Hannah Fischer
Last March, my friend Kenlyn posted a video of this sweet little girl on Facebook. I have many friends that have adopted and all of us frequently advocate for children that cross our path. I see pictures of orphans daily... and they all break my heart. But there was something about the little girl in the video that made me STOP and just stare at her. I watched the video over and over again. I felt so connected to her even though I had never met her. I looked up her special needs on Shepherd's Field website. It was not something our family had considered, but definitely something we could handle. I tucked her away in my heart for a little while. I talked to Rick about her and just prayed.
April rolled around and I decided to email my adoption coordinator to see if her file was on the shared list. She wrote me back immediately and attached her file. I was so excited!!!! That excitement was quickly overcome with anxiety as I opened up her file to the long list of medical needs. SFCV only listed 2 of her needs, but there were a few others on her medical file. I immediately thought it would be too much. I had SO MANY questions that I decided to email Dr. Moody, someone who lives in Ch*na and works closely with this little girl. I listed 10 questions that I had about the file. He wrote back immediately, answering each one of my questions completely. His responses gave me peace about the situation. We decided not to lock her file and to give it more time to think and pray. I would be traveling to Ch*na in June and I knew that a lot of things would become clear to me on this trip.
The second I walked into the clinic and saw this sweet little girl, I knew she was mine. I instantly fell in love with her. I was quickly reminded that she is not a list of special needs on a piece of paper, but a living and breathing child who has waited a long time for a family. Shame on me for being so selfish.
When we adopted Emma, butterflies became an important symbol. Every time our family would talk about her, or make it to another important step in the adoption process, it seemed that God would send butterflies. I remember one time I had a butterfly land on my arm and sit there. It got to the point where we would see butterflies and the boys would yell, "Emma Grace!"
One day, my friend Kyle and I got to take Hannah and another child on a walk. While walking, Kyle said, "Look... she is staring at that butterfly!" A butterfly was flying around and Hannah was staring at it and following it with her eyes. I had to smile and I told Kyle about our butterfly girl at home. Shortly after this, our group of 4 was talking about adoption and Hannah... and out came another butterfly.
I got an email from an adoption friend while I was in Ch*na and she mentioned that Hannah's file had been pulled. My heart sank. I emailed our adoption coordinator from Ch*na and asked her to check on it. She wrote back the next day and confirmed that her file was still available and had it pulled to the agency list. She was safe until I could get home and start the paper work.
When I got home from Ch*na we started the paper work. Before she was officially "locked" we got an email from our agency saying that another family was interested, so we needed to lock or let her go. We locked immediately. Thankfully, we were able to have a wonderful converstation with our pediatrician who helped with our initial paper work just in time. We received pre approval on July 24, 2012.
We have finished our home study and we are waiting on our final copy so we can submit our I800A. All other dossier documents are complete and waiting for authentication. Our goal is to have our dossier complete and in Ch*na by mid October. That should put us on track for a summer travel.
We are excited and thankful to have the opportunity to be Hannah's parents. My next post will be about all the sweet things that have happened (God winking) to let us know that this is the right thing for our family. I will also briefly describe her special needs in my next post.
Hannah's birthday is September 10, 2009... she is younger than Emma but older than Timmy. We will have triplets :)
