My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Some sunshine today from our beautiful moon…AN UPDATE!

We were very surprised today to receive an update on our baby girl! Our social worker/miracle worker had requested it just yesterday. What a blessing to get an email today with some answers to questions and see new pictures of our little girl! We had come up with a list of questions–some of the meaning got lost in translation a bit. But, we were thankful to learn what we learned here —

Where was her finding place? The entrance of the orphanage.

What does she do during the day? [We had wanted to know her daily routine or schedule.] She often plays with kids at the activity room or outside if it is a nice day.


What does she eat? Main foods: formula, rice cereal, noodle, cracker. Sometimes add porridge, fruit, etc.

What are her favorite foods? formula, cracker, and fruit.

How does her caretaker put her to sleep? It is easy to put her to sleep. She can sleep by herself.

What name does her nanny call her? “Mei Yue”or “Yue Yue”

Who named her? And why did they choose this name for her? The caretakers named her because she is very pretty, and they hope she will be more and more beautiful. [Remember, her name means Beautiful Moon.]

Does she have a nanny that she is closest to? What does she call this nanny? She is close to all of the caretakes. They like her very much. She calls them “MaMa,” because all of the children call their caretakers “MaMa” here.

What are her favorite toys and activities? She loves caretakers holding her to go outside to play.

What makes her happy? What makes her sad? She is happy when someone play with her. If not, she would feel a little sad. [Makes sense, right?]

How does the nanny comfort her when she cries? Does she calm easily? Does she cry very much? Holding and patting her. Yes, she calms down easily. No, she doesn’t.

Has she been with any foster families since she was found? No. She has been living in the orphanage.

She looks so darn cute in these pictures–despite her extremely poofy split pants and her shaved head (sniff, sniff). Anyone have any cute crocheted baby hats with flowers that their girls have outgrown? :) She’s a whopping 17.4 lbs now–not sure if that is in those clothes or not. Hope it was without them since if they were included in those measurements she may really only be a fraction of that measurement! Oh, how I long to see a smile on her face!

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a month ago today


One month ago today at about 10pm, we saw our daughter Lydia’s face for the first time. Here is the first picture we saw. We are guessing she was about 4 months old in this picture since that was her age at the time the paperwork was completed. She certainly was a teeny tiny peanut, don’t you think? I think my first words actually were “Wow, she’s teeny!” Here are the other pictures we received at the time.



Now, a month later, we’re counting the days until we get our Travel Approval (TA) so that we can buy some plane tickets to bring her home. It’s crazy to think that 1 month and 1 day ago, we were wondering if we’d ever find our Chinese daughter. Then, God miraculously brought her to us.


Today, we sent off a care package to her orphanage. I hope it makes it to her. We included a handful of goodies–snacks for the orphanage staff; bubbles, books, sidewalk chalk, stickers, and 4 pairs of pajamas for children; a disposable camera for the staff to take pictures of Lydia in the orphanage, and a photo book of our family for her to see us for the first time. I often consider how we all have memorized her photos and are so busy preparing for her. Yet, she has no idea who we are, what we look like, where we live, or even that she has a family waiting for her at all. Even though she is only 11 months and 8 days old, I hope that her nannies show her the album and talk to her about how much we love her already. I’m hoping she won’t be as scared when we meet her if she has seen our faces already. Here are the photos I included in the album. I had a friend help me with the Chinese characters to label all the pictures for her nannies to read to her.

This has her Chinese name, her new name, and then it says “We love you!”



The characters with Evan’s name mean “big brother.”

The characters with Ashlyn’s name mean “big sister.”


The characters here mean “our family.”

We thought the staff may like this picture. The characters at the top say “our house” and the other characters say “the park near our house.”

Sending the package and imagining her seeing her family for the first time has been a blessing to me today, particularly in light of the fact that I hit a big pile of plowed snow today while making a right turn and seriously damaged our car. Yup. That’s what I did. The snow pile was more like a boulder. I didn’t damage the pile of dirty snow one bit. It was rock solid. Just did a number to the right side of my van, the entire length of it. Yup. (sigh)

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want some personalized, custom cards for a good cause?

I make stationery that I’ve sold at a local boutique before for $16 for a pack of 10 cards. In an effort to make some extra spending money for our upcoming trip to China (yea!), I am selling them now to whoever wants them for $15 with free shipping. And, I will give $1.50 credit for every friend you refer who buys some (just tell them to mention your name when they email me to order some).

Also, I have friends who are in critical need right now. Tony and Lily Zhang are Chinese and worked with the Church and missions for years. They have miraculously left China and are currently in Canada pursuing a seminary education while doing full-time ministry there with the Chinese and their Westernized children who have settled there. They are raising their own support but are in a critical situation as all of their connections are in China and are unable to support someone in ministry for several reasons. I will be giving 25% of the total sales of my cards to them. So, for every pack of cards sold, I will be giving $3.75 to the Zhangs. If you want to give an additional amount, the entire additional amount will go straight to the Zhangs. If you would like additional information about the Zhang family and how to support them, please let me know.

Here are some sample designs–I can do any of these with whatever wording or monogram you want. And, here is a picture of the Zhang family.

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