Saturday, December 13, 2014

Naming our son


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

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