About our little princess...

Anna Lin turned four years old April 12th. She lives in ******** Social Welfare Institute, ********, Anhui Province. (Technically we have not received pre-approval yet. For that reason we cannot show pictures of her or give the details that I have ***, ###, or @@@. Since our paper was already over there, waiting and ready, we are skipping PA, pre-approval, and going straight to TA, travel approval. While it seems nice, there are a few disadvantages such as not having a piece of paper in our hands at this moment that says, "You're OK with us." Now back to our journey...) "She has a thick black head of hair and fair skin with a lovely, rosy glow." (From this info. I wanted to name her Rose, not to mention she has cute little rose petal lips and is as beautiful as a rose, but Ric didn't agree...with the name that is. He does think she is quite a cutie.) "She has a well-rounded character. ...follows instructions... ...especially likes to imitate. When she sees visitors, she's a little timid but soon starts to warm up... She enjoys leading younger children to play." This last statement was hard for me to understand. In the report she was three years old. I kept thinking maybe the age is a typo, maybe she is older? When I found out more about her orphanage, then it all made sense.

Through the wonderful world of Yahoo Groups, I found a group for children adopted from ******** SWI, ******** Kids. This was amazing for us. There was a little glitch in Anna Lin's medical report translation and we originally could not find anything on her orphanage which was listed as Quanshu. (I can list that since it does not exist. :-) As I asked around more and more within the online adoption community of yahoo groups, I began to hear one town's name repeatedly: ********. I emailed the moderator of ******** Kids and the pieces of the puzzle all fell into place after that. It was a relief to know where she is living. We seemed to take another step closer to her.

Holly explained the naming of the children. I found out all of the children have the last name @@@@@, after the director who runs her SWI and another nearby. All of the girls born in 2004 have the first name Hua: meaning magnificent, splendid, prosperous, best part, and finally China. Her middle name is Lin. This is her personal name: meaning forest, woods, grove. Already I was getting a wealth of information, but there's more...

The group has pictures of the SWI, caregivers, kids, etc. A Chinese friend of the group, who lived close to ********, went to the SWI last summer. She has been the only person the families have known to visit there. One had Anna Lin in it. It isn't the greatest picture but Ric & I are 99% sure it's her. In it we see our little princess standing beside a crib with a 1 year old in it, shyly looking at the camera. A female care-giver was also in the picture. (Here is our little girl who likes to help with her peers.) I have been told this care-giver is the person that comes with the girls when they meet their families. According to the other families, she seems to care deeply for the kids. I'm wondering how this will go with Anna Lin. Through the ******** Kids group, I have learned that she is special indeed: the first special needs child to be adopted and the first 'older' child adopted. Most of the kids have been adopted as 1 and 2-year olds. -Angi

The SWI is small in a small town. Not a lot of kids there compared to other, bigger SWI's. Last I heard there were about 20 kids there. Over half of them are one-year olds and younger. The rest are at various ages, say 4 to 12 years old. One person from the Our Chinese Daughters Foundation in Beijing told us all of the older kids were in elementary, middle and secondary schools. I'm wondering where Anna Lin fits in. Does she go to pre-school, so they consider her elementary? Or does she stay at the SWI and help the nannies. I'm hoping she is absolutely spoiled by them! With love and attention that is.