What's in a name?

I have always been one for unusual names and names with meaning or a story behind them. Maybe because of my own name... Amorisa Malika. Amorisa is America and Formosa put together. My mom being an America and my dad being from Taiwan (formerly known as Formosa - beautiful island), they put the two together and got Amorisa. It also means "beloved". My middle name, Malika, is Swahili for "angel". My mom learned some Swahili in her 20's thinking she might go to Africa on a mission trip, but it didn't happen. So I got my middle name from it instead.


So the reason for this post is to tell you how XuXu got her name...

Early on in our adoption, I think before we even applied to our agency, I was reading online adoption stories. I came across a story with a little girl whose Chinese sir name was Xu. (I can't remember the rest of her name and I can't find the story any more.) Well her new adoptive parents called her Xu Xu. And not knowing how to pronounce any Mandarin at the time, I thought it was pronounced Zu Zu (its really more like shu shu). I thought that was the cutest name ever and it went so well with Zion (our son's name)!

So I asked my dad (who is fluent in Mandarin) a little later what the sir name Xu meant. He said "It could mean 'red' or it could mean 'pearl' and two together shows emphasis, as in 'very red' or 'rare pearl'." Well that sealed the deal for me right there! Our daughter WAS a rare pearl. So we have been referring to her as that ever since. In pinyin (Mandarin spelled out in the English alphabet) it is spelled Zhen Zhu and pronounced more like Tsun Tsu. But for American ears and tongues and because it goes with Zion it is XuXu, pronounced ZuZu! Also we just like it that way.

Her middle name Lynn is to honor the Chinese side of the family. My dad's sir name is Lynn spelled Lin in pinyin. My dad changed it when he immigrated to the USA from Taiwan.

That's the whole story. (Zion's name has a long story behind it too, I'll just have to tell it later.)

Our Adoption Story

We are adopting a daughter from China. And we will be going to bring her home in just a few weeks. Here is the story behind this long and winding road with a steep downhill grade at the end of it... you gotta watch out for that!

I have always wanted to adopt kids since I can remember. When I was little I used to tell my friends I wanted to adopt children. Now fast forward to about 1989-1990 (I'm 19 years old and a sophomore in college). I was watching the academy awards and one of the documentaries nominated was "The Dying Rooms" a BBC documentary about the problem that China's one child policy was causing in China's orphanages (I know that this is a controversial movie and many do not consider it accurate). I saw those little girls and was so moved. I felt a strong connection to them. Maybe that God was letting me know about his plan for me... maybe it's being of Chinese heritage (my dad was born in Taiwan and is racially Chinese).

So that was in the back of my mind for many years. Then in the mid 1990's after being married for a couple of years I stared noticing people who had adopted girls from China. Not too many but enough to stir up those thoughts and emotions that the documentary had planted in me. And I thought "I would like to do that... adopt a girl from China." Bill (my husband) and I had talked about wanting to adopt kids after we had a couple of our own. Well, in 1997 we moved to a bigger house to "start that family", but God had other plans.

We had infertility problems and after about 3 years of "trying", praying, being tested, poked, prodded, timed, drugged, treated, being told "There's nothing wrong with you, you should be pregnant" and lots of tears... we gave up and were about to start to look in to adoption. Then we had a miracle happen. We were pregnant with our son Zion, born 12-2-2000. After he was born and then weaned (about a year) we started on trying for number two. We thought it should be easy since we had done it before... wrong.

After giving it about 3 more years of similar stuff as the previous paragraph (Zion is about 4 at this time). We said enough! It's time to adopt. So in November of 2004 we agreed that adoption was where God was leading us and started to do research.
Research, research, research! Domestic or international, private or agency, open or closed, new-born or waiting child etc. etc.
I again went back to that desire God had planted in me more that a decade before. I knew we had to adopt a girl from China or I knew I would always wish that I had. So now more research... on how to do just that.

So in March of 2005, I sent a request for an info packet from America World Adoption Association (AWAA) and then ultimately on 3-29-05 sent them an application to adopt a daughter from China using their agency. And then the paper chase was on! (Paper pregnancy as AWAA liked to call it.) So for the rest of 2005 it was all about the adoption paperwork. Getting it done, sending it out for certification and authentication and all that. Getting every nook and cranny of our lives evaluated and approved. Finally on January 13, 2006 our Dossier (fancy word for paperwork) went to China! And we were officially logged into China's system on January 27, 2006 (this is called a Log In Date or LID in the adoption community).

We were expecting about a 9 -10 month wait till we got our referral (that's when China matches you with a child, for those who are wondering). 9 -10 months was the typical wait at the time. So we thought, towards the end of the year, maybe before Christmas (2006) we'll have our daughter. So... Now that I no longer had to plow through piles of paper work what was I going to with the wait?! (Besides being a wife and mom of a busy 5 year old... I love you Zion! You too Bill!)... You guessed it... research!!! Those of you who know me know I am an information addict. NPR, books, magazines, Internet... all that.

Well during this research I discovered that there had been a baby trafficking scandal in the Hunan province of China with some of the Children possibly being adopted internationally! (This is disputed, but the orphanage director and several others involved were executed.) I knew that the demand for Chinese girls had gone up, but I still believed the there was a great need for people to adopt these children, so this was shocking. Had I made the right decision? Was what we were doing helping with a problem or contributing to one? More research... I concluded that things were not so black and white China is such and huge country and so diverse that I could not find a simple yes or no. All this put in my mind that maybe we should adopt a Special Needs Child. I knew that there was no demand for them within China. But we were not ready for that yet and felt God had lead us there for a reason we had to stick it out. So now more waiting.

This takes us to about early 2007... still no referral and we had been waiting for over a year. Then in March everything changed. China's Center for Adoption Affairs', CCAA, (which is the government agency that handles all international adoption) referral process came to a screeching halt. What began as about one month's worth of LIDs given referrals every month at the time of the beginning of our process had slowly reduced to about 15 days of LIDs a month. (You can see how this might back things up with thousands of dossiers being submitted every year.) Well in March this number suddenly dropped to 2 days! And what we thought was just a couple more months wait till our referral and than a couple more till we brought her home changed to more than a year to wait still! 3 years if they continued to process only 2 days a month! We called our agency for info on what was going on and prayed for the number of days of LIDs given referrals to go up. It did, but still has not returned to number any where near 30. It usually hovers between 4-7 days of LIDs processed a month.

So after a few more months of hoping and praying for China to move faster. We decide to switch from waiting for a "healthy" (NSN) child to a "special needs" (SN) child since we could do that with out getting out of "line" for our original plan, and ethically I felt better about adopting a SN child. Especially since the demand for NSN children was so great as to clog up the system. We applied to be able to do this at about he end of August 2007 (I can't remember the exact date.) At the time AWAA told us that there were about 100 other people on the list of those interested in adopting a girl age 2 or under with minimal special needs. (That's what we applied for by the way). So at the time I thought "Oh well, that probably won't speed anything up," and then put it out of my mind and went back to waiting.

This takes us to December 2007. We had been in the adoption process, including research, for three years now. I had become accustomed to waiting and starting to wonder if we made the right choice and should we have gone domestic etc. etc. When on 12-7-07, I came home from taking my son to school and there was a message from AWAA's SN family coordinator (FC) saying to call her back she had to talk to us about something. First I thought "Uh oh! Is something wrong with our paperwork?!" Then I remembered an e-mail from the day before saying that AWAA had received some SN referrals and the families who were getting them would be contacted in the next few days. I thought "Could we be getting our referral, is this about our daughter?!?!!!... No way! there are 100 people in front of us."

Well, Lauren our family coordinator did have a referral for us. I could not stop crying and pacing. I didn't know what to do with myself. I wanted to shout to every one "Here's my daughter!", but we had to go through the referral review process first. That took about a week. On 12-14-07, my mom's birthday, we were able to announce that the beautiful 13 month old girl, known as Lu Jia Feng, would be our daughter. We are going to name her XuXu Lynn Denzel (I'll write a post about her name later.)

Side bar... my wonderful mother Willa Marie Lynn passed away after a courageous 5 year battle with cancer on May 2, 2006. Knowing that my mom didn't make to meet her here on earth has been hard.

Here's a little bit about her. She was born on 11-2-06 (estimated by the doctor who examined her). And she was found was found "in the No.5 cabin of N543 Train from Huaibei to Hefei by Hefei Train Station staff Wang Peixiang on Nov. 3, 2006."
Her special need is... she was born without fingers on her left hand. She only has a thumb and partial pinkie there. (She will do great... we know because our beautiful friend and mother of 3, Amy, has only one hand and is amazing!) She lives in the Hefei City Social Welfare Institute (fancy word for orphanage). The blessing is it is a "Half the Sky" orphanage. (I have written way too much... To find out more about that go to www.halfthesky.org). So developmentally she is on track and healthy. Also beautiful, if I may say so... love that smile!


After sending our Letter of Acceptance, LOA, to China on 12-21-07, we got our Pre-Approval, PA, (this just means China is working on you approval) on 1-11-08 and we just got our Referral Approval, RA, on 11-25-08. Just two weeks after getting our PA when our FC said it could take from 2-6-months to get it. I wasn't expecting the RA till AT LEAST the END of February. This is what I meant by a steep down hill at the end of this journey. After such a long wait and uphill battle with faith, emotions and paperwork we are so happy to get to fly down the mountain now. So now what we are waiting for is our Travel Approval, TA. This might happen any where from 1.5 to 3 weeks from now (1-29-08). So we could be leaving for China between February 21st -March 15th. Whew... we've been praying for so long for God to speed things up, praises that he did, I have to admit to being overwhelmed by how fast things are moving now. Lots to do and prepare.

Now that I am actually posting to my blog (I've had it for over 1.5 years just never posted, I type too slow, and I usually don't have the time) I will try to update the news on the journey here and hopefully you can join us in China through the blog.

Blessings to you and stay tuned! Pray for us and our trip and XuXu!