China Adoption

An Adoption Story from China-- "The Best Christmas Ever?"

You may be surprised to know that since the early 1990’s, American families have welcomed over 40,000 Chinese orphans into their homes. Our little Maya joined over 400 of her Chinese sisters (and a few brothers) here in the Atlanta area. In our town of Woodstock, there are over 30 families who have adopted from China. We even have a playgroup of little Chinese girlfriends that Maya is already getting acquainted with.

Hard to believe it was just last April that we made the decision to proceed with our adoption plans. With international adoption, there is an incredible amount of paperwork to be completed and chased around the country. It took us 4 months to complete our paperchase.

Our dossier of paperwork arrived in China on August 20, 2004. and we began our wait to find out who our daughter would be.. We initially had requested a healthy baby, for some reason that I know God only knows, we began to inquire about the “special needs” children available for adoption. “Special Needs” children have correctable physical problems such as a cleft lip/palate, heart defects, hearing loss, problems with eyesight, limb deformities, and the list goes on. On September 23rd, the Special Needs representative from our agency contacted me and said, “I’m looking at the picture of a beautiful little 2 year old girl with correctable heart defects and she really needs a Mommy and Daddy. Would you be interested in taking a look at her photo and her information?”. Five minutes later I was looking at her photo on my pc and had already begun to fall in love with her. We consulted a pediatric cardiologist, sought advice from other parents who had adopted children from China with similar heart defects and prayed and prayed a lot. Within a week, we truly knew in our hearts that Huanyi (her Chinese name) was our daughter and submitted our letter of intent to China. Three months later, it was Christmas and we were on a flight to Beijing to meet her and bring her home.

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