Starfish Adoption 30: Antonia, now called KARINE

As you might remember I wrote about the way that we expanded in February 2009 with the orphanage calling me and asking if I could take some more babies.  Five days later, Antonia and eight other cleft lip and palate babies arrived at Starfish. Antonia was the oldest of them  at 11 months.  I was so amazed that she was not able to roll over, hold her bottle or do anything.  She also weighed 5 kg (11 pounds) which was so small.  Like Bryan and Tim she started to drink the milk and would drink so much.  Some days it was more than 60 ounces of milk. Between the three of them they ate me out of house and home but I was so delighted to see how well they picked up weight.  They were neck and neck in the race to get to 10kg and finally Antonia won that race.  She was the" first" one to roll over, hold her bottle, crawl, the first one to walk and so it went. The one thing I remember is the kids all getting chicken pox soon after they got here.  I have the best picture of Antonia with calamine lotion on her face.

Soon she was well enough to get lip surgery.  I took her to a famous plastic surgeon in Xian for her lip surgery that had been recommended. He did a good job, but taped her face like a face lift patient.  I was so stunned to see her face.  She looked like she had been in a bar fight. In April this year we arranged for her to go to the Operations Smile Hospital in Hangzhou where she had her palate repaired.

We were so delighted to hear that she was going to Canada and that she was going to have two older brothers. Her family came to get her on May 10th.  Her new name is now Karine and from what I hear things are going well with her new family.  

Life, love and laughter,
Amanda

Antonia kissing Bryan

Nick, Bryan and Antonia

Antonia and her nanny

Starfish Children's Services
US Tax Number:  20-4682916
Xian China

At Starfish, we have taken care of 112 children to date, arranged more than 100 surgeries and had 35 international adoptions, so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US, Netherlands, Norway, France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Canada and in China.  Our latest four adoptions took place in two weeks and we now babies in three new US states:  Massachusetts, Colorado and Missouri.  We also added another baby to our count in Holland.  We currently have 47 babies under the age of 3 and three foster homes. We have eleven babies matched and we are waiting for their families to come and get them.

www.thestarfishfosterhome.org
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com
http://chinesestarfishcleft.blogspot.com
email: throwingstarfish0913@gmail.com
Cell: 86.1348.812.4847