Mike and Leigh's UnBlog

FINALLY!!!

I cannot believe it's been since March that I've updated this thing. As I'm generally e-ignorant, it should come as no surprise. However, it is with great joy that I get "blogging" again.
After beginning the process nearly two years ago and suffering enough delays to force our reapplication, Leigh and I are finally ready to introduce you to Mary. We received our referral yesterday and continue to get updated information on her. From now through our trip to China to bring her home, I intend to use this forum to keep everyone in the loop.
Well, that's Mary in the pictures above (middle name tbd, although we like the name she was given at the orphanage as a way to keep her connected to China). Her given name is Yuan Hui Shan. The Yuan refers to the city the orphanage is in and Hui Shan means (loosely) Bright Coral, so her middle name might be Hui Shan, pronounced Way-Shaan.
She's a very healthy one-year-old. In fact, her birthday is September 19th, so as I type this she's one-year and one-week old.
What we know of her history (and tomorrow I'll update with medical and developmental notes):
Yuan Hui shan was found outside the gates of Yuangjiang City Civil Affairs Office at 6:00am on September 25, 2005. It is estimated that she was just six days old. She had been left in a fruit box wrapped in a flowered cotton wrap. In the basket with her was a bottle, some milk powder and a change of clothes. The report says that for a newborn, she was a bit chubby.
She was brought to the local police station where immediate attempts to locate her mother failed and by noon of the same day, she was brought to the Yuanjiang Social Welfare Institute.
I only wish there were a way to thank Sun Jian Qin, the man who found her, for making sure she was taken care of.
By the time of her first official medical exam at the orphanage, she weighed 15 lbs (7 kg) and was 19.2 inches (49 cm) "tall." These numbers are probably not accurate, but all we have to go on.
When she was ten months old, she weighed 19 lbs and was 27 inches "tall." If accurate, that means she is small by US standards (in the 20-35th percentile), but we still can't be 100% sure of the numbers' accuracy.
That's enough for today.
Tomorrow: a developmental recap and better images (the same ones, but broken into larger, single pictures).

posted by Michael Fresina @ 1:21 PM