Happy New Year Liang Ying!

You may have noticed that on the About page of my blog there is a photo of me holding a beautiful baby. I don't know why Liang Ying was abandoned but the good news is that she was adopted in December! Liang Ying's adoptive parents Shannon and John Silva kindly agreed to share some of their story with us.

When we were unable to have another child after our son was born, we realised that adoption would be the only way to go and began to discuss how we could handle a child with special needs.  It soon became clear that we should adopt a child with albinism.

After doing the necessary paperwork, we were about to begin the home study part of the process when we asked our agency about a little girl listed on their site who had albinism. Unfortunately, the child had already been matched with a family.  Imagine our surprise when just minutes later we received news of a different little girl who was not listed.  She had albinism and was still waiting to be matched with a family!

As soon as we opened the emailed file and saw the little girl we knew this was our daughter! This was the child who would complete our family!

Within twelve hours we had submitted our paperwork to China informing them of our desire and our intention to adopt Liang Ying.  Seven months after receiving Liang Ying's referral we were off to China to finally meet our little girl!

When we arrived in Xining she was sound asleep in Madame Li's arms!  Madam Li helped us complete our paperwork and it was off to the hotel.  We were on our way to beginning life with a new member of the family! She is now called Madison.

We were, and still are, amazed at what a smooth transition Madison has had with our family.  We believe it is because both her foster family and the orphanage not only did an outstanding job caring and loving her, but also a wonderful job of preparing her for the adoption. Within three weeks, Madison had completely fitted into our family.  She truly is a joy!  She was meant to be our daughter and it feels like she has always been with us.

One of the major differences between CA's co-management of the Xining Children's Home and adoptions in other provinces, is that not only information about Madison's life to that point, but also a CD containing pictures of her, including many baby photos were taken and a copy give to us. Adoptive parents do not normally receive this type of information.  But Christian Action realizes that it is priceless to us to have our daughter's baby photos and of course, they will also be priceless to our daughter one day. We are, and always will be, grateful to the CA staff and hope that people will continue to support their outstanding work.

Thank you John and Shannon. Have a wonderful week!

Siew Mei.