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Our Story
We begin our journey in the stressful and often unexplainable
life of an infertile couple. We had tried all the latest drug treatments –
daily shots, mood swings and the constant thoughts of the
unattainable- a pregnancy and the end result, a baby. We even tried invitro
fertilization for three cycles- to no avail. We then felt we had to mourn the
loss of the chance of a biological child. We read an article, a few years
earlier, in the New York Times Sunday magazine about a family adopting an infant
girl from China. Well it struck a chord and we kept the article tucked away in a
drawer and in our hearts. One day we looked at each other and said "what are we
waiting for?" Thus began the wonderful journey to international adoption from
China.
We contacted a friend who had just completed an international
adoption and asked for a recommendation of their adoption agency. They told us
all about their experiences with Wide Horizons
for Children, Inc. based out of Waltham, MA. They had a local office in
our state of Connecticut and we contacted them the next day. They told us of a
General Information meeting that was held once a month in East Hartford. We made
a reservation for the next meeting and waited for that day to arrive. We went to
that meeting and decided that day that this was what we were meant
to do to finally achieve our hopes and dreams of a family. We applied the next
week.
 After many hours of paperwork and home study information we
were approved and our dossier was on its way to China in November of 1995. On
January 10, 1996 we received the call that would change our lives forever. We
were told that a child had been assigned to us- she was just 4 months old and
was in perfect health. Her name was Ba Yun – which translates to Bright
Clouds- and she was waiting for us to be her FOREVER family!! We drove up to our
social worker’s office- in a huge snow storm!- to be able to receive a picture
of Ba Yun and get some limited medical information. On the drive home the small
picture of our daughter was tucked tightly in my hand. Ba Yun was in our
hearts. Travel plans were soon underway and we were on our way to pick up our
daughter on March 9, 1996. It was exactly 9 months from the time we went to the
General information meeting. |
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 We
have since been back to China two more times to adopt our 2nd
daughter, Fu Dan , which translates to "smart and
intelligent," and our third daughter, An Bao
Bao, which translates to "precious baby." The adoption of
Fu Dan took a total of 18 months from application to having her in
our arms. The third adoption took about 15 months from application
to having her in our arms. We have traveled to 3 different provinces
in China. We traveled first to Hunan Province to the city of Yue
Yang. The second trip was to Sichuan Province to a city called
Chongqing. The last trip was to Anhui Province and the city of Hefei.
Our daughter was from the city of Bengbu. |
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Here are the girls in 2000... Hannah, Sarah and Rebekah
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