Please welcome to the family -- Madelyn Yihong Olson
It's been hard keeping this under wraps for the the last week, but we had to wait until it was official, and now that it is, we want to let everyone know that we have a daughter!
Her name is Madelyn Yihong Olson and she comes to us from Sanming City in the Fujian province of China (click the links for more info). The orphanage is the Social Welfare Institute of Sanming City (I will do my research and get more info on the orphanage later, but that link has pictures and some maps of the area).
Her given name is Yihong, which we are going to keep for her as her middle name. The Chinese characters for the name are 忆红 and the literal meaning (as we verified with our Chinese teacher) is "remember red". From doing some research, it appears that red can signify several things, including "luck" or "China."
She has a cleft lip and palate, as you can see in the pictures. Beyond that, though, we have had several doctors look at her medical information and she appears to be very healthy.
Her birthday is February 16th, 2009.
Her measurements as of the beginning of August were:
- Height: 26.5 inches (35th percentile)
- Weight: 14.33 lbs.(70th percentile)
- Head size: 16.1 inches
- Chest size: 15.75 inches
- Feet length: 4.1 inches
- Teeth number: 0
We have several pictures from when she was 3 months old and, more currently, when she was 6 months old.
At 3 months:
At 6 months:
Here is the initial info we have on her from the documentation we received from the Chinese government:
On Feb. 22 2009 the infant was abandoned at the gate of Dongxin elementary school of Xubi Village, Meilie Distrcit, Sanming City and was found then reported to police station. After a lot of search of the policemen of Xubi police station, it was still failed to find the baby’s relatives and the baby was sent to our SWI upon finalizing all the procedures.
(At 3 months):
Since admission, this baby-girl was checked and sent to the isolation room right away for 20 days. She was sent to the infant room to be cared after being confirmed no infectious diseases. She has a routine life, gets up at 6:50, naps between 12:30 and 14:30, and goes to bed at 21:30. However, she also naps at other time uncertainly with sound sleep. She has rice powder as staple food, about 100-120ml per time. Some supplementary food would be added everyday such as lean meat soup, stewed egg (crucian), fruit juice and calcium and vitamins are added as well regularly. The time of meals: 7:30, 10:00, 12:00, 15:00, 17:30, 21:00 and midnight. As she is growing up, we also give her roughage to make her have enough nutrition. She is bathed at 6:00 per day and is cuddled to play inside and outside, such as listening to nursery rhymes or enjoying the sunshine in order to facilitate her physical, psychological and mental development.
On admission, she slept most of the day for the first month yet she had the sense of sounds and the intensity of light. At the 2nd month, she could hold her head up and smile, visually move following moving objects or stare at one object. Now she is almost 3 months old and she could erect her head, smile and babble as well as face towards the direction of sound.
Now she is almost 3 months with good intellectual and physical development. Now she would smile when teased, cry when being hungry or having the needs of defecation or urination. When she is not hungry, she would play her hands and the caregivers joke around that she is counting.
She is a smart and quiet child, enjoys listening to nursery rhymes and being teased by the caregivers who is accompanying her face to face. She would wave her hands and feet when she is happy.
(At 6 Months):
According to the orphanage, currently, she can lift head, shoulders and chest when she is placed on stomach on extended arms. She can’t sit alone, but can sit with both hands’ support. She can’t stand. She can crawl a little bit forwards and backwards. She often brings objects on hand to the mouth. She can hold small toys from one hand to another. She bubbles and often says “Wa Wa Wa”. She likes to roll over and crawl on the floor. When someone calls her name, she will look around at once. Her main food is milk mixed with rice cereal, and she also eats pork broth, fish soup, steamed egg as well.
She is pretty quiet, and is easy to fall asleep.. When the orphanage staff took pictures for her and tried to make her smile, she didn’t smile, but when the orphanage just finished, she laughed a lot, which made the staff a little frustrated, the staff said, it was not easy to get her smile to the camera sometimes, but she was a sweet baby girl. Her petname is "Hong Hong"
Going forward, we now have to wait for a Letter of Acceptance from China, which confirms that our dossier is approved. This can take anywhere from 1 to 5 months to get. About 12-14 weeks after that, we will get our visas and other travel documents in order and we can plan to travel another three to four weeks later. We have been told 8 months from today to our travel day is a reasonable time frame to expect, so we'll likely be bringing her home sometime around April.
I'm sure there will be many more stories and updates as we go through things, so I'll be sure to let everyone know anything relevant as we do. Please feel free to leave any questions you may have in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them.
Tricia and I are so very, very excited to be Madelyn's parents - we haven't been able to stop smiling all day :D
