A painful issue brings up hard questions

A giant controversy is brewing in the China adoption community.  More and more evidence is coming to light that corruption is deeply embedded in China's international adoption program.  Read more about it here.  It's not a new story -- here's one from 2005.  It's not limited to U.S. media either.  It's actually been a bigger story inside China, with U.S. papers just now picking it up months after it came out there.  For good background on the issue, read the September 30, 2009 entry here.  Yes, I know he's controversial, and I often have doubts about his research methodology, but he's far from the only person beating this drum.  I think we have to pay attention to what he is saying.

Back in late 2005 and early 2006, the Chinese government managed to convince the rest of the world that baby-buying was an isolated incident involving a handful of corrupt orphanage directors, not a widespread problem.  It is beginning to appear that this was not the truth.  It is beginning to appear that it is common practice in many parts of the country for orphanages to pay for babies, and that it has been common for quite some time.  It happens in different ways.  Sometimes babies are stolen outright and sold to orphanages.  Horrific.  Sometimes family planning officials forcibly remove babies from their parents because the parents have exceeded their one/two-child quota.  Again, horrific.  In other cases, orphanages hire "finders" who spread the word that they are willing to pay for healthy babies.  This is slightly less horrific, since it obviously allows someone in a child's birth family to make a choice of sorts.  But is it really a choice?  If the finder's cash payment weren't an option, would the birth family keep the child?  Would they find a family member, neighbor or friend to raise the child if they couldn't afford to themselves?  Is it any easier for a Chinese woman to hand her newborn baby to a stranger, knowing she'll never see her again, than it would be for YOU to do it?  Of course not.

Then there's China's one-child policy (not actually one child in all cases, but let's call it that because it's a simpler phrase than something more accurate would be).  The fines for having a child beyond your family's quota can amount to three years' salary for some families.  If the child in question is beyond quota, how many families can afford to pay the fines?  There aren't any payment plans.  And hiding an over-quota child is not feasible for most families either.  That child could not receive medical care or go to school.  Upon reaching adulthoold, that child would not be able to get a job or a home.  The policy is truly the villain in this story.  It puts Chinese families in unthinkable positions and forces choices that no parent should ever face.  But the policy is not something that we have the power to change, and it is unlikely to change soon.

I think abandonment still happens in China, but it is much less common than it was a decade ago.  I think it most often happens now with single mothers who really don't have a chance to parent their child given the norms of modern Chinese society, and with children who have special needs that are visible at birth.  Again, these parents simply don't have a chance to parent their children, given widespread poverty and the lack of a social safety net in China.  But Chinese families are wealthier than they were a decade ago, and attitudes toward baby girls are changing.  I just don't think that healthy babies are abandoned as often as they used to be.

I'm astounded at the China adoption community's response to this story.  Many are enraged that the media is talking about it.  They seem to be fearful that it will end China's international adoption program, thereby depriving them of the child they've been waiting for.  I understand the heartbreak of the wait; we waited too, although not nearly as long as some will wait.  I can understand how devastating it would be to see your dream of adopting from China come to an end.  But really, would you knowingly enter into an adoption if you had reason to believe these stories were true?  That your child may have been stolen from her parents and sold to an orphanage?  Or that her parents willingly gave her up for money?  I would not.  That is precisely why we discarded Guatemala as an option for our family.  I would not knowingly be a party to this sort of corruption.

Others in the community simply discard this story as lies.  Perhaps it's not true; we don't have conclusive proof afterall.  But it is certainly beginning to look as if it could be true.  How is it helpful to anyone to bury your head in the sand and pretend like it's not happening?  If you already have adopted Chinese children at home, don't you think that someday they will hear about this?  They'll find it on the Internet when they're older, or worse, someone will say something stupid in the grocery store or on the playground, and they'll hear about it that way.  Don't you think you should be as educated as you can be, so that you can have a thoughtful and honest conversation with your child?

And adoption agencies continue to spoon-feed us stories of orphanages full of abandoned babies who need homes.  Are they lying to us, or do they believe it?  If they believe it, should they?  Don't they of all people have an obligation to know what's going on in China, so they can inform their families?

Other questions I'm struggling with include my own unwitting role in this story.  Did I perpetuate this sort of corruption by adopting from China?  Am I obligated to initiate a conversation with Z about this at some point in the future when she is emotionally mature enough to understand it?  Or do I wait until she discovers it to have the conversation?  And have I made it inevitable that she will discover it by blogging about it?  And how on Earth do I talk about this with her in a manner that is sensitive yet honest?

Speculating about Z's history is simply to painful for me to even get into just yet.  I derive minimal comfort from the thought that her special need may have been recognizable from birth, leading her parents to abandon her in a safe place so that needs they couldn't afford to tend to could receive medical care.  But I have a huge amount of soul-searching to do before I can begin to answer any of these questions and begin to contemplate Z's own story.

This is terribly painful for me.  This is something that was not entirely off my radar screen while we were in the adoption process, since the Hunan story broke while we were doing our dossier, but I believed what I read.  I believed that Hunan was an isolated case of corruption.  I believed that abandonment was an ongoing problem in China.  I believed that thousands of children were waiting in orphanages and had little chance of finding families if families like mine did not adopt.  That orphanage care was by definition worse than being adopted by a family of a different nationality and race.  I don't think I could have gotten deeply enough into these issues before we adopted to see them as I do now.  They are infinitely more complex than I could have known.  Somehow, when the child was still an abstraction, these issues remained somewhat abstract too.  It is also true that it has taken me years to discover how many resources are truly available to adoptive parents, and I continue to discover new ones all the time.

I struggled about whether or not to blog about this.  Obviously I lean toward the idea that I do have an obligation to talk to Z about this someday, or I wouldn't have done it.  The bottom line to me is this:  we, as adoptive parents and future adoptive parents, have an obligation to learn as much about this as we can.  We need to discuss, analyze and debate it among ourselves, so that we can talk about it with our kids someday.  I think they will hear about it one way or another, and they will come to us for answers.  We also need to resolve our own internal dilemmas, and maybe even guilt, over this issue.  That is the road I am headed down now.

One year ago

A year ago today, the phone rang at 3:55pm. I saw "Chinese Children" in caller ID, and I knew right away that this was THE call.

I knew before I picked up, even though they'd just told us three days before that we'd have to wait for the next batch for our referral, probably until February or so. You see, the Friday before had been my 40th birthday, and CCAI had told us back in September that our baby would almost certainly be in the next batch. Well, the next batch came in October, and by November 29, the referral announcements were starting to peter out. I'd somehow gotten it into my head that we'd get our referral by my birthday, and when they hadn't called by early afternoon that Friday, I asked M to call the agency and ask them what was up. That was when they broke the news -- there was no baby for us in this batch, and we'd have to wait until next time.

I was disappointed, but also a little bit relieved. No more keeping my cellphone glued to my body whenever I left the house, no more jumping each time the phone rang, no more lying awake all night wondering if tomorrow would be the day. I could relax and start getting anxious again in February. I had a big birthday party on Saturday, and I must have said, "No, it probably won't be until February at the soonest" a thousand times that night as all our family and friends asked about our baby girl from China.

Then there was the phone call on Monday afternoon, December 3 (by the way, the call came at exactly the same time of day that B was born, to the minute! a coincidence that still gives me chills). I was surprisingly calm, at least until I hung up. I immediately called B up from the play room to tell him "You have a baby sister!" We called M at work and got his voicemail, then got voicemail on his cellphone too. I blew off patience entirely and called the receptionist, telling her "It's a family emergency!" He was on the phone in seconds, and the email from CCAI with pictures arrived while we were on the phone. We opened it together, and all three of us saw this face for the first time:

It was just a phone call, but it literally changed our lives. Everything has been different since. Having been through both pregnancy & childbirth and adoption, I have to say, that referral call & seeing the photos for the first time are more exciting than finding out you're pregnant. At least it was for me. Pregnancy is just the beginning of a long process, and your baby is still an unknown. Even when B was born, I was so out of it from general anesthesia that I couldn't fully appreciate the moment. But getting that call, seeing Z's face for the first time, was a moment that's unmatched in my life so far.

Attachment baby steps

It's been almost eight months since we brought Z home. Several weeks ago, our social worker was here to do our six-month post-placement report. She asked M & me to evaluate how far along Z was in the attachment process, with 100% being completely attached. I said 75%, and M said 70%. At least we're on pretty much the same page!

Some of the positive signs we've seen recently:

Separation Anxiety
She started at a new childcare about a month ago. She had been in childcare for three months before that, at the same center where B had gone since he was six months old. Her initial adjustment to childcare was very smooth. After all, she'd been visiting twice a day, four days a week, for three months before she started -- when I was home on maternity leave for three months, she'd always go with me when I dropped off B and picked him up. We visited her future classroom often, so it was familiar to her, as were the teachers, administrators, and other kids. On her first day, she didn't really even cry. It was easy.

Things were not quite so smooth with the change. She was very unhappy being left at the new childcare. My routine is to drop her off first, then take B to his class. For the first three weeks, Z would cry and cling when I dropped her off, but would generally have quieted down & would be playing happily by the time I left B's class and walked by her door on my way out. And she has always been delighted to see me at the end of the day.

As heart-breaking as it was to hand her to a teacher when she was crying for me, I knew it was mostly a good thing. It meant that she would prefer to be with me, that she has begun to recognize M & me as two people who are more important in her life than other adults. That's a really good sign of attachment.

Moving Past Separation Anxiety: "Mommy back"
As good a sign as that was, the new phase we're in is even better. For the past two weeks, I've been repeatedly saying "Mommy always comes back" on our drive to childcare, as we walk up the sidewalk, and as I put on her sunscreen, wash her hands, and hug her good-bye. They play a song in her classroom called "Mommy comes back" too, and say it's the kids' favorite song. Well, she's getting it! One day last week, when I stepped out the door onto the playground at the end of the day, Z flung herself into my arms, shouting "Mommy back!" Since then, it's become her mantra. She says it constantly, day and night. Sometimes she whispers it. I always respond, "Yep Z, Mommy always comes back."

Then last Wednesday, a huge morning: she didn't cry when I dropped her off! Not a single tear. She just said "Mommy back!" and went off to play. Thursday she gave a half-hearted whimper, but it ended before I even left her classroom. Today, no crying again. I feel like we've reached a major milestone!

Yes, She's 2
Another good sign is also a bad sign. She is feeling more and more free to show us her two year-old side. The hissy fits are getting louder and more frequent, and her two favorite words are "No!" and "Mine!" As aggravating as this stuff is to deal with, it's a good sign. It shows that she feels comfortable enough to express herself around us, even when her feelings are negative. At school, they say she still doesn't really throw fits or show any sort of negative behavior. She's still getting used to them and staying on her best behavior to make sure they like her. We still adore her, hissies and all, but I have to admit I'm looking forward to the sweet 3s!

Signs that we're not all the way there quite yet:

The Witching Hour
The evenings are very difficult in our house these days. On work days, I typically get home with the kids shortly before 6:00, and have just a few minutes to throw together something for dinner and get it on the table. M doesn't usually get home until right about when we're sitting down to eat. Well, little Z's tank is clearly empty at this time of day. She's been away from us all day, and all she wants is "Up!" Unfortunately, I can't hold her and make dinner at the same time, and M isn't here to do it while I cook. The end result is often Z literally hanging on my legs, whining and shrieking "up!"

As soon as everyone's fed, we try to spend the hour before bed holding her, playing, dancing, whatever, as long as it's solid one-on-one interaction. Then she's happy. But that half-hour between getting home and eating dinner is hard. She just doesn't have the skills to soothe herself, or to keep herself entertained until I can give her my full attention. Sometimes I try putting her at the table with a cup of milk and a little snack, but that sometimes makes her even madder. She's hungry, and she doesn't want a little snack -- she wants dinner NOW! And if she can't have dinner, she wants Mommy to hold her. If anyone's got a suggestion for getting through this half-hour without all the screaming, my ears are open.

Stranger Danger
Z is still way too friendly to strangers. She'll let anyone pick her up. This is not uncommon among adopted kids. Until they really grasp the nature of the parent-child relationship, they don't understand that not all adults are equal. They will look to any adult for affection and comfort, and sometimes will even turn on the charm for adults in an effort to make sure they're liked. It's parent-shopping.

I don't think Z is that bad -- she seems to understand fairly well that we're her parents & different from other adults -- but she doesn't have the instinct to be more reserved with strangers yet. A friend of M's that she'd met only once or twice before several months ago came by last week, and Z went right up to him with her arms out, asking to be held. M stepped in and took her, explaining to our friend why we didn't want him to hold her. Fortunately, he was understanding.

And at parent-teacher conferences two weeks ago, I learned that Z does this to many parents when they enter the room, and that the staff has been letting other parents pick her up. I asked that this stop, that they allow only the teachers and staff at the school to pick her up, and that they explain to other parents why we don't want them to hold her.


So that's where we are. After sixteen months in an orphanage and eight months with her family, Z is really doing well. Many children have very serious problems with attachment, and we've been very lucky on that front. That said, there's still progress to be made. We'll get there. Baby steps.

I think I started a fight

A cyberfight. Actually, I didn't really start it, but I stepped into it big-time. A friend of mine posted a comment on a third person's blog about that person's choice of words. She was writing about how she was considering joining the special needs program, and said something about how the boys adopted through this program are "the least of the least." My friend, being the parent of a boy adopted through the special needs program, found this terminology offensive, and said so in a comment on the third person's blog.

This person retaliated by insulting my friend in a subsequent post. She assumed that my friend must be an inexperienced parent to say what she did. Well, as another parent of a child adopted through the special needs program, I was also offended by her initial choice of words, and doubly offended when she insulted my friend, so I stepped in to say so. Unfortunately, I made my comment anonymously. I have since corrected that mistake, and now this blogger knows exactly who I am.

She called me politically correct for objecting to her use of "least of the least" and "china doll." Did you all know that "china doll" means prostitute? I would certainly never call my daughter or any other Asian girl a "china doll." Even if it didn't have that derogatory meaning, I still wouldn't use it. To call a child a doll objectifies her. It implies that she is something you keep to play with and dress up in pretty clothes. It makes her something less than you are, a plaything rather than a person. Avoiding the use of potentially hurtful names and labels is not political correctness, it's kindness.

A second problem I had with this blogger's post was her motivation for considering the special needs program. Since China's traditional program to adopt children with no known medical needs has slowed down so much, many more families have turned to the special needs program. I know that a lot of people are thinking about it because they don't want to wait five or more years for a child. I don't blame them for looking for a way around that wait. It's horrible that China is putting families in that position. And I wouldn't be totally honest if I said the wait played no role in our decision. But I said it played a role, not that it made us decide.

The ever-growing wait gave us the time to think about the special needs program. If we had only faced a 6-8 month wait, like we thought we had when we went into our adoption, I don't think we ever would have seriously considered the waiting child program. But given the time to think about it, to learn about the various health conditions these children have, we decided that we could do it. It took us some time. We were LID on August 1, 2006. Around Halloween, we printed out the medical conditions checklist and started talking about it. We did a lot of research, checked off some special needs, then reconsidered them. By Christmas, we were fairly confident about what needs we could handle and which ones we couldn't. We called our insurance carrier to verify what would be covered, talked at length with our social worker, then turned in our checklist.

At the heart of our decision to adopt a child with special needs was this belief: we can, so we should. We are lucky to have B, a perfectly healthy and vibrant child. We have group health insurance that will cover pre-existing conditions (not without a fight, it turned out, but that's another story). We can afford the co-pays and co-insurance to treat certain medical conditions. We have a supportive extended family and good friends we can lean on when times are tough. I have an employer that has a generous maternity leave policy, giving me enough time off work to help a child through medical treatment. In short, there were no good reasons why we should NOT adopt a child with special needs.

And it's true that these children have little chance of being adopted in China. If families in other countries don't open their hearts and homes to these children, they will grow up in institutions, and most will not receive the medical care they need. I think that's what this blogger was trying to say with her unfortunate choice of words.

But adopting a child with special needs is not easy. In addition to the developmental delays with speech and motor skills that most children adopted as toddlers from an orphanage environment display, our Z has a medical condition that will last a lifetime. She is lucky in that it is not life-threatening and will not limit her in very many ways, but it will never go away. For now, she looks a little bit different than other kids. If that bothers her when she is older, we can have cosmetic surgery to correct the way it looks, but it will never go away. It has involved a lot of doctor's visits, and two operating room visits under general anesthesia. Our medical bills have been rather hefty this year. And all of this will last a lifetime. (If it seems like I'm being rather mysterious here, I apologize. I made a choice way back when I first started blogging that I would protect certain core aspects of my family's privacy. This includes discussing the very personal details of just what Z's medical condition is. That is for her to share when she chooses to, not for me to share with the world at large.)

So what I'm saying is, don't take it lightly. Don't adopt a special needs child because you feel sorry for the child. Don't do it just to get around the wait. But if the wait opens your eyes to the program and some serious research and soul-searching leads you to believe you can do it, then by all means, go for it. And please, for the love of whatever diety you believe in, don't call those kids "the least of the least."

PS - I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended to read that you think I could be the Rumor Queen, but I most definitely am not. Sorry to disappoint you.

Travel plans

February 14, morning: Fly to Hong Kong

February 15, evening: Arrive in Hong Kong

February 16: Tour Hong Kong

February 17, morning: Fly to Nanchang

February 17, afternoon: Meet Zhi Yi

February 18 - 23: Hang out with Zhi Yi, fill out lots of paperwork and go to appointments, see some sights in Nanchang

February 23: Fly to Guangzhou

February 24 - 28: More paperwork and appointments, and sightseeing in Guangzhou

February 29: Fly home!

My countdown clock: 20 days to Zhi Yi

Whew.

The agency came through, pulling us out of the purgatory that is the Denver USCIS office. At the very end of the day today, I got an email with our I-171H attached. The travel department will request a consulate appointment for us tomorrow, and as soon as we have that, we can book our travel. We should still be traveling with our group on Feb. 14.

Huge sigh of relief.

TA.

Well, I certainly expected to be much happier when I finally got to announce that we have our TA. But it seems that the agency forgot to mention one little detail when they called with our travel info last Friday: until we have our I-171H, they cannot make our consulate appointment.

For those of you who are not fluent in the crazy lingo of China adoption, your TA is your Travel Authorization. It's what China sends at the very end of the process, inviting you to come to China to pick up your child. Once your agency has your TA in hand, they can call the US consulate in China and make an appointment for you to get the visa for your child to enter the US. Your entire trip to China is planned based on your consulate appointment, because it is the last thing you do in China before you come home with your child. The I-171H is advance permission from the US government for you to get a visa for your child to enter the US. Without the I-171H, no consulate appointment. Without the consulate appointment, no trip plans can be made.

The travel department at our agency believes that the applications department contacted the US Citizenship & Immigration Services in Denver last Friday, but they're not sure. (?!) She said that if the I-171H comes in the next week or two, there's still a chance we could travel with our group and leave on the 14th. If not, well, travel is delayed indefinitely until that stupid piece of paper comes. USCIS is closed today so there's nothing anyone can do. I'll call the agency late tomorrow, and unless they tell me USCIS has said the I-171H is in the mail, I'll be calling our US senator next to ask for help.

I sure wish the agency hadn't told us we'd travel on Feb. 14. They really should have mentioned we needed the I-171H before they could make the CA. It's not very nice to get our hopes up like that.

How ironic that as screwed up as China adoption has gotten over the past two years, it's the US government that might mess it all up for us in the end.

My countdown clock: Temporarily suspended until the I-171H is in hand.

We're going to China!

OK, they don't actually have our TA yet so this isn't official, but it looks like we'll be leaving February 14th for Hong Kong. Then on the 17th we'll fly to Nanchang, and get Zhi Yi the same day. They're going to request a consulate appointment on the 26th, 27th or 28th, and we'll head home two days after that. They know TAs are on the way & should arrive early next week, and expect ours to be in that batch. We should know for sure next week!

Our visas came today, so that's one bureaucratic hurdle down. The big one still looms though -- the I-171H still isn't here. The agency was going to call USCIS today to see what they could do to move things along.

As always, my heart dropped down to my feet when I saw the agency's name on caller ID. I started to cry when I called M to tell him about it. Let's go already!

My countdown clock: 30 days to Zhi Yi

Be vewy vewy quiet

I've been meaning to post this for days, but it's been a crazy week. I have to get stuff organized at my job so that someone else can do it for three months. No small task. And no free time. But here's a little B story to make you smile...

He's been very into sneaking lately. Not in the bad way, as in sneaking cookies when you're not looking (only because that hasn't occured to him yet). Rather, he loves to sneak up on people. We have this routine where we take turns putting him to bed. One of us will get him in his jammies, help him brush his teeth, and read books. The way it USED to be, we would then tuck him into bed, and then the other parent would come in to cuddle. Not anymore. Now B likes to sneak up on the parent who's had the night "off."

It's not that easy though. There's a trick to it. If you spot him while he's sneaking up on you, even if he has genuinely surprised you (and thus succeeded in sneaking), he has a major hissy fit. Even if he's two inches from you, if he hasn't actually touched you or said "boo" yet, there'll be hell to pay if you let on that you've seen him. This has been turning out poorly for me lately. Pretty often he'll sneak up behind me while I'm on the computer. I'll be genuinely surprised, and I'll even jump when I hear him behind me. This is not the reaction he's looking for (it's too early), and he'll just plain freak out. On the other hand, if I know he's coming, I can whistle and look straight at the wall for two minutes while he "sneaks up" on me, and as long as I pretend to be surprised when he wants me to be, everything is hunky-dory.

He's developed a new strategy to combat this problem recently. Take tonight for instance. I got him ready for bed. When we were done with books & it was time for bed, he had me yell down the hall, "Daddy, B is sneaking up on you. Don't look!" Daddy can then very studiously ignore B until B chooses the moment at which Daddy should be surprised.

This has been working out very nicely, at least in terms of avoiding total meltdowns. Yet somehow I think he has not yet quite grasped the concept of "sneaking"...

Adoption update: We're still waiting on our TA (travel authorization) from China. Once we have that, our agency can set our travel date. If we had received it in the past couple days, we could conceivably have traveled before the end of January. I think it's too late for that now. Why? Chinese New Year begins February 7, and everything shuts down for a week. Some things for more (all the factories M's company deals with are closing for two weeks). Best case scenario now is that we travel around mid-February. Better news -- our passports are on their way back from San Francisco, via Fed Ex, with our Chinese visas. They should be here tomorrow. Still waiting on the I-171H though (advance permission from the US government for us to get a visa for our daughter). Sigh. So much paper. So much red tape.

Holy cr@p, LOA!

You think I was excited last week when we got our PA? Well, you should see me now! We got our Letter of Acceptance today. We got it in pretty much record time. Most families in our position have waited around 40ish days; we waited 28!

LOA is a big, BIG deal. It means (1) we are officially approved to adopt ZhiYi, and (2) we will travel soon and need to start getting ready. Unfortunately, Chinese New Year will probably delay our travel by a couple weeks. It's just impossible to travel in China during that week, and our guides will of course want to be home with their families, not shepherding us around. If everything follows a typical timeline, our most likely departure date will be in mid-February.

Get ready baby, here we come!!!

PA PA PA!!!

We got our Pre-Approval from China today! It's not a terribly important piece of paper -- of all the "As" we will receive (PA, LOA, TA, CA), it's really the least important -- but still exciting! It is China's acknowledgement that they received our letter of intent, and they know we want to adopt ZhiYi. It has symbolic importance because it's our first formal indication from China that our adoption of her is really happening.

Now the wait for LOA begins. LOA is Letter of Acceptance, and it's a very important one. We're hoping to receive it within the next few weeks, but it could take as long as three months. It's all up to China. We'll get a little hint from our agency when our LOA is coming soon -- when China tells them that our dossier has moved to the match room, the agency will notify us to download a travel packet. When we get that notice, LOA is usually just a few days away.

After LOA comes TA -- Travel Authorization. That typically comes about two weeks after LOA. Then as soon as our agency makes our CA (Consulate Appointment), it's off to China! Most families leave about two weeks after receiving TA, but some leave as quickly as 48 hours after TA.

So the countdown continues: 21 days since LOI, one A down, three As to go!

New pictures!

As far as we know these were just taken this week. Look at that grin! She's going to have us wrapped around her little finger in no time.

(Click the picture to see a bigger version.)

Itty bitty update

We got a teaspoonful of new info on Miss ZhiYi today. It did not include any pictures, I'm sorry to say. She is growing like a weed it seems -- up to a whopping 20 pounds and 28" (a solid 10th %ile on the US growth charts). She started crawling in November. She doesn't walk yet, but can stand holding onto something. She sits up by herself and feeds herself finger foods. And apparently she likes her baths!

Care package

We'll be sending this off to China tomorrow:

It contains:

- A letter written in Chinese to the orphanage director, explaining who the heck we are (since the orphanage may not have been notified yet that ZhiYi has been matched to us). Our agency gave us this, since we obviously cannot write a letter in Chinese...

- A picture drawn by B for his baby sister, with a note in Pinyin saying "I love you!"

- Two cameras -- we hope they will take lots of pictures of ZhiYi in the orphanage and give us the cameras when they bring her to us.

- A flannel blanket made by Grandma -- she's working on a second, identical blanket, just in case the orphanage keeps this one.

- An album of photos of us, the grandparents, our house, etc., with all photos labeled in Chinese. I've heard from other families that adopted from this orphanage that they don't get this back when they receive their child, and in fact they wonder if the album was ever even shown to the child, or if it just went into a file somewhere. I hope they show it to her, but I also like to think that if they keep it in her file, it's because they want to have pictures of where and to whom they sent her.

- A warm and fuzzy fleece outfit. We're hoping we'll see her wearing this when (if) we get updated photos through our agency.

- A giraffe lovey toy

- Stickers and wrist rattles, with a note reading in Chinese "For your friends."

- A bag of candies with a label in Chinese reading "For the nannies."

Zhi Yi's home for now

Zhi Yi currently lives at the XiaJiang Social Welfare Institute (SWI). XiaJiang is 3-5 hours (depending on who you ask) south-southeast of Nanchang, which is the capital of Jiangxi Province. It is fairly remote, and a small town by Chinese standards.

You can click on the map to make it bigger. See the bright yellow-orange province on the bottom right, called Fujian? Jiangxi is just to the left of that, in a light turquoise color. Nanchang is the green square in the upper part of the province, and XiaJiang is south of that.

The XiaJiang SWI just began participating in international adoption about three years ago. Not many children are adopted from this orphanage, and only a handful of families have had the chance to visit. Therefore, we really don't know much about it. We know that in addition to housing orphans (maybe about two dozen or so at any given time--a very small orphanage for international adoption in China), it is also the permanent home of a group of mentally handicapped children, and serves as a retirement center and nursing home for the elderly. We hope to know a little more soon. I've made an online acquaintance whose daughter came from XiaJiang, and they are going back for a visit soon. They have promised to make inquiries about our daughter, and get pictures if they are allowed.

Here's what it looks like on the outside:

Despite its somewhat odd likeness of a pink Disney castle, I don't think it's very castle-like on the inside, based on the few pictures I've seen. It's pretty basic, but looks to be clean.

Can't wait to get her here to her real home.

A few more tidbits

We don't have any new pictures, but I've been combing through all the paperwork that came from the agency, and have learned the following:

* She's itty-bitty, the size of an average 6 month-old in the U.S., except that she's almost 14 months old.
* She's crawling!
* She laughs aloud.
* She is fond of listening to music, and gets very happy when the nannies talk to her.
* She is active and restless (uh-oh), yet also a deep sleeper (yay!).
* She's eating solid foods, including noodles, meat, eggs and soup.
* By one month old, "she had grown very pretty." Well, duh!
* She is very well-behaved. (B will teach her naughtiness her first day home, I'm sure)
* She is "physically strong and sturdy."
* "She is an innocent, lively, healthy good, child."

Oh Baby!

Xiao ZhiYi

Born October 10, 2006

Jiangxi Province, China

Hey everyone, meet our daughter, ZhiYi! Yes, OUR DAUGHTER!!! I'm still pinching myself. She just turned one on October 10 and currently lives in Jiangxi Province in the People's Republic of China. We hope to get her home by February or March.

I was stunned when the agency called yesterday afternoon, when just last Friday they'd told us we'd have to wait until at least January. Tricky, tricky people, those agency folks. Needless to say, we are overjoyed, and absolutely giddy with excitement.

More information later...too much to do today! Until then, here are the other two pictures we received:

Hope and optimism canceled until further notice

Remember how back in late September our agency told us we'd get a referral on the next list, as long as it was a typical list in terms of the number of kids on it and the ages and special needs it included? Well, it wasn't a typical list. It was more kids than usual, but many with unusual special needs that will be hard to match to families. They have pretty much referred all of the kids with the "typical" special needs, and are left with only those that have unusual needs.

The bottom line? No referral for us on this list. M called the agency today, and that's what they told him. As of now they expect the next list in January (subject to change), and said we should expect a referral on that list (hmmmm...where have I heard that before?). B started to cry when I told him it will be after Christmas before we see a picture of his baby sister. Poor little dude. He's starting to have as much difficulty with this wait as I am.

In the good news category, we found out there are only four families ahead of us now. Other reasons this isn't all bad: it gives us an extra couple of months to save money, and maybe we'll even get our tax refunds before we travel. And spring in China sounds lovely. Also, we're in the midst of re-applying for our daughter's visa, and that's likely to take another 2-3 months. If we HAD gotten a referral on this list, there was a possibility that we'd have to delay our travel while we waited on the visa paperwork to come through. And at least now I can stop jumping every time the phone rings, and won't have to lie awake at night, wondering if tomorrow will be the day they call. It's better to know than to continue this stupid unrequited hope, right?

Aw crap, who am I kidding? This sucks.

We're next

I mean it this time. Seriously. Everyone in my Yahoo group who had an MCC before ours has now gotten their referral. Our name is at the top of the list. The last three families that were ahead of us announced their referrals yesterday, including Donna, who I've known online since the very beginning of this process, and Jenn, who I've met in real life.

So now my next question is: Does CCAI ever make referral calls on Saturday??? I'm not sure I'll sleep between now and Monday if they don't.

The list is here

In their regular Wednesday afternoon update to the website, CCAI announced yesterday that they had received a new list of waiting children. I'm thinking of gluing my cellphone to my body so I can't leave home & forget it. It would be just my luck to miss a late Friday afternoon call and have to wait all weekend to get the details. Or to glue the cellphone to my hip, then not be able to unstick it to get it to my ear when it rings. Note to self: glue the cellphone to the hand, not the hip.

Any day now, we'll be looking at the face of our daughter. Of course, when I say "any day now," I mean anytime between now and January. That's how long it'll likely take them to work their way through the new list. But we are almost certainly in this time around.

Nervous, nervous, very nervous.