I got out of bed Thursday morning and for some reason had
him on my mind…. heavy on my heart as well. Everyday he is heavy on our minds and hearts as you can
probably imagine, but for some reason this past Thursday he was
especially. I went to the old calendar
we have hanging on the refrigerator.
I took it down and counted the days. The days since we found out he was in the hospital. It has
been a long 28 days. I remember
one of the cardiology surgeons we met with in Orlando telling me that in
America his heart surgery would probably keep him in the hospital for about
10-15 days. When I talked to our
agency they said China usually keeps their heart patients or any hospital
patient for about double the amount of time whatever it is in America. I am still not sure why this is and I
have my theories but I will try not to digress. So here we are at 28 days. I felt like we should get the call any day and hopefully by
Christmas. Didn’t want my baby boy
to be alone in a hospital bed on Christmas day. It just broke my heart.
Around 11:30 that morning, Nora was sitting at the counter “shoving”
PB&J in her mouth, no surprise, at a very rapid pace. I heard my phone ding
with the signal of a new email. With
both kids busy for the moment, I checked it and all it said was “we have a
status update on your child...” my heart raced a little faster and I screamed “yes”!
If you know me you can probably imagine it was pretty LOUD, which made Nora
drop her PB&J. I scrambled for
the computer and found that Bethany they had sent us a video and a few broken
translated lines. Basically he is
doing well post surgery. That is
about all we got.
At that point we hadn’t seen any discharge paperwork and we
really still don’t even know what exact surgery he had, just that it was heart
surgery. BUT I WILL TAKE IT!!
PRAISING GOD and SO thankful!
He might not be in his forever home, yet, but I think God has him in a
pretty great place. And surrounded by some pretty great people. At the end of their small note the
orphanage did say he was quite the introvert and very shy. Oh my. This poor boy
doesn’t know what he has coming by moving in with the Baumeister Gang in a few
months! Here is the video.
We think he is pretty perfect… and pretty big. At 9 Months old, he only weighs 3 lbs
less than our 21-month-old Nora!
John and I have watched the video probably 80 times. It never gets old!
I am VERY excited that we no longer call him “Baby China”
around the house J Although
Everett does slip and pray for “Baby China” sometimes. While this was somewhat endearing I
found it to be kind of annoying and stereotypical, we now try to encourage
Everett when he says “Baby China” to remember his new brother and all of the
other “Baby China’s” without a family.
We are so thankful he finally has a NAME! So, many have asked if we are going to
keep his Chinese name? Will we change it? His orphanage given name is JiaHui Sun. Thanks to Laura’s
friend Nancy, we were able to do a little research and figure out that Jia-Hui
means “Home & Light (like brightness)”. It is written in Chinese as the
following: 家辉
In fact, in the video, you can hear his caretakers calling
him “Hui, Hui” over and over. We think it is some sort of shortened nickname. “Hui,
Hui”. It’s pretty neat to think that in several years, our son will
have an opportunity to look back at this video and reflect. We still are unsure
of how that conversation will go, but this is one of the many challenges of
adoption.
Since getting our referral, John and I have always known
that we would change his name. It
was pretty simple for us. Our
child was abandoned in a market without any note from his birth family. Therefore we are confident that his
Chinese name was given to him by the orphanage and not by his birth
mother. We may have had a
different opinion if there was evidence that his birth family had named him.
But with us, he is beginning a NEW life.
In the bible, God renames people he has chosen for a specific
purpose.
For example: Abraham.
Genesis 17:5
“No longer shall your name be called Abram, But your name
shall be Abraham; For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.”
We believe this little boy was chosen while in his mother’s
womb. We do not fully understand
all the circumstances around why she left him in that market but we know God
does and He has great plans for our son.
We know that he was specifically chosen for our family and he is a gift
from God. We will also be so bold to say that our family was specifically
chosen for him, to be his parents, and his guardians, and his joy. This is why we have named him
Theodore. Theodore means “Gift
from God” and what a gift he is! His full name will be Theodore Walker
Baumeister, and we plan on keeping his first name shortened at “Theo”.
This journey has been incredibly exciting for us over the
past year. There has been and still is a lot of faith involved in this process.
Thanks again for everyone’s support, prayers and love! We hope that over the
coming months we can keep updating you on our progress. We are now working on getting Theo’s
immigration paper work complete and our Visas back so we can travel to pick him
up!! We are hoping to travel this
coming Spring.
Until next time,
Laura
