My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

A letter to my friend on her adoption eve

Hi A.J.,
It’s Kelly Ayi. I have been thinking about you a lot lately. I remember the first time I met you. It was two years ago when I visited the welfare house for the first time and was waiting outside to see M.Y. get back from school. You were with him wearing your school uniform shirt and smiling big. I thought, “that little girl is so cute.” When I came back with Mark and Ashlyn and my friends in January, I got to know you a little bit better. I liked watching you do relay races in the park and dance. You still smiled big and your laugh was so cute. I said to my friends, “that little girl is delightful.” When I came back once more, one year ago, you and I spent a lot of time together. You taught me Chinese words and played my ukulele. You helped the younger kids. You painted a picture for me with both of our names on it. I framed the picture, and it hangs on the wall in my office. Your smile was bigger than I remembered. I came home and said, “that little girl is the best. My friend A.J. will be a wonderful daughter.”

Tomorrow is a big day. You are meeting your mom and dad. You will become their daughter. Some kids might feel all mixed up getting ready for that day. They might feel really happy because they have wanted a family for so long. They have watched other children leave before. Now it is finally their turn to get a family! But, they also might feel sad to leave China and their friends. They might feel scared because they do not know what living in this family and in America will be like. I wonder if you have some mixed-up feelings too. It would be okay if you did.

I have told your new parents a lot about you. I told them you are cute and delightful and will be a wonderful daughter. I have also told them that you might have big feelings, some happy and some not happy. They understand. Whatever you feel, they want to be with you. There is nothing you can feel or do that will make them not like you or not want to be your family.

I am far away now on the other side of the earth. But, I am waiting patiently until I get a message and see pictures of you with your family. They are really nice. They smile big just like you. And, they will take really good care of you.

With love,
Kelly Ayi

No related posts.

Voice Project

photo from China Foto Press in 2014 in Guangzhou outside a “baby hatch”

I love what I get to do.

There are different parts, each unique yet related and cohesive at the same time. China work. Caring for caregivers through The Sparrow Fund. Coming alongside adoptive families. I likely share the least about that last part—not because there are not valuable things to share but because there are a lot of hard parts and stories that I do not own.

About 10 hours a week, I’m sitting with moms and dads and kids who want more for their families than what they have now. My role is a simple but significant one. I get invited in. For a season, I get to be a professional mourner and a helpful appreciator to grieve the hard parts and magnify the good parts.

When I officially started a few years ago at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA, I knew history mattered. Now, I know history matters in a deep sort of way. The tears I’ve cried beside families when their babies have said, “she shouldn’t have just left me there!” and asked, “”why didn’t they tell me I was leaving?” have changed me and the way I understand the world.

One of the things each one of the therapists on my team do is help parents walk with their children as they process their stories. I’d even say it’s one of our specialties. We are not afraid to enter right into the hard, bringing moms and dads with us there. If that’s where our kids are, then that’s where we need to be.

I’ve been trained in ways to do this. But, I want to evolve, grow, never stop adding new tools to offer that just may help a child and that child’s parents see things in new ways, process more deeply, and connect more deeply still.

I’m on a mission right now to do that. I want to add a tool we haven’t used before to help families consider more deeply what life may have been like for their birth families, to help families hear their voices. I want to use finding letters, real finding letters, letters reportedly found with a child at the time of abandonment. Not their own as not many were found with letters and fewer still received them. I want to use finding letters as an exercise to stop and listen to some so that they can stop and imagine what their own birth families may have said.

I need help from adopted persons from China to do this. My work isn’t only with families with children from China. This tool, however, will be. I am looking for Chinese adopted persons who have copies of finding notes and who are comfortable sharing them for the purpose of helping other adopted persons.

To participate, people simply need to email kraudenbush@sparrow-fund.org with a jpg or png image of your finding letter and any background information you want to share. Include somewhere in the email permission to use the finding note for therapeutic purposes. I’ll have the notes translated and share that with each participant, including any associated observations about word choice or writing style, etc.

No related posts.

“Heads up. Our adoption program isn’t going anywhere, but it’s going to look different.”

There were rumors that changes were coming. I kept up with them, but they were only rumors. Earlier this month, when new rules were issued for people wanting to adopt from China, those rumors about China changing the make-up of the whole adoption program seemed a bit more real.

Yesterday, the announcement a whole bunch of people like me were anticipating was sent out.

Announcement
July 18, 2017

Relevant government departments and adoption agencies in receiving countries,
Following the enactment of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Administration of Activities of Overseas Non-Governmental Organizations within the Territory of China (hereinafter referred to as Administration Law) since January 1, we would like to notify as follows on relevant issues about the programs carried out by adoption agencies such as the One-to-One Assistance Program, Journey of Hope Program, and Summer/Winter Hosting Program based on the regulations of the Administrative law and conclusions of competent authorities:

I. All activities concerning the One-to-One program, Journey of Hope Program, and Summer/Winter Hosting Program will be terminated. For children who have been assessed by adoption agencies through the One-to-One program before the enactment of the Administrative Law and whose reports have not been submitted to CCCWA, if their reports are submitted through the provincial department of civil affairs to CCCWA before December 31, 2017 (subjected to the approval date of the provincial department), CCCWA will post these files to the specific list of the original adoption agency. Agencies are requested to look for children within required deadline, otherwise the files will be withdrawn by CCCWA when the deadline is closing.

II. Foreign adoption agencies should abide by the business scope specified in the registration when working in China. No activities with inter-country adoption as the purpose are allowed when agencies work in welfare and charity related activities.

III. Adoption agencies should look for adoptive families according to the requirements outlined in the Review Points for Decision on the Eligibility of Foreigners Adopting from China and avoid hasty placements without discretion within the deadline.

China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption Center

Adoption agency partnerships terminated. Advocacy trips into orphanages under the umbrella of adoption agencies terminated. Hosting programs that bring harder-to-place waiting children to America for the purpose of advocacy that have had nearly 100% success rates in placing those children terminated.

I knew it was coming. That didn’t make it not sting at first read…and keep stinging during second and third reads. Terminated is just harsh, like all of us invested in adoption and orphan care in China found ourselves sitting in a leatherette chair on the vulnerable side of an executive desk and were all just fired. No warm I’m sorry. We need to downsize. Just Pack up your desk. You’re terminated.

Press pause. Stop.

There are people behind this announcement. And, those people, those governing authorities who surely sat around a board table and wrote these words are likely the same ones who labored through writing the new rules for people who want to adopt from China, literally pages of rules about finances and physical and emotional health and family size and length of time between adoptions and ages between children. Those rules aren’t arbitrary; whether or not we agree each one of them, they’re the rules they corporately believe set children up best long term.

The way things have looked for years is going to be different. The 1:1 partnership program with adoption agencies partnering with specific orphanages will stop as of December 31st as will hosting programs and Journey of Hope trips which bring teams of volunteers to China for the specific purpose of advocacy. There is no other information about what the program will look like after December 31st. But, I have no reason to believe that the program won’t be good. It very well could be better.

That word in Mandarin translated to terminated is 停止, tíngzhǐ. It just means stop which somehow makes it easier to read. And, just a few lines later there are other words that speak a whole lot of hope: when agencies work in welfare and charity related activities. When agencies work in social welfare (aka orphanages) and in philanthropic activities, they can’t be for the purpose of adoption. When agencies work in social welfare (aka orphanages) and in philanthropic activities, they have to be genuine acts of charity for charity’s sake. Yes, yes, good.

This announcement is no longer stinging when I read it the fourth and fifth time.

I don’t know what international adoption from China will look like in 2018 except for knowing that it will remain. I haven’t been fired. None of us have been fired. We’ve just been told the business model is changing in a big way. I may look a little dumbfounded, but I’m thanking the boss for letting me know in advance and then I’m respectfully leaving the office, looking around at my coworkers tonight and saying “well, okay then.” We have work to do; let’s figure out how to make sure we can keep on doing it.

No related posts.

Six years ago today {the day we met our daughter}

Six years ago today, our arms and hearts were full.

We had Chinese food for dinner, food a bit different than the food we ate in Xian 6 years ago. And, we talked about that day, remembering how nervous I was, remembering introducing her to the family over the computer, remembering how she surprised us with a sweet little birthmark and dimples. We asked her how she felt that day and then how she thinks she felt when she said she didn’t remember.

Happy and scared.

That’s what she told us.

And, I’m pretty sure she is right with some sad and mad mixed in there too.

When she saw these pictures side by side tonight, you’d never know how she fussed about me interrupting her playing to to take this year’s edition. She smiled and snuggled in as she counted each one and wondered aloud what the next one and the next one and the next one would look like. Our simple little tradition of a photo in the same place in the same way on the same day every year seems to cement for her the permanency of where she is, the forever-ness of family and expectation of good things ahead.

Six Gotcha Days

No related posts.

Follow Along!

Categories

Recent Posts