Introducing John Francis

After choosing Therese as our little girl, we planned get her home and then re-use our dossier to bring home a boy.  We got started on our homestudy, and got it approved for two children so we could get immigration approval for two, which would save time for the second adoption.  We talked about bringing home two at once, which has recently been allowed, but we thought we would only do it if we could find a little boy in the same province as Therese.  Adopting a child in a second province would add a week to the adoption trip.  Anyway, in the fall of 2011 I joined an email group of devoted parents and advocates for waiting children.  There are folders on the group with pictures of waiting children.  I was really charmed by the pictures of a little boy on his 3rd birthday, and the stories about his joyful and loving personality.  Here are the first pictures I saw of Fu Cheng Cheng:

He was almost the same age as Thomas, which would be another out of birth order adoption, which along with adopting two, was not normally allowed by our homestudy agency.  And he was in a different province, so I would be committing myself to a three week adoption trip away from my babies at home.  And at the time he was on another agency's list, so he wasn't available to us.   I never had any idea that he would be the little boy we prayed about.  Here is another picture, from the Eagle's Wings foster home blog--since he was 9 months old he has lived there getting great care and nutrition, and developing his charming personality:

Who could resist this face?

Eventually his file was returned to the shared list, so any agency could match him.  After hearing about him for months, I asked Bryan about us adopting him, even though I would have to make a longer adoption trip.  We had to get special permission from a committee at our homestudy agency, after submitting a written request and getting letters from our placing agency.  Since adding him to our adoption would break several of their rules, adopting two non siblings, out of birth order, and virtual twinning, we thought it would not be approved.  It was one of those things where you ask God to open the door if this is what your family is supposed to do.  It seemed a miracle, but we were approved and submitted our LOI for him.

Here is a picture of him from last month:

We talked a lot about what English name to give him.  All our kids have saint names, so it had to be a saint or Bible name.  Eventually we chose John.  It seemed appropriate for a little boy who has been so loved, to be named after the Beloved Disciple, and it was somewhat similar to the sound of his Chinese name and easy to say.  Francis de Sales is the patron saint Bryan chose many years ago, and a great saint and spiritual writer.  Francis was on our list of must use names for future children.  We just didn't know that it would be given to a little guy from China!

A week ago, he was given the family photo book we sent, and told that he has a family coming.  They sent us this picture.  Note that we put a picture of him and of Therese on the last page of the book, and you can just see his picture in the opening of the book in his hand.  He looks like he is pretty happy with the news.

We are so grateful to the wonderful people who founded and work at Eagle's Wings.  What a difference they have made in the lives of orphans!  John Francis has been able to run and play, and he is a healthy size and developmentally on track.  He is used to American and Australian volunteers coming to help at Eagle's Wings, so I hope that my very un-Chinese appearance will not be strange to him.  Being told ahead of time about his future family and getting to see photos of us and our house and neighborhood will hopefully help a lot with his transition.  You can see some more photos and videos of him here.