China
Guatemala
Russia
Vietnam
Brazil
India
My husband, Christopher and I started our first adoption through FTIA in 1999. We traveled to China in June of 2000 to bring home a tiny 10-month-old, now our compassionate, smart and beautiful Clare KeJing. The two week trip went smoothly and our FTIA guide was superb. The eight families who traveled together still keep in touch, and at least a few of us are able to attend our own mini-reunions each summer.
After bringing Clare home in 2000, Chris and I discussed trying the “procreation” route. We had a son in August of 2003. Given the four year age difference and our desire to have more children, we talked about adopting a child whose age would fall between Clare’s and Alister’s.
We knew we wanted to go through FTIA again, as our first experience was so positive. We started by looking at the “Waiting Children” program and we were immediately taken by the photo of Cheng Xin, a three-year-old with some severe scarring due to burns. We asked for her more detailed information and then consulted several doctors and surgeons so we would know (or at least make a well-informed guess as to) her medical needs. We spoke to the Shriners’ Hospital in Portland and learned that they would take care of necessary skin-stretching. (Burned skin does not stretch like normal skin, so in order for Cheng Xin’s skull to grow, scalp-stretching would be required at various albeit unknown points in her development).
Chris and I finished the medical searches and then started searching our souls. We had to figure out if this was right for our family. Could we tolerate innumerable 4-hour trips to Portland’s Shriners’ Hospital? Could we handle the needs of an older adopted child with serious medical issues? There were many questions and we took our time, both as a couple AND as individuals.
We decided to bring Cheng Xin home and started the paperwork in November. We looked forward to our late May travel date.
My parents traveled from Connecticut to our home in Oregon to watch Clare and Alister. We had considered taking Clare on the trip to China with us, but we decided it would be too traumatic for her. (We promised we would take her and her soon-to-be sister to visit China when they were older.) We knew we would spend the first week or so with our newest child trying to make her not want to run away from us! And so it was. But when we left northern China for our second week in Guangzhou, Cheng Xin either realized she was stuck with us, or that we were really not so bad. The bonding began, and she even fondly took to the name Anna ChengXin.
Three days after we received Anna we took a four hour van ride to the beautiful mountain resort of ChengDe to visit the orphanage. We did not get to see Clare’s orphanage, and I will not even attempt to explain how moving it was to visit Anna’s. I will just say that we were greeted by about 25 people when we pulled into the orphanage and they all wanted to hold Anna and have their pictures taken with us. We were treated to a magnificent meal with many tearful toasts, and Anna’s nanny gave me a jade bracelet off of her wrist as she unsuccessfully tried to hold back tears.
Fast-forwarding to Guangzhou:
We happened to be at the White Swan Hotel with many families adopting special needs children! Suffice it to say that it was an amazing week of bonding with Anna and of being honored to meet the other families and their new children. There was one family adopting their fourth special needs daughter. There was another adopting their eighth child, and their new little gal a serious facial disfigurement, something nobody noticed after a few days of knowing her. And there was the family adopting a blind four-year-old boy. He started his time at the hotel quite out of sorts. A week later we were awed by his transformation into a loving son. He would clap his hands to sense how far the walls were, so he quickly learned how to get around the hotel. And he could smell how far away another person was. It was rather comical to watch him find Anna’s head and wonder why things felt quite different than he was used to, as Anna tried to shoo him away. They worked it out between them in a matter of minutes, underscoring the ability children have to solve many of their own situations (and the senselessness of micro-managing every move a child makes, as we parents often tend to do).
We left China for the second time with so many memories to cherish and stories to share.
Anna has acclimated amazingly well in the month and a half we have been home. (Clare and Alister are still adjusting, but Anna fit right in so quickly.) Her English is fantastic. Amongst her first words were ice-cream and pizza. And now she often looks into my eyes and very seriously and softly says: “I love you Mommy.”
As with all parents of all children, we look forward to the years to come with eagerness, trepidation and hope, as we pray for grace, guidance, and a truck-load of patience.
-Donna
