Life has certainly changed for my husband, Eric, and me since we adopted our daughter, Wendy, from China three years ago. Our home is filled with a feeling of joy, warmth and a youth that we two 40-somethings are grateful for. That is until she has a meltdown, which I realized happened mostly during the threes, not the “terrible twos.”
Time seems to speed by as Wendy conquers preschool, a trip to Scotland and riding her bike – albeit with training wheels. It might only be our weekly trips to her favorite restaurant, Harvest Garden, in Marysville, but we keep her connection to China as strong as we can: Mandarin lessons, Chinese calligraphy and kung fu to come (her choice, not ours).
We are blessed to have a very sweet and kind daughter. The three of us were having such a great time that it felt right to wonder if we should adopt again.
“You must be nuts,” a friend of mine said. “You’re too old. Don’t do it.”
But Eric and I had hoped for another child, so in December we applied to the adoption agency in the hopes of finding a brother or sister for Wendy.
Eric and I felt we wanted to offer a home to a child with a special need. This is a quicker process, sometimes cutting months out of the wait to adopt from China. There is also a much higher possibility of being referred a boy since not many males are available outside the special needs program.
We did the paperwork and put in the application, and in March we had our home study with a social worker. All went well.
Part of the process includes sending in forms for criminal background checks. We waited to hear from government agencies about appointments for fingerprinting. We waited. We waited some more.
Everything else was done, and our agency was expecting a list of waiting children. Photos and some information on those with special needs ranging from cleft lip and palate to spina bifida was coming soon. I hoped our child was on that list.
Then on March 24 I got a call. With Eric talking into my left ear from California and Patty, our wonderful adoption facilitator, talking into my right ear from Edmonds, we learned that information on 10 waiting children had arrived.
There it was again: that thrill, the electric feeling of knowing. I could feel my daughter was on that list.
A couple of days later Patty sent an e-mail for us to look over. I was at work so I called Eric to come in. There were two little girls to consider. I opened the first e-mail and there she was. There was no doubt. She looked just like Wendy.
Lucy Fu Wallace (Fu, Xiao Man) is waiting for us in the same province Wendy came from: Jiangxi. She was born April 18, 2005. We will meet her in the same town, perhaps the same room as we met Wendy.
Lucy is a tiny wee thing and her special need is congenital ptosis of the left eye: a droopy eyelid. The other little girl we were asked to consider also found her forever family. Lucy is our daughter.
However, we were still waiting for the fingerprint appointment. What should have taken three to four weeks had taken five months. Once I knew who my daughter was I went from being irked to steaming mad when I realized this was holding everything up. I called in the troops – well, I called local representatives and a senator. They all responded and offered help, but state Rep. John McCoy’s office got to the bottom of the matter in less than 24 hours. Eric’s paperwork had been lost. Once that was established our agency faxed the information over, and we went to Yakima to get fingerprinted.
The thrill of becoming a parent again is made more exciting with Wendy eager to be a big sister. She has been talking about it incessantly and even changed her name to Fantastic Fu Yan Big Sister Jie Jie (pronounced JJ). Jie Jie is Mandarin for big sister. That’s what we get to call her for short.
Jie Jie has a list of jobs to do to help with the baby and recently checked off the things about Lucy that are the same as her:
“She has brown eyes like me, black hair like me, she has dark skin like me,” Wendy said.
“And she’s Chinese like you,” I said.
Pause.
“Get out!” Wendy said “She’s Chinese? Did you know that, Mom?” I felt so smart.
Having Lucy’s photograph and information meant we could add her to the family wall to make the wait from March to October seem shorter, unlike Wendy’s photo and information, which arrived only six weeks before we headed to China.
It’s more difficult for me to look at that photograph and wonder every day how she is and how long it will be until we meet her. Every day I think of the place where we’ll meet and if she will be healthy. I think of our wonderful Chinese guide who will be with us for a week this time, too. And I think of the doctor who helped us save Wendy when she was sick in a hospital in Nanchang.
Wendy’s foster parents, a poor family from the south of the province, have kept in touch with us the past three years. They want to make the seven-hour train ride just to see the baby they found in a box in the road still not cleaned from birth. They took care of her for 15 months. They’ve never fostered before and did not foster children after Wendy. We hope to connect with them in Nanchang.
As soon as we knew Lucy would be our daughter and we would be going back to Nanchang, I got back onto the adoption Internet groups, just as I did before Wendy’s adoption. I asked questions about particular special needs, what to do in Beijing and where they ate in Nanchang.
The language of love has its own lilt in international adoption. It is short and perfunctory.
Eric and I sent our LOI or letter of intent to China and were waiting for our PA, or preapproval, to adopt Lucy.
It wasn’t long before I had all the jargon down: SN for special needs, DTC for dossier to China, LOI for letter of intent, LID for logged in dossier, and TA for travel approval.
Eric asked me to tell him exactly where we were in the process.
“We’re LOI waiting for PA. I hope we’ll be DTC then we’ll wait for LID,” I spurted out.
“Whaaattt?” Eric said.
“Well, after that we’ll be waiting for TA then CA,” I said. “I know, I’ve asked those who have BTDT. It might depend on the SN or the DOR.” Eric looked at me and with great caution he stepped away from my computer.
It took me three days to figure out ROFL: Rolling on the floor laughing. Eric tried to catch on.
“OK,” he said. “Where are we going to eat tonight? QFC or KFC?” He thought it was funny.
What’s not funny is that anxious, buzzing feeling of us adding to our family. As the countdown began we made a list: pack, get prescriptions, get new $100 bills, and baby-proof the house again.
“How many sleeps till Lucy?” Wendy asked looking at her cat calendar.
“Not many,” I said. “Soon we’ll be OOW.”
“Oow?” Eric said.
“On our way.”
Christina Harper is a Snohomish County freelance writer. She can be reached at harper@heraldnet.com.
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