Chaos Chronicles

This is just a bunch of notes I found scribbled on some paper.  I wrote them when we had just decided to adopt from China.
We hope to start the adoption process for China in 2010.
Names:  Lien, Li, Mei, Mei-Lien, Mei-Li, An-Li, An.
Things to do while we wait to file:

1. Learn all about the Chinese culture and country.
2. Check out Hand in Hand for Chinese support
3. Find children’s books, dolls, and toys from China
4. Find Chinese lullabyes.
5. Learn Qigong
6. Read I Ching
7. Find a story called “The Lost Mare”
8. Learn Mandarin
9. Learn more about Jade, Chrysanthemum Tea, Jasmine, and serving tea.

An Zhi Fei Fu – Who could have guessed it was a blessing in disguise.
Local legend of Guangzhou – six goats had come from the heavens, bearing grains of rice to found the city (before chinese revolution, it was called canton).
Learn more about Shanghi, The Great Wall, and the Forbidden City

Under the rubble, dead mothers tightly held their babies; baby girl stayed alive by breastfeeding from dead mother

Singtao News (written in Chinese)

http://hk.news.yahoo.com/080517/60/2u63i.html
In Duijangyan, Sichuan, a young mother tightly held her baby girl, who was about 3 to 4 months old, while using her own shoulders to stop the roof from falling onto her baby. The mother slowly lost her life, however the baby in her arms was still breastfeeding from her dead mother, until the baby was rescued. In Beichuan, another mother who also died using her body to protect her baby, left the last message to her baby: “my dearest baby, if you can live through this, you have to remember that I love you.”
In the afternoon of May 13th, the second day after the Sichuan earthquake, scores of rescue workers were digging through a residential area of Duijanyan, looking for survivors. A volunteer doctor said that under the rubbles, they found a young mother holding a 3-4 months old baby. The mother was curling her body, her head lowered, and she had no sign of life, however her shirt was lifted up, and the baby girl in her arms was still sucking on mother’s nipples.
Doctor wept as he recounted the scene, “At that moment, we saw a red (lively) little face, against the dead mother’s gray breasts that were covered with dusts…it was such a contrast. Everyone at the scene cried.
“I can’t imagine, a dead mother was still breastfeeding her own child. From the way she was holding the baby, you can tell that she was protecting her child, or perhaps the mother put her nipple into the baby’s mouth just before the mother died. We carefully took the baby out. The moment the baby was taken away from her mother’s nipple, the baby cried.”
In Beichuan, rescue workers also found another dead mother protecting her child: she was kneeling down, bowing her back; both arms on the ground supporting her body – her posture was like someone kowtowing, however her body was crushed so badly that it was deformed, and she was dead.
Since it looked like she was protecting something underneath her, rescue workers carefully removed the rocks and stones around her. They found a baby who was around 3, 4 months old underneath her body. It was because the mother used her own body to block the falling wall, the baby was miraculously completely unharmed. When being taken out, the baby was even sleeping peacefully.
A nurse removed the blanket from the baby to examine her, and found a cell phone tucked inside the blanket. Doctor looked at the screen of the cell phone, and saw a text message left by the baby’s mother, “my dearest baby, if you can live through this, you have to remember that I love you.”

READ STORY WITH PICTURES HERE http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_238842.html
A CHINESE policewoman is contributing to the country’s massive earthquake relief effort in a very personal way – by breast-feeding eight babies.
A newspaper in Chengdu, the capital of quake-hit Sichuan province, yesterday devoted a special page to 29-year-old Jiang Xiaojuan, calling her a ‘hero’ while Web users hailed her as ‘the most beautiful mother’ in the world.

Ms Jiang, from the quake-ravaged town of Jiangyou, has just had a child herself, the Western Daily reported. She is breast-feeding the children of three women who have been left homeless by the quake and are too traumatised to nurse, as well as five orphans, the report said.

One mother, Ms Chen Tanghua, 36, said she has been unable to breast-feed her six-month-old son. He had been crying from hunger until Ms Jiang offered to breast-feed him.

The babies who lost their parents have been put in an orphanage which does not have powdered milk, the newspaper reported. It said Ms Jiang brushed off a reporter’s questions about her deed by saying: ‘All mothers love children. Nursing a few babies is no big deal.’

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-Ql4twzpk8

This is a compilation made on 5.19.2008 for the Chinese 3 minute silence that took place at 2:28pm. People and traffic paused in remembrance of the innocent victims.
WENCHUAN, China — China stood still Monday in mourning over tens of thousands of earthquake victims, and the government appealed for more international aid to cope with the country’s deadliest disaster in a generation.
Construction workers, shopkeepers and bureaucrats across the bustling nation of 1.3 billion people paused for three minutes at 2:28 p.m. _ exactly one week after the magnitude 7.9 quake hit central China.
Air-raid sirens and the horns of cars and buses sounded in memory of the dead.
In Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, thousands of people bowed their heads and then began shouting “Long Live China!” and thrusting their fists in the air. Traffic on the capital’s highways and roads stopped, and some drivers got out of their cars.
The confirmed death toll from the May 12 quake rose to 34,073, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, said Monday. Another 9,500 remained buried in Sichuan and more than 29,000 were missing, the provincial government said, according to Xinhua.
Officials have said they expect final death toll to exceed 50,000, with more than 245,000 reported as injured. Quake-related losses to companies totaled $9.5 billion, Deputy Industry Minister Xi Guohua said.

Li,
I can’t believe I am sitting here writing this, but your nana..a wonderful woman, whom you will never get the chance to meet, has left this world.  I talked to her about you a lot.  I’m really sad that you will never get to meet her.
I feel a sense of loss not only for her, but for you as well.  Will the hole in your heart for your first mother, get bigger because you have lost a grandmother before you even knew her?    How is loss handled by a little girl when she knows she is being adopted.  That her mother had to give her up, or has passed on.  Then she finds out her new family isn’t complete either?
Maybe since I lost my mother, I can connect with you on a new level, since you have lost your birth mother as well.  It’s a little different, but somewhat the same.
You will feel a sense of loss much greater than mine, but maybe I can begin to understand the hole you have in your heart for your first mother, just as I now have a hole in my heart for mine.   Maybe through this loss we can form a strong bond that will take us through anything.
Your Nana was a really great lady.  How I wish things could have been different.  How it pains me to know that my mother will never get to know your face.. your giggle.. your play sounds mixed with  your siblings.  It hurts.  It hurts to know she will never see what a bright star you will be, or how your brother and sisters will grow up and what you will all become… who you will marry..
What grand affairs that will be…. I am already marrying you off, and you haven’t even set foot on American soil yet.. Yep, I’m a mom.
I’ve started to write her letters.  Just like I do with you.  These letters are the only connection I have to you right now, and they will be the same with my mother.   They will help me to never forget her.  I must never ever ever do that.  I’m not sure if I COULD forget her, but I dont’ want to take any chances.  I want to remember exactly how she sounded, exactly how her eyes twinkled when your Grampa chased her around the house. I want to remember forever.
Wo Ai Ni

Hello little one,

I have been thinking a lot about you lately. Today I went to the Great Wall China Adoption Agency website. I felt a pull to look at the Waiting Child list. The Waiting Child program is for older children or children with special medical needs who are waiting to be adopted. I think this may be the group of children we should adopt from.

Are you in this group Li? Is this where we are going to find you? I don’t know. Daddy isn’t sure how he feels about this yet. If God is calling us to apply for a Waiting Child, Daddy and I will know, and we will be at peace with the decision.

I wish I didn’t have to wait for 2 more years before we can even START this journey with you. Who knows how long it will take to bring you home then? Some families have to wait years after they submit their dossiers to China, before they get to bring their sweethearts home.

I wish I could have you NOW. Right now. I feel like I’m missing out on your life. You may not even have been born yet. I feel so silly for thinking these feelings sometimes. Is this normal? I don’t know. I’ll have to find other adoptive mom’s to talk to.

Did I tell you? I found a school in Bangor that teaches Chinese! It’s called the Bangor Chinese School. It’s closer than Portland that’s for sure! I’m pretty excited about it. I wonder if we can all go there and learn Mandarin..I’ll have to look into it.

Well sweeting, I must go to sleep. It’s 1am here. Good night.
Love you Li

This is a translated version of Li Bai’s famous poem Quiet Night Thoughts.

The moonlight glistens in front of my bed.
I thought it was the frost on the ground.
I lift my gaze to view the shimmering moon,
Then lower my head, and miss my homeland.

I wonder if I can put this in my own words and make a lullaby from it.. or maybe someone already has…

Isaiah 43:5 NIV
        Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bring your children from the east

and gather you from the west.

An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break.  – Ancient Chinese Legend.

If anyone has a better picture than this, could you comment and let me know. I’d love a better quality one.  Thanks!

I haven’t written to you in a while, sweeting.  I’m sorry.  I have been thinking about you a lot lately.  I’ve been wondering if your auntie Amy will adopt from China too.  She is trying to have another baby now, and mentioned to me that they might adopt.  Your other auntie Amy in Pennsylvania told me that in a few years, her and uncle rick will be adopting from China too.  What fun it will be to get together with them once you all arrive in our arms!
I have found a chinese school for you to go to when you come home.  It’s not too far from here, but it’s a good thing it’s only once a week   They will teach all of us Mandarin.  How wonderful that will be.  Then, if you decide to go back to China to visit the orphanage, you can speak to everyone there!
I want to start a quilt for you and your sisters.  Matching ones that will hopefully be passed down to your children.  Of course, the quilts wont be complete until you can come home and add your hand print to it.  Can you imagine the fun we will have with that?!
Your sisters LOVE to play in anything that gets them all messy.  I’m sure you are just like them!
Daddy and I have been talking about adopting a 3 year old.  If we do, that means that you could already be born.  Maybe your first mother is giving you life at this exact moment.  Neither one of you knowing that you will soon have a life outside of China.
How painful it must be for her to give you up, so that you can have a better life.  Since I am already a mamma, I know how hard it will be for her and how she must cry every night because of what she has to do.  My heart breaks for her.
My heart breaks for you too, sweeting.  You will come into a life that will be of loss right from the beginning.  The loss of your first mother, then the loss of your Chinese home when you leave the orphanage to come home to us.   You are just a little child, yet you will know such loss.   We will overcome the hurt together little one.  Just wait and see.
Love you Li 

Dear ,
I’ve been thinking about you again.  I met a woman at Great Wall Buffet a few days ago..Friday.  She had 2 little girls that she adopted from China.  I asked her about other moms in the area who have adopted from China and she said there is a group in the Augusta area called Parents with Children from Asia..or was it  Mom’s with Children from Asia.  Shoot!  It could have been Maine Families with Children from Asia.  Oh well.  An internet search is a great tool!   She also said that she takes her girls to chinese school in Portland once a week.  I think that will be great for you and your siblings!  Now, my biggest trial is to figure out how we are going to make 60,000 a year so we can bring you home..
Wo Ai Ni