ourdotgirls
My wife and I adopted Marissa from Vietnam in April 1998, Katie (Kaitlin) from China the following December, and Claire from China this past March. The older two are 12 weeks apart in age.
Marissa Referral Picture   School Picture
Marissa, in Vietnam, a month before her adoption
Marissa, in a school picture, October 2003
Kaitlin Referral Picture Kaitlin Referral Picture
Katie, in China, months before her adoption
Katie, in a bad school picture, October 2003
Claire Referral Picture Claire Referral Picture
Claire, in China, month before her adoption
Claire, November 2003
I kept a journal on my Palm-sized PC during our trip to China to adopt Katie and every day or so, I faxed my journal entries back to the states. A good friend of mine converted the fax, via OCR, to e-mail messages. Here is the journal in its entirety. I kept a weblog when we adopted Claire.
If you are interested in international adoption, I encourage you to talk to parents from your local chapter of Families with Children from China. Parenthood and adoption are great. If you wish to make the world a better place for an orphan without adopting one yourself, I encourage you to check out Half the Sky foundation.
“There were so many little girls in the orphanage that the staff couldn’t handle the volume, so they strapped the toddlers into these little green chairs to prevent them from running around. They didn’t do it to hurt the children; it was just simply too much for them to handle. Anyway, those girls would rock and sway in their confines to get some stimulation. Today I look at my daughter and all I can think is ‘Thank God she was saved from the little green chairs.’ ”
—Message on the Half the Sky website by an Adoptive Parent
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