20 months, 24 lbs and 5.5 inches later

This is a copy of an article I wrote for the CAWLI newsletter in Nov of 2009.

In January of 2008 my husband and I went to China to adopt our daughter that we fell in love with after reading two pieces of paper and looking at two pictures. When we got the paperwork from Meg there was a picture of our daughter on a boat, was it a sign? I thought so and still do today. My husband loves boats and is building Zuzu her own fishing boat. When Zuzu walked into our hotel room in China, my heart melted. When my husband knelled down next to her on the side of the bed to color with her, my heart melted some more. For the last 20 months my daughter has continued to melt my heart on a daily basis.

The last 20 months have been the best 20 months of my life. Being a mother has been better than I could have imagined. I had done a lot of research before our daughter came home. I followed a lot of blogs, read lots of stories and was as prepared as one can be. Yet it was still lots of hard work, but the rewards are endless.

Some might think that adopting an older child you will miss out on all the first, but I don't see it that way. There were so many first with our daughter and there are more to come. The first time she gave me a hug, the first time she said "I love you". the first time she said "I missed you", the first time she cried, the first time she got hurt, the first time she caught a fish, the first time she went to school, the first time she went on a bus, the first time she went to a friends house without me, the first time she held her arms out to me from her bed and was able to show me she needed me to stay and then just the other night when she said "please stay" at bedtime.

Don't get me wrong, adopting an older child is hard work, but adopting any child is hard work. We have the advantage that my child could tell me what she was feeling. Even before the English skills are what they are today, I think she did a great job via pictures and questions with our electronic translator of telling me what was wrong. Once she learned the language she had the skills to think about her feelings and share even more.

In the last 20 months our daughter has had two birthdays and is now 11 years old. She has grown 5.5 inches, gained 24lbs and is growing into a beautiful young girl. In addition to her physical changes, she has grown as a person in so many ways. She is doing well in school, she has friends of all ages, she likes sports, she loves to fish and she is happy to be part of our family. There are things in her life that are harder because of her past, but we work through them and she learns from them, we all learn from them. My husband and I are so proud of her all the time. She works hard at everything she does. She is her own person and I wouldn't change that, she is perfect just the way she is.

I am surprised at how hard it is to write this article. Over the last 20 months I have kept up 3 blogs in relation to our daughter. One is for the general public and we started it with our trip to China and it is to share pictures, videos and stories with friends and family. The second is private and only visible to me and my daughter when she is older. It is called "Just for you". Here I share stories with her that she might not remember when she grows up but she might not want to share with the general public. The third is by invitation only and is called "Just for Friends". Here I journal about things related to older child adoption and attachment and her general adjustment. Many times I would sit down to share with my friends and while doing so I would learn as I was writing. It was one of the many therapeutic things I did, especially early on. In any adoption it is so important to have a support system in place. We had our social workers and others that had been there done that and they were all such a help to us during the early days. But I also found the journaling that I did to be very valuable.

As I get ready to close my article and feeling like I am not doing our story justice, I thought I would share the first post after we had met Zuzu. (click on the link to go to the post)



I went into this adoption journey knowing it would be hard work. I had no expectations of my daughter. As I was writing this article, my daughter was outside on the step with my husband and his friend who is also her friend, he is 78 years old and one of her fishing buddies. Who would have thought that my daughter would be out on a step looking at pictures of fish with her father and their friend? It is something I could not have ever imagined, but here it is, part of our life. And I need to add that this person is an old timer, he doesn't open up to many. Doesn't go to people’s house for holidays, is not married and sort of just sticks with his fishing buddies and works and fishes. But my daughter has shown me a side to this man I didn't know. At Christmas time he bought her gifts (fishing stuff of course) and a card. It was priceless. This beautiful young girl has touched so many lives in the past 20 months, and the amount of support we have received from friends and family is amazing. She has changed many lives.