Journey to Zhang Yin Qiang

Hi Friends and Family!
Thank you for loving us enough to follow our long journey to bring Zhang Yin Qiang
home from China. I made the journey shorter for you by cutting out the long paperchase and bringing you to the week before we depart for China! LOL....

Many, well most of you, have been unaware of our adding another child to our already
large family. The new process of international adoption is difficult, lengthy, and
unpredictable. There are many new rules, lots and lots of paperwork, and changes in
the process overall. Until you get the final "okay you can come" message, it feels
uncertain. Adoption is a leap of faith regardless, and making your way through each
step and requirement while changes are being implemented causes doubt at times that
this child will ever come home and join your family. Despite the hoops, hurdles, and
new rules, we received word from China on November 11, 2009 that we had permission
to finally travel to officially adopt our new son.

Zhang Yin Qiang was born April 28, 2007 in Zhangjiagang, China. He was born with
a cleft lip and palate. His medical report shows that he had his lip repaired as
an infant. As far as we know his palate has not been repaired, so our wonderful
surgeon Larry Sargent will take care of his needs once we are home and adjusted.
We feel very comfortable with this birth defect since Kate and Grace were also
born cleft affected.

The meaning of our childrens' names has been important to us. They always truly
fit their personality or somehow intertwine with us in some way. The translation
of Yin means "silver". Silver a family name on Rick's side was the maiden name of Rick's mother now deceased. So, this has been a clear red thread for us. Qiang means
"strong" in English. How perfect! Searching for the combination of an American
name to combine with a Chinese name is actually fun for me. It did take many
months though to decide on Aiden for this son's name. Aiden is of Celtic origin
and means "fire". He will be Aiden YinQiang McAfee....combining Irish with Chinese.
LOL.. Actually, it was decided the day I was browsing in the children's section
of Home Goods and saw a precious blue and white pillow with Aiden embroidered on
it...Ah ha!even the same spelling we had decided on!!! That sealed the deal.

This is my first experience with a blog, so bear with me.

I want to thank my very creative friend and fellow adoptive mom,
Cynthia, for setting this blog up, uploading the pictures of Aiden I have been
sent, and giving me instructions on how to manage it!! Word is that blog sites
are blocked in China, so I will have someone here in the states upload my comments
and pictures during our trip.

We fly out of Nashville early Friday morning December 4th....yes! One week left
until lift off!!!! Our girls are staying at home with some very gracious friends
who offered to keep them on schedule and give them hugs and kisses until we return
on Dec.18th.......This will be a whirlwind holiday, but in the end one of the most
special ones celebrated yet!

Thanks for joining us!