Journey to Anna Mei

The details of Anna's birth are known to a few unknown people in China. Her birth will likely remain a mystery to us, like her future will be a mystery to them. We believe that her birth parents loved her, but because of social, finanical and/or medical reasons they felt that they couldn't not provide what she needed. We don't know if this was their first child or forbidden second, if they were poor, if giving her up was planned from the beginning of the pregnancy or only after her birth. But we do, and will always speak of them with respect and gratitude for the gift that they gave life and protected until they could get her to a location they knew she would be found. I hope God gives them a peace connected to the memory of her birth. I hope that her birth mother believes that her adoptive mother loves her now and will love her for the rest of her life as her own.

On November 10, 2005 the Foshan Nanhai Yanbu Police recieved a report of a baby girl found outside of the "injection room" of the Yanbu Hospital Clinic. The parents of the baby couldn't be found, so the Foshan Nanhai District Civil Affairs Bureau approved to move the baby to the Nanhai District Social Welfare Institute. It was obvious that she had a cleft lip and cleft palate. The report says that there was a birth note and it was confirmed that her birth date is November 10, 2005. They named her Hai Zhi Yi.

The reports state "she likes amusing with other, can laugh loudly when she is happy. She can respond to adult’s facial expressions. She has rich facial expressions. She is an obedient and fairly quiet baby." I can only imagine what her laugh might sound like. I already know that her smile and eyes brighten any room. Her picture alone does that.

We don't know a lot of details about Anna. Nor do we expect to until we are in China with her. There will likely not be a lot of details given to us about her first year of life. But we hope to fill the following years with lots of details. Lots of love, laughter and memories. Sending love to my Anna.

I have been wanting to get this started for quite sometime, but I just never could write that "first" post. I started probably 5 or 6 times, but it was too long and way too detailed...also a complaint of my husband when I tell any story! But, I will try to refrain from the tiny details, although they are quite interesting to me and I think make life stories all the more real.

This story began when I was very young. I knew that I wanted to adopt from a young age. When my husband and I met, we discussed adoption as we discussed our dreams of a life and family together. Throughout our marriage, adoption was talked about, although we knew it wasn't the right time and we just couldn't afford it at the time. We had two beautiful sons, Carter and Jacob, and our life together was seeming to come together. My husband's business was growing, we finally bought a house, our youngest son would soon be e

ntering school and I could see that adoption might be in the future...like in three or four years after we paid off some more debt and saved money. Much to our surprise, we had son #3 on the way! What a shocker! I quit my job to stay home with our newest son, Parker, and paying off that debt slowed - significantly!!! Adoption just wasn't in the cards anymore - three was enough.

In October of 2005, when Parker was 16 months old, I got an incredible burden for a child. It was something that I cannot really explain, but it was real. My heart was breaking for this child that I didn't know or know anything about. I didn't know if they were a boy or a girl, if they were born or conceived, if they were in the United States or Africa. All I knew was there was a child that lay heavy on my heart.

After a few weeks of bearing this alone, I shared with my husband. He, of course, thought I was crazy...we had three kids...I stayed at home...he was self-employed...could I be serious? But I was. I talked him into attending an adoption fair to learn more about adoption. It motivated me and made the burden even heavier, for him, not so much. He was really turned off. He really didn't want to talk about adoption, but it was all I wanted to talk about. I did some research on domestic adoption, private and through the state. I also looked at international adoption as well. I decided after my husband's frustration with me, that it would be best to keep quite for a while. I prayed that if this was what God wanted for us, He would have to give the burden to my husband as well. It takes two. Right before Christmas, my husband started asking questions about the adoption process and I had the answers.

As I told my husband what I knew about domestic and international adoptions, he kept asking about China. I found out as much as I could about China and filled him in on what I had learned. I gave him the cliff notes version. After a few months of deliberation, researching and prayer, we agreed that we needed to pursue an adoption in China.

We began our home study process in May 2006. All the literature that I had read really had me intimidated on the paper chase, but really it wasn't that bad. Time consuming, yes...frustrating, yes, but it wasn't that complicated to gather what was needed. What was complicated was trying to make others understand what you needed. People thought that if they didn't think China would need it, then they really shouldn't need it - hello, you don't tell China what to do. People tried to cut corners which in the long run just made it more complicated for everyone. But finally we had everything done! All the papers were in our hands, notarized, county certified, state certified, Secretary of State certified and authenticated by the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. We were ready to send off our dossier to our agency...we just needed a few more hundred dollars - so we waited.

From all that I had read and the news that our agency was telling us, after they received our dossier, it would take about a week for them to prepare it to send to China, then it would take about a month to log in the dossier, aka LID (log in date), from the LID the current wait was 15 - 18 months with the expectation that the wait would lengthen...yuck! I never, never wanted a child to be abandoned for my sake, but I hated that there were children waiting in China and it just took soooo long to process their paperwork. So, we were in it for the long haul...we were told to expect to wait at least 1 1/2 years.

While we were waiting to save the remainder of the needed fees to send in our dossier, I liked to follow the adoption stories of others. To see families being united - just amazing and very encouraging. I started following stories of some who had adopted children from waiting child or special needs lists. Their stories moved me. The children were so special and needed families so desperately. I talked to my husband about the possibility of considering a special needs child. Once again, the look of total surprise...he must love me. We talked very openly and honestly about what our family could handle. We didn't decide anything for certain, but it was an option we were considering.

As I followed stories, I got involved in discussion boards of waiting child families. There were children being adopted that had heart conditions, orthopedic issues, cleft lip/palates, skin disorders, missing hands/fingers/toes. The hearts of these parents were just so warming. The children were so touching. I feel in love with these children. I watched special needs lists and rejoiced with they were matched. I would wait for someone to fall in love with a child and pray they would be united soon. One day, I accidentally, really accidentally (I'll spare the small details) got onto a special needs list I had never been to before. I looked at the waiting children and they were just precious. There was one little girl the agency named "Mazie", she had the sweetest grin. I got up the next morning, schedule as usual, took Carter and Jacob to school, came home and started in on laundry and picking up the same toys I picked up the day before. I decided to check the lists to see if any children, especially "Mazie" had been matched. As I went to the "new" list, I noticed a name I didn't see the day before, "Novie".

"Novie", cleft lip/cleft palate, I clicked on her file and her picture popped up on my screen. My heart leaped. She was just beautiful. I got so nervous. I felt like my "insides" were shaking. Is this her? Is this the child I have been burdened for? I didn't know what to do. I e-mailed the agency and asked what I could do. Could we adopt her? We were already with another agency. I learned that we would have to pull out of our agency and re-apply with the agency that held her file. This could only be done because we had not sent in our dossier yet. Had our dossier been sent to China already, we could not request her. Maybe this is why we just couldn't save that extra money needed? There were so many questions running through my head, I was an emotional mess. This was our daughter - I knew it!

During that week, my husband and I sent a pre-application to the "new" agency, reviewed her medical file and requested to adopt this little girl called "Novie", that we would soon name Anna Mei. The date of our official agency match, November 10, 2005, was also her first birthday. Our boys were ecstatic. We pulled out of our previous agency and then, we had to tell our extended family.

They were all pretty shocked. We hadn't told them about our special needs consideration and they were expecting to be waiting over a year, so when we showed them pictures of our daughter, they were a little caught off guard. Our time line and process had changed. I worked the next week on preparing our Letter of Intent (LOI). It was translated and then sent to the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs) on November 24. We received word from our agency on December 21 we had been granted our Pre-Approval (PA) on December 18 from the CCAA, which was just what I wanted for Christmas.

On January 28, we received new pictures of Anna. A couple was adopting from the same orphanage and they agreed to take pictures for us. We were so happy to see that she is doing so well. And of course, she is beautiful! Last account we had, she had been sick. So we were so relieved to see her happy and healthy. Her lip repair looks awesome too! So now we are ready to send in our dossier and wait for our LID (log in date) and then SC (Seeking Confirmation Letter) then TA (Travel Approval) and finally our Gotcha Day!

I can hardly wait to hold our sweet girl. To kiss her little nose, hold her tiny hand and hear that sweet laugh. They tell us, the orphanage and the couple that recently visited her orphanage, she is quite the entertainer. She will fit in perfectlly around here. However, she will have three boys to compete with - she will live in a house full of entertainers.

So we anxiously wait for her arrival. Until then I will try to keep you informed on what is happening with our journey to Anna. I am even more excited about keeping you informed about Anna when we are actually in China. So this is our story, a little long I know. Habits are hard to break. Hopefully, I will be updating soon regarding our dossier being sent to our agency, hint, hint! Until next time...sending love to my Anna!