MADISON, Miss. (Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008, 12:15 a.m. CDT) – My wife and I stood anxious and giddy in the lobby of an upscale Nanchang hotel with a group of other Americans and waited as our names were called one at a time.
“Cassreino,” someone said as they stepped outside of a packed meeting room late one afternoon at the four-star Gloria Plaza Hotel.
I quickly handed my digital still camera to a nearby friend and my digital camcorder to someone else. Both immediately began snapping pictures and shooting video as Pam and I quickly headed for the meeting room.
As Cao Junbiao, the orphanage director from Jiujiang City, handed my daughter to me, I laughed hard to fight back tears. My wife, though, couldn’t control herself : She cried hysterically as she held her baby in her hands.
And Camryn, two days shy of her first birthday and suddenly thrust into a room surrounded by strangers speaking an odd language, screamed, cried and held a sweet cracker tightly in her small, delicate, left hand.
It was late afternoon Monday, April 3, 2006, a day burned forever in my mind – the beginning of a long journey to parenthood for me and my wife, unchartered waters for a couple that married seven years earlier determined to raise our own family.
When we learned we wouldn’t be able to have our own children, we decided to adopt. And when it became obvious domestic adoptions have become increasingly rare, we chose to adopt from China.
RETURNING TO CHINA
More than 2½ years after our trip to adopt Camryn, Pam and I are returning to China for our second adoption. We leave for Beijing today for what no doubt will be as emotional and personal a journey as our first trip.
This time, we return as veteran parents who have tried as best as we can to offer our daughter a stable, loving and nurturing environment. This time, we return having a little more knowledge about the history, culture and people who make up a beautiful nation.
And we return as the prospective parents a little boy, a 20-month-old special needs child who has lived with foster parents at an orphanage in Beijing while undergoing care and treatment for a club foot.
We don’t know much about Matthew (He Wu Di is his Chinese name). In fact, we know less about his background than we did about Camryn. But we do know that Matthew was born March 16, 2007, in Xingxiang, Henan.
Shortly after his birth, Matthew was taken to Beijing for treatment to his foot. He has remained there in foster care and will return to Henan just before we are scheduled to take him into our care on Tuesday afternoon, Dec. 9.
Adopting a boy in China is rare because most people adopt girls. Much has been written about China’s population controls and the little girls who often are abandoned and placed up for domestic or foreign adoption.
China also has a special needs adoption program with boys and girls who have minor correctable problems. When we decided to explore the special needs route, we were told we could be matched quickly because we were willing to consider a boy or girl.
BRINGING MATTHEW HOME
So here we are, headed to China at the start of the winter season preparing to adopt a little boy. We couldn’t be any more excited as we embark on another chapter in our lives.
Our family also is excited – Matthew will be our parents’ first grandson.
But mostly, Pam and I are sincerely and deeply interested in providing Matthew and his sister, Camryn, with a solid, moral upbringing in an environment and country that offers limitless opportunities just like it has done for us.
We want to give them lasting, vivid memories of holidays with their extended family, vacations at the beach, Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans. And we want them to feel protected, wanted, loved.
I sat in my office at our house on Sunday doing some work on my computer when Camryn, now 3, walked in, plopped on top of a storage box and started to read me a story abort Dora the Explorer, her favorite television character.
I spun around in my chair, picked Camryn up, sat her on her lap, held her face in my hands, looked directly into her eyes and asked her calmly and matter-of-factly what she wanted me to bring her from China.
“Baba. Baba. Baba. Baba,” she said excitedly and haltingly, calling me the Asian word for father. “Bring me back a present. Bring me back something nice. But nothing scary. And don’t bring me no monster.”
And just as quickly, she added with a broad smile: “And bring back Matthew.”
We will, sweetheart. Mommy and Baba will return to Jackson-Evers Internation Airport the night of Thursday, Dec. 18, with Matthew in our arms and a memorable Christmas right around the corner.
NOTE: You can follow our adoption journey here at this blog. We plan to file updates – stories and photos from our trip – twice a day in the morning and at night. Pam and I also welcome your comments. E-mail us at cassreino@bellsouth.net, cassreino@gmail.com or terry@cassreino.com.
Copyright 2008 by Terry R. Cassreino, all rights reserved
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