As we got involved in the process I said to Grace that we ought to pursue adopting two children, rather than just one since we both felt the need for the child to have siblings and besides that at 49 and 48 we are not getting any younger!  So we applied for 2 children.  Almost immediately everyone told us that was a waste of time because China does not approve two children simultaneously unless they are twins or siblings and those are very rare.  Further, they told us, the cost (about $14,000/child) was the same per child whether you adopted one or a dozen.  But I felt strongly we needed to go for two, but the truth is all this negative talk was a bit discouraging.

Just a couple of days after sending in our initial application I received a phone call from a company that I that I do business with and they told me they owed me some money for some work I had done several years ago.  Although I knew I was due something I was not sure how much, so I asked them what I was due.  They told me I was owed just a little over $28,000 and they were going to send it to me by weeks end.  At that point I knew we were going to get two children, and believe it or not I was convinced it would be twins, because God does not provide the exact amount you need without providing a way to use those funds.

Over the next several months we began the paperwork trail and by June had everything done with the exception of the approval from the INS. In early August, we received a call from the local INS representative and the lady asked if I was the Don White that did the radio show on the local station in West Palm Beach.  I told her I was and she told me she was assigned our file at the INS and she that she was a regular listener, blah, blah, blah!  However, she said the main reason she called was she noticed we were applying for two children and that since China does not normally allow multiple adoptions she was not sure why I had applied for two children.  I then told her about our experience and the funding and she said, "Well I think this was meant to be and I am going to go ahead and approve you for two visas with one caveat -- you must bring by the kid(s) to see me once you get home."  How cool is that?

So with INS approval in hand we packaged up our dossier and on August 20th we sent it to China to begin the wait of being referred a child.  On August 27th we received a call from the adoption agency and Jill Baker, our contact at A Helping Hand Adoption Agency said, "We just received our list of available children and on top of the list are a set of twin girls that were born September 12, 2003.  They both have cleft lips and cleft palates.  The lips have been repaired but the palates still need to be done.  They are available and since you are the only people we have that are approved for two children, we want you to have the opportunity to adopt them before anyone else."  Both Grace and I were shocked.  We thought it would take months to get a referral and now here we were a week after finishing our dossier being asked to adopt these two precious packages.  My immediate response was I'm in!  But Grace, as is her nature, was more reserved.  Would we be able to handle twins?  How big a deal is the cleft lip and palate? Are they too young? (We thought we might be adopting toddlers, not infants) Have we lost our minds? There were many more questions and not many answers. 

So that weekend Grace got on the Internet and within 24 hours she had the entire life history of both girls.  Here's what she found:

They were abandoned at 3 days old In Jiaozou in Hunan province (about 600 miles southwest of Beijing).  The orphanage director realized their small orphanage in Jiaozou was not set up to handle two cleft babies and asked Dr. Joyce Hill, an Australian doctor that gave up her practice six years ago to come to China and direct Hope Foster Home  in Beijing if she would foster the twins.  Another Australian lady working as an orphanage volunteer in Jiaozou delivered the twins to Hope Foster Home when they were only 12 days old along with several other fortunate ones. Grace actually corresponded with this lady the day after the twins were referred to us.  The Internet is remarkable.

That Sunday we contacted Hope Foster Home www.Hopefosterhome.com and spoke with Dr. Hill.  She told us HFH is a foster home that can handle about 25 kids.  When Joyce took the twins in they were less than 2 kg and now they are about 10 kg and may need to go on a bit of a diet.  Indeed, Dr. Hill told us her daughter calls HFH "the fat baby farm" . 

When the twins were seven months old Dr. Hill heard two American surgeons were coming to China with a group called "Love without Boundaries" www.lovewithoutboundaries.com to fix cleft lips and cleft palates but they would be in south China exclusively.  Without any guarantees they would even be able to treat the girls she drove 2500 km (each way) to Guangzhou province.  When the surgeons saw them they were amazed.  Unlike all the other children they were treating, these children were healthy, were normal weight and most of all they were happy.  The surgeons (Dr. John Padilla a plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills and Dr. Lisa David, a cranial facial surgeon from Wake Forest Medical Center in NC) literally fell in love with them.  Within days of finding out about the girls I had the pleasure of speaking to both surgeons as well as the head of LWB.  Indeed, Dr. David said she was trying to figure out a way she could hide them in her luggage!  She is also the one who informed us about the rarity of their clefts.  Tragically, Dr. Padilla died in a plane crash on November 10, 2004 and never was able to see the wonderful life change he made in our two girls lives.  Although I never met him, except on the phone, I will never forget him and will look forward to shaking his hand and thanking him face to face when my days on earth are through.  Please go to this link to see a special tribute to Dr. John.

We decided to call the girls Reagan and Sydney and keep their Chinese names (Ya Qui and Ya Yun) as middle names.  The names have very special meaning to Grace and me.  First, when Grace and I were in China in June, 2004, President Reagan passed away.  I was told that it was Mr. Reagan that opened the door for Chinese American adoption in its present form.  Prior to the Reagan era Chinese American adoption was virtually nonexistent.  So we made the decision even before knowing we were getting the twins to name our first child Reagan in honor of the President.  The second name was actually done for us.  Both girls had received English names at Hope Foster Home - Carly and Sydney.  We decided to keep Sydney's name to remind us of the Australian connection (the orphanage volunteer and Dr. Hill are both from Australia) that put them into our arms.

Once they are in the US we are going to bring them to either Shands Hospital at the University of Florida or Miami Children's Hospital to work with the cleft lip and palate teams they have developed.  We have spoken with numerous professionals, including Dr. David and Dr. Padilla, and they have all recommended working with a specialized cleft team and two of the best in the country are supposed to be Miami Children's and Shands.  We are leaning toward Miami for several reasons.  First, the head of speech pathology on the team actually lives and practices in Stuart.  Second, the hospital itself is considerably closer.  Finally, the pediatrician on the team is in Palm Beach Gardens.  However, the folks at Shands seem to be great people, their reputation is renowned, so who knows? 

I could go on and on, but this will have to do for now.  We are off to China on December 9, 2004 and are scheduled back on the 23rd, just in time for Christmas!  What a Christmas present we have been given in 2004!  We cannot wait to get back to China and to think this would have never happened had we not been asked by our friends at the MDRT Foundation to go to China to build a playground for orphans!  Thank you MDRT for all you do and we extend our sincerest thanks to everyone that has been a part of this phenomenal experience.