Hand Picked

When we first announced that we were bringing Keeghan home I talked a bit about how a waiting child adoption from China works, but I've been thinking lately that I would like to document the whole process of how Keeghan came to be ours. A "non-special needs" (NSN) adoption from China works like this...you send your dossier (lots of paperwork) to China with specifications of the sex of the child you'd like to adopt and an age range, the paperwork goes through the "review room" to be sure it is all in order (and sometimes you are asked questions when your dossier goes through review) and then when your log in date (LID) comes up you receive a referral. China matches families based on their requests (though those requests are only requests and you could certainly end up with a surprise) and it is said they often look for a similar facial characteristic or shared birthday or some other commonality between the referred child and their new family. So, basically, you get a child picked for you.

Waiting child (special-needs) adoptions work differently. It used to be that China sent lists of specific children to agencies and you could adopt a child on only your agencies list. There were some occasions of people getting files of children to their agencies but overall, unless a child was on your agencies list, you had to switch agencies (NOT a good plan) or wait. Then, early in 2008 China came out with what is referred to as a "shared list". It is a list of waiting children available for adoption. The list is updated, generally, monthly and any agency can look at the files of the children on the list. Here's where things get tricky...now you've got agencies all over "competing" for children...younger children with less severe needs go quickly. When you decide to adopt a waiting child you need to think long and hard about what different needs you are willing to take on. We created a list (in March of 2008) of things we felt comfortable with but obviously you can't anticipate EVERY possible condition that may arise. Our agency happens to handle this process very fairly and well. We figured we'd be waiting a while to find a "match".

It was late of July last year (7/23 a Wednesday to be exact)when I received an e-mail with a list of children waiting to be adopted. It was 3 pages long. I cried. So many children waiting for families...I asked Doug if he'd gotten this e-mail but apparently it had only come to my e-mail address. I showed it to him that night when he got home. We looked through the list for younger girls (it only listed birthdate, sex, and what their special need was though many of them were listed as "multiple needs" or "other disease") with conditions that we thought we understood and found 3 children that we wanted to ask about. We figured this would be good. We could ask some questions and start to get a handle on how this would all work. One of the children had spina bifida and some other needs and we knew we couldn't handle that. Of the other two girls...one had congenital nanophthalmos and microcornea and one had congenital malfunction of lymphatic vessels on her right side. We started researching...found the first child had, basically, a small eye and probably was blind in the affected eye and that the lymphatic disorder was crazy rare and we were going to have trouble figuring it out. The first few bits of info I found showed photos of kids with HUGELY swollen faces but not much else. We decided to keep researching and after a few days sent some more specific questions to our agency. We learned late on Friday afternoon that the little girl with the eye problems was affected in both eyes and was totally blind which shut that case for us. We felt like total blindness was too much. Along with that information was the offer to send us the file of the other little girl to bring to a physician. Doug spoke to an international adoption physician and we decided we wanted to see the file of this child.

I tried calling our agency at this point but the number I tried had come out of an e-mail and a few numbers had been transposed by accident so I sent off an e-mail. My phone rang a few minutes later and it was the social worker at the agency. She was sending us the file and described the pictures that were with it so I could imagine what her hand looked like. PICTURES!!??? Oh man...did I want to SEE this little girl? Was I going to just fall in love and not be rational anymore??? The offer was made to blur her face out but I decided that if I was looking at photos I would look at all of them and keep myself neutral. We still had a lot to learn and we couldn't make a decision on cuteness alone. So at 4:30 on Friday 7/25/08 I opened medical files, orphanage reports, and photos of the little girl who was meant to be mine. Doug was home from work at this point so we looked at all of this together, contacted our pediatrician and sent her files along to him to review. The weekend was spent contemplating, questioning, researching, and wondering. Come Monday we had a few more answers and many more questions. I think at that point Doug and I both pretty much knew we were going to bring this little girl home but needed to debate it some more. We decided to somewhat involve the kids in this decision as it would mean some serious money crunching and I remember talking to the girls about the baby that would become their sister and Kennedy crying. Not one of them hesitated a minute when I explained if we brought home this baby that we would not being going on a cruise we had scheduled, dinners out and fun stuff would be almost non-existent and I would be at work WAY more than they were used to. They all said...go get our sister.

I know I posted that Doug and I made our final decision as I was on my way to work one night and he had 20 girls at our house tie dying t-shirts for soccer...so true to our way of doing things! We were up late that night (7/30...the day after Keeghan's 1st birthday) writing a letter asking to be Yin NianShuang's parents. It's very strange to go back and think about how all of this played out. Opening that document with SO many children waiting for families was heartbreaking but I never imagined finding our daughter there. Here we are not even a year later with our new daughter home six months already. I can't imagine our lives without Keeghan...she's perfect.

Keeghan rocking her sit and spin!

Middle School Graduation

Such a good brother to share his cereal!!

Devon "graduated" from middle school this morning which now officially makes me the Mom of a high school freshman...we got a purple pawprint sticker and everything (the mascot to our high school is the purple panther). The ceremony took a good two hours and Keeghan did ok. I walked around with her a bit and Doug tried a ton to have her sit with him or just keep her occupied but she still prefers me. Anyway...here's a few pictures, I'm feeling old and need a nap!

HELP

Keeghan is working on becoming more vocal. She has plenty of words, it's just very unfortunate that we only understand about 10 of them. Normally, I can figure out what she wants/needs by what she is "saying" and other cues that are going on. In the car, however, when we're all buckled into seat belts (and the Princess in her seat) and I'm often trying to drive, trying to figure out what Keeghan needs becomes infinitely more difficult. I try to talk and sing with her and make sure she has a book or small toy, juice and a snack whenever we're in the car. Unfortunately, though, once Keeghan is done with whatever she's got or if she wants me to "read" a book to her she will repeat over and over and over and over and over (you get the idea) some phrase (that I don't understand at all) until I somehow hit on what she wants. If I get it right in the first five or six repetitions we're ok. After that, however, her voice becomes louder and louder and the pitch higher and higher and the screeching just doesn't stop. I can try and distract her (and the other kids do too if they're in the car) but there is just no stopping this incessant repeating screech of a phrase that I don't understand. I have NO CLUE what to do at this point and I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up driving off the road at some point if I don't figure this out because it is IMPOSSIBLE to listen to. Any ideas???

Before I forget

I was out with just Keeghan and Carson tonight running a few errands. Keeghan listens pretty well when I let her walk with me in a store or whatever so I don't mind letting her walk. When you let her walk without holding your hand she swings her arms with such enthusiasm...so cute! Not just a small back and forth motion, her arms fly! I don't know if it's the freedom of not having to hold onto anything or just that she likes the sensation but it's a habit I've noticed a bunch of times but something I'm sure I'll forget if I don't blog about it so I wanted to get it down in writing before I forgot : )

And P.S. Happy Birthday to Kennedy today!!

I think I just figured out how to post to my blog from my phone!! You are all in trouble now : )

6 months ago...

at about 7pm we finally really became a family of 6. Keeghan and I had a long journey home from China. Our day started very early (5am) in Guangzhou where we headed to the airport with breakfast in a bag and boarded a plane headed for Tokyo, Japan. That flight was short enough but once in Tokyo we had to get through a bunch of security checks and I lost Keeghan's blanket at one point...it was a tough transition. We grabbed a snack, had a diaper change and waited to board our longest flight from Tokyo to Detroit. The flight was PACKED but thankfully I got to sit with a travel mate way in back of the plane. This flight could have been way worse than it was but overall, Keeghan did ok and so did I. Not much sleep for me but the princess did some sleeping for me thankfully. Landing in Detroit was a huge high for me. I was very happy to be "home" especially after getting through customs, immigration, and having to re-check all my bags. Once that was all done, however, I got a terrific iced coffee from Starbucks, changed the princess, and got her to nap in the sling for a bit while I walked around. It was also nice to text/talk with everyone! We finally boarded our flight for Manchester around 6pm and a VERY kind woman whom I'd spoken to in the terminal offered me her seat in first class...which I declined as I wanted to be with my travel mates for the last leg of our journey. I'm thinking the poor girl who wound up next to me wished I'd taken the offer but oh well! Keeghan SCREAMED for about 15 minutes after we boarded while we de-iced and waited to get clearance to take off but then crashed and slept the whole way to Manchester. She woke up just in time to get off the plane to meet her Baba, Gege, and Jiejies. It was SO nice to be home with everyone and "sleep" in my own bed. China was an amazing journey and we hope to bring Keeghan back there when she is older so she can see her birthplace. For now, we'll work on getting through the next sixth months to our first forever family day this December.

Sapped

That's what I am. Adding a toddler to our family has brought us a ton of joy but has completely thrown me. I know I've blogged about this a bit before but I'm going at it again. I know the "big kids" are old enough to sort of understand that a toddler requires more attention than they do. And we're tried hard to help them understand that they, too, got that much attention as toddlers along with the fact that we didn't get to take care of Keeghan for the first 16 months of her life (or in utero) as I did with them. I am, however, struggling with trying to give everyone everything and constantly coming up short. Keeghan needs so much from me and I want to be sure to give her everything. I am constantly wanting to make up for not being able to love her early on. I want her to feel safe and secure and not worry. I want her to catch up on her lacking skills. I want her lymphedema to be under control. All while trying to parent three other children (two of whom are hitting some of the toughest years of their lives) and be a good wife. I've tried a bunch of things over the past few weeks in the hopes of perhaps feeling like I could get my grove back without much success. I wish I could give everyone what they need, myself included but right now I'm sapped. I hope all the kids being home for the summer starting next week makes it better and not worse. I'm looking forward to having the big kids around and not having to get to soccer or school functions but I'm sure it could turn sour quickly if we don't keep busy!

Ummm, Wow!

Not totally sure how this conversation came up the other night...perhaps I said something about NOT wanting more kids and asked Doug if he EVER thought he'd hear me say that. Anyway, out of one of the big kids mouths comes "What would you do if you found out Keeghan had a sibling?". Being the wise a$$ that I am I said, "She has two sisters and a brother.". Then I got back, "No, a biological sibling!". Crap...where do they come up with this stuff??? I think Doug and I both said over one another that we'd probably have another child but I'm still wondering what made that comment come up. Funny how those kids think.

In 6 short months

I've learned alot. I like Huggies diapers better than Pampers (and just the regular ones not the supreme). Toddlers are a lot more work than I remember. Devon, Kennedy, and Carson are AMAZING siblings. Re-adoption in NH is pretty simple and can be done the day after you get back from China...no need to wait for post-placement reports etc. Pig tails are a ton of fun : ) Keeghan sometimes needs to wear shoes to go to sleep?? One little girl can make more noise than her three siblings put together. The words water, gummies, and marshmallow all sound the same when said by a 22 month old. Walking on the Great Wall of China doesn't even come close to the amazement of being handed your child. Finding someone, anyone, with good knowledge of treating a pediatric patient with congenital lymphedema is all but impossible. 14 year old boys try to act all cool but can be sweet boys who love their baby sisters enough to share half chewed goldfish crackers with them. That one little girl and two little kitties are a BAD mix. I might really be all done needing more babies!

Keeghan and I have known one another for 6 months but we're still all getting to know one another. Everytime I think I might have her figured out a bit...I figure out I'm totally wrong. We seem to hit plateaus as well as highs and lows. Overall, I think we're darn lucky. Keeghan is a great fit for our family. She is loud, loves music, has a terrific personality, gets into everything, and is growing to love us as much as we love her. Her lymphedema treatment is going along. Her leg is pretty close to the same size as her other leg and her hand and arm...well we're working on that. It's a process of not only treating her but getting her comfortable with treatment and with us to let us do what we need to treat her. I'm looking forward to watching Keeghan grown over the next six months!

Some serious cuteness going on in our house!

Feeding my baby.

Watermelon!!

What a difference...

6 months makes. Only six months ago I was in a van with another family on our way to the civil affairs office in Changsha, Hunan to meet out daughters. I heard Keeghan before I met her. I can't believe she's only been with us for 6 months. She just fits in and it's like she's always been here...well right up until she's saying something and I don't know what it is and she gets mad and I get frustrated. THEN it's easy to remember I haven't known her forever. As Doug pointed out earlier today, she's now been with us 1/4 of her life...it's a start.

6 months ago

I was getting on a plane to China...wow, six months already???

Type A

That's my personality. I hate being wrong. I'm a control freak. I like order. All things I'll freely admit. No, I'm not one of those people who keep an immaculate house (though I'd LOVE it if I could manage that) because I think time with my kids is more important than being able to eat off the floors. That said, my groove is gone. I'm wondering how I managed three toddlers at once when Devon, Kennedy and Carson were little cause I'm having a crazy tough time with one! We were in a pretty easy place with "the big kids" (as I often now call them) where they were somewhat self sufficient and I could keep track of myself and all their stuff. These days, however, I can't seem to keep track of myself never mind myself, four kids, and a husband. I used to have time to think, make lists, make lists of lists, remember to buy milk and eggs, paint my nails, pee or shower by myself, read a book, clean or just not worry. These days, however, I don't have the luxury to do any of those things. I'm mentally and emotionally drained and not sure how to get past this. I miss myself and hate feeling so off. I'm constantly forgetting things or messing stuff up and I'm blaming it on baby brain. Hopefully we'll be headed on an upswing sometime soon.