Faith: Adoption 40 to Louisiana

For those of you who have ever done a remodeling project on a house, you will have some empathy for my frustration.  It is a long arduous project that requires a lot of patience.  Josh is leaving in a week or so and we are not finished yet.  He is doing as much as he can and from his photos from a week ago we are not moving anytime soon. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc7xzX5JBws

I got a call from the Big O in October 2008 because they had a baby with a hemangioma.  I went to get her and I remember right from the beginning how small she was. She was a very fierce little thing and from the very beginning had this high pitched screech. You could tell immediately when Faith was crying because she has such a distinctive cry and for the next few months I woke up often to that sound.  It turned out that Faith did not have a hemangioma, a vascular growth like Rose had.  On Faith's face was a port wine stain and did not require intervention like some hemangioma's do. The port wine stain could be removed by laser and it was not life threatening, nor did she show signs of the two syndromes that can be associated with it.

For the first few months Faith would let any one hold her and then for the next year she would not let any one touch her but Xiao Liu. She was so intensely scared of strangers and if any one just looked at her she screamed.  So many people made comments about that.  One fine day she came over and sat down on my lap.  I was so surprised that she wanted me and we all laughed about it.  From then onwards she would allow a limited amount of people to come into her world.  When she started to walk she sometimes looked like a cowgirl who had lost her horse.  Since she remained very petite it was so cute to see her gait.  There were times we laughed at her because she would pull this face with her eyes pulled half closed looking at you.

Once her adoption dossier was done we waited for a short while and then heard that she was matched with a family in Louisiana.  She was going to be the princess of a family with five children, grown up kids and teenage kids.  She was exactly where she needed to be.  The center of attention as the youngest and the baby of the family.

All the kids at Starfish teach me a tremendous amount.  In their own way they bring such a special story and I tell the nannies all the time.  Not one of them are the same.  They have different  ideas even at that young age and want to be loved in difference ways. It is up to us to find out what that difference is and then to heal their bodies and their hearts. I hope we healed your heart, Faith Hu Sheng.

Life, love and laughter,
Amanda

At Starfish, we have taken care of 124 children to date, arranged more than 100 surgeries and had 48 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 Stella to New Mexico and she now has three siblings.  We currently have 46 babies under the age of 3 and three foster homes.  Little Bella is in Shanghai and she will have spina bifida surgery on November 24 and will also have a shunt put in for her hydrocephlus

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

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