The excited big sister

Packing up the care package. 

Julia has really become excited about getting a little brother.  She has "called" Matthew in China on her toy phone and she talks about flying on the big plane to China, loving on him and playing with him when he comes home.  She's also been spending time in his room playing with the Tonka trucks we've bought for him and she's decided that we still need to buy a dump truck and a crane (don't ask).  She initially was disappointed that he wasn't going to be older but now I think she's getting behind the idea of helping Mommy take care of him, which totally appeals to her bossy nature.   :-)  

She's also been very excited about picking out toys for a care package to send to him in China.  Tonight we boxed up some toys, blanket, disposable camera and candy to send to Matthew's orphanage.  We also sent one to Julia when she was in China and the orphanage kept most of the items, which was fine by me.   The only items I really want to get back is a photo book and the disposable camera that, hopefully, the nannies will use to take photos of his life in the orphanage. 

I think watching us prepare for Matthew (and stress over the paperwork!)  is really helping Julia process how she came to be in our family.   I hope it continues to open avenues for her to ask more questions and spark some interesting conversations with her about it.   I plan on spending the months prior to travel showing her more photos of China and discussing what will happen once we get to China.   She's a brave little girl and not much fazes her so I'm optimistic about  bringing her with us to get Matthew.  I really don't want her to miss such a valuable opportunity to visit her homeland. 

 

Introducing .. Matthew Xiao Fu Lewis

Our little man!

We have a son!!

Wow, it’s amazing to finally be able to say that.   Months of paperchasing, worrying about FedEx losing our documents and dreaming about our new addition has finally brought us to this place.   Jason and I will now be parents to a little boy who turned one on July 29, 2012.   Let me gush a little before I tell you more about him:   He is so adorable!  Looking at his pictures just makes my heart swell in my chest and I’m thrilled he appears to be healthy and well-cared for.  It is all I can do not to jump on a plane to China.  

His name is Luo Min Fu and he has been living at the Luoshan County Orphan Care and Administration Center  in Henan Province since he was  four days old.   His background information says he “likes you to put your face close to his and chat with you.  If the chat is very lively, he will laugh so much that his body shakes.”    The nannies at the orphanage have nicknamed him “Xiao Fu” (little fortune). 

China with Henan province shown in red

Luoshan County is a mountainous area on the south border of Henan near Xinyang City.  It is a small community by China standards (population of less than a million) and more than 90 percent of its citizens live in rural areas.  I have learned his orphanage is very small and there are usually less than ten children that live there.  I hope that is good for him in that he gets the attention and care he needs.    There are, unfortunately, so many orphanages that have too many children and the nannies don’t have time to meet their emotional needs.   We were lucky that Julia was in a foster care family in China before she came home and she learned to bond and was able to experience being in a family.    

We were matched with Min Fu off our agency’s list of waiting children.  I actually saw him on the website before our paperwork was in China and when I saw his little face and read his description my first thought was “That’s our son!!”   I showed him to Jason but he didn’t even want to look at his picture because he knew our paperwork wasn’t complete.   I asked our agency if we could look at his file and she refused because she didn’t want us to get too attached.   Fast forward a couple of weeks and our paperwork made it to China and was logged in remarkably fast on July 24^th.  I immediately called our agency and asked for his file but another family was reviewing it.     For the next week  I checked the website every day to see if the other family was going to adopt him.  

On July 31^st I was home napping with Jason and I turned off my cell phone so the phone wouldn’t wake us up and, wouldn’t you know it, that was when our agency tried to call and tell us Min Fu’s file was available!     You can imagine – I was quite anxious when I realized what happened and paced around the kitchen until I got in touch with our agency rep. 

We finally received his file and decided that day he would be our son.  Jason was just as smitten as me and we submitted LOI (letter of intent) to China to adopt him.  We received Pre-Approval from China on August 9^th which basically means China has recognized our intent to adopt him and our paperwork will move forward to obtain the final approvals.   

If all goes as expected we hope to travel to bring him home in December or January!