My husband and I were older when we got married, and a couple of years later, we decided to adopt. China at that time had mostly girls available for adoption and the process was very straight forward with the wait time only 6 months. Off went our dossier to China and we were all set to travel the next year! The next month we received a notification that the process had slowed down. Then another slowdown and another slowdown. Finally fifteen months later we received a photo of our girl! We learned a lot about patience during that time period and realized that we were under God’s timing for the perfect child for us.
Finally our family day arrived on March 5, 2007. Hannah was 22 months old and she was walking and talking. They handed over this beautiful little girl who immediately started crying her eyes out. It didn’t take long and after a couple of days, slowly a happy smiling little girl with a wonderful sense of humor emerged. She seemed to recognize at such an early age that we were there to care for her. The most important thing to her at that point was that we gave her lots of food! You could tell she had been loved immensely by her nannies, but she seemed to recognize that we belonged to her and our job was to love and take care of her.
Hannah is now 11 and will be entering middle school in the fall. She is a wise old soul with a sweet laid back personality. Hannah is very proud to be from China. We just returned from her heritage trip to China where she visited her orphanage and got to meet the people that had taken care of her.
A deep love and appreciation for my daughter’s birth country has lead me to being a chair with Families with Children from China, Greater Cincinnati. We feel it is important for Hannah to have a place where she feels a connection with other adoptees and can learn about her culture. Hannah loves taking Chinese dance and performing at our Chinese New Year’s celebration.
Adoption has changed everything about me because it made me a Mom. People might say Hannah is lucky. All of us that have adopted, know we are the lucky ones!