of the time. But this is a safe space, so I’ll confess… I have fears. We all do. To set our fears to rest, we seek knowledge, information, facts, experience. We’re looking for ways to settle our turmoil. We’re emotionally wired to move from chaos to peace.

But some of us (me), go a little far with this and ignore the messy emotions of a big decision, putting the weight of the cross on the shoulders of logic alone. Don’t do that. It’s poor form. And it ignores a critical element of your make up – your emotions. And look, if you’re having a hard time tapping in to your own emotions, ask your wife to offer hers. Emotion is too valuable an ingredient to holistic decision making to leave it aside.

We had gotten some terrible news. Our dossier had been lost. This document we’d poured ourselves into for months, carefully following every little detail, asking for guidance to make sure it was in order… gone. We’d sent it to our agency. Our agency had reviewed it and sent it to the authorities in our child’s birth country, the birth country confirmed receipt of it, and then lost it. No one knew how to even begin to look for it.

There were lots of emotions. The most prevalent one being heartache. Our little girl was stuck in an orphanage while the family who loved her was stuck without a dossier. I cried. Mostly because I was angry and overwhelmed. My wife felt sad and guilty, as if she could have changed the outcome. It felt like a dead end, hopeless, heavy moment. But instead of sitting in my sorrow and letting anger turn in to cancer, we worshipped. Over and over we sang the refrain, “Our God is fighting for us always, we are not alone, we are not alone.” Over and over. Over our own hearts and over our little one across the world. We affirmed God’s nearness to us in this setback and His protection for our baby in an orphanage without a family nearby.

And then we prayed. Together. With tears streaming down our cheeks and faith in our hearts, “God wherever this dossier is, let it rise to the top of someone’s desk. If it’s buried in a stack somewhere, let it be found.” Two days later, that’s exactly what happened. It ended up on the wrong desk of a worker who was out of the office for a couple days. It’s reasonable to believe this issue would have worked itself out without our prayers. But we would have missed out on the opportunity to be raw and vulnerable with each other, with ourselves, and with our God. We needed a win.

The lost dossier wasn’t a concern to God. He knew where it was all along. He also knew my wife and I needed to be reminded that we’re on the same team.

There will always be plenty of reasons to be scared, fearful, upset, disappointed, and more as you work through adoption. But there’s no reason to keep it locked up. Process what you need to be able to give voice to your fears and then say them out loud.

I know this is hard for some of you. It’s hard for me. I’ve got a lot of work to do myself. But remember, you’ve been given a teammate who is perfectly suited to help you process. It’s okay to let her know where you are, even if you haven’t figured it all out yet.

Well isn’t he the cutest little graduate you ever did see? Jansen is a precious little boy, born in October of 2010, who is described as lovely and admirable by his caretakers.

He is independent and takes care of himself by getting dressed and bathing independently. Jansen enjoys playing with toys of all sorts and watching cartoons on TV.

At the time his file was prepared, Jansen was in 1st grade at a public school. He can recognize and read Chinese characters, draw well, and enjoys singing. He writes his name and really likes reciting poems.

Jansen is diagnosed with a congenital heart defect – mitral and tricuspid regurgitation, as well as cleft hands, and differences in his left foot. He is noted to have had surgery for dislocated hips.

It’s hard to understand why Jansen has waited for his family to see him as long as he has. We sure hope that his family sees him this year and that he might be able to be home with a forever family to celebrate his next birthday!

There is a $1,000 agency grant for Jansen’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Jansen needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Jansen, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

Precocious Bobby grinned ear-to-ear as he crunched the delicious corn his chubby fingers had threaded onto skewers not long before. Through his special education class at International China Concern (ICC), he learned about…

• Planting and harvesting from ICC’s on-site garden.
• Washing and preparing food together as family.
• Temperature and cooking in the kitchen.

And how with care and investment, the fruits of his labor were worth every bit of the effort.

Life-giving, joyful transformation might not be what comes to mind when one envisions orphan care in China, but that’s exactly what the holistic care model of ICC is providing for hundreds of young people and families. While some might limit Bobby because he has Down syndrome, at ICC, he is treasured and challenged, loved and cherished. And, the same is true for hundreds of others in ICC’s care.

Brief History

Since 1993, ICC has served in Hunan Province, partnering with the Chinese government to provide holistic care for young people who’ve been abandoned. In an effort to end the orphan crisis, ICC has expanded its Family Partners Program, providing expertise and services for families raising children with disabilities. ICC also focuses on advocacy, striving to empower and train Chinese nationals in order to see lives saved, families supported, communities transformed and attitudes changed.

Holistic Care

“We are committed to creating environments that foster the development of the whole person for China’s abandoned and disabled – mentally, emotionally, socially, physically and spiritually.” – ICC Value Statement

Young people in ICC’s care are provided with meaningful, holistic care designed to provide the “fullness of life”. But what does that mean on a day-to-day, year-to-year basis?

Precious Cora has been part of the ICC family since she was a young infant. In that time, this light of a child has grown into an exuberant little girl, now 4-years-old.

In order to provide her with the best care possible, ensuring she meets her fullest potential, a “person-centered meeting” occurs regularly with all caregivers, therapists and educators gathered to set personal goals. Each child at ICC is the focus of such a routine meeting where his or her strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes are considered and challenged to help stimulate growth. Specialized medical care plans, including surgical interventions, medications and therapies are also discussed and planned.

Just this year, Cora’s therapists fitted her with a customized wheelchair to promote proper posture, enhance cognitive growth and allow her to experience the thrill of independent mobility. Much to the surprise of her therapists and caregivers, Cora took off immediately! It was as if she had been waiting for that moment all her life!

She wheeled and spun and giggled as her team cheered her along. What a gift!

Mobility, confidence and love – each realized through the dedication of person-centered care.

While every child at ICC, including Cora, knows that he or she is of great significance individually, identity as a member of a family is also of matter of importance. Each young person is placed in a “family group” of 7-8 children or young people where they learn about attachment and love. Cora belongs to the Little Panda home where, just as with all family groups, a ratio of 1 caregiver to 4-8 young people, depending on the young person’s needs, is provided.

Together, Cora and her Woodpecker family enjoy circle time, where they’re encouraged to practice verbal language, play games, sing songs and participate in cooperative play. Each child receives specialized education, where they work toward their individual goals.

While structured education is important, play is also a priority at ICC.

In the summer, ICC’s on-site swimming pool is a hit. The benefits of pool therapy are endless: Pool activity promotes heart and lung health, increases strength, coordination and flexibility, improves balance and posture and advances mental and emotional health through bonding with caregivers and other young people while playing together.

The wheelchair-accessible playground is also a favorite, from which squeals of delight echo throughout the care center courtyard. Large-scale instruments, swings (with a wheelchair-accessible swing!), wide slides, water features during the summer, sand boxes and more are all features of this beautiful playground designed to enhance the physical, cognitive and social growth of every child in ICC’s care.

Young people, like Bobby mentioned above, also love ICC’s garden. So many lessons can be gleaned from a simple garden, and the harvest is a wonderful boost to the morale and confidence of those who participate in its care.

On a very foundational level, young people in ICC’s care receive the life-giving resources and support they might not get elsewhere. Cora will never know hunger as she and her friends each receives 3 nutritious meals per day with additional supplements as needed. She knows the comfort and safety of a warm place to put her head at night, with each child having a crib or bed to call his or her own.

Cora also knows the soft whispers of dedicated caregivers as someone is nearby to tend to her needs all night as well as during the day.

Most importantly, Cora, and each young person at ICC, knows they are loved and, as a result, learn how to love one another well. Their lives are completely transformed – a transformation that allows hope and opportunity to shine as they discover how to live to their fullest potential.

Four-year-old Riley, born with arthrogryposis, was recently adopted and while her caregivers at ICC miss her greatly, they share that she was loved deeply so that she could share that same love with her forever family. Riley’s adoptive mom, Ashley, shared:

“As a mom who has adopted from China two times, once from a typical CWI and once from ICC, we immediately noticed a marked difference in the level of care and preparation our children were provided before joining our family. ICC provided our daughter with family-style living and she was so loved and well cared for. She had attached to her caregivers and has now been able to fit perfectly in to our family with strong, healthy attachments. We are so grateful for ICC and can attest that their approach to caring for their children is life-changing.”

Currently, 160 young people live at ICC’s Hengyang Care Centre where each are provided with love, hope and opportunity so they can meet their fullest potential.

Family Preservation

“We parents are encouraged to not abandon them and not give up.” – A mother supported by ICC’s Family Partners Program

While ICC’s roots are in orphan care, its evolving model also includes significant efforts to end the orphan crisis by providing expertise and services for families raising children with disabilities, giving them supports to help keep their family together.

Families of children born with medical complexities in China face societal stigmas, huge upfront costs of medical care and the sheer lack of day-to-day supports. They consider surrendering their children to government care in an effort to “give them a better life.”

But what if abandonment did not feel like the only option?

What if an organization could provide a loving, multi-faceted approach to address the complex needs that disability presents?

Xiaozhi’s family faced those very stark realities a few years ago. They were concerned they’d need to surrender their child, who was born with cerebral palsy, to the care of the government to give him the best chance possible to live. But ICC came alongside the family, providing Xiaozhi with a customized wheelchair, recreational opportunities, the gift of physical and occupational therapies and the assurance of a community to help keep them together.

For 10 years, ICC has supported families raising children with disabilities so they can remain together as a family. The program was recently expanded to reach more families who deeply desire to stay together – families who are financially and emotionally drained and barely surviving without the social constructs that support their efforts to remain a unified family.

For Xiaozhi’s family, the services have made both tangible and intangible differences. “The provision of a wheelchair is such a small thing but I believe in giving a place of comfort to sit, something else is also happening,” shared ICC Therapy Manager Alison Kennedy. “A young man is being honored; a family is being valued.”

ICC believes young people reach their fullest potentials in the context of family. By supporting biological families in their deep desires to care for their children, the pressure to abandon is alleviated, caregivers are empowered to remain together and the idea of a “better life” is completely transformed.

Community Advocacy

Influencing change in attitudes and acceptance regarding disability is challenging, especially in a country with a deeply-entrenched value system related to family. But ICC sees the ripple-effect as personal touches create a paradigm-shift and leave lasting impact.

ICC’s caregivers are an extremely valuable part of the organization’s mission and, as such, most remain with ICC far longer than a typical welfare institute. They’re hired locally, paid a fair wage with insurance benefits, trained, equipped and empowered to skillfully care for ICC’s precious young people. In turn, they are transformed by the love of other staff, ICC supporters and, most of all, the young people they selflessly serve.

The power of the caregivers’ testimonies stretch into their communities as their friends and families begin to understand the true worth and value of young people with disabilities.

“Before I worked at the Hengyang Care Centre, I did not understand disability and would not have understood children with disabilities,” shared Zhou Zhaoyang, a dedicated ICC caregiver. “I remember the first time I met Shushu, the first of the boys I met, I was thinking how beautiful he was, but also how fragile! He had a big plaster on his leg after a surgery at that time, and I helped bring him back from Changsha where he was in the hospital. I remained still for the entire three-hour trip home because I was so scared that any movement would hurt him! Since then, I have grown to love Shushu and all of the boys so dearly. All the caregivers here put our hearts into caring for these children and our time with them has given us such big hearts of love for them. Through taking care of these special and precious children, I have learned much about love, joy, patience and the strength of the human spirit.”

Kyla Alexander, Operations Director and 17-year ICC team member, and other ICC staff were recently invited to a school to share about disability, a special opportunity that could influence young people in how they view disability. The team used video and games to reach the students as they considered disability in their day-to-day interactions.

“Integration into public schools continues to be a challenge for our kids,” Kyla expressed. “Because of the infrastructure and current set-up, we must continue to carry our children up the stairs each day to their classrooms. This is frustrating, but through opportunities like this, I believe hearts are impacted and maybe this next generation will be different in how they view disability.”

Your Love Brings Life

ICC is grateful to God’s faithfulness in allowing the organization to grow and expand to continue meeting the needs of young people with disabilities in China…

Young people like Bobby learning about corn, giving him typical family interactions and care that are life-changing and purpose-giving.
Families like Xiaozhi’s receive a wheelchair, translating to care and social engagement that has opened their worlds, allowing them to feel included and not isolated.
Community members have learned about inclusion and disability awareness, where seeds of change are being planted to help shift cultural ideals.

The sanctity of life is at the heart of all ICC does and we look forward to where God will guide us next.

Join ICC’s Mission

Please consider making a difference today…

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Pray and advocate for ICC’s “Waiting Children”
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– guest post by Erin

Two years after our first adoption, a three-year old waiting boy from China, I began searching the lists for the little girl that would complete our family. In my mind, she would be two or three years old, with a similar need to our son, as we already had trusted specialists in place.

In the spring of 2009, the face of a precious two-year old boy caught my eye. I showed his picture to my husband whose comment was, “He’s cute.” Since I was looking at this list to find my daughter I didn’t think more about him at that time. About a week later, I was tagging all the little boy clothes for a consignment sale, when I asked my husband, “Do I sell these, or put them back in the closet for that little boy we thought was so cute?”

After a short discussion and making sure he was not yet matched, we proceeded to inquire about him further. His need was listed as hypospadias, something neither of us had ever hear of before.

Dictionary.com defines hypospadias as: “a developmental anomaly of the urethra in which a part of the urethral canal is open on the undersurface of the penis or on the perineum.” My initial research indicated that this was an easy “special need”.

It just happened that the first person at work I shared our adoption news with, had a son born with hypospadias and she had a positive story to share about a simple surgery and no further issues. With a happy heart and heading into a situation I felt was well within the range to handle on my own, we started on the paperwork trail.

We received PA on Shuhuai just after his third birthday.

During the wait we received more detailed information on his condition and began to realize that his need was not going to be as “easy” as we first thought. His original diagnosis upon entering the orphanage was hermaphrodite; having both male and female reproductive organs. At age two, the diagnosis was changed to hypospadias, with no clarity on why the diagnosis was changed.

This lack of clarity caused me to fear, and all the what if questions flooded my mind and stole my peace. Maybe I couldn’t handle this on my own! (I know as a believer, I was not meant to handle any of my life on my own, but I am just being real about my personal struggle to trust God in all things.)

I contacted our agency about possible updates and found out we could request an updated exam. We were informed that a blood test and an ultra-sound (to look for internal reproductive organs) would be performed. The translation of the results of the blood work were “male chromosome with abnormalities” and the ultra-sound was not performed, stating “the child was not cooperative.” (This should have been a hint about what was to come with this child 😊.)

During this time, our oldest son required eye surgery and it just so happened that the eye surgeon’s husband was a leading urologist in our area. I arranged to meet with him to have him review Shuhuai’s file. He was very knowledgeable, professional, and to the point. He discussed surgeries with painful difficult recoveries due to Shuhuai’s age, as most hypospadias repairs are made during infancy.

The doctor brought up the likely possibility that he (or she, if future testing should reveal internal reproductive organs as well) would not be able to reproduce naturally. He mentioned counseling would be beneficial as Shuhaui neared puberty and had to navigate a possible major life decision about who he/she wanted to be. One scenario he mentioned was one I had not yet considered: stunted growth, if hormones were lacking to produce the typical changes during puberty.

I left his office with more questions, but I felt I had answers to two things: First, Shuhuai was to be our second child and second, I had found the right doctor to help us with Shuhuai’s care once home.

Fast forward past the 14 months of waiting and a turbulent beginning.

[Remember the orphanage report about him being uncooperative? That was an understatement and is a whole post in itself, about trusting God, saying yes even when afraid, and the long road to attachment and bonding.]

Not knowing what his bathroom habits/abilities would be, I brought pull-ups for Shuhuai to wear throughout our adoption trip. In China we observed that Shuhuai sat down to urinate, as he didn’t seem to have any way to direct his urine stream. It would spray up and out, or down his legs, at times. Once home, he had accidents often.

He didn’t appear to be able to sense when he needed to urinate. We used pull-ups at night and for long outings. I sent him to “try” to use the bathroom at scheduled times during the day, and I kept a change of clothes in the car at all times, just in case. As far as impacting our daily lives, that was all that was required to care for this special need during our first months home.

The first pediatric visit was only a few days after arriving home. He was relatively healthy, apart from a cold, and small for his age, in the 5th percentile for both height and weight. Blood work was ordered, and the results confirmed China’s report of “male”. With that information the pediatrician did not think it would be necessary for an ultrasound. We decided to wait on any further intervention, as it was more urgent that we attached to each other and we wanted his English to be more proficient. so he could understand was going on during medical exams and procedures.

We scheduled a visit with the pediatric urologist, after Shuhuai had been home about six months. The examination revealed two testicles (descended, but not in the right place), a small penis, a small opening under the penis for urine to exit, and a hernia that needed repair. The doctor considered this severe hypospadias with genital malformation and recommended we schedule the first of many surgeries to repair the hernia and put the penis and testicles in their proper place.

Shuhuai was given a shot of testosterone at that appointment with more scheduled leading up to surgery to help “give the doctor more to work with”. It was also mentioned that seeing an endocrinologist at some point could be helpful in determining whether or not Shuhuai would benefit from treatments to increase his overall growth.

The surgery lasted about three hours. His penis and testicles were moved to their correct spots, the hernia was repaired, and our poor little guy had 110 stitches in, on, and around his “tenders”. His recovery was hard.

We gave him Tylenol with codeine every 4 hours around the clock for days, and he still could hardly move from pain. He had a catheter that dripped into a pull-up that had to be changed slowly and gently about every 2 hours. He would wake up screaming in pain during the night when the pull-up got full and heavy, and pressed on his incisions.

During the post-op appointment, it was discovered that some skin had grown over the area where the catheter was placed. While the doctor worked to remove the catheter, Shuhuai screamed and cried and squished my fingers and pushed my “don’t faint in front of the kids” skills to the very limit. Once the catheter was finally out, the doctor wanted to scope the urethra to see if the extra skin would cause a problem with urination. Since Shuhuai was still suffering from the catheter removal trauma, he wanted no part of that! The doctor stated it was important to verify that the urethra was clear, so a scope under anesthesia was scheduled. The scope verified that everything looked good, and we were finished with step one.

The surgery did not change how Shuhuai was able to urinate, he still had to sit, but it seemed he had some control of the direction and therefore fewer spray accidents.

Two years later, Shuhuai was ready to stand up to pee like his brother and father. The consultation with the doctor prepared us for an even more difficult recovery this time. The plan was to take a skin graft from his cheek (mouth) to create a urethra, then attach it to the back side of his penis. The cheek skin would better handle then urine than a regular skin graft, since it is created for the acidity of saliva. This delicate skin would require immobility to heal properly. Strangely, the doctor didn’t think our seven year would be capable of holding still, so a full body (spica) cast would be used for 4 – 6 weeks during recovery to keep him from moving and possibly undoing what had been done.

Testosterone shots were scheduled again leading up to surgery. I prepared for being house-bound for the most part during his recovery and made plans to sleep downstairs with our son in the family room as I was not sure how we would be able to carry his spica-casted self, safely up our narrow stair case. Although Shuhuai was ready and willing to have this second surgery, he was anxious, as was I. The recovery nurse reported that his very first words upon waking in recovery were, “Is my penis surgery over yet?!”

Although the outcome was not a full repair of his hypospadias, the doctor was able to move the opening onto the back of the penis, using skin that was already there! There was no skin graft needed from his cheek, therefore no spica cast! This recovery was so much better than the first one. His was now able to stand to pee and to direct the stream, if he held things a certain way.

This second surgery was nearly five years ago. In that time, Shuhuai has developed the ability to sense his need to urinate better and can stand to pee but usually chooses to sit. He sees an endocrinologist every six months to track his growth and has made it to the 15th percentile in height. His development has been slower than most of his peers, but it has been steady. Signs of puberty are showing, and in a year or two we will most likely revisit the urologist to see what steps to take if Shuhuai wished to complete the repair of his hypospadias.

We have already discussed with him that he will require more surgery to have his own children, and that even then, there is no guarantee. We will most likely seek counseling for him to learn how to address this topic with a potential spouse. Right now, as a pre-teen, he says he will just adopt and find a wife who wants to as well. If that is the outcome he desires, I can’t argue with that!

For information on hypospadias, click here.

– guest post by Julie

Emmett is an adorable, obedient, and polite boy, born in June of 2010 with Down syndrome. Emmett has the absolute best smile! He has a great foster family who takes him to all of the orphanage events and activities and he has received education through the One Sky Foundation.

Emmett is able to walk, run, and use a spoon to feed himself. He enjoys watching TV, coloring, playing with blocks, and dancing. Emmett focuses well, is able to follow simple instructions from adults, and listens to conversations well. His caretakers say that he sometimes looks like a little adult when he is walking outside.

Emmett knows all the names of his classmates and performs very well in school.

An advocate met Emmett in May of 2018 and said this about him:

“This little boy seemed to be a favorite at the orphanage. The lady that does paperwork at the orphanage knew him very well and he ran up to her as soon as he saw her and they hugged. The teacher bragged about him and I was told his foster mom is very good with him. He lives in a foster family that is very involved with orphanage activities and he often participates in events or field trips.

He followed directions well and was obedient to his teacher and polite during class time. They were learning to use a pencil and he had a good grasp. All the kids in his class had Down syndrome and most of them had more delays than him.”

Watch a video of this sweet boy here.

There is a $2,000 agency grant for Emmett’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates and Emmett is eligible for a $5,000 grant with Reece’s Rainbow through December 31st, 2018!

Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Emmett needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Emmett, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

“Sensitive special need. Hypospadias.”

That was the listed special need on the precious child when my husband and I first saw the advocacy post. We had different special needs at the forefront of our minds, but something made us pause. Hypospadias was something we knew and understood. Our first son received a surprise diagnosis of hypospadias shortly after birth.

We requested the file. This (what we were seeing) was not that.

Hypospadias is simply a birth defect in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside of the penis instead of at the tip. Hypospadias can vary significantly in terms of severity; there are grades assigned based on how far the opening of the urethra is from the tip of the penis. Grade I is mild with very high surgical success, whereas Grade 4 is the most severe, and typically requires multiple surgeries.

Even taking into consideration the most severe forms of hypospadias, that simple diagnosis could not explain the images included in the file. And so we entered the world of DSDs, or Disorders of Sexual Development. Or, as I like to call it, Differences of Sexual Development.

I dove deep, researched everything I could find on different DSDs that presented similarly to the images in his file. I read every single post on NHBO from other families who had children with these special needs. I contacted every mama I could find and begged them to share their story. But, in the end, it became clear that there was absolutely no way that we would know what we were looking at.

We would simply have to make a decision based on the limited knowledge we had.

He was listed as a male, but we knew that that could change. We had to decide if we could deal with that. If we were open to that. We knew that sexual function could be in question. We had to decide if we could deal with that. If we could parent a child through that. We knew that infertility and even sterility were on the table. We had to decide if we could deal with that. If we could support and guide an adult child in the types of decisions available for growing a family.

Ultimately, we decided that male or female was less important than this child’s identity as a precious child of God, a child who was uniquely created and intentionally made. We said yes, submitted LOI, and six months later we met our son.

I won’t lie; it’s been a complicated journey. Not because our son’s special needs are life threatening. Not because of the maintenance or daily routines of his special needs. Truthfully, our daily life looks not one bit different because of his physical differences.

The hard part has been finding answers and navigating through a world of intense and varying opinions on how to treat (or not treat) these physical differences.

Some people feel very confident that surgery should be completed and as soon as possible to help the child look more typically male or female. Others disagree vehemently saying that surgery, unless medically necessary, should be postponed until the child is old enough to decide.

No matter what, these are weighty choices.

The odds are that waiting children with a DSD-related need will not come home with an exact diagnosis. The file might include a karyotype, indicating if the child has a typical set of chromosomes or not. The file might include some photos. But it might not. With DSDs, it is rarely clear what caused the physical differences, so there can be a lot of unknowns.

Might the gender be incorrectly assigned in China? Yes, that’s a possibility.
Might there be more extensive needs discovered once home, like kidney complications? Yes, that’s a possibility.
Might the child identify differently than the assigned gender and wish to transition at some point? Yes, that’s a possibility.

Saying yes to this need likely looks like saying yes to a slim amount of information, and that can be hard.

For our family, the hardest part has been knowing what to share and with whom. You see, this isn’t a special need with its own hashtag. No #zipperclub or #luckyfin. No #heartwarrior or #morealikethandifferent. And for that reason, the community of others walking the same road can be more difficult to find.

It’s a special need that can isolate your family a little bit.

For all adoptive parents, navigating how much of our kids’ stories to share and who receives the information is hard. This need just adds a bit of an extra layer to that. Sensitive special need indeed.

As we have yet to complete any surgeries while we are still in the diagnostic phase, we have had to choose how to handle church nurseries, daycare teachers, babysitters, and even our own families because the simple truth is our son looks different. We’re constantly walking a tightrope of protecting our son’s story and sharing enough information that those who are partnering with us can adequately provide and care for our son.

I remember reading a post from a mom parenting children who are HIV+. She described it as “the easiest special need ever”. HIV was on our list of special needs because we agreed with that sentiment, but I might argue that we’ve got a contender here. While there have been buckets of doctor appointments, and out-of-state for specialists and DSD clinics, and lots of learning, at this current juncture of parenting a two year old with an unknown DSD, this is surely the easiest special need ever.

The future may or may not get more complex as we make decisions that will impact our son for the rest of his life, but truly, he is just the best. If you can walk into the unknown, and be open to living in the now while preparing for tomorrow, I encourage you to consider hypospadias and other Differences of Sexual Development.

Learn about DSDs at Accord Alliance

– guest post by an anonymous mama

Oh my goodness!

Darling Elia is an active, smiley, and loved little girl… and just so darn cute! She was born in February of 2015 with Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect – VSD.

Elia has good fine motor skills. She is closest to the caretaker who looks after her and really likes to interact with her. Elia plays and gets along well with the other children. She likes to play with brightly colored toys.

At the time Elia’s file was prepared, Elia could make sounds, sit, crawl, stand while holding onto an object, and take a few steps while her hands were held.

Elia understand the meaning of the word ‘no’ and responds to her name being called. She will share a toy with a friend or caretaker if asked. Elia can follow simple directions and will clap her hands, dance, and shake her head yes/no. A good cuddle helps to calm her down if she gets upset.

What Elia needs most is a forever family to come for her now!

Elia was under the care of Show Hope, where she went by Nadine, up until this summer when she was recalled to her home orphanage.

You can learn more about Elia from those at Show Hope (where she was called Nadine) who knew her and loved her well.

There is a $1,500 agency grant for Elia’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Elia needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Elia, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

“That is a need I could never handle, Lord.”

It all began with a checklist. You know, the dreaded medical needs checklist we all fill out in the beginning of the China adoption process that kickstarts the journey to our child. The very checklist we dwell over, pour research over, stress over, and pray over. If we say no to this particular need, we feel we say no to a particular child. If we say no to that need, we ask if we’re saying no to God. Ya know…that checklist.

Like all prospective adoptive parents we poured over that checklist for months. We narrowed it down neatly to the needs we thought we could handle and would be most comfortable with.

On our neatly checked off checklist there was, of course, the urogenital needs category with hypospadias included. For us, the urological needs category might as well have been handed to us with a big NO stamped right over it. I grew up in a family that was very conservative and very private and modest over private parts, and issues like intersex were a completely taboo subject. The thought of ambiguous genitalia and intersex and surgeries correcting issues down there, as much as I hate to admit it, sent chills up and down my spine.

“That is a need I could never handle, Lord.” I said quite indignantly. I remember the very moment I whispered those awful words aloud. I was in my kitchen standing over the counter with the printed out checklist before my eyes as I saw the words ambiguous genitalia.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. – Isaiah 55:8

Basically, the urogenital category was the only category we left *completely* blank. We knew the nature of China adoption files and how vague they could be. We knew hypospadias was a potential catch all term for issues such as ambiguous genitalia and intersex conditions. I gave a loud resounding no to it all.

Eventually we submitted the checklist, of course with no uro needs selected. At that point, we were expecting a quick match because we were open to either gender; families who were open to boys with our agency were getting matches within just a few weeks. As time went on, we considered adding needs to our checklist. Time lingered, making our wait feel like an eternity. I’d often ask, “God, is there a need we left unchecked that you needed us to check?” I’d ask that, but never ever had uro issues in mind of course.

A few months rolled by and that much anticipated phone call came! It was our social worker on the other line asking if we’d like to hear more about a file she had for us. I immediately said yes! She then proceeded to share about a sweet toddler boy who had hypospadias. She said she knew it wasn’t checked on our list, but they felt it was something we could consider with how “minor” it was.

I was nervous. I had researched just enough to know there could be more to a need listed as hypospadias. They sent us the file, and everything read pretty well. We sent it over to an international adoption doctor, and he called the next day saying this little boy’s hypospadias was either minor, or even corrected, and he was very hopeful. He even blatantly told me, “I think you should go get him!”

We were excited, accepted his file and rushed in our Letter of Intent.

There were no sensitive photos in the file, and we knew to ask the orphanage to send a couple over to ensure nothing additional was going on. We waited over a week and grew more and more in love with this little boy. One day we saw the sensitive photos zipfile in our inbox. I waited for my husband to get home from work so he could view the photos first. He sat down to open the file, and as he looked he said with an apple-sized-lump in his throat…

“I’m not sure what I’m looking at.. you need to come look at this.” My heart immediately sank to the pit of my stomach. I went over, and the first words that immediately came to mind were ambiguous genitalia and intersex. We sent the photos over to the IA doctor and he responded quite seriously that his genitalia appeared ambiguous and to request further testing as soon as possible.

“Not being able to fully understand God is frustrating, but it is ridiculous for us to think we have the right to limit God to something we are capable of comprehending.” – Francis Chan

At that point, I kept thinking back to how the whole journey had unfolded up to that point. “God.. why?! I told you this was the one thing I couldn’t handle… why?” Honestly, it felt like a cruel joke God was playing on us at the time. That was probably the lowest point in the whole journey, I’m ashamed to admit.

My husband and I left each other alone to think on it for a few days. Then one day I asked, “How are you feeling about this..?” (in a roundabout way of asking if he was contemplating retracting our Letter of Intent and not moving forward for this little boy). He responded, “We can’t leave him there. He’s our son.” I sighed a sigh of relief as I thought those very words as well.

We had already committed to him and loved him, even if we felt a bit scared out of our feeble-human minds. We also knew once other prospective adoptive parents knew all of his needs, they’d likely pass on him. And at that point there was only maybe two other families open to boys with our agency, putting his chances nearly to 0.

Unfortunately I had done enough research on needs to know boys with urogenital needs are some of the hardest to find families for.. heartbreakingly due to prospective adoptive parents just like me who defiantly shake their fists at God with the audacity to tell Him they can’t handle them.

“Everything in all creation responds in obedience to the Creator… until we get to you and me. We have the audacity to look God in the face and say, ‘No.'” – David Platt

We requested testing. Then we actually tried to tell them not to worry about it because we knew the test results could be wrong anyway. We were committed, and they’d have to be redone once home anyway. Most importantly, we didn’t want to put our little guy through any more medical trauma.

We received word they had already gotten testing done. And the test results were hopeful. My Google-Doctor self diagnosed him with severe hypospadias in conjunction with other abnormalities (that are commonly seen with severe hypospadias). But there were still unknowns. He could still be intersex. And we had to prepare for the worst case scenario.

Throughout this phase of the process, the Lord was continuously impressing on my heart that, despite urogenital differences, our son was still fearfully and wonderfully made. When fear and worry tried to overtake my heart, I’d repeat over and over, “He’s fearfully and wonderfully made…”

God was also impressing upon my heart that our reluctance on the need is what also qualified us over others for his need. I’m sure that doesn’t make sense to you.. nor did it me in the beginning. God most often calls the least qualified, and boy did He do that in our case.

“Next time you feel unqualified to be used by God remember this, he tends to recruit from the pit, not the pedestal.” – Jon Acuff

Fast forward a few months and we got our boy. Our first doctor appointment once home was the international adoption clinic. I shared a few concerns and the doctor there gave a quick look at his hypospadias. She looked very concerned and I could tell this was possibly new to her. She said he appeared to have a “blind vaginal pouch”. I had prepared my heart for words like this, but they were still hard to hear. Vaginal kept echoing in the back of my mind. In his first ever written US medical file, she wrote possible intersex. Again, a major blow.. but I knew to not think too much on it because this was not a urologist speaking these words.

A nurse who came to visit to enroll us in a state healthcare program paused while she looked at his referral medical file. She pointed at the word “intersex” and asked, “Did you know… this was wrong with him.. before adopting him?” I could tell she was taken back. I said it was a bit complicated, but we had an idea it was a possibility, but we were waiting for his urology appointment to get a diagnoses.

It broke my heart to hear the words “wrong with him…” but I try to extend grace to people for messy words as I’m a messy-word type person myself. Oh how now I wish I would’ve proclaimed to her the very words that had been repeated in my heart, “No matter what, he is fearfully and wonderfully made..”

Fast forward to his first actual urology and endocrinology appointment. I was incredibly nervous. I was at peace in many ways in my heart, but my mind just couldn’t stop racing with what-ifs. I was praying for the best outcome – which for us was severe hypospadias. The urologist examined him, and looked at his file and asked questions, and the endocrinologist of course had lab tests lined up.

They had a psychologist come in along with a social worker. The atmosphere in the room was very serious, which made me on edge a bit. Add to that, I had a child with medical trauma who trembled and cried at doctor appointments, and it was maybe the most stressful appointment to date. The urologist was fairly hopeful but said we’d need to wait on test results. Again on repeat in my mind and heart, “He is fearfully and wonderfully made.. God doesn’t make mistakes..”

Test results came back and both the uro and endo confirmed a diagnosis of severe hypospadias and ruled out an intersex condition. My heart was relieved of course, but if they had come out with the “worst case” we would have managed. I promise you, even if it was “worst case”, we would have continued to run the race and loved on our sweet boy just the same.

We now have had a couple surgeries which have gone well (outpatient and the healing process wasn’t nearly as bad as I anticipated). He’ll need another surgery down the road, but I’m not worried at all. I sometimes wish I could go back in time and tell that newly in process adoptive mama that I was to not worry so much… and that everything would be fine.

Fear is an absolute liar. He wants to bind and hold us down in fear so that we don’t walk courageously with the Lord. Fear loves comfort zones; he delights when we tell God no. He loves when we allow him to be bigger than our Faith. We could have let fear scare us out of moving forward for our little boy, and I thank God every day we shoved fear aside and leaned on Jesus instead.

We would say yes to our son a million times over.

His kisses on my cheek and I love you Mommy just melt my heart into a puddle. His laughter. His ingenuity. His humor. His joy. The unknowns in the beginning were hard, but hypospadias to us has been a pretty easy need. Most days I don’t even think once about it. He’s a perfectly happy and healthy little boy.

To think of him remaining at his orphanage if we had said no… the thought crushes my inner-most being. While it’s good all adoptive parents acknowledge we are not saviors, we cannot gloss over the cold hard facts of life being spent parentless in an orphanage and lifelong implications of medical/special needs not being met.

Our son’s hypospadias was severe enough that, if his need had gone on uncorrected, he’d never be able to even think about sexual functionality, a healthy marriage, having children, urinating standing up, and more. To some this may seem minor, but I’ve done enough research and studies of men who grew up with even just minor uncorrected hypospadias to know it is a devastating blow to their very foundation of manhood and identity. Our son would have had a very grim future, indeed. It crushes me to think about it.

Since adopting him, I see little boys with urogenital issues listed and advocated for and often passed up. It’s tragic. So many families are missing out on some of the most amazing little boys. Little boys who simply were born with a physical difference down there. Little boys that with the love of parents and family, medical care/surgeries, are just like all other little boys. Little boys who were indeed fearfully and wonderfully made by the same very Creator as you and me.

If you’re currently researching needs, please consider urological needs and specifically hypospadias. I know if we were able to step outside of that fear-owned comfort-zone, as indignantly against urological needs as we were, I know you can take that leap as well.

There is a whole community of urogenital-needs parents also waiting to hold your hand through this journey. But, most of all, God has your hand. And if He leads you to it, He’ll guide and even bless you through it.

“For you formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and made.” – Psalms 139:13-14

– guest post by an anonymous mama

At the beginning of our adoption process we connected with a PA friend of ours to help us walk through our openness form. When it came to hypospadias, she explained that it’s generally a simple fix with a few minor exceptions. We felt confident with its simplicity so we checked yes.

In February 2016 all of our paperwork was logged in and on April 15 we were matched with the most precious, handsome boy in the entire world.

His two medical concerns were hypospadias and a sacral pit. After reviewing his file we gathered that his hypospadias had been repaired. It seemed simple enough. We said yes and took all the final steps to travel.

We traveled July 2016 to bring our son home and, given the nature of his medical need, we didn’t do very much ‘investigating’ – we chose instead to leave that up to the professionals.

Once home we saw our pediatrician and she referred us to a local urologist out of Grand Rapids, MI. We anxiously awaited this appointment to see help us determine our next steps, and the day finally came.

Beau and I went in and upon initial exam the doctor said he was just fine and that he did not have hypospadias. We were shocked! We honestly thought we were looking at a living, breathing, miracle child.

We scheduled a minor, elective surgery for him and shortly after sending our son back the doctor was ready for us to review things. The doctor sat with us and explained that Beau did in fact have hypospadias; it was the worst case he had ever seen in his medical career. He was an older doctor so we knew he’d seen a lot. He referred us to Dr. Barber within the practice stating that he handles the “complicated cases”.

After our initial appointment we learned all that was needing to be done. We were, to say the least, overwhelmed. He explained that it would be a minimum of a two stage surgery. His first surgery ended up being two hours longer than planned. When Dr. Barber came out he explained that Beau did in fact have surgery in China to repair his hypospadias, however it was done incorrectly. Because of this he had to correct it by having a much more invasive surgery than he had planned. And an additional surgery would be needed.

With hypospadias you are generally rerouting the urethra to end in the correct spot. With Beau’s complicated hypospadias he was in need of a newly created urethra. One that would start as far back as his bladder and go a distance our doctor had never taken a urethra before. A distance that none of the urologic doctors he consulted with in the greater Michigan area had either.

So he has taken it in stages. Slowly creating a new urethra with grafted skin from his foreskin and lips. Beau has had two surgeries thus far. Both have required him to be in a catheter for two weeks post surgery. These surgeries have not been easy but we have grown so much through it all.

We believe our son has learned to trust us more because of the gentle care we had to give him after each surgery. We anticipate his third and final surgery to be just before Christmas this year. We thank God for Dr. Barber!

We also are so thankful for our very blind, uneducated yes.

I won’t lie, those weeks after surgery were long, hard, painful, and ones not quickly forgotten. But the weeks in between have been sweet, loving, and filled with growth. Those are the weeks we look at. Those are the weeks that matter the most.

Beau has now been home for two years. He is an amazing kid that has learned and grown so so much!

– guest post by Melissa: email || Facebook

The moment I saw our daughter being carried into the Civil Affairs office where we waited, I knew something wasn’t right.

She was 19 months old and couldn’t even hold her head up. We knew she had Down syndrome but, according to her file, she was able to sit up, play with toys, and even hold her own bottle.

But the girl who was put in my arms was as floppy as an infant.

The moment I held her, nothing else seemed to matter. I knew that God had picked this sweet girl to be our daughter and He would equip us for the challenges we will face.

Bonding and attachment with Ivy came quite naturally. She was adored by each of us. We poured out our love for this sweet girl and saw her come out of her shell a little bit each day.

But even though she was making great progress, something always seemed off with her. Ivy was quite delayed for her age. She had no idea how to hold a toy, let alone play with one. Trying to engage her in play was a challenging task. At one point, because of her delayed development, we questioned her age, but after looking into it realized it had to be accurate.

She struggled with being overstimulated with her surroundings as well, which seemed to make progress come a little bit slower. We were often cuddling and comforting Ivy in order for her to feel comfortable where she was. We were repeatedly told by therapists that Ivy should be assessed to rule out other possible diagnosis that might explain some of her delays. By their constant concerns with Ivy’s development, I knew something wasn’t quite right.

Ivy Jane has Down syndrome and congenital heart disease. She was seen by what seemed to be every doctor at our local Children’s Hospital. Finally, after many doctor appointments, tests, MRIs, and blood work, Ivy was given a neuropsych evaluation through the Neuropsychology clinic. As a result of this evaluation, Ivy was diagnosed with Global Developmental Delay.

Global development delay means a child is delayed in at least two areas of their life. Ivy is delayed in cognitive skills, language and speech skills, and fine and gross motor skills. She is now 2 ½ years old and her motor and visual skills are at about a 10-11 month old, while her expressive and receptive language skills are below the 6 month level. As a result of this evaluation, Ivy was also diagnosed with autism.

Autism is a serious developmental disorder that effects communication and interaction. Some of Ivy’s delays, obsessive behaviors, and overstimulated tendencies can be explained by this diagnosis. It is unknown at this time whether Ivy’s autism is something she was born with or is due to being institutionalized. Whatever the reason is, the treatment plan is the same. Ivy is recommended to have ABA (applied behavior analysis) therapy 20-40 hours a week.

Ivy struggles with doing things that most kids her age can do. She is spoon fed since she cannot feed herself, she is on pureed foods because of her oral development delay. She is unable to walk, and she can’t use words for communication. She is very much a baby even though she will be 3 years old in a month.

To help Ivy with her development, she sees many therapists. She visits an occupational and physical therapist once a week and is also starting ABA therapy 12 hours a week. In physical therapy, Ivy is working on balance, core strength, and learning to walk. In occupational therapy, Ivy is learning how to engage in toys more, learning to pick up toys with different textures, working on cause and effect toys, and working on things that might help her when she is overstimulated. Through ABA therapy, Ivy will be working on eye contact, interacting more with people, and communication.

She has much to work on, but has come a long way.

Through love, good nutrition, and therapy, we have seen amazing progress with Ivy. In a year of being home, Ivy has learned to hold her head up, sit up on her own, roll over, scoot on her butt to get around, pull up to a standing position, take two steps, clap her hands, engage in toys, hold a toy, and use a straw. She amazes me with her progress everyday!

Although I expected Ivy to be delayed due to having Down syndrome, I wasn’t expecting her to be quite as delayed as she is. There are definitely everyday struggles that come with developmental delays such as me needing to do more for Ivy, feed her, bathe her, and attend more therapies. My back is often sore from carrying a toddler around and it is quite a lot of work going places.

But the positives always outweigh the struggles and I know Ivy will someday walk and be able to communicate. It may just take a little more work to get to that point.

Knowing that God chose this little girl to be our daughter somehow makes all the extra work worth it. The progress she made since being home has been remarkable and we are excited to continue to watch her meet more milestones.

I couldn’t imagine not having her in our lives. Her infectious smile and sweet little giggles are absolutely adored!

– guest post by Shauna

We get asked a lot of questions, both via our website and our Facebook page. And many are excellent questions too, questions we see asked again and again. Questions that deserve an answer. So we decided to try to answer some – as best as we can – in post format, so that others who might have the very same question can find answers before they even have to ask.

Question 1: My husband and I would really like to start the adoption process from China for a child with special needs. I know that recently the requirements have changed to only 5 children in the home. We currently have 6 children in our home under 18. Does this mean there is no possibility that we can adopt from China?

The short answer is, unfortunately, yes. It does mean you cannot adopt from China at this time. The good news though is that once your oldest child turns 18 you would again be eligible to adopt from China (assuming you meet all of the other criteria). In June of 2017, the CCCWA announced updated eligibility requirements for prospective adoptive parents. In addition, in and in December of 2017 the CCCWA confirmed that effective January 2018 it would no longer approve any waivers for prospective adoptive parents who dod not meet China’s eligibility criteria for adopting.

Prior to January 2018, the China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption (CCCWA) allowed exceptions to the eligibility requirements for prospective adoptive parents in the form of waivers. This allowed agencies to request waivers on behalf of families who did not meet all of the eligibility requirements and the CCCWA would determine if the waiver would be granted. Waivers were commonly granted for prospective adoptive parents who did not meet requirements for a variety of reasons, including: income, net worth, family size, length of marriage, and BMI. Unfortunately, to my knowledge and as of the publication of this post, the CCCWA has maintained their stance on waivers.

We asked Karla Thrasher from Lifeline Children’s Services for her insight on options For those who do not meet the family size eligibility requirements for China:

“Colombia, Hungary and Bulgaria are all great options for larger families.

Bulgaria is a two trip process, the first trip is right at one week and the second trip is 12-14 days. Prospective adoptive couples must be married at least one year and must be at least 15 years older than the child that they are seeking to adopt. Parents cannot exceed 50 years over the age of the child.”

Question 2: We are in the process of our second adoption from China. Last time, the orphanage donation ($5,000) was mandatory, but this time the new rules are that it’s not. How are other families handling this? We want to donate, but not sure which is the best way to do so (orphanage fee vs. other non-profit organization).

This is a complicated question and not one that can be answered definitively. My goal in answering this question is not to tell families what they should do but instead to provide information so that they may make the an informed decision. The orphanage donation (approximately $5300-$5500 in 2017) has been a part of the China adoption process for years and although it has alway been called a donation it was presented and understood by those in the adoption community as a required fee. This fee was paid by the adoptive parent(s) to the orphanage which held custody of the child regardless of who had cared for the child (i.e. foster family, NGO).

On December 7, 2017, the CCCWA issued a public notice regarding the orphanage donations by adoptive parents. The notice explained that adoptive parents may now offer a voluntary donation to the child welfare institute after the adoption registration is finalized, and that the amount and method of submitting the donation should be left to the adoptive parents. In addition, this donation and should is not to be made until after the adoption is registered in the province. As you can imagine, this change sent the China adoption community into a tailspin and created a difficult decision for families adopting in 2018 and beyond.

Meredith Toering, who runs Morning Star Foundation, a non-profit organization that works directly with orphanages to provide care for children with severe heart disease in China, shared this poignant and informative post on Facebook following the orphanage donation announcement (reposted here with permission):

“I run Morning Star, a foster home in Beijing, and this topic has been devastating me. I was at [a] social welfare institute (SWI/orphanage) last week checking on [a sweet baby], and have been in the middle of discussions with several SWIs that I currently have children in my home from right now. I have been asking them to please start to prepare the paperwork for these kids, because I realized the orphanages had stopped reaching out to ME about paperwork needed to complete files for most of the kids.

Maybe your child didn’t receive the best care in the orphanage… maybe you think the director is going to misuse and mishandle the money. Maybe so. As with any charitable donation, once the funds are out of your hands — given — it is technically out of your control. What I have seen, more times than not, is that the orphanages are trying the very best they can with the resources that they have.

Many times, people have donated here on the other side to fund OUR adoptions, and they don’t get to specify where the money goes, how it will be used… whether or not you choose to upgrade to economy plus or tack on a trip to Hong Kong Disney or eat the nice Western meal while in China or whatever it may be. Those choices aren’t questioned and we aren’t called out by the adoption community to give a detailed account of how each and every dollar that was donated to us was spent because of the gift of the benefit of the doubt, trusting that we hold the best interest of bringing our child home at heart.

Could we not extend that same grace and gift we so easily give to adoptive families working to bring their children home… to these SWIs in China, most of whom are doing the absolute BEST they can with the very little that they have… and trust that regardless of how our donation issued dollar for dollar, we are continuing to pave the road for families to come behind us… as those who came before us did for us? Sorry for the novel. Just my two cents from someone on this side of the ocean working closely in this space.”

Because the original question was how are other families handling the orphanage donation now I asked that very question in a small group of adoptive parents and am sharing a few of their responses below with permission:

“We donated the full amount. It would have been unethical for us to give anything less as we had applied for and received many adoption grants. And those grants were awarded to us by organizations that were calculating the full donation into our expenses (when we applied for the grants the donation was still required). Had we donated less or none it would have been equivalent to pocketing those generous grant monies. Aside from that we would still gladly donate the full amount because it is the right thing to do. A lot of families seemed to donate to a NGO where their child was cared for instead the SWI/CWI and I believe this has gravely affected the orphanages and their willingness and ability to prepare files for more children.” ~ K

“We gave the full amount and extra. We now have 3 boys from China. Two are from the same orphanage. I am forever in their debt for the care that my sons both received there. I saw the children left behind. I saw the now 17 year old foster brother of both my boys, that the SWI is still allowing to live there at an expense to them. A SWI is not a place that children should grow up. Files are expensive and need to be made to give these children a chance! I would continue to donate to them on a monthly basis if I could find a way to do so.” ~ JB

“Paid full amount. It’s a drop in the bucket when considering the life-saving surgery both of our Nanchang girls received in their care. Plus, I don’t even really think of it as a donation for the care my child received but for the care the other kids left behind can get. It was never a question for us when it became optional.” ~ T

“I gave the full amount. My daughter was only in the SWI a few hours. Her care was paid for by several NGOs. I still gave to the SWI because I was concerned if people started giving to the NGOs instead, the SWI wouldn’t reach out for help with the sickest kids. My daughter would have died if she had not been sent out of province for care.” ~ B

“We are in process now and will be donating the full amount plus more. Our family feels it is one of the most important fees paid. Our older daughters also adopted from China have been raising money on their own all summer so they can give an additional donation on top of the regular donation. In my 12 yr old’s words, “If even one cent of the donation goes toward a better life for one of my fellow China sisters or brothers, then it is worth it. The donation has been there for over 20 years. Families adopting now need to remember the families that paid the donation fee before them. The donation allowed for the preparation of the files of children who are being adopted now. If we stop paying it forward it will only hurt the children currently in the orphanages because less files are being prepared.” ~ JA

Although all of the families quoted above chose to donate the full amount I know many families are donating much less and some are not donating at all. Sources within the China adoption community who work directly with orphanages have reported that families are donating only a fraction of the original amount; and orphanages have stated that they do not plan to continue to prepare adoption files due to lack of funds.

If you have read any of the numerous posts or comments in the China Adoption Facebook groups regarding the new orphanage donation policy please also read this post by Tammy Wombles in which she specifically addresses several of the posts/concerns. Since 2005 Tammy has been volunteer at a large government-run orphanage and works closely with the orphanage as a liaison between orphanage staff and adoptive parents.

In the end, I think we can all agree that this is a very personal decision for each family and one that should not be taken lightly or made in haste. I would encourage families who are currently in process to do their research before making this important decision.

For those interested in learning and reading more check out these links:
The Price of the Orphanage ‘Donation’
Discontinuation of Mandatory Orphanage Donations in China
How the Foreign NGO Law Has Affected International Adoption

Have a question for us? Ask it here and we’ll do our best to answer it in a future post!

It was a horrible stomach flu that took us down one by one. The kids were both sick. Ken and I were horribly sick. It was one of those “fend for yourself and hope to see you on the other side” type of illnesses.

When the phone rang that morning, I had no strength to even reach for the phone. Ken yelled from the other room that I should take the call because it was our adoption agency on the phone. On a Saturday morning.

We were so close to traveling to adopt our daughter Violet Mae from China. A sweet girl we had simply fallen in love with. It was love at first sight when we saw her photo listing. She had the fullest cheeks, her entire face was kissable! She had Down syndrome like our daughter Isabelle, and she was chosen and so loved from afar.

We had done everything in the adoption process with record speed. Once one step was finished, we had the next set of papers ready to go. We were set to travel in March, which worked perfectly! The kids would be on spring break for part of the time, and even though they weren’t going with to China, I felt better that I could involve them more in the process and FaceTime whenever we wanted!

We were a few days into the wait for our Article 5 paperwork, the tail end of the process. I had mistakenly put my married name instead of my maiden name on a form for the Article 5, and I had needed to email the Consulate in Guangzhou to make sure they had the correct information. I thought for sure the phone call was related to this, that I had messed something up and now we had a delay.

I didn’t make it to the phone in time, but called our case worker back.

“Sarah,” she said, “I’m so sorry to tell you this but your daughter has passed away.”

No. That’s not possible.
She must have been mistaken.
We were going to China to meet her in just a few weeks.

“I am so, so sorry,” she continued. “We called to the orphanage to get a final update on Violet before you were to travel. They told us that she had gotten sick in January and had been hospitalized with pneumonia. They called to check in on her and learned she passed away from complications due to pneumonia on January 24th.”

Today was February 27th. What?

Wait. What?

My daughter had died over a month ago, and I was just learning of this?!? I was irate. I was crushed, heartbroken, mad, confused… every possible emotion. Our sweet baby girl. She died alone. She died so alone that no one from the orphanage even knew she was gone. No one bothered to check on her for over a month! That is how incredibly alone my baby was. Fighting for her life in a hospital, without a family or an ayi by her side.

We would never hold this sweet girl. We would never know what it would look like to make her smile, or to hear her laugh. We would never kiss those sweet cheeks or hold her soft little hands.

I got off the phone without saying too much. I was completely broken. My husband came in the room. Though sobs I managed to say, “She’s gone. Violet died in China. In a hospital. She was alone.”

We held each other and sobbed. Tears for our loss of our child, tears for the tragedy, tears for her being just so alone. That is the part that still breaks me apart, even years later. We had to tell our seven year old twins that their sister had gotten too sick in China and the doctors couldn’t make her better. This was the first death in their young lives. This was the most painful thing I’ve ever had to share.

And how do you explain this? Someone we’d been working so hard to bring home, wasn’t coming home to us. Someone who was already apart of our family was suddenly just gone. We took comfort in knowing that she was healed of her illness and was able to see with certainty just how loved she was, from the other side of the world.

We had worked so hard, our families had supported us, our village had supported up. We had raised the funds for Violet’s adoption in just a few months time.

We had to tell everyone. Such a painful message to share with so many who were anticipating our travel to China in just a few weeks.

When you lose a child, the support means everything. We had friends who shared in our sorrows. They covered us in prayer and sent us their love. Some though, didn’t know how to respond.

Was it really the loss of a child if they didn’t have the child yet? (And the answer is YES if you are questioning! Yes, she was and still is our daughter.)

Some questioned if we had been scammed. Had we gotten this far and someone made off with our money? Maybe they just didn’t know what to say. Sometimes it’s okay to say nothing, to just be present.

Some family members got resentful for the attention this had caused. Yes, for the death of a child. Others pretended that nothing had even happened. Never mentioned her name after we shared the news. Maybe they didn’t want to make us sad, but not talking about our child at all felt like that nothing had happened, that she was never even apart of our lives at all.

Deaths can bring out so many emotions, especially when a death happened from afar. The death of a child you never got to hold. The death of a child you watched grow from half a world away. The death of such a sweet innocence.

I think until this point, we had been racing though this adoption process with the best intentions, but living in a bit of isolation. Unaware that things like this happen. Even to children without special needs.

There wasn’t a chapter to read in the adoption handbook titled “What to do if your child dies in process.” My child died in a hospital alone. Her death went unnoticed for over a month by her orphanage. Let that sink in. This is the pain and grief I carry with me daily as I think about all the what ifs. What if we had started the process just a month sooner? Or if we would have overnighted every single document, would that have sped things up just enough?

I’m sure the answer is no. We did everything in our power to move mountains, and perhaps this mountain was one we were never meant to see on the other side.

I think about this often too. Did God lead us to our daughter, knowing this would be how things would work out? Did he want us to see our love for our child knowing we would never bring her home? Maybe he wanted us to have our eyes opened to the reality for so many children – those who never make it home?

I know this journey has been greater than us, greater than just an adoption that wasn’t complete. This changed us, and pushed us to do more than we ever imagined.

Instead of staying in a state of grief, we used our daughter’s death to move forward with such speed and determination we were in China less than three months later adopting our chosen daughter, Everly Rose. Our sweet Violet’s given name was JiaWei which translated to “beautiful rose.” Everly was taken from Eve, meaning life. Our sweet Violet’s memory and our love for her lives on through our little Evie.

Many wondered how or why we moved on so quickly after Violet’s death. I’m not really sure how we did, but to us it just made sense. We were so incredibly close to travel. My suitcase was packed. Diapers filled her changing table, clothes filled the closet. We were weeks from having a baby in our arms. And then we were empty.

Feeling such a sense of loss, from all our love we had shared and lost.

We knew that every day we waited to begin the process again was another day a child would have to sit and wait. Days they might not have to spare. Every day from the day we started the process of reviewing more files until I landed in China felt like I was running a marathon. I didn’t want to sit still. I felt like I was holding my breath. I wasn’t calm until I was up in the air on the way to get our Everly.

When we got Everly she reached her arms out to me and rubbed my face. She was so soft and cuddly, so baby like. She was perfection. She was chosen for us, and we were chosen for her.

Through it all, I have no doubt that this was God’s plan, placing this sweet child in our lives. We are so thankful to have had this journey because it opened our eyes to so much more than we anticipated. We have seen the unimaginable and have pushed though.

The love we have for our daughter Violet was not lost; it was expanded and the love has reached to all those waiting for families in China.
For all those alone and waiting.
For all those receiving medical care, alone.

For those who will never have the love of a family while they are here on earth, we pray for you. We pray you will see the hands and feet of Jesus from those around you. We pray you have a caring ayi, a sweet friend in the crib next to you, a hand that holds yours as you pass your days.

Upon returning home with our daughter Everly, our plans for the future began to change. Our world looked different after experiencing China, after having a child die, after spending time in an orphanage. The balance was hard, coming back to what was our normal, and remembering all of the faces of children and hands I had held just days prior, knowing that many will remain orphans.

Adoption does something to you that is hard to explain. It makes so many prior concerns seem like a waste of time and energy. When you see where the need is, it makes everything else seem so trivial.

We made the choice to adopt again very soon. I knew we would adopt again by the time I walked out of my daughter’s orphanage. With so many children and so many needs, we struggled to know which direction to turn. We researched so many needs this time, and reached out to many parents who have children adopted with different needs.

After speaking on the phone for hours one night with a dear Facebook friend, I began to feel I had understood the special need that we could manage, along with the needs of two children with lifelong needs.

We were matched with our son Alexander around the one year mark of coming home with Everly. He has beta Thalassemia major, a blood disorder requiring blood transfusions every few weeks because his body doesn’t make hemoglobin. While very serious in nature, it is manageable in the states. In China, the care is not what is needed to have a healthy, long life.

We knew the risks going into another adoption. We knew there was a chance that our son’s health would decline. But we knew he was worth it. Every single child is worth it.

We pressed through and fundraised again, had the documents ready, and were able to expedite the end of the adoption once we had lab numbers that showed how severe his health condition was.

Through all this joy, excitement and preparation, I was cautious. I was scared to get too attached to this little boy. I hesitated to decorate his room, to buy boy clothes or toys. I wanted so much to be as excited as I was when we first started the process, but that fear was still there.

I had a hard time as we neared the Article 5 wait, when we received the news about Violet passing. Our Article 5 was dropped off on Friday March 30th, and it was an expedited case. I cried tears of joy as I knew it might be ready by April 2nd, which is Violet’s birthday. It would have been the best gift, almost a confirmation that all is well. Instead I got an email that we had same day processing (I didn’t even know this was possible!) and our TA would arrive on her birthday, April 2nd.

We would be in China holding Alex one month to the day after our LOA arrived. I know that God helped to push things along as to not make us go through the slow and painful wait.

I often think to myself, if I knew that we would have to go through the death of a child, would we do it all over again? Would we go through all the loss and pain of letting go of a child we never really had?

And the answer is yes, a million times yes. Because that yes is what allowed two beautiful children to join their forever families. It has allowed us to understand what it means to love with your whole heart even in the most difficult losses in life.

We will continue to advocate daily for our children, inclusion, their needs, and for all those who wait to join families as well.

– guest post by Sarah

It’s time to celebrate!

No Hands But Ours just turned 10 years old. A decade of advice, orphan advocacy, family stories, special needs awareness, charity highlights, adoptee stories, vulnerable connection over struggles, and all kinds of celebration of prayers answered, kids finding families, and adoptive families steadily finding their way.

It’s time to recognize all that God has done. Join in the merrymaking by being the hands (and feet) of God here on earth through our celebratory “Give Ten” challenge.

No need for an ice bucket on this one. You just need a $10 donation, your people, and your hands.

Why hands? Because the work of No Hands But Ours reminds us that the Lord uses our hands to do His work on earth. He invites your family and mine into the redemptive love business of adoption and orphan care.

It’s quite the special invitation and you are cordially invited to participate.

How? It’s so easy!

1. Share a hands up photo of your family on social media.

2. Include how you’re celebrating (which adoption fundraiser, ministry or orphan care organization will receive your $10 donation).

3. Tag No Hands But Ours or use the hashtag #NHBOGive10.

4. Tag a few friends to participate and multiply the impact of the Give Ten Challenge!

When? Now!

Where? Social Media – Facebook and/or Instagram

Why?
• To give back
• As a birthday gift to No Hands But Ours
• Because you love to celebrate and rally with the adoption community
• For a chance to win some fun and fabulous goodies

Happy birthday, No Hands But Ours! We are going to celebrate you by paying it forward to adoption ministries, adoption fundraisers and orphan care charities, one $10 donation at a time!

We asked some very special folks, who make very special things, if they would like to join in on the fun… to maybe help encourage more folks to participate. And they all said yes!

The fun will last the entire month of November with giveaway items added all month long! If you’d like to participate by donating something to add to the fun, contact us here!

……………
So now it’s up to you!

Go, grab your people and snap a picture of your hands in action, share it on FB or IG, tag us (or #NHBOGive10) and a few friends, and let us know who you’ll be blessing with your $10 gift… and you’ll be on our list of favorite party guests!

AND you’ll be automatically entered to win one of these (and any others that are added along the way!) goodies!

So much to celebrate – so much good stuff and so many good people in this sweet community of ours.

May NHBO’s happy birthday song be a flood of donation posts filling up social media with the great love of the adoption community. We are always better together, and what a joy it will be to watch our donations multiply!

Thank you for joining with us in the merrymaking as we celebrate No Hands But Ours in the very best way, by loving others!

Bringing these three home forever was hands down – three of the very best decisions we’ve ever made in our entire 40+ years of marriage!

We affectionately refer to these three little girlies of ours as “our lifers” – because we get to keep them for the rest of our lives! I’m sure to some who knew we were bringing each of them home forever it probably sounded scary, perhaps overwhelming or even crazy, but we couldn’t envision a day in our lives without each of them!

For those who don’t have a lifer in their lives, it might be hard to imagine the continual joy they bring! But think about it: If bringing Jubilee home was “the worst decision ever” would we really have fought passionately for our miracle-girl Ruby and a few years later wildly chased after our sweet little Birdie? I’m pretty sure there would be no way! Our continual pursuit of “lifers” assures others that having them is a most beautiful blessing!

Jubilee, the oldest of our three lifers came home forever a few years back. We had brought Isaiah home in 2007 and after he had been home for a couple of months we found her picture. Some of her many special needs were vaguely listed including “severe intellectual need”.

We clearly understood that a “severe intellectual need” would likely mean Jubilee would be our first “lifer”. Never wanting to be empty nesters we knew that we knew – she was ours!

Do you know what else drove us? We just couldn’t bear the thought of what would happen to her if she “aged out” without a family… how in the world could Jubilee ever navigate life on her own?

Bluntly put, she couldn’t.

The other reality really is that anyone’s typically developing child could need lifelong care with one wrong step off a curb, a tragic car accident, even a sudden life-changing illness or a myriad of other things! There are zero guarantees in this life.

And with that, we just couldn’t get to her fast enough.

Tragically, in the midst of Jubilee’s adoption, we lost our home and all its contents to a horrific fire literally the same day we received approval to bring her home.

Little did we know that we were then required to start all the paperwork over because we would no longer be living at the same address (even though we owned the property and would eventually rebuild on the exact same land).

Every piece of paper, including our immigration paperwork, would need the new rental address – when we found a rental that is! It was so complicated on top of losing everything for our large family – it was a nightmare.

It took almost a full year after the fire but our astoundingly faithful God allowed our fourth oldest Emma and I to head to China for Jubilee arriving back home with her on Christmas Eve 2009. What a most treasured Christmas gift – our Jubilee Promise was finally home – forever!

Jubilee’s early days were excruciatingly painful. It was very apparent that she had endured significant trauma and devastating abuse while in China. It was tormenting to know that Jubilee had been living in such despicable pain and yet we had not been able to get to her due to complications from the fire. To this day I still can hardly think about it or I become a heap of ugly tears.

She had desperately needed us and we had not been able to get to her quickly.

With itty-bitty steps Jubilee began to heal emotionally – which was most important of all. Before long she was known around our home as “My Shadow”. She follows me everywhere. Truly everywhere. Some have wondered if I find it annoying to have her follow me all day long? I explain, “She waited eight excruciatingly painful years for her mama to come for her, she can be My Shadow forever.”

Her cognitive delays coupled with the severe abuse meant that she was unable to speak. In fact I actually wondered if she would ever learn a word of English. In Jubilee’s case she was basically nonverbal for the first five years home. One day, to everyone’s surprise she spoke three words together! “Come upstairs Liz (Elizabeth).” We cheered and threw a party – what a stride she’d made – three words together forming a short but important sentence!

She still does not speak much, but when she does it’s usually something very comical and we all laugh heartily – she has a tremendous sense of humor!

And on a side note: another upside of having “lifers” is that every teeny-tiny victory is a celebration and in our home we party almost daily!

Jubilee Promise has now been home just about nine years and the day after Christmas will turn 17. She has finally emerged and is a tender, kindhearted, sweet, always helpful, spunky treasure! She’s endured over fifteen surgeries and her attitude is unbelievably amazing. Jubilee does have significant cognitive delays but that doesn’t stop this sweet chica of ours! She’s a total hoot.

While working on this article Jubilee came in to grab a diaper for Ruby. My husband, Dw, opened the door to our room looking for her and laughingly I joked, “She ran away!” Jubilee emerged with the diaper in time to hear me say that and laughed heartily while beaming ear-to-ear spoke, “Dad! I no run away!”

Seriously, such a treasure! And I shudder to think, where would she be if she had aged out!

Some have wondered if having our lifers permanently affects our other kids? Good gracious, I sure pray so! In fact a million times over I shout Yes! I’m so thankful for the permanent affect bringing Jubilee, Ruby and Birdie home has had on each of them!

I’m convinced that our non-lifer treasures are more tender, more willing to help others, much more compassionate, more protective, more caring, more accepting, more gentle, more sensitive, more loving and more likely to advocate for the broken than most of their peers. They truly get it and love-big their lifer sisters! They serve their sisters (and our quadriplegic son without cognitive disabilities) with joy! They know it could be them needing help! Their attitudes are admirable and the blast we have as a family is pretty obvious to all.

In fact about six months ago, our youngest son, Elijah (age 11) was alone with me in the kitchen. Out–of-the-blue, quietly and thoughtfully he softly spoke, “You know mom, I was thinking about when you and dad pass. I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but mom when you guys pass, I think Jubilee should come live with me. Cause mom if she’s not with me she could easily be taken advantage of!”

Jubilee is five years older than Elijah and he’s already thinking ahead, planning and looking out for her.

Yes indeed! Having “lifers” has definitely affected our kids in the most beautiful way and our family is so very humbled and grateful that we get to love Jubilee, Ruby and Birdie for the rest of our lives.

God has been so very gracious to us.

Adoption wasn’t anything new to me when my wife and I set out to adopt our daughter. In fact, my entire life has been about adoption in some form or fashion. From being adopted myself, to being a foster family to several children as a child growing up, adoption has been one of the consistent themes in my life.

To be honest, I was probably almost arrogant as we began to really move forward in the process. Being adopted, I figured that I was more prepared than anyone to adopt a child. Don’t take this as I didn’t take the process seriously or that I didn’t try to learn all that was being thrown at us every step of the way. I did.

What I didn’t do was lose sleep, or worry about what we were going to do when our daughter came home. I was confident that it would work out.

Many others worried for us. One of the chief concerns was about adopting out of birth order. You see, when my wife and I traveled to China, we already had a biological son who was 23 months old. He was about to go from being the oldest to the youngest in just a matter of weeks. Again, my worries, unlike so many others, were nowhere to be found.

I knew we had this. Like I said, my experiences with adoption run as deep as anyone I knew.

Even on the day we boarded the plane bound for Seoul, South Korea, to connect to Guangzhou, I was more preoccupied by the thought of 13 hours in the middle seat of coach. To this point in our journey, I was only moderately connected to the adoption community. Blogs, Facebook pages and all the rest weren’t something I spent a lot of time perusing. My wife, on the other hand, was super plugged in. She had been chatting with people for months, pouring into their stories, as well as learning from what they had experienced. I only wish I had done the same.

When we arrived in China, nothing was as I expected. It was first world. Things weren’t hard to come by and traveling was easy (for the most part). The thing I assumed would be the most difficult, spending two weeks in a foreign place, became the easiest.

The rest of it was unlike anything I had ever imagined.

We met our Sadie Cai (pronounced like “tie”) at the Civil Affairs on Monday, March 9, 2015 in the afternoon. Sadie was not shy and it felt like there was a connection from the beginning. What I didn’t realize was that the connection had almost everything to do with “Mama” and very little to do with “Baba”.

While being too confident in my own abilities, I forgot to really do my homework. Sure, I read and watched all my agency told me to, but I forgot to account for things like culture. There aren’t a lot of male caregivers in China. When your child has spent half of their life in an orphanage being taken care of by females, there is an inherent skepticism that exists when you realize that in the presence of a male figure.

I wasn’t expecting that at all. I knew we would have to overcome a language barrier. I knew that there would be “emotional baggage” that comes from spending your early years as an orphan. I just didn’t ever stop to take the time and think that earning her trust would be more difficult for me than it was for her mom. All the evidence was there though, and it wasn’t just our daughter. It seemed as though most of the families we met, whether adopting a boy or a girl, were experiencing the same thing. While I found great relief in that fact, I couldn’t help but feel just a little bit helpless.

The great news is that it didn’t take long for those walls to come crashing down. After all, we serve a mighty God who does mighty things. He gave me the strength to be an unwavering provider to a spirit-filled little girl, and that little girl quickly opened her heart to me. It was perfect in every way and I wouldn’t trade any of it, outside of my own borderline arrogance in assuming that all adoption experiences are the same down to every detail. They simply are not.

Some thematic elements hold, but each experience is unique, even if adoption has already been a part of your story.

What can you expect from an adoption? I’ve been dwelling on that question a great deal. The best answer that I’ve been able to come up with is that adoption is much like the Hillsong Worship song Who You Say I Am. Four unique seasons that just seem to align so beautifully with that song.

Season 1 – The Orphan and The Unknown

Who am I that the highest King
Would welcome me?
I was lost but He brought me in
Oh His love for me
Oh His love for me

Season 1 is where your child began. Not knowing the King of Kings, either at all or knowing that He welcomes everyone, and it begins with “… the least of these…” Your child is yearning for that unconditional love of the Father and you have been called to bring him/her to it.

It’s among the highest of callings, adoption. It’s the same calling Jesus answered at the cross, when we all became the adopted sons and daughters of God.

Season 2 – The Adoption

Free at last, He has ransomed me
His grace runs deep
While I was a slave to sin
Jesus died for me
Yes He died for me

Season 2 is the moment you never forget. The curtain is pulled back and you see your child standing before. It’s powerful. The chains are broken. Grace and love overflow in every moment that proceed from that point and the freedom that Jesus gave us all on the cross begins to be realized by another son/daughter of God.

Season 3 – The Awakening

Who the Son sets free
Oh is free indeed
I’m a child of God
Yes I am
In my Father’s house
There’s a place for me
I’m a child of God
Yes I am

Season 3 will feel like the longest season, as your child awakens to the realities of the freedom they’ve received. They will begin to become to realize and take to heart the acceptance they’ve received from the Father, from the family, and from the support system that you’ve put in place around them. There’s a place for them to be the person God has destined them to become.

Season 4 – The Fulfillment

I am chosen
Not forsaken
I am who You say I am
You are for me
Not against me
I am who You say I am

Season 4 is the fulfillment of all things. You will experience this right alongside of your child. It’s when you realize that you are chosen, you’ve never been forsaken and you are who He says you are.

One day you’ll wake-up and realize that you didn’t just bring a child home. Your passion, dedication, and willingness to defend the cause of the fatherless has inspired others to do the same. Maybe you inspired someone to adopt a child. Maybe you felt so passionate about adoption that you started an organization to support others adoptions. Maybe you blog about your experiences for the world to read. The options are limitless. No matter, you, along with your child will realize that you were chosen and He was for you all along. You are who He says you are and your child is who He says they are.

For all of you on the journey, my thoughts and prayers go with you. Be steadfast in knowing that the Father’s work is perfect in all that you are doing for Him. Know that He is for you, not against you, when things get tough. Know that you are called by name to serve His purpose and that you will not be forsaken. You have a supernatural power working for you.

Together, with all of us working for His glory, we continue to share His unending love with beloved sons and daughters, all over the world.

– guest post by Jeff

Holidays can be beautiful times of family togetherness, traditions, and celebrations – but they can also be times of disrupted routines, sensory overload, and expectations that don’t quite line up with reality.

As parents, we need to prepare ourselves to walk our children through these times – and the first step in doing so is to recognize and be conscious of our own thoughts and feelings about the holidays:

Which family gatherings are stressful for you?
Are there parties that feel overwhelming?
Does interacting with certain family members inevitably add to your stress levels?

When we, as adults, are feeling a lot of stress – and, in particular, when we are being affected by that stress but without being fully conscious of it – we will not be in a good place to walk our children through the experiences that are going to be most challenging for them. As Dr. Karyn Purvis was known to say, “You cannot lead a child to a place of healing if you do not know the way yourself.” This is true in the big picture – you cannot lead a child to a place of secure attachment and healing if you have not taken that journey yourself – but it’s also true in the small things. If you do not understand how to negotiate stressful family interactions while maintaining an inner sense of peace, you will not be able to help your child do so, either.

As you make decisions about which family gatherings to attend and which traditions to maintain this year and how to do so, it is wise to be fully aware of what your own feelings and responses to each one might be and how those feelings and responses might affect your ability to support your children.

Just as we adults are all individuals, each of us sometimes responding very differently to similar situations, our children are individuals, as well. What works well for one child at one time may not work well for another child or even for the same child at a different time.

That said, our family has come up with some guiding principles to help us make decisions surrounding the holidays.

1. My husband and I decide together on a general framework that will work best for our family, and we stick to that, regardless of how other people may feel about it.

For most of the last few years, we have told family and friends that we are willing to travel for either Thanksgiving or Christmas but not both. We are happy to have any family members who would like to join us come to our house, and if they choose not to come or to gather elsewhere, we are completely fine with that, but we will only travel once.

2. We simplify and spread things out.

My children cannot handle a marathon Christmas morning gift unwrapping session in which each child is given a huge pile of presents. It’s overwhelming for them. We spread out the gifts, allowing children to open one or two at a time and play with them as they open them.

We don’t usually do a lot of decorating, particularly if we will be traveling – some people love it, and that is wonderful, but that’s not me, so I limit my efforts to what I can do while keeping it fun for my family. We also do not make multiple commitments on the same day; if we know we have a big event scheduled for one day, we don’t schedule anything else.

3. We recognize that the holidays are not “normal” and may call for some atypical parenting.

In general, in our family, we limit screen time. However, if we’re going to embark upon an 8 hour drive to my mom’s house with 4 children, we bring iPads loaded with fun, parent-approved games and tv shows to provide some entertainment in the car.

4. Even in the midst of recognizing the need for flexibility and deviating from our standard routines, we try to maintain a normal schedule as much as possible.

Whether we’re at home or at a grandparent’s house, we try to have an active morning and some rest time in the afternoon, and our kids go to bed at approximately the same time.

5. We acknowledge that our job is not to please everyone, and we’re going to have to say no to some things and make it clear exactly what our limits are in other areas.

Especially when we travel, there are always people we’d love to see that we just can’t fit into our schedule and care for our children well, and when that happens, we say no. Our family is our priority, and we do what we need to do to care for our children well.

There was a year during which we returned home from China with a new child on December 23 – talk about uncertainty surrounding holidays! We limited the extended family members with whom we were going to interact that year for Christmas to three people, all of whom had experience interacting with our family with newly adopted children in the past, and whom we knew would respect our wishes – whatever they might end up being – regarding how they should interact with our new child. We also told them they’d have to be prepared for anything and that if they wanted to spend Christmas with us, they would have to come to our house, but even so, if they wanted a real Christmas dinner, they should plan to prepare it without our help. That’s what our limits were for that year, and we were honest with people about what we could do at that time.

6. We plan to be flexible.

We know that our children are not machines – we cannot provide Input A and Input B and know with certainty that we’ll receive Result X. We hold our plans loosely, and we revise as is necessary. There have been years during which a family friendly get-together with friends turned into just husbands meeting up at a restaurant for a couple hours instead. We pay attention to how our kids – and we! – are doing, and we adjust plans as necessary.

Overall, we recognize that holidays can be wonderful – but also very stressful – times of the year. We look at what is most important to our family in how we celebrate the holidays, and we try to make that happen – whether it lines up with anyone else’s expectations or how we’ve celebrated the holidays in the past or not!

We want our children to understand why we celebrate and to have positive memories of those celebrations, and that means looking at what they need and how we can honor them as we celebrate.

– guest post by Alison: blog || email || Instagram || Facebook

I don’t remember the exact moment when adoption was put on my heart and in my mind. But, I do remember it was all consuming. I tried to get away from it. But, I couldn’t. It was there and it wouldn’t go away.

It was 2015. By early 2016 I finally worked the nerve up to bring it up to my husband. It’s not that we don’t talk often, or that we keep secrets. It’s that I thought he would think that I was crazy!

You see… we have seven biological children and we were done. Our family felt complete.

Earlier that year our youngest, at seven years old, had open heart surgery. She had recovered and was doing great. My oldest son was engaged to be married. Life was good. But, that nagging adoption thing wouldn’t go away. So, I told him. And, the miracle of it all was he had been thinking about it, too.

In April of 2017, one month after our first grandchild was born, we came home with not one, but two sons from China. They were our pride and joy! But life wasn’t ever going to be the same.

Our youngest little guy was nineteen months old. He cried so often, and he kicked his legs all the time. We held him, rocked him, and still he screamed. He would fight taking a bottle. I’d have to hold his head and force it in his mouth and then he would drink like he was starving.

We started noticing weird things he would do. His arms would flail out; his feet and legs would also. He would get a look of terror in his eyes. Then it would repeat over and over. He had a form of undiagnosed epilepsy. The type of seizure he was having cause brain regression. Without treatment they could cause death. Our neurologist suspected he had been having them for a long time. After a few tries our doctor finally found a medicine that took those seizures away. Another doctor told us our son had sensory processing disorder.

It was obvious he was going to need a lot of help.

So here was my new life, spending every day at doctors’ offices, waiting for hospitals to run tests, do blood work, run more tests, complete therapy evaluations and sessions… and all the while he was getting used to being in a big loud crazy family. He was getting love. He had so many cheerleaders at home, and he had his new Chinese brother (not biologically related, but just five months older) who wasn’t affected at all by his brother’s screams.

At first we chalked his behavior up to being from a noisy orphanage, to not understanding English, or to being too engrossed in his play. But, then three months after coming home from China, we found out that our other adopted son was deaf. He was almost two and a half years old at the time. He had been living in a world of silence.

Boy, did this mama feel overwhelmed! But, one day at a time, one sleepless night at a time, I got through it. Then one day I just couldn’t get better. My doctor ordered bed rest. I sort of laughed. No, not me. I have too much going on. But before I knew it I was in bed for about two weeks because my body was worn to exhaustion.

I learned a valuable lesson while I was there. I wasn’t alone in all this. This is a lesson many adoption mamas out there need to learn. You are not alone.

Overwhelmed? Yes! Like you are losing yourself? I know that feeling too well!

But, you are not alone.

We went into adoption with our eyes wide open, or so we thought. I knew I was going to be adopting a child with special needs. We were told, “Pray for the best and expect the worst.” We knew their medical files may not be accurate. I researched things, I went back-and-forth on needs I thought that I could handle, and rejected things I thought would be too much for our family. I knew the diagnoses well that we checked on our medical needs list. I checked and unchecked that list more often than I care to reveal.

But in the end, it came down to seeing that picture in that file emailed by our adoption agency. I just knew. I knew when I opened his file that he was the one. A few weeks later when another little guy whose file became available at a time when coincidence just wasn’t possible, we knew he was also to be our son.

Fast forward a year and a half after that plane landed back in America. I’m a parent of a child with sensory processing disorder, widespread developmental delays, and just recently diagnosed with autism. My other little guy is very close to receiving his second cochlear implant.

Were deaf and autism checked on my medical checklist? No! No! No!

These were needs I had researched and thought, “No, I’m not equipped to handle that. My other children will suffer; it will take too much time to learn how to deal with.”

Guess what mama, these are your children, the ones you fell in love with before you ever met them!

Hold on, because God knew what you needed. You need to depend totally on Him.

Ever wonder if life will ever slow down? It might not. Right now I have two nonverbal children. Something else I really hadn’t considered or thought about before adopting. Will they learn to talk, or to sign, or communicate? Yes, in one way or another, we will learn to communicate. They will learn I love you, and know we are family. But, it might not sound or look like what I had imagined.

These sons stretch us, oh they stretch each one of us! I look back and this family has gotten through all these moments together. In fact we have excelled and had victories on some days. Some days we just survived. Somehow we got these boys to their therapies, their doctors’ appointments, their surgeries, their psychological evaluations. We pitched in and did it.

My other children have done well. They have chosen places and opportunities that include people with special needs. One of my daughters even spent some time helping at an orphanage in China this summer. They have all grown and become strong.

And yes, even though I hate to admit it, they probably suffered a little too, and wished that I had more time for them. Sometimes I wasn’t able to be at an important moment in their life, and it hurt. It hurt them and it hurt me. It’s not easy. Some people don’t understand, and that’s okay. There will always be people who don’t agree with your choices.

Embrace the people who get it, and give a lot of grace to those who don’t.

Was getting two children with big undiagnosed needs fair?
Was it fair my little boy suffered because his needs were not met, and that now he now is in a wheelchair?
Was it fair that no one helped my child communicate while he lived in a world of silence?

No. But, as I have told all my children for many many years: Life isn’t fair. That’s right, let it sink in. Life isn’t fair.

I mean, what about adoption is fair? It starts with a parent choosing to, or being forced to give up their own flesh and blood. And in the case of China adoption, probably never knowing what happened to their child. That baby or child learns to survive without a parent to meet their most basic need, love.

But adoption is also about redemption. These children are ours now. And we are blessed to be able to be their parents! How amazing is that?

So every hard day (and this mama can tell you, so many days are hard), just remember that one day at a time, sometimes one moment at a time, you are going to get through it.

For me, it’s an attitude. Instead of looking at my calendar and wondering, “How am I going to find time for all these therapies?” I need to look at my calendar and change that how into a “Wow! Thank you God that all these therapies are available to help my boys. There are wonderful people out there who care about them, too. They are working hard to make sure that my child’s needs are met and that they excel as far as they can.”

Our therapists have become so important in their lives. Each therapist and doctor and teacher has taught me something about being a better parent, even when we part ways or don’t agree. When you find that right balance it’s so worth all the work to get there.

So as I start walking the road toward my second year as a parent of adopted children, I also start my twenty-second year as a parent. And something I tried to teach my children all that time ago is still very true today. Life isn’t fair. But, oh so many blessings abound in this time and place for us and our children.

Please make sure to take the time in your busy overwhelmed life to find something to fix your eyes on and be thankful for. God knew this road was ahead for you.

Parenting children with multiple needs is tricky. It’s so important to start each day fresh and find some good in our hard moments. Find and seek out those who are going through similar situations. You are not alone in this. One day you will be able to take someone by the hand and show them how you got through it.

And, if you are like me right now and living one moment at a time, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your world is about to open up. But because of that opening and growing, some days are going to be very lonely. I’m sorry, but they are.

Be open, be humble from the start. Be prepared to sacrifice more than you thought possible, and you will grow.

You are changing the world by changing the life of your child.

– guest post by Mollie

We met our daughter in a hotel room in July 2017.

She was 20 months old.

She clung to the orphanage ayi as she said hello to her new Mama and Baba in the meekest voice we’d ever heard. She waved and smiled and appeared happy to see us but, when her ayi tried to hand her over to me, she clung to her. Our daughter was terrified.

While I had dreamt of the perfect “gotcha moment” I let my expectations slip away as the orphanage staff informed us about her many medical routines. Eventually, the ayi pried our daughter loose and set her down in a chair, leaving the room. Oh, how she screamed.

When my husband tried to pick her up, she whacked at him. Again, she hit and screamed at my attempts. We tried distracting with toys and stickers and bubbles while she continued to cry silent tears. Baba went with the guide to get formula and I was alone with our daughter for the first time.

We didn’t know for certain how mobile she was due to her special need. I quickly discovered she could crawl with vigor when she made her way to the hotel door, pulled herself upright and placed her sweaty head against the door.

Though we as adoptive parents saw the day as new life, she stood in another – abandonment. And she was desperate to escape from me. I stayed close and there we sat in the mess of adoption. I gave her many quiet moments and then picked her up and sang Jesus Loves Me as she laid her precious head on my chest.

We swayed as she began the never-ending journey of trusting me.

Our daughter knew love before us. Her needs were well met by her caregivers. She was worn in a carrier on her ayis back. She was spoon fed, bottle fed, covered with blankets at night and hugged. These ayis were her mothers. While in process, her adoption updates said things like “She cries when her ayi leaves the room” and she “loves to be tickled and teased”. These were not fictitious statements to make the orphanage look good, but true accounts of our daughter’s relationship with her other mothers.

When we visited the orphanage, we were met with smiles and even hugs. There was a spirit of family there even among the rows of cribs. The toddlers played with toys and sang along to songs. Eva wanted to stay. She waved goodbye to us. And as I tucked her back into the baby carrier, we felt heavily the absence of the woman she called ‘Mama’ before me. Her ayi called out of work the day we were visiting because the goodbye was too hard for her too.

What sacrifice displayed: to love and let a daughter go no matter how unconventional. How aware we are that this experience is the exception not the rule in China.

Most families, once home, deal with indiscriminate affection with their adopted child. They have to set firm boundaries and navigate the world of teaching the child what family means and painstakingly establish parent/child bonds. We were prepared to navigate those well documented waters.

Instead we sailed down a small unpopulated river of the exact opposite: discriminate affection. After months of cocooning, our sweet girl knew exactly who her family was. She let us rock her, and even hugged us back. She became the youngest of four children. Her big siblings doted on her, played and shared to Eva’s delight.

The fits and rages came unexpectedly when we began opening her world to our community. She would cling to us at the sight of another person. Good intentioned church members would talk to her, touch her back or extend their hands out to hold her. We had no expectation of her going to them, as we desired to keep her close, but she would quickly shake her little head no and try to hide.

At the beginning of this journey we welcomed her desire to stay close to us. We believed it said “She trusts us.” Instead, we’ve learned, it says “I trust you to provide for me, but I am still scared you will leave me too.”

We often felt like we were the ones who traumatized her.

When the holidays came, Eva had been home six months. Our families and friends desperately wanted to love her. She would offer a ‘high five’ or “hello” or “bye y’all” but no one else could touch her. She would literally not even take candy from anyone else. She desired only care from Mama or Daddy, maybe a sibling as well and my dad. (Somehow, Dad had quickly snuck into her small group of cherished people. It literally melted my heart considering how selective she was.)

Before China, we were well rooted in homeschool community, church community, family, friends. We stayed on the go with social events, serving the church and others, participating in community life freely and enjoying our tribe. While worth it, taking a step back from a well supported life felt incredibly isolating. There was no doubt that Jesus had called us to our daughter but the isolation felt a little like punishment. We desired to fully participate in the life we once had and Eva felt like the road block.

Instead of forcing affection, we followed Eva’s lead within reason. We tried occupational therapy in case any of the issues were sensory in nature. We brushed her, massaged her, crawled thru tunnels, and did lots of swinging. She loved these activities with her family and hated it with the OT because the OT touched her.

We had to get back into normal routines for the benefit of our family as a whole so I strapped Eva into my Ergo carrier and joined the land of the living again. We went to museums on field trips, homeschool community days, Thanksgiving dinner, birthday parties, church services, and Christmas events with our tiny girl in a pouch like my little kangaroo.

There were times our community supported us by keeping an eye on our big kids while I stood outside with my raging daughter because someone touched her hair. If another person came near she would say, “I love you too” to receive reassurance and attention from me. There were countless times that I said to kids and adults alike, “Please don’t touch her” and was met with confused expressions.

Little by little, she came to recognize ‘our people’. She still discriminated with her affection, but she could tolerate being in the same room with others. She became more tolerant of people entering our home as long as she knew ahead of time the plan and that the guest would be leaving and returning to their own home.

Little by little, Eva started getting down to play near me. At home, she will now wander room to room at times when she’s feeling super confident Mama isn’t going anywhere. At church, she can now stay in nursery most Sundays. Grandparents can even babysit her.

The time invested in moving slowly and letting her keep her guard up has proven invaluable. The sacrifices we made do, indeed, have an impact on her ‘felt safety.’ As Eva’s language has improved, instead of melting into a puddle of tears when I walk out of the room she can verbalize, “Don’t leave me.”

We spend a large portion of our days telling her what will happen next, who will be where we are going, how long we will be gone (if we’re actually leaving her for a short time) and reminding her that we will always come back.

Discriminate affection is a different kind of hard. Aren’t we all paddling down a river that is hard in it’s own way? Discriminate affection afforded us quicker attachment and trust with our daughter. It cost us date nights, cost our older children one on one attention, made a small drought in our friendships, exhausted us, frustrated us, left us unable to serve others and changed our world in a million small ways.

Yet every sacrifice is worth our daughter being closer each day to thriving within a community of people who love her and don’t expect anything in return.

So if you have a child who withholds affection don’t feel bad. Your friends and family will extend mercy and grace. Needs come in a lovely variety. This is just another opportunity to meet your child’s need in a somewhat unconventional way: let them save their affection for those whom they actually care for and desire to show their affection to.

It’s okay if they don’t ever hug anyone else. Even if they do live in the South.

– guest post by Brittany

Ridge is an extroverted, active, and smiley little boy, born in June of 2016 with Down syndrome.

Ridge lives with a foster family and is attached to his foster mom. He can stretch his hands out to ask his foster mom for a cuddle and can make sounds of da-da.

Ridge can crawl, walk with his hands held, and stand and walk with his hands holding onto something for support. He can hold his own bottle and transfer toys between hands.

Ridge responds well to facial expressions and really likes hide-and-seek and looking at himself in the mirror! He is very curious about new things around him and changes in his environment. Ridge cares about the people close to him and is said to be a good eater and sleeper. He likes to play with his friends and his favorite toys are those that are colorful or make sounds.

Ridge is waiting for his forever family. Could that family be yours?

There is a $1,500 agency grant for Ridge’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. There is an extra $1,500 Down syndrome Awareness grant for families that contract with MAA and commit to adopting a child with Down syndrome during the month of October! Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Ridge needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting him. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Ridge, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

The first photo I ever saw of Winnie was so ridiculously cute. She is dressed from head to toe in a hot pink puffy coat with matching pants and black boots. Her edibly adorable face was framed by such a tragically terrible haircut that made me laugh and cry at the same time.

She and I both know way down deep in our hearts that we are meant to be together. And now we are both able to express our sorrow for the brokenness of her past too. At least once a day, Winnie will feel the need to reinforce the solidity of our bond by reciting to me out loud, “Mommy, I am the baby of your heart. Pearson and Henry are your tummy babies and Olive is your heart baby too. You found me and you came to China as fast as you could to bring me home.” And every day I remind her, “Yes, Winn Winn, you are my heart baby. You are safe and you will be my heart baby forever.”

Chris had been unsure about being able to attach with Winnie since the very beginning of her adoption process, but it only took him about 3 minutes and a travel magna doodle for her to win him over. We were riding from the Social Affairs office when Chris had drawn a sunshine and pointed to the sky trying to see if Winnie understood? Winnie quickly erased his and made her own, smiling at him with that ridiculous smile and he was a total goner. He loved her with his whole heart too.

That first night, as Chris and I lay with her between us, we were so uncomfortable trying to sleep on the wooden box topped with a thin pad and covered in scratchy sheets. The room smelled nauseating, like too much room service fried rice and McDonald’s French fries. But our discomfort was inconsequential in juxtaposition with Winnie’s silent grief. We held her and sang You are my Sunshine until she finally gave in to the sleep she needed so much.

Winnie’s transition into our family was nothing less than dreamy, and I found myself longing to go back to China. When we adopted Winnie, we met her foster parents and spent time in the orphanage with a few other children we hoped to advocate for back home. From the nursery rooms we toured through their little classrooms, we saw about 120 children. Easily half of them had Down syndrome. The faces of those children were burned into my heart and soul, and Chris and I both knew that it was a pull we couldn’t ignore.

A little over two years later, I was back on a plane to China to adopt Olive.

Unlike Winnie, I hadn’t had the immediate heart and soul connection from Ollie’s photos and file. In the clarity of retrospect, I now realize that I probably never would have found another child with a tug as strong as Winn’s. I had been advocating for Ollie (then Penny on Reece’s Rainbow) for about two years, and Chris felt very drawn to her. Frankly there was no way to “choose” a child from the hundreds of precious waiting girls with Ds in our age range. Olive was a precious waiting child who needed a family, and so we decided to bring her into ours. It was pretty much as simple as that.

Logistically, we couldn’t make it work for both Chris and I to travel, so I went to Fuzhou for Olive with our then 13 year old son Pearson. I was nervous that afternoon as we prepared to meet her, but I was also frankly feeling pretty self righteous – I had already fought my life’s share of really hard parenting wars.

I had adoption, autism and Down syndrome in my wheelhouse. Whatever this tiny 30 pound child was going to throw at me, I was sure I could handle it.

Plus, I persuaded Pearson to stay in and rest that morning so I would be at my best for her that evening. Looking back, I feel so guilty for not exploring with him more before we met her.

That afternoon we went downstairs to our hotel conference room to meet our girl. There were two other waiting families there, and the room smelled like fish flavored crackers as we nervously packed and unpacked the small backpacks of toys and snacks we would use to distract and hopefully calm our grieving children.

Olive was the second child to come into the room, and she toddled in looking like a marshmallow puff baby. She was dressed in three fleece jogging suits, one on top of the other, and she had three neon silk scarves in fluorescent pink, orange and yellow wrapped around her neck. Her hair was in so many tiny little pigtails and they moved up and down as she started running laps around the area. It soon became clear that she would stop moving for nothing, but she would slow down for fish crackers. This girl loves her food.

Olive couldn’t be as old as we thought she was, and she had significant health issues that we didn’t expect. Her behavior was primal and extreme, and her physical strength and determination of will were unparalleled.

She was easily the most dysregulated and physically violent child at the packed medical exam in Guangzhou. By that point in the trip I had lost my ability to even try as she lay face down on the waiting room floor, sucking it for comfort. I felt so hopeless and alone that day. I remember sitting in that long line of blue and white waiting room chairs with sweat pouring down my neck, soaking wet from the long journey over. I had been wearing Olive in the front pack with a hot impermeable rain jacket wrapped around us.

The front pack was the only way she could safely travel from place to place, and that meant that I was the one to take all of her abuse any time we left the room. She loved to pull my hair and bite, but she also loved to run away. The other children were starting to show improvements in their behavior, while Ollie’s seemed to worsen. My only focus was getting her home to Chris.

Back home in Texas, I plummeted into a deep depression. This experience had been nothing like Winnie’s, and I didn’t think I could parent a child with these kinds of needs. It was hard for me to think about attachment when I couldn’t even get Olive to sit in my lap.

I don’t know how I would have gotten through those first critical weeks and months home if Chris hadn’t been right by my side. I handed Olive over to him as soon as we got to Austin, and I basically relied heavily on him to get us through those first few months of endless doctors appointments, developmental assessments, hospital stays and surgeries.

His attachment with Olive began to grow, and I felt like it was all my fault for not being able to accept her. I think I was suffering PTSD from meeting her alone in China and bearing the responsibility for bringing her home. I was barely able to take care of the basic needs of the family, much less able to try to relate to a child with needs and behaviors that I didn’t even want to address.

From my point of view, all of this had been my fault. I was the one who initially wanted to adopt again. Down syndrome adoption was my passion. Something I had done in China must have started us off on the wrong foot, and I couldn’t accept the failure that I would be in the face of the adoption community. But I also knew that my day-to-day existence – living lost in a sea of depression, doubt, and blame – wasn’t a healthy place either.

Chris wouldn’t even consider the conversation I wanted to have about dissolving her adoption, and so we doubled down on childcare costs and looked forward to fall when Ollie could spend some time at school. During the solace of those school days, Olive found some female caregivers that she could begin to form healthy bonds with, and I found hope in the office of Vanessa Rosage, an experienced and wise adoption and attachment therapist.

I sobbed through the first hour with Vanessa, mostly because she told me that none of this was my fault. She gave me some ways to find room to breathe in my day, and she referred me to other resources that could help us find our family footing too. She helped me remember how to practically apply those tools I’d previously learned at the Karen Purvis seminar, and gave me simple ways to start to try to bond with Olive for only a few minutes a day.

I remember the first few times I tried to sing You are my Sunshine to Ollie as I held her before her nap. She would arch her back, turning her head to push me away like I was her biggest enemy. I felt like she and I would never find our peace.

Parenting Olive has uncovered so much of my own personal past, since her most bothersome behaviors trigger feelings in me that are hard to face. We now know that Olive is Deafblind, and she identifies and experiences people, in a large part, through the texture and smell of their hair. Olive loves to run her fingers through your hair, pulling and tugging as she smoothes it forward in your face and covering your eyes.

I literally cannot stand having my hair touched, and her pudgy sticky little hands in my hair sends a nauseating jolt through my spine as if she had run her sharp fingernails down the length of our old chalkboard. I even had one crazy doctor suggest that I dye my blonde hair jet black, and get it cut short in a China bob so that it would be easier for Olive to attach. Olive’s hands in my hair bring up such negative feelings, that I have learned to breathe through the anxiety, and Olive has blessedly learned to listen when I ask her to stop.

In the beginning, we didn’t know that Olive had dual sensory loss. We only considered her disabilities in terms of her developmental delays due to Ds and institutionalization. Now that I know how those with Deafblindness experience the world around them, and after hearing anecdotes of Olive greeting her playground friends with a deep whiff of their hair to identify them, I understand why she feels such a strong need to bond with me by touching and smelling my hair too.

We have come so far since our Ollie girl came home. She and I have some such a long way, and I now know that she is one of the sweetest little girls I have ever met. Underneath her layers of trauma, much like those layered fleece joggers, this child is a happy and hilarious love bug with lessons to teach all of us every day. I’m sure she has survived a war in her six-ish years, and she knows that we love her despite it all.

These are realizations that it has taken me two years to make, and changes in thoughts and feelings so profound, than anything less than this would have rendered me and Olive miserable failures at learning the attachment dance.

There is no magic fix, so we are totally still stepping on each other’s toes every day. But as she fell asleep this afternoon snuggled into the crook of my body and under the weight of the covers in my bed, I am reminded just how very far we have actually come.

Her sticky hand was curled around my long hair. And as we fell asleep. I sang our special version of our sleepy time song…

“You are my sunshine, my Olive sunshine
You make me happy every day
You’ll never know Ollie
How much I love you
Please just be my sunshine today.”

– guest post by Stephanie: email || Instagram

Isabella is an adorable little girl, born in April of 2014, with a contagious smile and laugh.

Isabella loves to be cuddled and teased by her caretakers. She is an easy child who likes to play with toys. She especially likes musical toys, playing games, and playing with balls.

Her fine motor skills are normal and she can communicate and express her needs, but her speech is a little delayed compared to peers her age. Isabella was born with lumbosacral meningocele and arthrogryposis. When she was a baby, she had surgery for a meningocele resection. She has very limited use of her lower limbs and is incontinent.

Don’t miss Isabella’s video – she is pure joy!

Written update from August 2018:

1. How is her mental ability compared to peers of the same age?
Lower, compared with other kids of same age.

2. How does the special need affect her health?
She cannot walk and has bowel and bladder incontinence, due to postoperative spina bifida.

3. Is she potty trained?
No, she relies on diaper due to incontinence.

4. Please describe her personality in details.
She is active and lovely. She likes smiling and talking to people.

5. Is she well behaved and obedient?
Yes, she is.

6. How are her gross motor skills? Can she walk, run, jump, walk upstairs and downstairs by herself? Can she kick a ball? Can she pick up a ball? Any limited functions?
She is confined to the movement of her upper limbs. She cannot walk, jump, or run, due to the limited functions of her lower limbs.

7. How are her fine motor skills? Can she draw or scribble on paper? Can she pick up little things with her fingers?
Great, she do all of that without any limited functions.

8. Is she in any kind of school? If so, what school? Can she catch up in school?
She is studying at the orphanage’s Sunshine school, and she can keep up in class.

9. How is her emotional development? Is the child attached to anyone? Who is she close to? Does she care for other people?
Great! She is quite attached to her caretakers and she has a good friend, You Renfu. She doesn’t know how to care for others yet.

10. How are her social skills? Does she get along well with other children and adults?
Great! She gets along well with kids and adults.

11. Is she under foster care or living in the orphanage?
She lives in the orphanage.

12. Updated Measurements:
Height：90 cm，
Weight：15 kg，
Head: 46 cm，
Chest：57 cm，
Foot Length: 10.5 cm，
Number of teeth：20

13. How is the language ability of the child? What can she say?Can she speak one word, two words, or sentences? Can she express her needs well? Is her language ability the same as peers of the same age?
Good. She can speak simple words and some sentences. She can express herself and answer simple questions. Her speech ability is a bit lower than other kids of the same age.

14. Can the child follow directions of adults? One step, two steps, or three steps?
Yes, she do that.

15. Anything else you think the family should know about the child?
No.

16. Is the child on any medication?
No.

17. What is the daily schedule of the child?
Get up at 6:00 am, breakfast at 7:40 am; Attend class between 8:45 am and 10:55 am, lunch, nap and afternoon tea at between 10:55 am and 14:30 pm; attend class between 14:30 pm and 16:40 pm, dinner at 17:00 pm; go to bed at 20:30 pm.

18. What does the child eat? Can she feed herself? Does the child eat with chopsticks, spoon, or a bottle?
Congee, noodles, rice noodles, rice, milk, bread, vegetables and meat. She can eat on her own with a spoon. She does not use a bottle.

19. Does the child know any English?
No.

20. Does the child want to be adopted? Does the child understand what adoption means?
She wants to be adopted, but doesn’t know what adoption means. She knows that she will be happy if she has parents.

21. What color does the child like?
Red.

22. What activity does the child like to do?
She likes to play games.

23. What is the favorite toy of the child?
Balls and electronic toys.

There is a $500 agency grant for Isabella’s adoption with Madison Adoption Associates. Other grants may be available based on the adoptive family’s circumstances. Agency grants are awarded as agency fee reductions. MAA also partners with the Brittany’s Hope Foundation for matching grants, which are given out twice a year January and July) and to families that are officially matched with a child.

Isabella needs a family with an approved home study to be able to move forward with adopting her. If you have an approved home study or a home study in process and are interested in adopting Isabella, please fill out a free PAP Waiting Child Review Form, which can be found here.

I remember sitting there staring. Staring at the notes that I had just scribbled down.

My mind was racing and yet it was paralyzed. I had just gotten off the phone with the cardiologist who reviewed the file of a girl that my husband, Dan, and I had requested him to review.

I was expecting to hear how her heart functioned and its anatomy, and maybe even possibly get some feedback on his thoughts on future cardiac needs. He gave me all that. And then he gave me a bit more.

My eyes focused in on the words I had underlined, DeGeorge – 22q deletion syndrome. The doctor explained that patients with this heart condition (tetralogy of Fallot) have a higher chance of having the genetic syndrome: 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. I had never heard of it until that day.

He told me that this syndrome has a wide spectrum of effects. He listed a few physical: heart, kidney, cleft palate. And then he listed a few developmental issues: speech delay, behavior issues and learning disabilities. He said that if she were his patient, he would order genetic testing first thing.

I couldn’t get past the words learning disabilities. We didn’t check off cognitive delays or learning disabilities on our medical conditions list. Medical needs were something that we knew could take on, but speech delayed? Learning disabilities? And possible other cognitive unknowns?

We did a lot soul searching. And praying. And talking over the next couple of days. And then we prayed and talked some more. In addition to all that praying and talking, I cried. I had been looking at this little gal’s face for three months on our agency’s waiting child page. I had already claimed her as mine.

And now? Was I really saying “no” to moving forward to making her our daughter?

We told our agency we needed more time. And when it was time, we returned her file and told them we would not be moving forward with her.

When I told my parents that we had returned her file, my dad said something that was life changing, ”I respect your decision. I really do, but please don’t let fear dictate your decisions.”

Fear. I just about let it cost me one of the biggest joys of my life. We prayed that God would make it clear that we were to move forward with her. And He did. We called back our agency and told them that we had decided to move forward with her if her file was still available.

It was.

Over the next year while waiting and paper chasing, I read all that I could about 22q. We were incredibly blessed that Reagan was at New Day Foster Home in Beijing so I would get to see pictures of her almost daily. I would literally sit and analyze each photo, looking for facial characteristics that are common with the syndrome. I’d analyze each carefully worded word on her updates.

I’d like to say that when we landed in China I was ready for whatever was to come but not so.

Just because God made it clear we were to bring Reagan home didn’t mean there wasn’t any fear.

The minute I met Reagan, I knew she had 22q. I just knew. And so did Dan. I remember sitting in our hotel room in China watching her play with a puzzle. Dan leaned over and whispered to me, “I’m scared.” I whispered back, “Me too.” And then as if she knew we were talking about her and wanted us to know it was all going to be okay, Reagan looked at up us and held up a yellow piece of the puzzle and said, “Lellow.”

Once home and settled, we met with a geneticist and moved forward with testing for Reagan. On September 14, 2011 (one year to the day that we sent our pre-approval letter to our agency requesting Reagan to be ours) we got the call from the geneticist that she did indeed have 22q.11 deletion syndrome.

The fear crept back in as I listened to the doctor walk me through the road of specialists that needed to be seen.

It has been quite the road traveled since that diagnosis day. 22q effects Reagan in several ways; she was and is speech delayed. She came home almost non-verbal but today is a very chatty 12 year old. She also came home with severe hearing loss in both ears that has been corrected with surgery and hearing aides.

A few years after the genetic testing, Reagan was diagnosed as intellectually disabled. That diagnosis brought the biggest fear and, if I’m honest, some sadness and denial. I didn’t share the diagnosis with her school for almost a year and when I did, I couldn’t speak. I literally couldn’t get a word out. I cried during entire the meeting and just handed her teacher the paperwork and pointed to the words “intellectually disabled”.

Dan and I learned and are still learning about the IEP process. We’ve learned and are still learning how to be an advocate for Reagan both in and out of the classroom. We’ve been lucky to have a very supportive educational team surround us and her.

Reagan started middle school this year and her teachers report that she is a very determined student who will often tell them she doesn’t want any accommodations on assignments or tests because she feels it’s cheating.

I look back at our early years with Reagan and I remember how overwhelmed I felt about raising her. If I could tell my younger self one thing about parenting a child with learning disabilities, it would be this: “Hey you, just do today.”

Early on I future tripped rather than just taking it day by day. Progress for Reagan has been slow. I’ve learned to be patient. I’ve learned how much joy and celebration there is in the small baby steps of progress.

Reagan’s 22q diagnosis brought big fear, but Reagan brings even bigger JOY. She is a bright light, happy and smiley, a world class hugger and everything good. She has brought our family a joy that we never knew was missing.

Fast forward to 2015. Dan and I felt the stirring to adopt again. As we discussed what medical conditions we would consider, we shared with one another that what we really wanted was another Reagan. We wanted to bring home another child with 22q.

We weren’t sure how we would even find one. It isn’t something that is commonly tested for in China or is on a medical conditions list, but we moved ahead praying for God to find us a little one with that unique genetic make up. Yes, we really did pray for another child with the very same syndrome that scared us just a few years ago.

In January 2016 a boy on our agency’s waiting child list caught our eyes. He caught my eye because quite frankly, I thought he was one of the cutest little boys I had ever seen.

We requested to see his file not only because we thought he was adorable but his special need was a congenital heart defect. When we received his file, the first thing I looked for was to see what heart condition he had. I was scrolling as fast as I could to find it when, there it was, tetralogy of Fallot. I knew that diagnosis alone didn’t mean he had 22q but I knew that he had a higher chance of having it.

I then looked the pictures in his file and I could see it. I saw those facial characteristics so common with 22q. His medical history was almost identical to Reagan’s: heart surgery, chronic illnesses, chronic ear infections and so on. I couldn’t believe that we had actually found a little one with the syndrome we had been praying so hard to find.

On February 6, 2017, I became mama to that precious little boy, Sonny.

Imagine my surprise when his doctor called with the results of the genetic testing and happily announced, “The testing came back and Sonny does NOT have 22q deletion syndrome.” I hung up the phone strangely disappointed. I texted a friend that Sonny didn’t have it and I’ll never forget her kind words. It was the response only a true friend who knew my heart’s desire could give, she asked, “You okay?”

I had to laugh at myself, I was disappointed that Sonny didn’t have it and just years ago I cried because Reagan did have it.

In less than 48 hours, the doctor called back with some news. I could hear over the phone that she was a bit flustered and tongue tied. She apologized profusely. The lab had sent back incomplete results, she then shared some information that I already knew, ”It has been confirmed that Sonny indeed have have 22q deletion syndrome.”

God is good.

Sonny has been home a little over 18 months. We say that if Reagan is our light, Sonny is our sun. He radiates joy and happiness. He is a happy little boy who truly believes everyone is his friend. And, luckily for him, everyone wants to be his friend. We are still learning and waiting to see how this syndrome will affect him. So far the impact doesn’t appear as severe Reagan’s.

As of today he’s in speech therapy. We see hints that there may be some future learning difficulties that may need to be addressed and we’ll take that on when we are supposed to take it on.

Reagan and Sonny’s uniqueness is not because of their 22q diagnosis… there’s most likely millions out there living with the same diagnosis. What makes them special is their laughter, determination, perseverance, scrunchy faced smiles, bravery, and most of all, their full-hearted unconditional love for me.

I am forever and beyond grateful for being their mother.

For more information about 22q.11 deletion syndrome:
22q Family Foundation
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

– guest post by Danae: Instagram || Facebook