以下为养母提供给志愿者的全文:
We adopted our beautiful Gracie Xinying Terry when she was two years old. Our family lives in St. George, Utah in the United States. Gracie was found on November 18, 2007 in Jiangyin (Chengjiang Street, Xixing New Village, Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, China 16-504). She was found at the bottom of the stairway at apartment building 16.
Gracie had a hernia break when she was born. This is called omphalocele, where her stomach was broken open and her intestines were exposed. She was also born with exotropia where her eyes are misaligned, or not even.
After she was found the police were called. They came and transported her to the hospital. She spent about one month there and had surgery on her stomach. She was then taken to Jiangyin Children’s Welfare Institute where she spent the next two years and four months until we adopted her.
The process of adoption was filled with many trials and miracles. When we began to fill out the paperwork for adoption the whole process was only supposed to take 18 months. We waited a total of five years to get Gracie, and the wait was worth it! Our first adoption agency in our city let our paperwork expire and we were devastated. We prayed to know if we were supposed to still adopt. We received the answer yes. We used a different adoption agency out of New York City and we were able to bring Gracie home nine months later.
We experienced many miracles which helped us know that Gracie was supposed to be part of our family. We had another very special miracle happen. If this wouldn’t have happened we would not have been able to adopt her. In our adoption paperwork we had to write how much income my husband earned that year. With a family of our size (we already had 4 children) we did not make enough to adopt from China. Right before the papers were ready to be turned in, my husband went to a Best Western hotel conference for his work. He won the grand prize of $25,000. That put our income that year at about $1,000 over the amount that we were required to earn. Our income was barely enough to adopt Gracie. Although our family knows that money is not necessary to be happy, we were so grateful for this miracle in our lives. We were able to pay for adoption costs and travel to China. We were so grateful!
My husband Dallen and I travelled to China in August 2010 to bring our sweet Gracie home. I will never forget the first time I saw her when the director of her orphanage brought her into the room. She was so beautiful, and tall! We were very blessed because Gracie connected with us instantly. We had so much fun bonding with her and enjoying the sights in China. What a beautiful country! We were so lucky to spend a few weeks in China and see many beautiful things! We knew that we would always believe that it would be very important to teach Gracie that her beautiful country of China and the people in China are very special!
Gracie will be 13 this November. She is the youngest of our five children. Our other four children are biological and range from ages 16 to 24. Gracie loves to dance, cook, and hang out with family and friends. She excels at her school. She is in the dual immersion mandarin program in the sixth grade. She is so lucky and happy to be able to be learning and speaking mandarin. Gracie’s nickname is “Noodle”, which fits her well. She is very tall and thin, and noodles are her favorite thing. She can’t get enough of them!
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