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Journey to Maia Xing

Maia Xing's story with our family began on January 2nd, 1996.  True, her actual birth was twelve months off, but that was the day I decided to make the phone call to Lutheran Social Services to begin the home study process.  I had been struggling with the decision  of adopting a second child for several years, but finances always seemed to be the main "con" to my long list of "pros".  Through prayer and a lot of soul searching, I determined that money, or a lack of, wasn't going to stop my dream. 

I contacted the social worker who had helped me through the four plus year adoption of my daughter, Carla.  After I identified myself, she said, "This is incredible.  I was just looking at the Christmas photo you sent me as the phone rang."  When I told her why I was calling, she replied, "I'm not at all surprised".  The journey had begun.
 
Carla began processing my news with mixed feelings.  She had been seven when I had adopted her in 1991 from Guatemala.  In the past she had often said that she would like to be an older sister, but the reality of that dream left her more than a little apprehensive.  As we talked, she expressed her concern about how our family life would change.  She liked our morning breakfast dates on Wednesdays and Fridays at a local restaurant.  She liked the fact that we could pick up at a moment's notice and go north to Lake Superior or west to the Twin Cities.  I was able to attend all of her sporting events.  As her worry list grew, I realized that this was her way of telling me that she was happy living with me.  For those who have not adopted an older child, this is a message that is not always easily conveyed.  Carla's worries seemed to lessen as the two of us began meeting with our social worker.  I made her an active participant in all areas ofthe adoption planning, and that seemed to help.  A favorite memory is sitting with her in a restaurant right after a two hour stint with our social worker.  She began writing a list of things that she wanted teach her new brother or sister.  "How to say yes and no to the right things.  How not to get into your big sister and mother's things.  How to like basketball, swimming, and other sports...".
 
The decision to adopt from China evolved as my social worker, Carla, and I began sifting through the literature of dozens of programs.  My criterion was simple.  I wanted a baby.  I had missed seven precious years of Carla's life, and this time I wanted the infant and toddler experience.  Carla stated that she didn't care if we had a boy or girl, but didn't want a Caucasian sib.  Growing up as a minority in an all-white community, she didn't want that status in her own family.  The China program seemed to best fit our family, and my social worker had worked with Holt International with several Chinese adoptions in the recent past.  I filled out the applications and began the home study process.
 
Everything about this adoption seemed so much easier than my first.  Carla's adoption had stretched on four and a half years before I even received her referral.  Papers lost, phone calls forgotten, a lawyer jailed...  This time I zipped through the paperwork and home study in record time.  Our dossier was complete and ready to send by early June of 1996 and was in Beijing by July 5th.  Our entire life centered around getting ready for a new baby.   After my teaching year ended in May, I had taken on additional employment as a school custodian over the summer months to earn some much needed cash.  Carla and I repainted the spare bedroom and began collecting "baby stuff" on the week-ends when I wasn't stripping gym floors and picking gum off of desk bottoms.  I anticipated that I would receive a referral in the fall and would travel in December.  I would make this trip solo, and Carla would stay with her grandparents.
 
The school year started in late August.  I can't quite describe it, but I had a vague uneasy feeling, as if something was about to crash down on our family plans.  I received word about a waiting parents' meeting that was to be held by my home study agency, Lutheran Social Services.  I remember that as I stared at that notice, I knew something had happened.  We had been hearing bits and pieces about yet another shake-up in China concerning adoptions,  but the past months had been filled with rumors.  Now I called my social worker praying that she would put my fears to rest.  I made the call from the secretary's desk in the school office.  Such a mistake.  The news I received should have been delivered in private.  My social worker explained that all adoptions in China to parents with children were now on hold indefinitely.  In fact, some agencies were dropping such families from their programs.  It was very likely that there would be no referral.
 
I grieved for days.  My principal insisted that I take a day off to take  care of myself.  I spent the day putting away baby clothes and shoving strollers and highchairs into faraway corners of the basement.  Carla received the news with silence.  She couldn't talk to me about how she was feeling.  I felt at a loss since I couldn't comfort her.
 
As the weeks and months passed, news didn't seem to improve.  Families with children were in limbo.  My dossier sat in an office in Beijing.  I had no idea if it had even been opened.  My bit of hope was that it hadn't been returned to Holt.  In December I decided to drive to Carla's adoption agency in St. Paul.  Perhaps it was time to begin considering other programs.  News was grim.  The agency wanted a new home study, even though mine was less than a year old.  Adoption costs for Guatemala were several thousand higher than China.  I was facing debt that would take years to retire.  As we drove home, I told Carla that I was going to wait out the situation in China until the end of the school year.  Then I would have the time and emotional energy to decide on program changes. 
 
It was a very sad Christmas for me.  I had thought I would be bringing a new daughter home to celebrate the holidays.  I had made homemade gifts that summer in anticipation of a late November, early December trip to China.  With the gifts done and no shopping to do, I had time to think about the Christmas that was to have been.  My social worker called and suggested that I find a special ornament to remember this Christmas.  I purchased a star made from wire and shell that was made in China.  I hung it on our tree with many tears.
 
This was the winter of the comet.  As I would take my early morning runs,  that distant streak of light would be clearly visible in the eastern heavens.  I took that comet as my sign from God that things were going to get better.  Those runs were my time for prayer and reflection.
 
The spring of 1997 brought  the wonderful news that matches were again being made in China.  A few families with children were matched with  infants and toddlers with special needs more severe than had been seen before.  I waited and prayed.  A friend from town, Peggy, was going through the adoption process at the same time.  She had been in the same study group, and was also in the China program through Holt.  She had no children, and her wait had been as long as ours.  This gave me more hope.  It seemed as if the process  for all families had slowed, not just for those with children.
 
On May 9th, 1997 I was in the middle of a lesson with my seventh period class.  Peggy rushed into my classroom and blurted out the news, "I have a daughter!"  Peggy's daughter, Mei Li, was almost 18 months old.  We cried and hugged in front of my class of 24 bewildered 7th graders.  That night Carla and I went out and bought a teddy bear for a little girl still waiting in an orphanage halfway around the world.
 
Peggy's news led me to a decision.  My papers had been sent a month before hers.  If our referral was to come, it would be soon.  I knew that I wouldn't be able to leave Carla behind as I had originally planned.  Another loan would have to taken out.  Two days before her 13th birthday I told my darling daughter one of the few lies to ever pass between us.  Because she was becoming a teenager, she would have to get a U.S. passport.   That was what was done in the United States.  She was the oldest in her class and didn't have the experience of peers to consult, so she never doubted my tale.  We went to the courthouse with her naturalization documents and photos as part of her birthday celebration.  I didn't dare tell her the real reason for the passport.  I didn't want to increase her disappointment if everything fell through.
 
Summer vacation had begun, and Carla and I spent our first Monday of the break at a swim meet at our local pool.  We arrived home mid afternoon.  The phone rang around 3 PM.  Beth, my social worker, was one the line.  "You have a referral..."  I can remember trying to hold on to a pencil to write the name "Chen Zhen Xing" on a scrap of paper.  Special need was a club foot.  I remember saying, "That's so minor.  Easily correctable.  Are you sure that's it?"  I turned to Carla to tell her the news, but she had been listening intently and knew.  "You're going with me!"  I shouted.  A huge smile spread across her face.  I begged our social worker to fax our acceptance immediately, but she wanted us to see the photo that would arrive the next morning at her office. 
 
The next five hours were a flurry of phone calls.  June 9th; my mom's 73rd birthday.  I had never given her such a precious birthday gift.  My parents received the call with tears, laughter, and questions.  Carla made most of the calls.  "I have a new sister!"
 
The next morning I pushed aside the hours before our appointment by shopping.  Baby bottles, several summer outfits, a frame for a referral photo I hadn't seen.  It was my new daughter's six-month birthday.  At one o'clock we were in the Lutheran Social Services office, 60 miles from our home.  Two of the social workers were waiting.  Carol had helped me through Carla's adoption, and Beth had been with us for most of this one.  "She's beautiful!"  Beth exclaimed.  And she was.  We took the tiny photo to a print shop for copies for family and friends.  I insisted on standing by the copy machine while the precious photo was out of my hands.
 
The following weeks were joyous.  The packed clothes were brought back upstairs.  The stroller went on its maiden voyage with the infant son of a friend.  A crib was donated by the soon-to-be godmother.  Carla and I began stacking clothes and travel essentials.  Several weeks after the referral brought another phone call from my social worker.  "Is anything wrong?" were my first words.  It was great news.  An updated health report had been sent.  Zhen Xing was growing and there was no mention of a club foot.  "It is not common to get a second report.  I think they may be trying to let you know that the original report of the foot was false."  I was confused. "Your papers were ready.  Someone wanted to get her to a family as soon as possible."
 
On July 15th we received the call with the travel date.  We were to be in Hong Kong on July 31st, six years to the day that I stood in the airport of Guatemala City and met my daughter, Carla.   Tickets were purchased, the bags had been repacked a dozen times. I busied myself with whatever job I could think of.  I refinished window sills.  I organized what few cluttered drawers I could find.  I drove friends and family crazy.
 
Our flight to Hong Kong was long and sleepless.  We flew into the beginnings of a tropical storm, and were detoured to Taiwan for refueling.  Carla and I arrived at the Salisbury Hotel on Kowloon Island hours late.  We found dinner and fell into our beds.  Sleep came easily for Carla, but I slept less than fours hours a night for the next few days. 
 
As we went through our orientation and met members of our travel group, it became very apparent that we were the only family of 13 that hadn't named the newest member of our family.  Carla and I had been pouring through books for weeks.  We had a short list of five names; Rose, Joy, Faith, Lia, and Maia.  Carla insisted that we couldn't name the baby until we saw her face.  I agreed.
 
On August 4th we left Hong Kong, which we had thoroughly enjoyed despite Typhoon Victor, and travel to Changsha, Hunan Province.  The flight was packed, and the 27 parents and sibs were excited and tense.  We landed at 10 PM.  On the bus the parents with children from Chenzhou were told that their babies might be arriving shortly after we reached the hotel.  Chenzhou...the name didn't register.  I was so exhausted I could hardly focus on the words of our guides, Matthew and Colin.  Carla nudged me, "That's us, Mom!"  She was right.  My daughter was from Chenzhou.  I spent the 45 minute bus ride trying to remember where I had packed the diapers and formula.
 
Our hotel room was a flurry of activity.  The formula was found, the crib was readied, and the sleeper laid out.  The phone rang.  The babies were asleep, and they would wait until tomorrow morning to bring them to us.  We were disappointed, but Carla desperately needed to rest, so I was glad that she would have a few uninterrupted hours.  I stayed awake most of the night writing in my journal.  "I just finished tucking away your things in our room in the Huan Tian Grand Hotel, Changsha, Hunan Province, Peoples Republic of China.  All is ready for you, sweet daughter."
 
At 7 AM on August 5th, 1997 Carla and I sat on the beds of our hotel room waiting to go down for a tasteless breakfast.  I had that same floating feeling that I had had six years before as I waited to meet Carla for the first time.  A group was seated near our table.  They had babies; beautiful babies dressed in American finery.  Reality stuck all of us.  We were just an hour away from holding our own!  We were taken to a government building minutes from our hotel.  The room was crowded and warm.  The 27 members of Hunan 4, as we had come to call ourselves (Holt's fourth group to Hunan), sat and stood with eyes glued to the single doorway.  I believe the Chenzhou group was the second to come in, so we took photos of other families while their babies were placed in their arms.  Another name was called, "Chen Zhen Xing."  I had never heard the Chinese pronunciation.  Carla was the one who pushed me forward. 
 
I remember making my way to the doorway.  Zhen Xing were held out toward me.   Her head had the stubble of a recent shaving.  The arms and legs bore the marks of bug bites.  I grabbed her much too quickly and held her close, but she didnšt cry.  In the photos taken at that moment I now see that she held her arms and legs stiffly and tried to pull her head away from my body.  Carla's face was at my side.  "She's a Maia."  That was it.  Maia Xing was named.  She was perfect in every way, including both feet.
 
Those few moments stand as the most precious of our trip.  Everything else fades in comparison.  We loved China.  Changsha was fascinating.  We ate and shopped among the Chinese, not the tourists, with another family from Wisconsin.  People crowded around us wishing us well.  Our time in Guangzhou passed quickly.  Maia's bout with diarrhea was soon put right by the resident physician of the White Swan Hotel.  All three of us swam in the luxurious pool and shopped in and around the hotel area.  All our appointments were on time and without a glitch.  We were anxious to get home.
 
Our flights left Guangzhou and Hong Kong on August 13th.  As the jet lifted from the tarmac of Hong Kong, I was overcome with emotion.  We were almost home.  The flight was wonderful.  There were four babies on board, and the flight crew was attentive to our every need.  Once in Seattle, I could finally call my mom and tell her that we would be in Minneapolis within four hours. 
 
As I was enfolded in the arms of my mom, dad, nieces, and friends, I was reminded that I could have never made the adoption journey for both of my daughters without the loving support of those dear to me.  My daughters are a true blessing from God, and they have made my life rich and wonderful beyond all imagination.         

written by Sharon...
Mom to Carla Lynne (Guatemala),
Joli Hua (China), and Maia Xing (China)