Ella Fei's Family
Aug 12, 2021
In the beginning of 2019, we started the process to adopt another child with Down syndrome from China since we had been so blessed with adopting our son, Lian, with DS from China. We wanted for him to have a little sister who also shared his heritage and his unique abilities. Someone for him to grow up with since his older siblings are all adults.
We worked really hard through 2019 to get our paperwork done and get all our fees paid. I’m a professional artist and I sold 74 original paintings of birds that I’d painted on hymnal pages to pay for our home study and then I started making prints to sell to help pay for the rest of the adoption costs. Basically, I have sold thousands of prints to help pay our costs….and they were so popular that after I had raised all of our funds, I allowed other adoptive families to sell the prints as well for their adoption costs. I called these fundraisers Fly Home Fundraisers since all the prints were birds painted on hymnal pages….and to date, FHF has raised close to $100,000 for many other families and adoptions. I don’t take a dime from these fundraisers.
Sadly, there was a snag in our paperwork towards the end of 2019 that set us back a few months. I was devastated because I was sure that our little one would be home for Christmas. We paid to overnight paperwork and get it done as quickly as possible, but it bumped us into 2020. We fixed the problem and in February of 2020, we were supposed to get Travel Approval and the same week, everything shut down because of Covid. We were heartbroken since all of our plans were to travel and bring home our daughter in February.
We waited and watched world events anxiously. We called and wrote letters to all of our government officials. We signed petitions and held meetings with the State Department. I got reporters involved who wrote stories about the children who were stuck waiting and the families who were waiting. It was heart wrenching and exhausting. We thought FOR SURE we could travel in the fall of 2020, but were dismayed that it wasn’t going to happen. Maybe 2021.
We had had so many of our hopes dashed, we had asked for so many updates on the child we were matched with. We were watching her grow up in updates. Just a plane ride away, but unreachable.
About a month ago, we heard more news that China would not be opening up adoptions again until late 2022…..maybe. Again that maybe. Along with huge quarantine requirements for all foreigners that made the adoption all but impossible for families who had jobs and couldn’t stay in China for months doing different quarantines in all the cities required.
Strangely enough, a few months ago, this thought (it was obviously the Lord) came to my mind….maybe our daughter is HERE…in the USA. Maybe there’s a little girl, who’s Chinese, who has Down syndrome. And she’s domestic.
Immediately I rejected that thought as too specific…..impossible. Unheard of here, really. Ethnic Chinese? Domestic adoption? Down syndrome?
No.
The Friday that I got the news that China wasn’t going to open back up until late 2022 or “until the virus is eradicated”, I was so discouraged. We had been waiting for 2.5 years for this adoption to be complete and there was no end in sight. Endless prayers, tears, and heartbreak.
So, on a whim, I emailed Stephanie at NDSAN. Just to see if maybe we should make a profile? I didn’t know. Just to get some more information. See if God was leading us in another direction. I hadn’t even spoken to Chris about it, I just did it.
By the end of the day, Stephanie calls me. “I think we have a situation that your family is perfect for and I have goose bumps”. What?!?
A domestic situation where the family is moving back to China and they want to put their 3 year old daughter with Down syndrome up for adoption because they don’t think she’ll have the opportunities in China that she would have here.
I’m completely blown away.
“Send an email with some info on your family and some pics, quick!” She insists.
So, I put together a quick email, stating our love for the Chinese people and culture, our experience with having already adopted a child with DS, our desire to adopt again. We slept on it and sent it the next day.
Sunday morning, Stephanie calls. “They chose you!”
And the tears and goosebumps and the rush to change our paperwork over from International to domestic….it was a whirlwind. A lot more fees to be paid, but God provides!
Within 3 weeks, we were traveling to FL to pick up our little girl. It was a challenging trip in many ways, as are all adoptions, but God answered SO many prayers for us. He provided in SO many ways, countless ways.
We have been home with our Ella Fēi for a little over a week now. She is sweet and spicy, packed full of personality, stubbornness, with a beautiful desire to learn and try new things. Life is definitely an adventure with her!
We’ve already seen so much positive growth in the 2.5 weeks that she has been our daughter. So many new things that she’s never experienced before. She’s a blessing.
While we greatly mourn the child that we were matched with, we cannot leave a bed empty for years when there is a need here that we can meet. God swung open the doors so wide, He practically shoved us through them.
One more thing. 2 years ago, I specially and carefully chose the name “Ella Fēi” for our adopted daughter. Since I painted so many birds to get her home, I wanted her name to have a Chinese middle name that had some meaning with birds. So the name, when said together in the Shanghai dialect means “let’s fly together”.
And her biological mother’s name is FeiFei. So, she has a piece of her mother in her new name.
And so it goes.
And that is our beautiful story.
One that only God could write.
May 2022
Ella is doing really well. Chris and I have signed up for adoption trauma training so that we know how to parent her to the best of our abilities. When we first brought her home, she wasn’t eating or drinking independently, was very lethargic, had sores on her body, bald spots on her head and was extremely anti-social, having never really left her home before.
In the 10 months we’ve had her home, she is now signing for communication instead of screaming. Her self harming behaviors have disappeared, we have gotten her health under control, (turns out she has Celiac disease and a major dairy allergy), she is attending preschool two mornings a week and is just thriving. Ella is learning to love her brother and is getting less aggressive and more affectionate with him as time goes on. Ella has definitely attached firmly to me, as the mom, and to Chris. She has a HUGE personality and trying SO HARD to say words and talk. We joke that she is part Italian because she talks with her hands like Italians do.
Ella loves music, bugs, animals and anything colorful. She loves to draw and paint, loves to sing. I have learned several children’s songs in Chinese so we can help her keep part of her birth culture and language and she listens to Chinese songs all the time.
Ella adores being outside, “helping” me in the garden and loves being in the water for water play. If there’s mud or a puddle or a way to get dirty, Ella will find it. She is very sensory and we are taking classes on joint compressions and brushing as well as helping her get her sensory needs met. Her favorite thing is HUGE stuffed animals that she surrounds herself with every night to sleep and one bear in particular that she calls Bear Bear that she lays on the floor with and kisses his nose over and over again. He is very loved by Ella.
Ella loves to ride in the car seat and loves Sunday school. She adores birds and will practically throw her neck out trying to see one flying in the sky. She’s a sponge for learning signs and trying to say words and can already say a few words. She says Mama and cracker and circle and BearBear and bye bye. She blows kisses and insists on being carried everywhere (I don’t know how much longer I can do that since she’s growing fast!)
She is very tall for her age and is almost the same size as her big brother who is 8! Ella and Lian are quite the adorable pair. Ella has definitely been a huge learning curve for us as her parents as she came with a lot of trauma that we’ve had to work through and learn how to handle, but she has come a long ways. She’s now drinking from a cup and doesn’t choke like she used to. Now that we’ve gotten her health issues and Celiac under control, she has had much more energy and is in less digestive pain.
All in all, while it hasn’t been easy, it has been a journey of blessings and we just adore her. She is so beautiful and her sweet side is super sweet. She has a glare that could melt a hole in metal and she doles that out to whomever is on her current black list, but her smile lights up a room. Ella is extroverted and funny and mischievous and quirky.
Watch out, world! Ella is a pip.
