Dentist

Kara saw the dentist today. THANK YOU to Kopper Family Dental in Rochester, MN, they donated their services for Kara today!!

Kara was such a brave girl. Audrey went first and Marin (dental assistant) did an awesome job explaining things to Kara. When it was her turn she jumped right in the chair ready to go. She has one chipped tooth that could use repair and one cavity. We were going to get them fixed today, but I had to get Siri to an eye appointment and we decided there might not be enough time to translate and be sure Kara was comfortable with what was going on. We will go back next week and get these fixed. I think she will do great, but our main plan is to fill the cavity and if she is still doing great we will fix that chipped tooth for her.

We left today with a happy girl and Kopper Family Dental gave Kara a bunch of tooth brushes and toothpastes to take back to China with her!

Please consider visiting Kopper Family Dental if you are looking for a dentist, they are amazing with kids and we really appreciate what they did for Kara.

 Audrey and Kara.

 She had to go to the bathroom at this point. I took off her bib thing, when we got back she quickly handed it to Marin wanting it back on!

 Marin getting ready for Kara!

We had to stop at Kwik Trip so Audrey could go to the bathroom. Kara was amazed with the automatic paper towel dispenser. She had to wash her hands twice so she could use it two times ;)

"Aging Out"

In China, orphans "age out" the day they turn 14. 

What does this mean? This means they are no longer eligible for international adoption, which means their chance for a forever family is slim to none. 

What happens when they turn 14? For the lucky ones, children are allowed to stay on and work at the orphanage. They may help cook meals or serve as a caretaker for the other, younger children still at the orphanage. They work as they watch their younger friends get adopted, knowing that is now a permanent impossibility for them. For the not-so-lucky, they are turned out of the orphanage, sent to look for work in a local village or a nearby city. In many cases, the children who reach 14 are simply never heard from again. Human trafficking and child labor are real issues that many of the children face as they grow older and we are unable to protect them once they reach their age deadline.

Kare will turn 11 in January, this lovely girl needs a forever family, but she isn't the only one.  

Meet Parker, he came with Kara to Chicago (where I picked Kara up). Parker has 16 months to find a family or he will be considered no longer eligible for adoption. If you would like to follow his host families blog the link is here....

Parker's Hosting Blog

Here is a picture of Parker. Also a picture of Kara helping me with the laundry. She is so eager to help, if she hears me doing laundry, she comes running so she can pour the soap for me!!

Please, please keep sharing our blog, there would be nothing better than to find Kara her perfect forever family!!

Christmas

Our  family has celebrated 4 Christmases in 3 days. We had so many people say Kara looks so happy, always with a smile on her face.

These last three days have been crazy, but overall we think it's gone very well. There have been times it was clear she's been over stimulated. Today her and I took a few minutes away from the all crazy stuff and just sat quietly to de-compress. All of this is so new to her, we expected some toddler like behavior. This is normal! This is good, this is how she learns. It's hard and sometimes frustrating in the moment, especially because I worry about what everyone is thinking when I'm literally picking up a 10 year old off the ground, but we were prepared for this and is all part of the process.

This girl LOVES Santa or as she calls him "the fat man that brings gifts!" Hahaha.  She couldn't get enough of him when he visited our family get togethers.

She's been with us a little over a week now. She came with the clothes she was wearing and one other outfit. She has not wanted to wear anything else that we had bought for her. Yesterday she put on new clothes for the first time (I've been washing hers obviously)! I was excited for two reasons....1. I won't have to do so much laundry, haha & 2. That means she's adjusting even more!

I know I keep saying this, but this girl is smart! I had a Chinese lesson on Friday and she would read a question to me and I would answer it (in Chinese). She also recognizes Kara in English when written.

Here are some pictures and a video of her singing her favorite song (notice she's now singing parts in English). You'll notice she is wearing glasses. She does not need glasses, but has been asking for a pair since I picked her up at the airport, so we bought her a pair from Claire's as a Christmas gift. She loves them and looks pretty cute!

Getting to know each other.

Little by little walls are breaking down. Kara has been slow to warm up to people. She is starting to get to know our families. She likes getting rides from grandpa Roger and playing with auntie Michelle. (Some pictures below).

For the first 24 hours we couldn't get her to eat.....now, I can't get her to stop! We were joking that they would have to buy her an extra seat to return to China. She enjoys eating pretty much anything.

She is starting to play with toys and interact with the girls. Laughing and giggling. Her favorite thing to do is play in the snow. She loves sports and if it were warm weather we are certain she'd be playing outside all day.

She also loves baths. It's very difficult to give a laughing, wiggly 10 year old a bath! When she first arrived she wouldn't have anything to do with taking a bath, now she asks everyday of we will be taking a bath. The girls took a shower together the other day and had a blast!!

As Christmas nears I just wanted to touch on something (very quickly). Appreciation...please keep in mind appreciation is taught. We teach our children all sorts of emotions. Sometimes children from different social settings (orphanages, foster care children, etc for just a few examples) may not openly express appreciation. Please be gracious and remember they quite possibly didn't have anyone model/teach appreciation for/to them.

Merry Christmas!

Enjoy the pictures and please keep sharing our blog. So many children need a loving home.

This is HARD.

When we signed up for hosting, they talked about advocating. They said to make it about the child so people could get to know them, their personality, etc, something uncommon for most international adoptions. I think that's great and very helpful for potential adoptive families. But there is more to it than that. There is also the hosting aspect and since I get a lot of questions about hosting here is my take....

This is HARD! I'm not saying it isn't worth it, but it is fall on your exhausting. Part of that could be that I have daycare kids here so I have a lot of needs to meet, but even without that, this is hard. Kara is such a smart girl, she wants to have conversations all day, pulling out my phone every few minutes to translate is exhausting! Then if one of the other kids is too loud it interferes with the translator (as she's speaking into it) and we have to start over. I feel bad for shoving my phone in her face every time she wants to say something. And I feel terrible about this, but it's the ugly truth, sometimes when she tries to tell me something, I just nod my head yes, say "shi" and go about my business because in that moment I can't do anymore. Bobby came in at lunch time to take Siri to school, I don't know what pushed me over the edge, but I fell (gently, as not to hurt my old body) onto the floor face first and just cried for a minute-I probably threw my arms into the air dramatically on the way down. 😉

But here's the other truth....everyday we see more of Kara. Everyday she smiles more, today there was lots of laughter! She's helpful, she opens the door if she sees someone coming or going, she wipes little kids boogers for them. I was changing a diaper today and another baby was fussing, so she picked her up carried her around and talked to her. At lunch time I got out all the cups, turned around and she had already grabbed the milk out of the refrigerator for me. After watching me make eggs this morning she insisted on stirring mine, then proceeded to put them on my plate and salt them for me. She's starting to play with our kids more, tickling Raya, teasing Siri and having snowball fights with Audrey. She's so kind and thoughtful, in her small bag that she brought from China she had a lot of Chinese snacks, she shared one with each of the daycare kids, it was so sweet and they all felt so special.

After all that she's been thru in the last week (keep in mind she was told she was coming to America about one week before she left China, giving her little time to prepare or process what was about to happen) she's doing so well. A little exhaustion on my part is nothing -although I am hoping to upgrade from sleeping on the floor to my own bed soon. What we are doing now will change her life forever!

Pictures are the best part of a blog so here are a few from today.

Healthy!

Kara had her eye exam and her physical today.

I would like to say thank you to Rochester Family Eye Clinic and Dr. Hila McCoy and Olmsted Medical Center for donating their services!! We greatly appreciate what they have done for Kara.

Many of the orphans from China often have outdated, incomplete, and inaccurate health information in their files. With the opportunity that this program brings to these children along with updated health information, the chances of the host children finding their forever families are greatly increased!!

Kara is a very healthy girl. She does not need glasses and her eye health looks perfect. Her physical health also looks great. I was able to get print outs of her exam and the program director can be sure that they are added to her file in China.

We are also thankful for our Buffet King owners (in Kasson, MN) for helping with translating. I think I could have used i-Translate, but it would not have been as effective or accurate!

If you are needing an eye exam, physical exam or love eating Chinese, please keep these businesses in mind. And if you do frequent them, please tell them how much their donations and help mean to our family and most importantly to this little girl! 

Snickers!

Slowly but surely we are learning more about each other.
Kara loves sweets! Chocolate especially, we went to aldi the other day and the only thing she showed me she wanted was a bag of snickers!!!
Kara also loves playing in the snow. She asked multiple times if we could again today, but the temperature was too cold (-25 degrees).
She is a smart girl! Her file, although brief, mentioned severe intellectual delay. This is not the case at all. She is not delayed, mentally or physically. This is one reason we are asked to take her to the Dr. Many times their files are not only old but inaccurate as well. It is important for a potential forever family to have accurate information.
Tomorrow we will see the eye doctor and the medical doctor. I'm not sure why, but she really wants glasses. I don't know if it's because she likes the way they look or if she actually needs them. 😀

I've attached a few pictures of her playing in the snow and one of our family at brunch with the Grinch today.

Small victories!

We got home last night about 11:30. Kara was tired (I estimate she had been traveling a about 36 hours by the time we got home) and she was scared. All of this was expected, we plucked her from everything she knew and brought her to an unfamiliar place, with people she didn't know who speak a language she doesn't understand! Uff, I'd be scared too!!

It's been a difficult transition (as expected), so tonight we are celebrating the small victories!
1. She got some sleep today, she took a great nap and I think felt refreshed when she awoke.
2. We took her to the Chinese restaurant in town and she ate her first meal. She doesn't like my Chinese cooking apparently ;)
3. She understands my Mandarin! Yes, those lessons paid off. I wish I knew more, but at least I know some.
4. With some help from a great friend we connected with the local Chinese restaurant owner and she has agreed to accompany with us on our eye exam and physical next week. This is HUGE, she is so scared and having someone that can explain these things to her will be so helpful. She was also able to explain tonight that we care for her and that it is important for her to try and have fun with us.

I think we are all exhausted, but as we go to sleep we are thankful for small victories and know that with each small victory we are moving towards a more positive and memorable experience.

Here is a picture of when we first met and a picture of us after dinner tonight!!

Hosting -Tell Me More

I've had a lot of questions on what this hosting "thing" is all about.

A good hosting program chooses harder to place kiddos to host for their programs. We are going thru www.orphanhosting.com. to host Kara. They choose older children and children with needs that are typically harder to find a forever family.

So what good is hosting?

1. Advocacy. Bringing these children to the US and having a family tell the "world" so to speak about them. After meeting her we can give a prospective family insight to what she is like, her personality, what she likes, etc, etc. The more people that see this blog the better chance a family is found for Kara and the other host children.
     *side note; there is one family that hosted a boy that can trace back 11 children being adopted         from that one experience and advocacy!!! AMAZING

2. Exams. The agency asks that we get a medical exam, eye exam and dental exam for our host child so that her file can be updated. Many of their files are lacking basic information, it can be very difficult for a family to take the leap of faith and proceed with an adoption when the information on a child is years old. In Kara's case, her records are over 5 years old and what is in her file is just a very brief medical exam.

3. Experience. We are able to provide host children with an amazing experience. They get to experience life with a family, for the winter hosting children (as in our case) they get to experience Christmas and Kara will celebrate her birthday with us, many children don't know what or when their birthday is. They also have an opportunity to learn some English, the children really love this part!

4. Things. While our children have lots of "things" these children do not. They are only allowed to take home a backpack, but we will fill that backpack with underwear, socks, a picture memory book for her, clothes, toothbrush, hairbrush, etc. The clothes will be used by all the children at the orphanage and we know they will be used and appreciated by all the children there.

There are two types of hosting:

1. Hosting to advocate. These are the amazing families that know they aren't able to adopt (for any reason), but want to help a child find a home. They host and then advocate for these children during their time with them. They do a blog or a facebook page, introduce them to people at church, school, etc. I spoke with a lovely lady that has hosted two older boys. Her husband told her she could host all she wanted (they had already adopted and felt their family was complete). Her family was able to advocate for these boys and they both found forever families!

2. Hosting to adopt. These are the families that are planning on or hoping to adopt their host child. Our family falls in here. We sort of feel like we are "cheating" by being able to meet Kara and see how she fits in with our family, but having the opportunity to do so allowed us to consider adopting an older child. We would not have considered an older child unless we had the opportunity to meet them and see how our children react and feel about it.

The "A" Word

We are officially one week out from getting Kara! This might be one of my most important posts, so please, if you only read one post, make it this one. 

Although Kara will come to the US not knowing any English she will pick it up quickly. The children in this program are supposed to be told that this is a "camp" they get to opportunity to experience life in America, learn a little English, and be a part of a family for a month. 

PLEASE do not mention adoption (or any of it's forms) in front of Kara (or within ear shot). Most of these children yearn for a family of their own and they pick up quickly on the English language. One of the worst things that can (and has happened in the past) is that these children go back thinking they will be adopted. Yes, of course we want her and all the other host children to find their forever families, but they have to return to China after the month of hosting no matter what. Their family then has to proceed with the adoption and that is a time consuming process. Children have caught on to this word when it is being used in a different context. For example talking about adopting a pet or hearing a well meaning story of someone's own adoption story. Please be mindful of this, we know it's hard and we appreciate your efforts. 

We would LOVE to talk to you more about adopting or hosting, but without Kara's presence.

 We are so excited, actually, I am freaking out a bit!! I leave next Thursday to fly to Chicago and pick her up. We will be home late that night, so Bobby and the girls won't meet her until Friday.

We're Hosting

We are the Fellows' family! We are so excited to be hosting a 10 year old girl from China. Kara (the English name we have chosen for her) has been in the orphanage since she was approximately 1 year old (we were originally told 4 years old, but after reviewing her medical file, we found that that was incorrect).

Kara will be staying with us for one month before returning to China. The goal of this program is to give Kara a great experience in the United States, advocate for her and other orphans that are hoping/dreaming of their forever family, and help update her medical file by receiving some basic services that she most likely has not received in a long time at the orphanage (medical exam, eye exam, dental exam).

Please feel free to share our blog with your friends and enjoy following our journey!