Little Pearl Joins Her Family            by Brodie Jenkins
 

   

 

 

 

 

 

The Jenkins family meeting
with adoption officials

    

            Last month our family was made complete when we brought our daughter, Pearl, home from China. After selecting La Vida on the recommendation of my husband’s client, we began the adoption process. There seemed to be an endless list of documents to acquire, paperwork to fill out and checks to write, but La Vida made the process like working through a recipe. In a step by step manner we worked through the paperwork until before we realized it, our dossier was in China and we were still sane!

  When we first began the process, we had not heard about China’s special waiting child program which consists of children with various medical, physical, or emotional needs. The shorter wait time coupled with information about the child’s personality, made this option very appealing to us. What we did not anticipate, however, was the emotional struggle involved in unanimously agreeing which child would join our family. There were a few times the child we requested had already been matched with another family. These disappointments felt like adoption miscarriages but knowing the child had a family helped the pain heal faster.

     Finally in May, we requested a 20 month old little girl who was diagnosed with tibial torsion. Unlike some people’s experiences, there was not an immediate overflow of love when we saw her pictures. We were interested in her outgoing personality, her enjoyment of other children and the chance that her condition would not cause her serious adverse problems later in life. We sent in our paperwork and waited anxiously by the phone. I still get covered with goose-bumps remembering when Amanda told me that, "the little girl has found a family and it’s yours!" Four months later we were on a plane for China.

     On ‘gotcha day’ we were taken to meet our daughter in a cold, generic looking government building. As we entered the room, there sat a freshly sheered child swaddled in multiple layers of clothing and covered in the remnants of a chocolate treat. I immediately scanned her face to see if I could recognize her from the pictures and lay to rest the irrational fear that I could be given the wrong child. Yes, it was in fact our Pearl although it was difficult to see her through my tears. She sat there quite, content and glazed with chocolate. She allowed me to hold her and we spent a few minutes getting to know each other before it was time to return to the hotel. Pearl spent the next week with us in the hotel room very sad and very confused. At every opportunity she would gravitate towards the familiarity of other Chinese people and when we retrieved her, she would have loud and violent fits. She rarely smiled or laughed and we began to question our decision. We kept hoping that things would change when we returned home.

     The trip back home was as expected, long, tiring and virtually sleepless. After we were able to shift Pearl to Eastern Standard Time and acquaint her to her new home, brother and dogs, Pearl began to slowly transform before our eyes. Joy replaced her sadness and there was laughter where there were once tears. Reflecting on the experience now, it seems as if Pearl suffered her grief quickly and intensely then was done. Today she is an outgoing, happy, funny little girl who loves music, shoes, purses and kissing her greyhound, Lexy. She has a perpetual good attitude, a zest for life and a lot of sassy mouth for her big brother when he irritates her. We could not possibly be more pleased.

     Overall, La Vida orchestrated our trip beautifully; all details were attended to, the guides were knowledgeable and helpful, and all of our questions were addressed. Our greatest challenge during the adoption was the isolation we felt while in our daughter’s province. We were sleep deprived, sick, dealing with an angry, sad toddler, and completely separated from our family and other adoptive parents. Once we arrived in Guangzhou, we felt as if we were in Disney. There was so much to do and many people there to relate to. The entire process of flying half way around the world to pick up a toddler with whom you don’t even share the same language is bizarre and having others to share the crazy experience with was crucial for us. In hindsight, we would have brought our computer, encouraged family to join us and connected with other families in our province.

     The road to bringing our daughter home went where we had not expected. Our daughter’s initial diagnosis of tibial torsion ended up being an unaddressed fracture that healed incorrectly. In the future she’ll have to face surgery to correct her leg. When that time comes, she’ll have a family who loves and adores her there to comfort her and cheer her on as she heals and learns to run for the first time. 

For more information about La Vida's Special Waiting Child Program please call Amanda Young at 610-688-8008.  

       Brodie and Pearl enjoy a quiet moment
                                                                                                                                                                        

Note From Our Executive Director

     Greetings from all of us at La Vida!  The year has passed quickly and Winter is upon us.  We hope that our friends throughout the country are having as beautiful a season as we are here in Eastern Pennsylvania.  We are busy preparing final plans for our annual Celebration of Chinese and Vietnamese New Year.  This year our event will be held on Sunday, February 18, 2006 at the Valley Forge Convention Center in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.  Since we have been holding our new year event, all but one time, we have been blessed with accommodating weather.  We hope for our usual good weather for the event and look forward to seeing all of you there.  Invitations were mailed to our guests the week of December 25th. 
     Though waiting times have increased, our China adoption program continues to run smoothly with many happy families united with their children.  Our most recent set of child assignments took approximately 15 months to arrive from the time that each family's dossier was logged in by the China Center For Adoption Affairs (CCAA).  Our trips continue to run smoothly and without delays.  For families in process who have not yet received their child assignment or families considering adoption, please visit our web site to view photos of some of our recent trips to China.  We have archived on our web site photos of nearly all travel groups since we began the process of documenting trips and posting them on the Internet for family and friends to enjoy.  
     We are pleased to have implemented our Guatemala and Colombia adoption programs this year and they too are running smoothly.  Please see our program update for more information about these adoption options.
     Thank you so much to all of you who sent wonderful holiday cards with updated photos of your child.  They always put a smile on our face!
     All of us at La Vida hope that you had a wonderful holiday season and thank you for blessing us with our work together.

Beryl

Ancient Wisdom

                                                
An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After 2 years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."

The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?" "That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them."

"For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table." Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.

To all of our friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path.