The Perfect Quote

Brian Andreas put this on Twitter the other day:

I had a question about life today & the whole day is the perfect answer & I want to grab people & say 'Don't you just love when that happens?'

Waiting for....Ella!

Our family is over the moon excited to announce that our next daughter will be ELLA!!! We received pre-approval from China to adopt our Ella. Why am I saying "our" Ella? Well, there's a story here, and it's long, 5 years long. But it's good, so very very good. Grab a cup of coffee and make yourself comfortable, do I have a tale for you.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maggie and her guaiguai at the orphanage Jan. 2007

When our Maggie came to us in January of 2007, she carried with her the photo album and disposable camera we had sent and not much more. After we arrived home, we developed the film and noticed a little pixie of a girl in some of the pictures. Maggie would point and call her guaiguai (darling).

Ella, 2009

Two years passed and I came into contact with Jodi, who was the XiaoXian Foster Care Coordinator for Love Without Boundaries (LWB) at that time. She was in dire need of sponsors for her program and asked me to look at the website and see if I could sponsor a child. There, on the LWB website was my daughter's friend, her guaiguai, LWB called her Ella. We became her sponsor and have been supporting her in foster care ever since. 

About 3 months later, in September of 2009, I was going through some old files in our safe and came across Maggie's finding ad. This is what I wrote on our blog:

My heart shattered into a million pieces yesterday.

I found Maggie's "finding ad" that the orphanage placed in the newspaper. And right there next to her, was our sponsored foster kid. Among all the newborns was this toddler, a kid with special needs who was loved by a family for 17 months before they were unable to care for her anymore.
17 months.

Shattered.

That was the day I got into contact with LWB and volunteered my services. I started working as an assistant to the XiaoXian program and eventually took it over. 

You will hear me say that my Maggie is the inspiration for my work with LWB, but that is only half the story. The whole story is that she left her Ella behind and I took it as my duty to take care of her and the others who are still waiting.

As the years have gone by, Maggie would still ask me about "her Ella". She writes stories about her, paints pictures for her, and asks me why Ella's forever family hasn't come to get her yet. Bryan would look at her foster care reports and say, "why can't we just go pick her up? She would be the perfect sister for Maggie." I would look at her reports and send out a prayer to find this precious child a family.

Ella's adoption file was prepared last summer/fall and then it disappeared. She never made the shared list, and she wasn't on any agency lists here in the US. Then, the other kids from XiaoXian whose files were prepared at the same time started getting matched to Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. No word on Ella. When her file hit the shared list in late May, I knew that her file had made the rounds of Europe, yet she remained unchosen. I was heartbroken for her. Who was going to step up for our Ella?

Bryan and I talked about adopting her, and decided that it was too difficult, too complicated. Rules that would have to be bent, Maggie would be displaced as the oldest and the one who gets to do things first. Too hard, not for us. 

(I know! I know! I'm the one who has drilled it into my daughter's head "you CAN do hard things!!")

I told my Mom that Ella was available for adoption and she said "Mary Margaret, if you love her, go and get her". I said, "Mom, it is NOT that easy. There's the birth order issue, and our agency would have to give us special approval, and she's 8 already, and and and....".

And then the very next day I read this article by Martha Osborne, where she says,

“I would never ask a family to take on more than they can handle, but I will always encourage families to stretch.  There are only so many 3 or 4 year olds out there and paper-ready to be adopted. There are far, far too many 7, 8, and 9 year olds who have been waiting for their entire lives for someone to see just how wonderful that they are.

Stretch. It's good for the body, the mind, and the soul. And it's good for your life (and the life of a waiting child).”

I had another talk with Bryan and I said, "This is going to sound crazy, but the universe has been sending me signs, and I don't think we can ignore them. Are we making this too complicated? Is my Mom right? If we love her, why don't we just go get her?"

He agreed with me, we needed to stop over-thinking. It was time to jump in, feet first, deep end. The REALLY deep end.

I then had a talk with Maggie. I asked her how she would feel if we adopted a child who was older than her. She told me flat out that she didn't want an older sibling. She told me she wanted to be first. She told me she deserved to be first. I asked how she would feel if it was Ella and she said "Oh Mommy, I would do it for Ella, but no one else!" I promised her that we would try. We would ask about Ella and no matter the outcome, whether Ella comes home to us, or goes home to another family, we will be happy for her because she has waited far too long.

Referral Picture, 2011

During all of this, and before we came to the decision to try to adopt Ella, I had been in touch with an advocate because I had been planning on finding a family for her. I read Ella’s file, and in there is another tiny bit of information that I almost overlooked. In June of 2005, the Director of the XiaoXian SWI bundled up two babies and sent them together to Bengbu for surgery. One of these was our daughter, Maggie, for her teratoma resection. The other was Ella for her cleft repair. They came home together in early August. I like to think that two babies from the same orphanage might have shared a room, maybe even a bed. Once again, her story has been woven into ours.

Referral Picture, 2011

In early June, I wrote this story down in letter form and pleaded with the Older Child Committee at our agency to allow us to adopt our Ella. We went before the committee twice before getting approval.  We were then given her referral, and we sent her file to the University of MN. They think she has a syndrome that is completely manageable and that her greatest need is for a family. We then had to write our Letter of Intent, get it translated and wait for China to give us pre-approval. We've been keeping this a secret since June and it's been killing me!! So, to all of you that knew I was being reticent when you asked me about our adoption, I'm sorry, but she wasn't ours yet, but now that she is I am ready to shout it from the rooftops!!

We are looking forward to traveling back to Hefei next summer to get our second XiaoXian daughter. We have known her and loved her as Ella for so long we have decided to keep her LWB name as part of her new American name, Daniella.

As I write this story down and look at it from above as a big picture, I can see all of our paths clearly, shining like bright gold. It is beautiful and has come together perfectly. I don't believe in luck, or coincidences. There's a higher power at work here and we are incredibly blessed.

XiaoXian

If you are an adoptive parent matched with a child, one of the very first things you do is run to Google and plug your child's hometown in just to see what you can find. Unfortunately for us XiaoXian parents, you don't find much. Or you end up here! : )

XiaoXian is a small town (relatively speaking) of 2 million people. It is 4 1/2 hours north of Anhui's provincial capitol of Hefei. There is very little on the internet about XiaoXian and the surrounding area. I have compiled some video that I took of the city and put it on YouTube. I have the same background music in all of the videos, turn it down if it gets annoying.

Click here for my YouTube videos of XiaoXian.
(removed link to my Flickr account, leave me a message if you'd like access)

If you are an adoptive parent of a XiaoXian child, please leave a comment for me, there are very few of us and I would like to get to know you!

The Space Between

The space between

the tears we cry
is the laughter
keeps us coming back for more.
Dave Matthews

That one sentence gets me every time. Things that are true have a tendency to do that, ring down into the deepest part of your soul, hit you right ~there~.

When you adopt a special needs child; even the most beautiful, healthy, gorgeous child, you sign up for uncertainty and what-ifs and could-be's. You don't think about it constantly, but it's there all the same, a little shadow in the corner. You learn the science and the statistics and you pray that you are not one of the unlucky few. You go to work and send your kid to school and you just live a typical suburban life...until the day the shadow steps into the center of the room and you realize you've come to the end of this space between.

...deep breath...

So...Maggie has been having a few issues lately. Not a big deal, comes with the territory with kids born with fetal tumors. We took her up to Gillette for an MRI, an ultrasound and other pictures. What they found turned out to be a very big deal. She has a new tumor and it is pressing on things inside and that is why she is having symptoms. It is attached to what little is left of her tailbone from her original surgery. They did a blood test and they are fairly certain that her tumor is benign, but they will not know that for certain until it is removed and they send it to the U for testing. We met with Dr. Saltzman, the Chief of Pediatric Surgery from the U of M, and he will perform her surgery on July 18th at Gillette in St. Paul. He will resect her new tumor and the rest of her tailbone. If all goes well, she should be home by the 20th. Recovery will take a few weeks and she won't be able to ride her bike for a while. She should be back up to 100% by the time the new school year starts after Labor Day.

[That whole thing about sending the tumor in for testing - we are not talking about that elephant in the room right now.]

What we need from you - Prayers, we will accept prayers of any and all kinds. We are not picky! Pray for complete healing, pray for guidance for her doctors, pray to the Virgin Mary to watch over our child, pray that I can find gluten free food in the hospital cafeteria (hey, momma needs love too). Pray to God, Buddha, all the Catholic saints, we don't discriminate over here. Light a fire and dance naked around the desert if you must (just don't share the pictures on Facebook).

Also, please say a prayer of thanksgiving that we live in Minnesota and have great doctors just up the road.

Do whatever it is you do to send positive healing light and love to our baby girl.

What we don't need right now - tears, pity, awkwardness. And for God's sake, no one is allowed to buy her a pony!

We have hit the end of our space between, but that's okay. There's another one coming and we can see it from here.

08/03/11 Update:
Maggie's surgery went off without a hitch on the 18th. He had planned for a 2-3 hour surgery and was in and out in 55 minutes. When he removed her tailbone, the tumor came right out with it and that was all that was needed. She spent just one night at Gillette Hospital, and was home by lunchtime the next day. The recovery period that was supposed to last 2-3 weeks only took one week!

We had an appointment with her surgeon last Monday and he told us that the elephant in the room was gone. The tumor was completely benign, he got good margins, we're done. Just follow ups every 4 months for a year. It was at that point that I realized I had been holding my breath since May.

He also took her off all restrictions. She can do whatever she wants, no worries. Bike, swim, play...whatever! We got home that afternoon and she asked me, "does this mean I can be a horse again?". Yes, Maggie, gallop to your hearts content.
We Are Done!

I would like to thank everyone who prayed for our girl. My Facebook friends and your prayer groups, my LWB friends, and my Yahoo group friends who asked for "complete and pain free healing".
It worked, prayers were answered and we are so very grateful.

Another update on our LWB babies

As I told you all last week, Ruby has been matched with her forever family and they will be picking her up on May 24th! I sent an email to the LWB Medical Coordinator and received an update on little Margaret this morning. She is so precious!





Here's what her March report said:

Margaret seems to be doing quite well and has recovered nicely from
her surgery! We have been told that she is able to roll over and sit up on her
own now. She has a hearty appetite and is a good sleeper. Margaret still sleeps
on her tummy because of the surgery, though.
Your generosity has made such a difference to Margaret! Thank you so much!

Quiet Miracles

I don't talk much about XiaoXian and the condition it was in before LWB showed up. For starters, I wasn't there and I don't know the whole story - I just get bits and pieces from the internet. And also - this story about XiaoXian isn't really my story to tell at all, it belongs to Maggie Mao and the rest of the kids who are from there.

I am going to share with you a part of it now, because it helps illustrate my point - foster care is a quiet miracle.

For the background story, I'm going to just cut and paste a big portion of the LWB blog here:

"One of our facilitators had visited this rural orphanage, which is on the border of the Henan and Anhui provinces, and he immediately contacted us to see if we could help. This orphanage’s well had basically run dry, and so the only water they could use was muddy, and unfortunately because of this, many of the babies had fallen ill. They also did not have any air conditioners, even though the temperatures were very hot, and they had old wooden cribs that were unsafe. The orphanage’s small kitchen area did not have a refrigerator to keep food cool, and they did not have a sterilizer for baby bottles. Also, their washer and dryer no longer worked, so the aunties had to clean diapers and then drape them over a coal stove to dry.
Our facilitator told us that the staff was SO very kind, and that the children were receiving love, but this rural town was very poor and so there just weren’t enough funds to meet all of the orphanage’s needs."

In other words, XiaoXian was in really tough shape. LWB went straight to work; getting donations, acquiring appliances and safe cribs, getting medical care for the kids, and digging a new well. LWB could have stopped there, a lot of organizations would have. But LWB isn't like others, they think bigger and when they thought about those XiaoXian kids, they knew that air conditioners are great - but a Mom and Dad are better. LWB gathered together the funds to place 20+ kids into foster care. No small feat, when the initial costs of placing one child into a foster home can approach $250.

I have seen with my own eyes what foster care does for these kids. Having a Mom and Dad, living in a real house with brothers and sisters, playing outside, helping to fix dinner, meeting the neighbors. We take so much of this for granted, and some kids don't know these things until they are well into their toddler years or older. Foster care takes "institutionalized" kids and turns them into "plain old kids". It gives these kids a chance at a real childhood.

Foster care is not flashy, it's not a heart or cleft surgery with quick results. Foster care is a quiet miracle.

I wish I could tell you that XiaoXian was a "one-off", that orphanages in China are all well funded and supplied. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, the orphanage directors and nannies are long on love and short on resources. It breaks my heart to know that there are more orphanages out there just like XiaoXian that we are unable to help because we don't have the money.

A generous sponsor has come forward and agreed to match all donations to foster care up to $36,000 given between February 15 and March 15th. Let's not waste this chance to perform more quiet miracles in China. Please donate any amount to LWB's foster care fund by March 15th.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for supporting our cause.
Mary
XiaoXian Foster Care Assistant Coordinator

**the picture at the top is of Maggie Mao before foster care - here's her after:

An update on our LWB babies

**Our Teratoma Yahoo group is not allowing me to post photos. Here are the updates on the two babies with teratomas that you so generously sponsored!**

Ruby is currently in foster care and is doing very well. She is a very good eater. She will be undergoing some exams soon to make sure she does not have cancer (this is a regular exam for teratoma babies). Thank you so much for making a difference in Ruby's life!”

Also a quick update on baby Margaret, she is in Shanghai and will have her teratoma removed tomorrow! I have been told "She is a quiet little girl and smiles a lot. Her surgery date is set for tomorrow. Please keep Margaret in your thoughts as she undergoes surgery. Thank you so much for your support!"