Over the next two years, different waiting Asian children, from various agencies, appealed to us based on their photos, medical diagnosis and birth country but none worked out to adopt for one reason or another. Then my husband was deployed for 15 months to the DMZ in Korea on military duty. This encouraged us to reconsider adopting from Korea, but the new government official who handled foreign adoptions was adamant about making 'no exceptions' regarding parental age or family size, both catagories we needed special consideration for. We felt the door was closed for good with Korea. Despite that, the honor my husband and I felt in the sacrafice our family was making with our separation to serve in Korea was significant.

We then felt especially drawn to China as a second choice, thinking that it would be ideal for our Chinese daughter to have a sibling from her birth country. We were drawn to children born with special needs similar to those our children have. We knew and admired the doctors that were overseeing their medical care and felt comfortable taking on another child with one of their birth defects. China issued a new policy for 'family size'; no more than 4 children in the home at the time of an adoption. We later realized that our two birth sons were considered adults by China and not dependents. Once we realize this, we fell into the 4 child requirement. We also realized we needed to be brave enough to try and receive special approval because our income was lower than China required. It was later that we realized, that they required 'above the standard level of income' for families wishing to adopt any of their special needs children. We decided to try and find a child waiting, with medical needs similar to one of our other children, and request a waiver for income from the CCAA [China Center of Adoption Affairs] office. We knew we would have to to find a special agency willing to try and get us that approval. We have adopted two times through WACAP (World Association for Children and Parents) and approached them with a request for a copy of their 'waiting child' photo album. I looked through the more than 100 waiting children depicted in it, all with reduced fees and some listed as, 'Promise Children'from a special program WACAP offered. A Promise child was covered under a grant given to the agency that waived ALL fees for the child's adoption. Homestudy, INS, travel and refinalizing fees were left for the adoptive parents to pay. I stopped looking after page 25 in the book. A child, looking remarkably like our son, with a similar diagnosis, needing a Pediatric Neurologist, immediately caught my attention. His caption read....

Promise Child
Long Fei-is a handsome little boy.   He is smart and helful, and enjoys caring for younger children. He has been diagnosed with porencephaly, a very rare condition involving cysts in the brain tissue.    Long Fei looks forward to a warm and friendly home.
Adoption Fees Are Waived

I researched 'Porencephaly' on the web and found that some of the characteristics to look for with this birth defect are delayed growth, mental retardation, epilepsy, hydrocephalic, seizures, infantile spasms, large or small head size, poor speech development, overall delayed development, paralysis, low muscle tone, and shrinkage and shortage of muscles. The rarity of it was also discussed I immediately wanted to know everything I could about him to see and compared how he measured up to some of these characteristics.

I called WACAP and asked for his medical data and profile information. They told me no one had shown any interest in him as yet. It always amazes me how 'certain words', 'choice phrases', 'an expression', 'a look', 'a resemblance' speaks to us when we remain open and receptive toward hearing. There were key words in this little boy's profile, along with the similarity in looks to our son, that drew me in and I wanted to know more about his young life, despite the grave characteristics of Porencephaly. Somehow I felt he was alright, much the same as I felt when researching our Korean-born son. I received an extensive packet of translated paperwork along with copies of the Chinese originals. Along with it, the same on another little boy close in age with a similar diagnosis from the same orphanage. Having both was a big bonus because I could compare notes on the paperwork, their disabilities, development, lags, therapy, and orphanage staff's descriptions, personality traits, abilities, and overall development.

Both boys had been in therapy for mild side hemiplegic (CP). Both diagnosed with Grade IV muscle weakness on one side of their bodies; each the opposite side. Both reports stated, 'intellectual development is good.'The two reports were almost generic in nature. There was even a space in which the social worker was simply to slip in the name of the child throughout the reports. There daily routine was the same, as was their medical reports, blood testing, eating and sleeping, bowel,and bath schedule. The only difference between the two boys reports was the description at the top of the page on their admittance to the orphanage amd specific story of abandonment. Throughout the 25 pages or so of reports, were brief captions of their personality. Be

Indeed, he seemed to be a very compassionate little boy who deserved the love of a family. I called WACAP asking if I might speak to the English speaking person on the DVD. Evelyn was a Norwegian/American and was hired by our agency as a Health-Care Administrator to visit Long Fei's orphanage to evaluate the 'Peony Project'. The Gates Foundation supported this project finanically with a grant paid to our adoption agency to establish this rehabilitative center at Long Fei's orphanage for its CP patients.

Evelyn called me personally and we spoke at length about her visiting the orphanage and seeing Long Fei on many of her trips. She explained the two boys were close, worked together in the classroom as teacher's assitants and were often seen at the orphanage playing and tumbling together. She explained that the orphanage was very poor, and was a Welfare Institute which encompassed newborns through elderly. Long Fei was being raised with a small group of toddlers, only about 20 other children. His enviroment encompassed a small area of the orphanage and there was only one nanny for days and one for evenings. He had a therapist as well and she was in the video, along with the nanny, who was sitting on the floor observing. The staff, I was told, loves the boys, takes good care of them but are very strict and discipline the children sometimes a little too sternly. Long Fei attends a conductive learning enviroment which is a combination of therapy and academic learning. He draws and colors, learns his letters, numbers and shapes and how to write his name and behaves well during classtime. He is required to sit still on a bench for stories and songs. He can recite poems with 7 word sentences and loves to learn and play with the center's computer.

I took notes from our phone conversation and this is some of the comments she had to say on Long Fei.
"He is 'very charming'.. not shy.. but very social. Very cute." She noticed this time while visiting what a people pleaser he is. "He tried so hard to show us he could do everything asked of him. It was easy to tell him what to do. He was forthcoming and eager. He tried to be the best with everything. He was very chubby and healthy. His disablity was very mild. If I hadn't been aware of it, I might not have noticed it." She said there was a little delay in fine motor in his right hand, but he was running around and she knows he can be trained to improve his fine motor. "I saw a lot of potential in him and could see he was not challenged enough there in the orphanage." The other little boy she simply described as "very reserved", but the DVD on both boys showed him as absolutely darling and intelligent and bright. So much so, that we decided to see if the boys could be placed together in our family. This is never done in China. Luckily, we need not worry about this other little boy, as our agency said a family came forward for him just the week before we showed an interest in Long Fei. We hope to meet this family one day.

My husband and I had questions we requested answers for and wanted to see a video on this little boy, so we asked WACAP. Some of the questions we asked were (1) if he has had any seizures, (2) was he often sick, (3) was he learning in preschool, (4) what was his current diagnosis, (5) does he have any new symptoms, (6) can we get a current CatScan, (7) what is his prognosis? Within two weeks, we received answers to over 20 questions, along with a 10 min DVD of both boys together peeling an orange in therapy, speaking, singing, climbing stairs and a wall ladder, walking, interacting with the 5 or so staff on the video and generally getting a little glimpse into their lives. A new CatScan was sent to us by insured mail in two weeks as well. We consulted with our younger son's Pediatric Neurologist who gave us tremendous encouragement with his knowledge of Porencephaly and how it was personally affecting Long Fei. He drew a diagram of the brain and talked us through what happened to Long Fei. He has a cyst from a stroke or bleed either in utero or at the time of his birth. This happens 1 in 1000,000. The CatScan shows a blackened part of the brain that is actually missing and it appears like a porencephalic cyst on the x-ray. He doesn't need an operation for this and the good news is that because it happened when he was so young, the brain will naturally 'rewire itself'. The porencephalic cyst is on the left side of his brain, causing hemiparesis (weakness) on the right side of the body. Fine motor is often worse. It can interfere with language and peripheral vision. We are not seeing a lag in his language skills, according to the growth reports, however, we will not be sure until he comes home and he has a proper evaluation in that area. Nothing is mentioned about his vision being impaired either. Peripheral vision involves the eye looking straight and being able to see to the right or left to an extent. This also will need to be looked into with a proper eye exam once home. Our doctor told us of a young lady who came to him for a college entrance physical and she had the exact same condition Long Fei did. He said, 'granted she was wearing an AFO (brace) on her leg and her left side was a little smaller than her right, but she explained that she graduated from her High School Class Val Victorian.' This brought tears to my husband's eyes and was the confirmation we needed to know that this was our little boy. The right words were said to give my husband the confirmation he needed to believe that this was our child.

Our journey was just beginning. Every step of the way we decided to take baby steps until we were certain that was God's design for our family. For the first time adopting, my husband and I worried over our ages, our health, our house size, and I especially kept subconsciously looking for roadblocks and obstacles as warning signs we weren't to move on. Each step we took, we seemed to look back a little more longingly than in the past. 'Was this right for us?'The uncertainity was unsettling, but we knew, if we could move forward just one step in the process, than maybe this was God lead and His desire. Our journey and confidence wasn't to be as smooth as in our past adoptions, when we definitely felt God's presence. We weren't as reassured by God along the way, and felt alone. I think this was His way of 'faith building'. His allowing us to walk alone this time in total faith. We kept within our hearts the knowlege that He would not give us more than we could handle and that He would always look out for the well being of our family. These were words we kept in our daily prayers and we had a bumpy ride ahead of us.

Our homestudy took longer than ever before, partly of delays with previous obligations our social worker had with other clients. Parly because our references didn't all pour in as smoothly as in the past and required follow-ups to remind people. Our medical forms were completed, only to find out later China required specific physical forms also, that required more extensive blood work than the agency forms. This slowed our homestudy process considerably because we had to again, wait for Doctor appointments and blood work to come back from the Lab. Military doctors at our hospital were scarce, due to deployment to the Iraqi War. The civilians doctors filling in were were over worked. Getting in for this second appointment, which truthfully required only copying most the information from the first form and ordering the blood work took weeks and the HIV testing results took another 10 days. It was frustrating, but as long as we could do it (baby steps) we kept persevering.

My husband, returning from duty in Korea, arrived at the start of our homestudy procedures. We soon realized he was not feeling well with pain in his back. This lead to months of worry and doctors appointments and therapy before a proper diagnosis was made. He underwent surgery in August, while we were waiting for CCAA to issue us a 'travel letter'. Since he is the traveler in our family, we were in distress over how this would all turn out. Recouperation was slow. He was in a neck brace for almost 8 weeks. He did receive the doctors approval to travel at the end of October, and, due to holidays in China, our travel letter was issued late, for which we were actually thankful. We were invited to travel the end of October.

Another complication to our adopting Long Fei came about when I wrote a China group moderator in hopes of finding someone who had adopted from this same orphanage. I receive a response from an American family, living in Guangzhou China, who was the first and only foreign family ever to adopt from the Anyang SWI. They adopted their 4-year-old daughter from there just 6 months before. Some of the details of their adoption were concerning. Their daughter was not the healthy toddler girl they requested from the Beijing office. She was very delayed and not given much stimulation at the orphanage. Never sang or walked down stairs and could only shovel food into her mouth with her mouth at the edge of the plate. The doctor that examined her, once home, stated he did not believe she had been walking long, based on her gait and poor muscle tone. She has speech problems in both Chinese and English. This little girl did not know her name, instead, all the little girls at the orphanage were called "MeiMei." The orphanage staff told this family that their little girl did not receive any vaccinations. This is totally illegal of course. She was tested TB and it came back 'exposed'. Her lungs are clear and she does not yet have the disease, however, she must take medicine for the next year to year an a half to make sure she doesn't get it. This little girl's favorite thing to say was, "Wo da ni" or "I hit/beat you." Its been very hard to understand why this child was so neglected when we have heard reports stating these boys are 'deeply loved by the orphanage staff' and 'the director does not want to give them up for adoption'. In their reports, it was stated they are receiving "Class 1, meticulous care and training at their rehabiliation center" and "their body movement is basically normal now." Why then does this little girl's doctor feel she is 4-year's-old, nothing wrong with her, and yet she has just begun to have the opportunity to learn to walk? We blindly walked forward, one baby step at a time waitng for God to turn us back. He never did.

*Helpful Information on Grant Applying:
After our homestudy was complete, I started to research grant organizations off my site Adoption Grants on Tomorrow Is A Gift to help aid with expenses. My strategy was to seek only those organizations that pertained specifically to our cause, a special needs child, older, waiting, with medical challenges from the country of China. I did find a few organizations that dealt with aiding solely Chinese children. I also found a couple that aided older waiting kids, one that aided children with birth defects, and one that specifically helped families solely living in our State. I found that most these organizations required a copy of your present homestudy, tax forms, financial statement, and references. They all wanted the name, address, phone number and point of contact from the agency you were working under. Some requested a family photo and/or a photo of the child you desired to adopt. One, even required a non refundable $10 application fee, which, I thought was kind of a good idea. At least I knew the money was going for a good cause and thought of as a donation to their effort toward helping homeless children. I would recommend to anyone striving for adoption grants to really seek out only those that pertain to your specific adoption. Its a waste of time to write them all. I also think its a good idea to do as we did, not ask for a huge amount. Many would think, "Why are they even adopting if they haven't at least saved some of the money they will need." So, we requested a donation for only $1000 from each, with the exception of the local agency, which I happen to know gives up to $2000 grants. We also mentioned on these applications that we have already invested money into the homestudy and INS fees. This shows an investment of interest and money, making our committment stronger and our application more likely to be accepted. We know that if we do not receive the necessary grant money we are hoping for to cover travel expenses, that we can borrow from our agency under an interest-free loan they offer.

Time to go to China:
It was eight months into the process that we received a 'travel letter' from the CCAA office in Beijing to come and adopt our son.
We did receive a $2000 adoption grant through the Ibsen Adoption Foundation and we applied it to air travel. I had taken on a babysitting job for the previous year and made just enough to pay for our homestudy and INS fees. Our last year's tax return refund paid for travel for my husband and new son. Mysteriously, $2000 was deposited into our savings account at the time we signed our application with WACAP. We check with our bank about 'who' made the deposit. Oddly, all they could tell us was that 'a deposit of $2000 was made'. There was 'no record' as to who made it! That was very concerning at first, but after 7 months, and learning no more, We used this extra money to pay for our ten-year-old daughter to travel with my husband to China. we decided to use the extra money and take our 11-year-old daughter, Josepha to China.
We will again apply to the Military Adoption Reimbursement Program for a $2000 reimbursement on our adoption expenses. This incentive program started as a Pilot Program in 1988, the year we first adopted our daughter from Korea. We have been fortunate to take advantage of this with every adoption we've done.

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Traveling to China