August 17-19

A Chinese adoption is endless forms followed by an interminable wait.  The fall of 2006 was like that.  We would fill out forms, turn them in, wait for their acceptance, and begin filling out the next set of forms.

Turns out, being placed with a child begins the same process.   

When we received notice of placement at 10:39pm on August 16, 2010, CCAI gave us 72 hours to decide whether to accept the child or reject the placement.  So, we had a lot of work to do in a short period of time.  Lyn and I scoured over her file, looking at every detail provided.  The medical issues were the most important. 

Lyn took the file to Children's Hospital to have the doctors there examine it.  She discovered that while Xue Lan's file suggests that she's healthy, she was very small for her age - below the 1st percentile in terms of height and weight. 

That evening, we took Xue Lan's file to our neighbors, Mike and Cecelia Wang.  Mike is a pediatric oncologist and Cecelia is an internist (who reads Mandarin).  They have a five-year old adopted child from China, named Maya.  Mike and Cecelia read through the file and noticed several things.  Most notably, they found that Xue Lan looks entirely healthy, with the exception of Xue Lan's cleft lip and palate.  While two previous surgeries, when she was eight and fourteen months old, were largely successful, the file indicated that additional surgeries will be necessary.  Further, Mike noted that Xue Lan's blood results showed that she is anemic - a common malady for children who are malnourished.  When considered together with Xue Lan's height and weight, it appears that Xue Lan's diet has likely been inadequate by common U.S. measures.

Having heard nothing in these discussions to indicate that Xue Lan's medical issues extended beyond her cleft lip and palate and malnutrition,   we notified CCAI that we were accepting the placement the morning of August 18th. 

Then it was more forms, followed by more waiting.

August 16 - Our Placement

 

Jiang Xue Lan, approximately 4/20/10

Lyn was walking into the bathroom, reading email on her Blackberry when she received a message from CCAI informing us that we had been matched with a beautiful little girl from China.  It was 10:39pm on Monday, August 16, 2010. 

Jiang Xue Lan was born February 11, 2007 in Jiangmen City in the Guangdong Province of southwestern China.  She was picked up by police, who received a report of a female baby left in building 2-8 of Lianghua West in Jiangmen City, on February 16, 2007.  The police brought her to the Jiangmen Social Welfare Institute, which is where she still lives.

To provide perspective, Xue Lan was abandoned 47 days after Lyn and I received our LID - Log-In Date - from China, the day that China approved our request to adopt a child.  It took exactly 42 months, to the day, for us to be matched. 

The night that we found out, Lyn and I stayed up well past our bedtime.  So did Mahlon, who got up to go to the restroom at 1:30am and learned about Xue Lan from Lyn who was at that moment emailing Xue Lan's picture to friends and family.  Lyn held up this picture of Xue Lan in front of Mahlon and said nothing.  Mahlon stared at the picture for about 20 seconds and then said "What is her name?" "How old is she?"  "When do we go get her?"  And that was the end of sleeping that night for Mahlon.  She was too excited to go back to bed.

We started the process of adopting Xue Lan in the summer of 2006.  In fact, Lyn and I got married (officially) for the sole purpose of adopting a child from China.  It wasn't enough that the state of Colorado considered us married under common law.  The Chinese government required a piece of paper.  So, we invited a small group of family and friends to our wedding, September 24, 2006 with an invitation that started with the line, "Because the Chinese government is forcing us to...we invite you to the wedding of Judd Choate and Lyn Kathlene."