Lullaby for Luke

Luke legally became a Linthavong today!!  At the Civil Affairs office in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, we stated our purpose for adopting this sweet boy and swore to "never abandon him".  The word "abandon" stuck with me throughout the day today, and left me thinking a lot about his birth mother.  While I could never imagine abandoning a baby, that is exactly what happened to Luke. He was abandoned.  But the word abandoned carries such cruel connotation, which I don't necessarily think applies in Luke's case.  Most of the children in China are not abandoned because their parents do not want them, but actually quite the opposite.  Most of the abandoned children in China have some kind of special medical need.  It may be minor or very severe, but in most cases it is believed the family has given up the child because they cannot pay for the medical care that will optimize, and sometimes even save, the child's life.  The government only steps in to assis...

"Gotcha Day" is what the international adoption community calls the day when you get to take your child from the orphanage.  For most, like us, this is also a first meeting.  We first saw Luke's face and knew he was our son 3 months ago when we first reviewed his file.  We ha ve been praying for him and this day for even longer though.  There is so much uncertainty in how this day will play out.  Where will we first lay eyes on him?  Who will bring him?  What should we bring for him?  And the biggest question, how will he react?  Those who have adopted or are preparing to adopt an older baby or child know you are warned about a wide range of reactions children can have on Gotcha Day.  None of which are bad and all of which include grieving, but some are undoubtedly "easier". I don't think Kanhka nor I slept more than a 20 or 30min stretch at any given point last night.  Besides the fact that my calves were killing me from our Gre...

With the Beckers at the Forbidden City Unfortunately our internet access has been spotty so I have not gotten to update as regularly as I was initially planning.  However, we did arrive in Beijing safely and have spent the last 48 hours touring the city as we attempt to adjust to the 12 hour time difference.   On Friday, we visited Tiananman's Square, The Forbidden City, and Summer Palace with another couple, the Beckers. The Beckers are adopting a little girl from the same orphanage as Luke so we will be walking through this entire 16 day experience with them side by side, and boy are we thankful for that!  In God's sovereignty, they only live about 1.5 hours from us in South Carolina, so we are already looking forward to getting the kids together for play dates Summer Palace Today, we met the Adams and the Matthews, two other couples who are also adopting through our agency but are adopting from an orphanage in Beijing so just flew in late last night....

I can't believe the time has come...  We started the adoption process in April of 2013.  Four and a half years ago.  Now, here we are getting ready to get on a plane to go get our son, Li Min Qin (aka Luke).  He is currently in an orphanage in Xi'an China where he has lived for the last 2 years after he was found abandoned as a baby.   There is, of course, a lot of back story about why we decided to adopt and how we got to this little boy in particular.  I promise to share more of those details over the days to come, but the "cliffnotes" version is that this precious face needed a family...and we're it!