Category Archives: Adoption

Ah, Mother’s Day…

Last year my mom sent me a beautiful card with a note about how I was going to soon be a mother. I loved that card and was so grateful that my mom thought of me, even though our adoption was still in process. We thought for sure that we would be celebrating Mother’s Day 2015 as a family of three.

But then in October, our dreams for Zih-Ting came crashing down when she refused to join our family.

We immediately started Cin-Ru’s adoption, as we already knew that we wanted to adopt her. For months, I mourned the loss of Zih-Ting even while I slowly started to open my heart to Cin-Ru. Older adoption is scary and not just because of the trauma the child has already faced. Older children have to agree to the adoption. After being denied once, it was really hard for me to risk my heart again.

So I debated… should I celebrate Mother’s Day this year or skip it? All indicators point toward Cin-Ru telling the judge that she wants to be adopted by our family. But there is always a chance that she’ll get scared when the time comes to say yes or no.

My husband made the decision for me, telling me that he wanted to take me out for a nice meal to affirm the hard work I’ve done thus far to prepare for motherhood. I am married to such a sweet, sweet man. We went to the Teapot Vegetarian House, a favorite restaurant of ours. It’s nice that we can eat anything off the menu as it’s all vegan. I ordered spicy and sweet eggplant, which I absolutely loved.

Then for dessert, we split a slice of vegan cheesecake. It was fantastic!

I am still hoping that next Mother’s Day, we will finally be a family of three. I don’t know if Cin-Ru will be able to embrace Mother’s Day or if it will be yet another reminder of the biological family she lost. Either way, if Mother’s Day is a traumaversary for her or a celebration of a new mother, I’ll still be grateful for the chance to love this beautiful 13 year old girl that I have started to think of as my daughter.

Happy 13th birthday, Cin-Ru!! I hope she had a wonderful birthday today with her friends. 13 years old. Wow! I can’t believe she’s officially a teenager.

The above photo is when Cin-Ru modeled her new shirt. This was part of her birthday care package and I believe it was a hit.

I’m so glad that we were able to celebrate early with Cin-Ru, even though we couldn’t be there in person. Next year we’ll celebrate as a family. I can’t wait!

I can’t believe we’ve already had five Skype calls. I treasure each and every one of them, though some have gone better than others. Friday night’s call was the best one yet!

We had technical difficulties on Taiwan’s side; the audio wasn’t working so they couldn’t hear us and we couldn’t hear them. This actually worked out in our favor, as our girl was SO much more relaxed without the pressure of having to listen to a bunch of English and try to understand what is going on. Instead, we chatted with the translator in the chat window and tried to entertain our girl with facial expressions and miming and showing off various things we’ve prepared for her. Surprisingly, it went really well.

Friday afternoon, I baked up a batch of sugar cookies. During the call, Jeff and I made a big deal of spreading frosting on each cookie and then decorating the cookies with icing.

Note – Don’t buy this icing. It was too watery and ran down the cookies when we tried to show her. Even when we let them sit a few minutes before picking them up, it did the same thing.

She seemed to get a kick out of this so we told her that we can decorate cookies once we come home from Taiwan.

Our girly-girl found Skype’s chat window emoticons about half way through the call so the translator let her pick the emoticons to send. She loved doing this, sending us “stickers” as they called them and seeing which ones we sent back. This conversation took place toward the end of the call:

I about died laughing. We’ll see if the audio works on the next call! Personally, seeing how relaxed Cin-Ru was without the audio, I’d rather it doesn’t work. We have one more Skype call scheduled this upcoming Friday, right before her birthday. Her birthday package will definitely be in Taiwan in time for the call and we’ll bake her a cake and sing happy birthday. I can’t wait!

This morning we found out that the mayor has finally signed our adoption agreement. I couldn’t help but rejoice and say a prayer of thanksgiving because we have been praying for that signature for two months. Our paperwork is now ready to be submitted to court.

Of course, even as I know I am potentially setting myself up for disappointment, I had to go look at other families’ timelines once they reach this point in the adoption process. Some families traveled about three months after their paperwork was submitted. Others had to wait six or more months. To be honest, so much is dependent on which judge handles our adoption and if he/she feels the paperwork is complete. I hope for a quick court process so that we can bring our girl HOME. I can’t wait until I can finally call her my daughter.

Yesterday we mailed off Cin-Ru’s birthday present and were told it will definitely reach Taiwan in time for our Skype call on the 24th.

I can’t wait to see her open her present. Dear one, we’re coming for you as soon as we can!

The only trouble with having two months to put together a birthday care package is that I end up taking the entire two months to finish it! We picked out gifts, changed our minds, and replaced pieces of it. Multiple times. But we really need to get this into the mail so we’re calling it quits and making a final decision. My love language is gifts and I am thrilled to have a child to buy presents for. Each piece of this care package is important to me in some way, which is why I had such a hard time deciding which gifts to include and which to save for later.

On an earlier Skype call, we asked Cin-Ru what she wants for her birthday. She wasn’t sure, but asked for some music. Then a few minutes later she whispered to the director that she would like a USB speaker. We had never heard of such a thing but searched Amazon and found the perfect gift (in her favorite color!).

We also bought a small USB and loaded it up with music in both English and Chinese. Here are the English titles I chose, after many hours of deliberation:

Gold by Britt Nicole
I Am by Crowder
Beautiful by Jaime Grace
Compass by Jonathan Thulin
Overcomer by Mandisa
Day One by Matthew West
Speak Life by TobyMac
Good Fight by Unspoken
Testify to Love by Avalon
Luv is a Verb by dc Talk

I chose some of these songs because I thought Cin-Ru would like the style of music (Compass, I Am, Luv is a Verb). But I picked most of them because I hope the lyrics will encourage her.

Gold
You’re one in a million, this, this is for all the girls
Boys all over the world
Whatever you been told
You’re worth more than gold
So hold your head up high
It’s your time to shine
From the inside out it shows
You’re worth more than gold

Day One
It’s day one of the rest of my life
It’s day one of the best of my life
I’m marching on to the beat of a brand new drum
Yeah, here I come
The future has begun
Day one

Overcomer
You’re an overcomer
Stay in the fight ‘til the final round
You’re not going under
‘Cause God is holding you right now
You might be down for a moment
Feeling like it’s hopeless
That’s when He reminds You
That you’re an overcomer
You’re an overcomer

Good Fight
Keep fighting the good fight (Never give up, never give up)
Keep letting your light shine (Holding it high as long as you live)
‘Cause I’m never gonna leave you
Always gonna see you through to the other side
Keep fighting the good fight, fighting the good, fighting the good fight, good fight

We are also sending her the soundtrack to the very first Taiwanese television show we watched, which happens to be about basketball! Cin-Ru is a huge basketball fan and so I am greatly amused that my first and favorite Taiwan show is about one of my future daughter’s favorite activities. I found the soundtrack on Amazon and it’s all in Chinese so I hope she enjoys it. If she hasn’t seen the show already, we’ll watch it with her once she’s home. Jeff says she probably hasn’t seen it because it aired when she was only five years old. I’m feeling old…