What A Busy Week!

Gladney President Mike McMahon (5th from Left) and China staff in New York Office













Gladney Mom Stephanie at the office warming party on Nov 14, 2006












Gladney' NYO staff Gina, Andrea and Krista (from left to right)

















Beatrice Findlay in front of her art work


The Findlay family


















Gladney China /NYO News - What a busy week it has been in the New York Office! On Tuesday evening we had a get together for Waiting China Families at the home of Mark and Diane Maas, who so graciously offered their space for the meeting. Wednesday evening was our Office Warming Party. We had over 50 people in attendance, with families from all international and domestic programs paying us a visit. Additionally, the staff from our headquarters in Fort Worth flew to NY for the event, including Gladney President Mike McMahon, Vice-President Marshall Williams, Jim Huey (President of the Gladney Fund), Nonya Jordan (Vice President of Development and Events) and Sharon Casstevens (Executive Director of the Gladney Family Association). The party was a huge success as adults noshed on hors d'oeuvres and children enjoyed coloring pictures, putting together puzzles, and building with blocks in our new play area. Finally, on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, the NY office hosted Waiting Family Parties for our domestic program and other international programs including Viet Nam, Guatemala, Columbian adoptions.

We hope you enjoy the photos from the party!

Ming Lu's Trip to Beijing!

Dear Gongzhan,

Ming Lu and I really enjoyed our evening at the office warming party last night. She could not fall asleep, she was sooo excited!! I wanted to share a mini "photo album" of our recent trip toBeijing. Ming Lu had a wonderful time in Beijing. Her favorite places were Purple Bamboo park, the zoo and the Great Wall. She also loved having jiaozi, jiam bing and cha dan. She traveled very well and we are so proud of her. Beijing has changed, the traffic was bad. The air was questionable on most days. It is becoming more and more cosmopolitan...which loosely translates to $$$$$$. Many of my favorite places were gone, being renovated or being torn down to make way for the new improved version. I am glad I've had the opportunity to see it before too much has changed. We hope to see you soon. ---- Erin

Thoughts on a Homeland Tour by Steve Ross

Michelle and Amy in Lijiang, Yunan

THOUGHTS ON A HOMELAND TOUR

During this past summer, Sandi, our two daughters, ages 7 and 10, and I returned to China, where the girls had been adopted as infants. For the adults, this was our 4th trip to the PRC over 21 years; for the girls, this was to be their first real chance to get to know their country of birth. Our oldest had been to China at 3 ½ to get her then baby sister, but she only remembers what the pictures tell her of that trip. On this trip we traveled for 35 days all over China, from Lijiang and Kunming, in the southwest near the Burma border, all the way north to Beijing. We got to see an incredible range of historical sites and experience the wondrous variety of sceneries, places and peoples that make China what it is today.

Our girls rode yaks up in the mountains of Yunnan Province, camels in a Song Dynasty theme park outside Hangzhou, bamboo rafts on a gentle river amidst the incomparable scenery of the Guilin-Yangshou region, and bicycle rickshaws in a Hutong area near downtown Beijing. They climbed the Great Wall, walked the Forbidden City in what was at times a downpour, tried their hands at Chinese knotting, cloisonné making, and ink-block printing, and took a boat ride down the Yangtze River through the Three Gorges area.

As importantly, our daughters also had the chance to visit their hometowns and orphanages (i.e., Social Welfare Institutes or SWIs)! Our older girl came to us from a blue-collar, smokestack, industrial city 3 hours from the provincial capital in southeastern China. Now a retirement home, the old orphanage--the one our daughter was at for most of the time before her adoption--consisted of 3 one-storied rectangular buildings that looked like dilapidated bungalows with multiple rooms all facing a overgrown courtyard. By contrast, the newer orphanage was multi-storied white tile and glass edifice, with well manicured grounds and a warm and welcoming staff, some of whom had actually been there long enough to have known our daughter as an infant. While visiting, we were able to see, play with and hold some of the nearly two dozen 12-20 month old children awaiting adoption. The children seemed very energetic, clean, well cared for, with good eye contact and good motor skills for their ages. My daughters were quite smitten by some of the children they played with and held. Indeed, we all were tempted to take a few ‘more’ children home with us! The staff, by the way, seemed fully engaged with the children, and even the male director--who was probably 50 something--held and actively played with the children.
Our younger daughter came from a major city and provincial capital in southeastern China. Like the city itself, our younger daughter’s orphanage has completely changed. Most of the old facility (a model in 1999, with a then new children’s building) has been demolished and the ground has been taken over for still another amongst the many high rises dotting the city skyline facing the Yangtze River, and the remainder of the property (including the once model children’s building) is now used primarily as a senior citizens’ home. The new orphanage, a gleaming, white marble building built around an inner courtyard, has been located completely out of the city to a rice field studded countryside, purportedly because the air is better and the noise is less in the countryside. It was also hinted that many of the children abandoned these days are found in the countryside. Very few young children were actually in this new orphanage when we visited, and those that were there were either small babies who were too ill to be placed in foster homes, or infants with recent surgeries who were recovering, or a handful of older preschoolers who were awaiting adoptions. We were told that many of the orphanage’s charges were actually under the care of foster families, with a few more lodged at the old folks’ home while attending school in the city.

With another family, we also visited the Shanghai Social Welfare Institute, a model orphanage with a cheerful, new, state of the art facility and with skilled staff ready to handle healthy and handicapped children, each according to their needs. We were told that the social workers monitor the well-being of the children in the institution, as well as doing weekly visits to foster family homes.

From our experiences during the trip, we were able to make some observations and drew some conclusions. First, there is significantly more affluence in China than there has ever been before. Second, China is demolishing and building things so quickly that it leaves one’s head spinning. With all the new wealth and economic activity, it is not surprising that the economic pressures, and some of the political ones too, that have lead to many past abandonments, are easing—at least in some larger cities in China. That means that, comparatively, a greater percentage of the abandoned children are showing up in rural areas than in the past. Another good sign: the placement of orphans in foster families has increased substantially over the past few years (at least since 1999, when we ourselves last adopted). Nevertheless, there still seems to be a lot of healthy, beautiful Chinese children--boys as well as girls--waiting for adoption into good homes; and there seems to be a commitment by the Chinese to provide these orphaned children with nurturance not only of their physical needs but also of their developmental, social and emotional needs. Still the quality of the care and of the facilities varied substantially depending on where the orphanage was located and the economic health of the region. Thus far, most SWIs do not have the resources to establish and operate a model orphanage, with rehabilitation services and even a hydrotherapy facility, like that now in Shanghai. All told, ours was a wonderful journey that gave our adopted daughters a positive and hopefully memorable trip of their birth country.

Steve, proud dad of 2 Gladney girls from China

Book Review: The Lost Daughters of China, by Karin Evans

Reviewed by Alison Sawdey


Last spring I was reading through one of the suggested texts on international adoption, "How to Adopt Internationally" by Jean Nelson Erichsen and Heino R. Erichsen, when I first came across Karin Evans’s wonderful book "The Lost Daughters of China." I found the book’s title compelling and proceeded to run round to my local Barnes & Noble to pick up a copy. Over a long weekend I read the amazing story of Karin Evans, her husband and her daughter, Kelley. I have since shared this book with many of my family members and some of my dearest friends.

Evans is a California-based freelance journalist who only later in life considered adoption (with her second husband). After much soul-searching and a lot of research (she is a journalist after all!), Evans started down the long road to adopt her daughter. The story details this journey begun in 1997. Although there have been many significant changes in adoption from China in the last decade, the book is still very relevant in its scope and articulation of the amazing coming together of this family.

The book is interspersed with valuable statistics on China (these have been updated in the latest edition published in 2001) which help frame the very real societal pressures that have led this ancient culture to establish one of the most popular adoption programs anywhere in the world. Evans walks the reader through the current social, economic and political dynamics that have led to China’s overpopulation, up to the very real dilemma the birth parents encounter before making the heartbreaking decision to give up their children. I found Evans’s compassion for and understanding of the birth parents extremely touching. The latter part of the book focuses on Evans’s return to California with Kelley and her husband and their transition to everyday family life, after the excitement of their time in China. She also weaves in lovely stories of the growing numbers of families in her neighborhood who have adopted children from China and the resulting cultural richness both parents and children enjoy. Lastly, Evans asks some thought-provoking questions as to when and if these children will journey back to China.

I highly recommend this read to Gladney waiting families, families considering adoption from China and all those who wish to learn more about this wonderful family and life experience.

[The Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and The Search For A Missing Past. ISBN: 1-58542-026-3 Tarcher/Putnam Publishers]

Our Beautiful Princesses!!!

Dad John Ebbinghouse writes:

Our girls, Sophie 7 and Grace 4, love everything there is about Princesses. They loved getting the make up and hair ready but the wigs did not last too long! They wondered how Sleeping Beauty could keep her wig on that long!

Whitney's First Halloween!

Whitney had a terrific time celebrating her first Halloween. She dressed up as a duck and has enjoyed wearing her costume on a daily basis since it was purchased in August (I like to plan ahead :0)). In fact, as I type this entry, Whitney is wearing her duck hat (note the pink bow in the small tuft of hair) as she hosts a tea party for her stuffed animal friends. Whitney's costume was such a great success that she won the best costume award at her father's Halloween office party! WOW! Whitney has loved ducks since being given a bathtub set at the Chongqing Marriott in February.

Boo Bash!, Or The Devil and The Princess

Our son James had the first annual Boo Bash fundraiser at his school the Friday before Halloween. Our devilish boy was very excited about this. However, truth be told, his baby sister Kathryn did NOT enjoy her costume...in fact she hated it and refused to wear the gorgeous cape at all. The pictures tell the story of the handsome devil who's the life of the party and the reluctant princess who nonetheless tried to get into the spirit of the event with a little wand fencing and arts and crafts, topped off by a nice drink and going through the loot bag at home!

A Visit To The Pumpkin Patch

Sydney Wizner had a lot of fun visiting the pumpkin patch, as evidenced by these photos! She is joined by big sister Stephanie and her big brother Zachary. Just to show she doesn't just like pumpkins, you can see in one of the pictures that she has found a creative new use for black olives!

Photo Report from China - Gladney Parents Adopting Twins

Ms. Zhang and a caregiver from a Jiangxi SWI waiving fairwell to the twin sisters under their care for nearly a year. From their eyes, one can see love, affection, good wishes,







Jane and Jeffrey holding their new daughters for the first time. They could hardly hide their happiness.







SWI staff holding the twin sisters before handing them over to their adoptive parents. One smiling face and one sad looking - that has described how the twin sisters feel when they begin their new life.




On November 23, in the lobby of Gloria Plaza Hotel in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, Jane and Jeffrey, soon-to-be Mom and Dad sit with SWI staff and caregiver who are holding two children, twin sisters.
Jane exhausted her prepared list of questions and were pleased to hear about their daughters' lives from the horse's mouth. Any surprises? Yes, they just learned that their twin daughters have been with a foster family.

A Pumpkin With A Pumpkin!

Meet Anabelle Stella-rong, and her jack-o'-lantern pal. Anabelle is 3 1/2 and was adopted from the Jianxi Province in 2004. Mom Christine says she is "perfect." She certainly is a cutie! Anabelle is waiting for her baby sister from China.

Pumpkin Time for Sydney!!

Mom Liz Wizner writes,

Here are a few pictures for the China Blog. The pictures are of Sydney Wizner along with her sister, Stephanie and brother, Zachary.
















was used to send these pictures.
www.kodak.com/go/picturecd
How to save a picture
Simply right click on it and select "save image as." Mac users, click and drag the image to your desktop.

Pretty In Pink For The Autumn Moon Festival!

This is Emily Elizabeth Koppenjan, all dressed up for the Autumn Moon Festival! She is wearing the dress her parents bought for her the day after they picked her up in Hunan Province. Emily will be a princess for Halloween. She looks like a princess here too!!

Look Who Stopped By The Deli!!!

President Clinton with Dani Miller on the left and Ally Miller in his arms.


Gladney Mom Kathy Miller writes:

We live in Chappaqua, the same town where the Clintons own a house. We have seen both President Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton before, usually at the same local deli. On October 3rd, however, I saw him walk in with his dog, and I happened to be with both my children (Dani, age 5, and Ally, age 2) and I had a camera in my car. We followed him into the deli and I asked if I could take a picture of him with my children. He was very friendly and seemed happy to pose for the picture.

Dossier Completed, in Just 3 Months

How We Completed Our Dossier in Just 3 Months

First, in the interest of full disclosure, this is our second adoption and the first one was just completed in February. So, everything I learned the first time was still fresh in my mind and of course, that made this second paperchase easier. But I know people who have done it this quickly the first time—or even a bit faster! So I am sharing these tips to be used for a first, second or you-fill-in-the–number paperchase!

• First, make the three folders: Gladney Application, CIS, China Dossier. Tape or staple the checklist that comes with the application to the back of that folder. Include all how-to packets from Gladney in the relevant folders, then put everything in one big accordion-style folder—and always keep it in the same place! I say this as someone who is not usually very organized with paperwork and is forever looking for things. I knew I could not be this way for something so important so I made my folders right away!
• Then, after looking over all the how-to packets, checklists, etc., set a deadline. This time I had one imposed on me—I was going back to work August 21st (after maternity leave with the delicious product of the first paperchase, Kathryn!). So I decided I would just get everything within my control done before I returned to work, since I knew my time would be much less flexible then! Also, this time, we have an identified child—so we already know her Chinese name, Ji Ji, where she is from (Guangdong, like her sister), her birthday—September 12, 2005—and most importantly, we have pictures. Those pictures are the most powerful motivator of all! But, for those of you in the traditional program, the motivator is just that getting your dossier to China as quickly as possible, means getting the soonest possible referral. Setting a deadline really helps you be organized about everything. I set one, albeit much more tentatively, the first time also.
• Maximize efficient use of your time and minimize duplication of effort. I was still home with Kathryn, but of course I needed Chris, my husband, to be present sometimes and he was working. So we did our doctors’ appointments—both the Gladney exam and the dossier exam at the same time—on a Saturday. We used Chris’s Monday off for ordering his birth certificate and our marriage certificate—both buildings were very close together so we did it at the same time. Chris had jury duty in Downtown Brooklyn, so he took the documents to the Brooklyn County Clerk. Our babysitter took both children for the day so I could crank out the Gladney application without interruption. The dossier pics and the Gladney app pics are one and the same, just make two copies. And have people take those pics when they’re coming over anyway (even if you’re all dressed up for the 4th of July, as we are in the pic of the outside of our house!). Mail in the I-600 A application right away, so you can cross it off your list, then when the homestudy is finished, just send it in.
• Order the docs that you know will take a while first. This is sort of related to the last bullet point, but I thought it was important enough to warrant its own bullet. We were pretty fortunate in that the only out-of-state document we needed for the dossier was my birth certificate. But I know that others have to order many documents from out of state. Do it first! You can work on other things while you’re waiting for those documents to arrive. It’s always a good feeling to know that something is in the works elsewhere while you are plugging away.
• Check things off—it feels good! Use all the lists in the guides provided by Gladney to check each thing off as you complete it. It really feels good to see the progress! Also read and re-read all the guides. It’s easy to miss little details the first time.
• Keep your eyes on the prize! The paperchase can be nerve-wracking and tedious—especially the parts you have no control over, like that wait for the I-171H!—but at the end of it all you will be DTC! Then you can settle into the long wait, and don’t be surprised if you miss having that to-do list to keep you occupied!

In my case, I met my goal of completing everything I could by August 21st. We had our fingerprinting appt. the very next day, the 22nd, and the I-171H came sooner than expected, just 2 weeks later. We had to wait to get our fingerprints for the Good Conduct Certificate cleared, and we dropped off our dossier the same day we picked the Good Conducts up. Had we known the I-171H would come so quickly, we might have been done in just 2 ½ months! But that’s how China adoption is—a lot of unknown variables you have no control over. My hope is that these tips will help you to have as much control over the paperchase as possible!

Stephanie
Accepted referral of Waiting Child—end of June
Dropped off dossier—September 22, 2006
DTC—October 3, 2006-10-03
Timeline: Just a few days over 3 months from accepting the referral to DTC

If I can do this, anyone can!!!

The Next Chapter of My Life - "Love You. Mean It" Continues

Gladney Mom Julia Collins (far left in photo) is currently waiting for her daughter from China. She also just published a book, Love You, Mean It. It's best to let Julia tell her own story as only she can, so without further ado here is Julia's post, followed by a link to a recent USA Today article. - Editor

My name is Julia Collins and I am very excited to be adopting a baby girl from China. My dossier has been submitted and I am currently in the “waiting” period. I’m thrilled for this next chapter in my life.

You see, five years ago I would have never thought I would be where I am today. Five years ago, my husband, Thomas J. Collins, was killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. It was a day that changed my life forever, as well as so many others. At the time of Tommy’s death, we were trying to start a family. Although I’d always wanted to have a family someday, I’d never taken it for granted that it would happen, which made it all the more amazing when I began to let myself dream that this was something Tommy and I would do together. We were ready to start this next phase in our life.

After Tommy was killed, everything stopped. My head felt like it was going to explode- like I was listening to people talk but the conversations were taking place somewhere far away from me. My heart hurt so badly, it was like it was being ripped out of my body. I couldn't comprehend how my heart kept beating under such heartache. It can be so overwhelming at times that it is difficult to breathe and you wonder if you will physically survive the loss, much less emotionally survive it.

In the fall of 2001, I was introduced to another September 11 widow named Claudia, and within several months, she introduced me to two other widows, Ann and Pattie. In the months following our meeting, we were drawn together by the unthinkable – ten months previously our beloved husbands had died for no other reason than they had gone to work in the World Trade Center one blue-skied day in September. We soon discovered we had much more in common than our shared suffering. From that first meeting we formed an unshakable bond, one that was grounded in grief’s unbearable intensity and a mutual determination to find ways to go on with our lives.

Taking our inspiration from the men we so desperately missed; me, Pattie, Claudia, and Ann felt this friendship was fated to positively influence what had happened to us. We began calling ourselves the Widows Club, signing off emails and phone conversations with a lighthearted phrase: Love you, mean it. “Feeling this love for one another meant our hearts were beginning to open again. It was a risk—love brought with it the ever-present possibility of loss. But this was a risk worth taking. More than ever, we understood how important it was to put love at the center of our lives.”

We spent the last few years writing a book called Love You, Mean It. (www.loveyoumeanit.com) In this shared memoir of loss and rebuilt lives, the four of us recount the experiences of the coming years, during which time we support and encourage one another toward brave new futures. Love You, Mean It is a book we hope will both console and inspire with its true story of friendship, empathy, and emerging hope. To us, the message is clear: Love is a gift, share it.

In the spring of 2004 I met with Andrea Yonai at the Gladney Center for Adoption in New York City. She talked me through the adoption process. We discussed my various options. I told her I was interested in adopting from China—I had a very good friend of Chinese origin who could help me acclimatize the child and help me keep a connection with the child’s native country. We talked about the process of assembling the documents required by the State, the Federal Government, and the Chinese authorities. Andrea showed me pictures of some of the girls who had been recently adopted. Looking at them I felt my heart quicken—but I pulled myself back from getting too excited until I knew this was even a possibility.

“How much harder is it for a single parent to adopt?” I asked.

She told me that due to a Chinese policy that applies to all U.S. adoption agencies; only 8% of the total number of completed applications in any year could be from single parents. The single-parent quota had already been reached for this year. However, this didn’t mean that I couldn’t adopt, it just meant things might take a bit longer than they would otherwise. “Who knows?” Andrea advised me. “Towards the end of the year, you might get your application in and have your baby by the following year.”

I left the meeting feeling philosophical. If I managed to adopt, then so be it. If it didn’t happen, then other options would come along, I was certain of it. Adoption might take a few years, but that was okay—I still had some learning to do in the meantime and I had been through so much already that I knew I would be able to persevere during a lengthy and complicated process like this one. The main thing was to keep putting my best foot forward.

My dossier is now complete and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be receiving a baby girl. Although Tommy is not here to share this new chapter of my life, I know that he is watching out for me and this new blessing. I’m truly fortunate to have had the time I had with my husband. There will always be loss written into my heart, but I know that he is always with me – he is my guardian angel. Although I never would have chosen this path, loss has given me the opportunity to become more empathetic, more complex and more attuned. Tommy taught me to live each day to the fullest and to look at life-the demands of it, the fragility of it, and the beauty of it—with all its possibilities.

As we write in the book, “There can be hope after grief. Surround yourself with love. Immerse yourself in the many things that make life, not just bearable, but worth it. Cherish the love you receive.” I can’t wait to share this love with my new daughter. Julia Collins


And here is a link to the USA Today article about the "Widows Club" and their new book, which appeared over this past Labor Day weekend:


http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-09-04-9-11-widow-book_x.htm

The Kathryn and Whitney Journals (7): A Few of our Favorite Books!

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Having been a kindergarten teacher for several years, I had the privilege of being exposed to many wonderful children's books and authors. In fact, one of my favorite components of teaching was literature. Buying books, discovering new authors and illustrators, and reading as much as possible to the children. Knowing that our daughter Whitney was coming home, I decided to stock her bookshelf with some of my very favorite titles. Although Whitney is just 19 months old, we have over 50 books for her collection. We are in the process of collecting many of the Caldecott and Newberry Medal books.

My list can be broken down in so many different ways. The best place to start is my favorite adoption related books. Just about any book by Karen Katz is worth owning! Her colorful illustrations feature children of all different races. We own most of her books and Whitney especially likes the "lift the flap" books. Her books, My First Chinese New Year and Over the Moon: An Adoption Tale , are truly worth owning. When Whitney is a little older, we will read her I Love You Like Crazy Cakes (Rose Lewis), Tell Me Again about the Night I was Born (Jaime Lee Curtis), Shaoey and Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman), I Don't Have Your Eyes (Carrie Kitze), Families are Forever (Craig Shemin), The Day We Met You (Phoebe Koehler), The White Swan Express (Jean Davies Okimoto), and A Mother for Choco (Keiko Kasza). There are many, many, many more books but these are what we have for now.

Anything by Sandra Boynton! Her stories are silly and the illustrations are fun. Whitney can't get enough of these books. We read them over and over and over again. Also, DK Publishing has a really sturdy "lift the flap" boards books that can't be ripped by tiny hands. We particularly like the Peek-a-Boo series and Baby Fun series (Old MacDonald, Five in the Bed, Humpty Dumpty, One Little Duck, and Twinkle, Twinkle). The color photographs are so engaging and Whitney tends to prefer these books to any other on her shelf.

Whitney has a true love for ducks. Perhaps this can be traced back to our hotel in Chongqing. The Marriott gave each adopting family a set of ducks for the bath tub. Whitney's first English word was duck, she will be dressed as a duck for Halloween, she has many, many rubber ducks and she has numerous books about ducks. The following photo is a picture of Whitney "reading" Five Little Ducks (Raffi) to all of her duck friends (please excuse the outfit :0):

















A great source for books for children and adults is through Adoptive Families magazine. The following link will take you right to their impressive collection of titles and reviews:
http://adoptivefamilies.com/books.php?j=7178393&e=lebonchien@aol.com&l=752862_HTML&u=89479270&mid=26987

The Kathryn and Whitney Journals (6) - Fall Transitions in Brooklyn

The end of August brought several changes to our household. James got ready to give up summer pleasures for the rigors of first grade.:-). Kathryn started going to the babysitter full-time...and the reason for that was that Mom went back to work after 6 months off with her!

Of course I was filled with trepidation, just as I had been when I first returned to work after leaving James five years before. But this time was a teensy bit easier because we already had our beloved babysitter (yes, the same one who started taking care of James 5 years ago). Barbara is a natural with kids, a 62 years young grandma who raised 5 children of her own and is now her grandchildrens' favorite "Nanny." (from Nana, not as in The Nanny). James has been an honorary grandson for a long time, and she was so excited when she first heard of our adoption plans.

I started bringing Kathryn to Barbara when I had meetings for the one project I was still working on at work while I was out on maternity leave. Then, as my official return-to-work date approached, I started bringing her a couple of times a week. So by the time the fateful day, August 21, arrived, Kathryn was very comfortable with the environment at Nanny's. She likes being around Barbara's two small grandsons and blows kisses to Nanny. So this transition was very easy for her...it's Mom who's having the harder time getting back into the work routine! Of course in a few months I'll be taking more time off when we go to China for a second adoption, so that has eased my pain somewhat.:-). Now if I could just get used to the morning rush...I will, eventually! Work itself is going great and it's fun doing storytimes at the library and having adult conversations during the day again.

We do plan on exposing all three children to Chinese culture as soon as the girls are just a little bit older, through events and classes in language, culture and history--perhaps at the China School!

James really likes his teacher and class so far. He is proud to be in first grade. And of course the glue that is holding us all together through this transition is Chris. He worked so hard to make it possible for me to stay home for twice as long as originally planned and he is our rock!

The picture shows Chris and the kids ready to leave the house to start their days one recent rainy morning.

Olivia Cai Hua Starts Her Second Year of Pre-School!

Our daughter, Olivia Cai Hua, started her second year of pre-school today. We adopted her on 11/29/2004 and she turned 3 last month. Her Chinese heritage is very important to us. We have a full-time Chinese nanny who only speaks to Olivia in Mandarin. She understands everything, but still prefers to speak English, although she is starting to speak more Chinese. We have enrolled Olivia in several Chinese dance and language classes and are considering putting her into a Chinese playgroup for toddlers. Olivia now understands the difference between English, Chinese (and even Spanish). Goal- totally bilingual by HS age.



Larry Bennett and Dorothy Crenshaw

Post-Placement Visits & Reports - A Social Worker's Perspective

Once you are back home and reveling in the excitement of having the child you waited so long for finally in your arms, we know that the last thing you want to think about is…more requirements! However, your post-placement requirements are incredibly easy to comply with and a great chance to show off your new child to your social worker. The visits, which are required at 6 and 12 months after placement, are a wonderful chance for you to sit down with a social worker and share all there is to know about your new baby (see, that’s not too bad!). It is also a great opportunity for you to ask your social worker any questions you may have as you adjust to having your child in the home. Post-placement visits are some of our favorites to do and we love seeing the happy families that we have helped to create.

Working with Gladney to complete your reports in a timely manner is essential towards maintaining our excellent standing with the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) and ensuring that our China program is here for families in the years to come. Your post-placement reports are a sign of your commitment to China and to meeting their adoption requirements even after placement. CCAA takes these reports very seriously and keeps track of each family that has adopted and monitors if their reports are submitted. It is important to them to see how the children they have placed for adoption are doing in their new homes and feel confident that they are in a safe and loving environment. These reports will also be part of your child’s permanent record in China.

By Andrea Yonai, LMSW,
Coordinator of Social Work, Gladney's New York Office

Kathryn and Whitney Journal (5) - Whitney's First Day at Playgroup!

Although our little Play Group doesn't exactly qualify as school, I still wanted to share our first experience. Whitney has been home for a little over six months now. She is 18 months and we are very ready to join some organized activities. We want to meet some children her age and some mommy friends for me :0). Today, we had our first official play group at St. James church in Manhattan. Whitney made every attempt to bring her best froggy friend with her. However, froggy is larger than some adults so we settled on her little lamb instead:

For over an hour, Whitney played with other children and had access to more toys than she could have ever imagined. There were great climbing toys, play kitchens, electronic and push toys, stuffed animals, books and almost every Fisher-Price item made in the last five years! It was so much fun and I made some new friends as well. Starting next week, we will also participate in a music class. Whitney's referral accurately noted her love for music and we have the requisite pink and white Hello Kitty CD player in her room!

In the spring, we will join a Mandarin-speaking play group. There are several in our area and I look forward to learning a few new phrases. My knowledge of the language consists of: hello, good-bye, thank-you and where is the restroom! We are waiting until spring so that Whitney has a solid understanding of English and is speaking a bit more. In addition, we will also be taking a Mommy & Me ballet class!