Adoption 38: Sophia (Lia) to Washington State

I am sorry to say that I am behind with the blogging, but I am trying to catch up.

Today, I am going going to tell you the story of Xiao Hui, who was named by another Hui whose English name is Sophia, which has the same meaning:  Wisdom.

I was looking for a heart baby and we went to the orphanage in November 2009.  I went with Hui,  an American Chinese woman, who lives in Arizona and was volunteering at Starfish. While in the orphanage new arrival room we found Sophia.  The workers at the orphanage said to not to bother with her because she was so weak and had just come out of the hospital and that she was too dark and ugly. Not only did she have jaundice, but she was premature and weighted  a whopping 2.1kg (4 1/2 pounds).  Of course my instinct to help reared its beautiful head and I assured them that I could take care of her and wanted to take her home.

After we got home we bathed her and found her name and to our amazement she had the same name as Hui whose English name is Sophia.  So it was easy to pick an English name.  On day one, I realized that she was not keeping her body temperature up and that she would probably need to do to the NICU for a few days and off she went to the hospital to spend time in the incubator under the lights.  By the time she came back, the jaundice had been treated and she slept in my room for a while.  She became downright pudgy with all the milk and looked like she was going to burst out of her skin.  She also got fitted for a NAM by Dr Niu, a dentist who studied in New York.  This is an dental appliance that aligns their gums and closes the cleft palate gap. We traveled to Beijing with a huge group of babies and Dr Lisa Buckmiller did her lip surgery. She grew to have the most beautiful eyes and longest eyelashes and she crawled sitting and scooted on her hands forward. Once she started walking she ate less and became so petite again.  You could tell that she had been a preemie baby.  She walked very daintily and it was so cute to see.  She was very careful before she stepped any where and held on to the furniture in the beginning.  Her nanny, an older woman, was so right for her and soon Sophia was so attached to her. 

Soon we got the news that she had been matched to Julie and that she was going to living in Washington State.  Julie had been waiting for her for a long time.  On August 15, 2009 Sophia became Lia. As always it is sad to see them go, but a family can offer the babies so much more than we can.  From what we hear Lia is doing very well and Julie has her on a diet we can only envy.  She is on butter, cream cheese, oil, and all sorts of calories to help her gain weight.  Julie says her favorite food is Mexican. Recently she was a lady bug for Halloween.  She also had her palate surgery and have added pumpkin and princess to her vocabulary.  If you would like to follow Lia's blog here is the address:  http://www.wishingforlia.blogspot.com/

I would love to take her day one picture and her gotcha day pictures and go and show the workers at the orphanage but I cannot do that.  We do not have the right to say that a baby is  worth every effort to save a life. You have no idea what potential that child has.  I love that children have the chance to be given every it of help that Starfish can give. It reminds me of the quote:

You can count the seeds in an apple 

but you cannot 

count the apples in a seed.

Life, love and laughter,
Amanda

At Starfish, we have taken care of 124 children to date, arranged more than 100 surgeries and had 47 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 adoption is to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  We are getting ready for another two adoptions before the end of November.  Caroline is in the hospital at the moment and just had successful heart and lung surgery and Charlotte is with her and just had two bi-directional shunts put in her heart. They should both be home next week.  We currently have 47 babies under the age of 3 and three foster homes.  

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

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