Quick Change!--Day 7 at new orphanage

At 7 days in the new orphanage she seems to be looking and feeling much better!

Quick Change!--Day 3 at new orphanage

These were taken on her third day at the center. You can see that her face is clearing and she is filling out a bit!

(One of the worker's words were that she is "putting on more face.”)

Quick Change!--Day 1 at new orphanage

DAY 1 Photos

Ellie was recently moved from her province in Shangxi to an orphanage in Changchun for better nutritional care and medical tests. She will be moved back to Shangxi before the adoption, but these are photos that were taken on Ellie’s first day, third day, and 7th day at the center in Changchun. One of the workers reported that her skin was very dry and that her fists were tightly clenched on the first day.

China MAP

(Click to enlarge the map)

Ellie is from the Shanxi (or Shangxi) province. She was moved for a couple of weeks to an orphanage in Changchun for medical and nutrition care, and then back to Shanxi just before the adoption.

We will fly into Beijing (northeast), and then to Shanxi for the Chinese part of the adoption. Then to the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou (southeast) for the American part of the adoption.

Things Not To Say To Adoptive Parents

We don't want to appear "defensive" by posting this, because we aren't. We only hope to educate others as we are being educated ourselves...


Top Things to NOT say to an Adoptive Parent
(slightly edited from http://www.michellesmiles.com/?cat=3&paged=2)

We know people mean well but some adoptive parents may not appreciate the following:

10. Oh look, she has your husband’s eyes (or smile or whatever)…

No, she really doesn’t. I know that is something you often say when encountering a baby but we are completely aware of the fact that she does not share our DNA. Just tell us she is beautiful - we will happily agree even if we can’t take credit for that.


9. How much did she cost?

Babies do not cost money. Adoptions cost money. And it is rude to ask what an adoption costs even if you phrase it correctly. If you are truly interested, ask for some websites to do some research on your own.


8. Did you meet her real mother?

I am her real mother. I am going to raise her, sit with her when she is sick, cry with her over her first heart break, and pay for college. Her birth mother (or first mother, or biological mother - whatever phrase you prefer) is someone we honor and are thankful to every day for the joy she has given us, but we are her real parents once she is home.


7. I just know you’ll love her like your own.

See above. She is our own daughter and we will love her more than you can know. (Also, our biological children and our adopted daughter are all our REAL children).


6. You know you’ll get pregnant within a year now.

Yes, we all know our cousin’s secretary’s sister who got pregnant 3 months after adopting. But this doesn’t happen in a statistically significant manner. And you have no idea what kind of fertility struggles someone may have gone through before adopting so it's better not to mention this to couples adopting their first child.


5. Is she yours?

Nope, she’s on loan from the daycare down the street. Just taking her for a test drive to see if we want to keep her.


4. Did you get lots of medical tests done on her? I hear most of those countries only let Americans adopt the really sick babies.

Oh no! We forgot to send in the warranty papers for the money back guarantee! She’s our daughter and if any medical issues arise we will deal with them the same as you would your children.


3. I bet she's smart. I hear "they" have a real gift for academics...

I think she is, but then I'm her mother. (smile here) I don't think, though, that we can make sweeping assumptions about any group, do you?


2. Are you going to tell her she is adopted?

Lady, if she doesn’t figure it out herself at some point, we have bigger problems than her understanding that she is adopted. Adoption is rarely a secret in families in this day and age. It is part of her life story and she will know from day one that she is incredibly loved and came to our family in a special way.


1. Does she speak English? (asked when you're holding a baby)...

Only in private. In public, they speak "baby." [smile here]

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Positive Adoption Language:

The words we choose to use say a lot about what we think. When we use positive adoption language, we say that adoption is a way to build a family just as birth is a way to build a family. Both are important, but one is not more important than the other. Try using the positive words when you are talking about adoption...


POSITIVE LANGUAGE

Birth Parent
Biological Parent
Birth Child
My Son/Daughter
Born to Unmarried Parents
Choose Adoption
Make an Adoption Plan
International Adoption
Child with Special Needs
Child from Abroad

Was Adopted

NEGATIVE LANGUAGE

Real Parents

Natural Parent

Own Child
Adopted Child

Illegitimate

Give Up
Give Away
Foreign Adoption

Handicapped Child

Foreign Child

Is Adopted

Other sites with lists:

http://chinaadopttalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=3005.msg41443#msg41443

http://www.chookooloonks.com/chookooloonks/2004/07/top_ten_things_.html

Travel Approval!

Today, April 12th, we received our travel approval! Hopefully, by Tuesday we will have exact appointment dates and by Wednesday we should have reservations for China!

Here is a clipping that Lina Miller sent us from a "Dear Abby" column many years ago. I think it is applicable to any kind of challenge we might face in life...

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley


I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability -- to try to help people who have not shared the unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this ...


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip -- to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. Michelangelo's "David." The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go.


Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."


But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.


So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. You must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.


It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.


But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."


And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.


But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

On the evening of April 1, 2007 we received a phone call from Shari Hedrick at Worlds Together (our adoption agency) informing us that the American pediatrician who examined Ellie at the orphanage in China was concerned about what he saw, and that we should be aware that her condition could prove to be the result of poor nutrition and "failure to thrive" syndrome, or could be due to something more serious (such as Cerebral Palsy), but that we wouldn't likely know until AFTER we take her. Mentally, she appeared to the doctor to be on target. However, they wanted to give us a chance to think and pray about whether we are willing to take a "special needs" child or not. They made it clear that there are other couples who have requested "special needs" children and that she would definititely go to one of them if we believe that we cannot take her. We would also only have to wait a few weeks before we could take another referral.

After talking together and with the children, we prayed and asked the Lord to speak to us. Since last night, we believe that the Lord may have been speaking to us in a few different ways. Of course, we may be wrong. And if we are, we ask Him to reveal that to us as well. The following ways He seems to be confirming for us that we should move ahead with bringing Ellie into our family include...

1. Last night, Vicki saw a familiar verse from Isaiah 43 on a website that struck her, but especially the first part which is usually not noticed or included when the verse is quoted, "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, "Give them up!"

And to the south, "Do not hold them back." Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth..." (Vicki)--though I had seen this verse repeatedly throughout our adoption process, the part that always spoke to me was the "promise" part of the verse- "I will bring your children..." Last night when I saw this verse, the part that jumped out at me was DO NOT BE AFRAID.

2. Vicki woke up in the night and tearfully said to the Lord, "I don't know if I can give her what she needs." What she believes was the Lord's voice immediately replied with, "But I can give you what you need" (which she interpreted as: grace and wisdom to give Ellie what she needs.)

3. This morning I tried to listen to two different sermons online that just wouldn't work for some reason. The third one I tried worked, and was called "Great Expectations" by Kim Engleman, one of the teaching pastors at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. It was so very relevant to our situation. I was struck hard by both the timing of the message (it is from yesterday) and the topic about aligning our expectations with God's and how He often does not do what we expect because what He is doing is BETTER even if it initially SEEMS worse, etc., etc. Vicki listened to it after I did and also strongly sensed that it was the Lord speaking to us.

You can listen to it too at: 

http://mppc.org/learn/series/sermons/great-expectations


4. My devotional reading for this morning was from a book called "Out of the Ordinary" by David Roper and there were a number of things from it that seemed to leap off the pages and speak to us, including: "MY presence will go with you..." (Exodus 33:14); "Nor did He promise Moses that he would enjoy a carefree life of affluence and ease. He only promised to be with His servant and make him a center of peace in the midst of the confusion and uncertainty of his day. GOD WILL DO THE SAME FOR YOU. He does not promise that you will enjoy a tranquil trouble-free existence...but He does utter the simple promise, 'My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.' " And then it ended with this poem...

God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

God hath not promised, we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.

But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.

God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain, rocky and steep,
Never a river turbid and deep.

But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
--Annie Johnson Flint

5. When we suggested to the kids that we should spend some more time "waiting and listening" to give God a chance to speak, Cody said, "We've already given Him 6 years!" and what he said really resonated in our spirits as true.

6. When we think about the possibility of Ellie needing total care in the future (when Vicki and I may not be around to provide it), we cannot think of persons better able (character-wise) to provide it than our other kids.

7. Reflecting this morning on my desire for Ellie's middle name to be "Ming Yun" (Destiny), I was STRONGLY struck with how it REALLY is her destiny, and ours, for her to be a part of our family.

8. Reflecting on how it is our CHOICE whether to accept her or not (with or without health problems), I was reminded of David's CHOICE to "adopt" Mephibosheth (a "special needs" orphan), and was also reminded that there are plenty of biological babies born with health problems into families who "cannot financially or logistically meet those challenges" but somehow they do. God could have matched us with any other orphan, but SHE IS THE ONE He chose. How could we choose otherwise? We may have been taken by surprise but He was not.

9. In reading through Proverbs 3 today, verse 27 jumped out at me. (Vicki) "Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act."

It's A Girl!!!!!

Praise God!!!! After a 6 YEAR "pregnancy" we have been matched with a baby girl from China!!!!!

The phone call came on March 8th, 2007.

Her first name will be Ellie, but we have not yet decided on her middle name (though it will be a Chinese name).

She was born on April 10, 2006, is in good health, and we hope to fly to China some time in May to get her.

Mother and family are doing well. :) Thanks to everyone for their prayers!!!