For all the waiting children

Anne Hart | Sunday, December 9, 2007 at 12:30 am

The McNally family is waiting for Jun, a special needs child from China, to be ready for adoption.

Dear JT,

You don't know them yet, but your future mom and dad already call you their son.

They can't wait to meet you.

A photo of you holding a cookie sits in their den among other treasured McNally family photos. It's in a frame next to their son, Aiden, 4, and daughter, Ireland, 6, your future brother and sister.

Your mom, Monica, plans to travel to China to get you as soon as all the authorities involved in the adoption say it's OK. She and your dad, John, wait every day to receive notice that you can come home.

Monica and John completed a mountain of paperwork in order to bring you into their family. They started in April and hoped to have you here by Christmas.

But chances are you won't be home until this spring, perhaps around your third birthday.


Extraordinary parents

You won't realize this until you're much older, but your parents are extraordinary.

All parents who adopt children with special needs are.

After having two children, Monica and John wanted another child.

They know the world is full of children in need of parents. Monica sometimes went to bed with swollen eyes from crying over all the faces she saw on Internet adoption sites. All those children waiting for parents broke her heart.

She wanted to help at least one "waiting child."

Monica fell in love with you when she saw your photo on one of those sites.

She and John learned about your intestinal problems that will require one surgery, maybe two, maybe more. They don't know for certain. The medical records are vague.

Adopting a child with special needs and an unknown medical future might have stopped some couples. Not your parents. They already loved you.

They decided to take a leap of faith.


An important place

When your parents began looking into adoption, they knew they didn't want to take a healthy child away from a couple who couldn't have kids. Instead, your parents wanted to adopt "a waiting child," one who might never find parents.

Monica and John think about you so much each day. They've never touched you, smelled you or held you, but they miss you. They worry about you.

They wonder what you're doing in the orphanage, if you're cold, if your crib is comfortable, if you're getting enough hugs.

You were brought to that orphanage when you were only a few days old. It's the only home you've known after being abandoned at a police station.

Whoever left you at that police station wanted to make sure you were in a safe place where you would be found and cared for. That's what Monica says, rather than think badly of your birth mom. See what I mean about your adoptive parents being special?

Monica and John know the orphanage will always be an important place in your life. Monica sent a blanket there already, to soak up the scent. She plans to bring it back here when she comes to get you. So you will have something in your new home with the familiar scent of your first home.

She'll also take photos of the orphanage and the Henan province where you're from. Your parents don't want you to forget your roots.

Your given name, Jun, means army military, Monica says. Which means you'll fit in fine at the McNally house. Monica and John met in flight school. Both were military pilots. Today, John is a U.S. Army pilot.

Before having kids, Monica and John were stationed in South Korea for two years. They fell in love with children who lived below them. That's where the seed for adopting an Asian child was planted.

Sharing your story


Your brother and sister talk about you a lot. Ireland said she can't wait to sing you a lullaby. They make drawings for you. When a shirt is too small, Ireland says "Save it for JT." Aiden promises to share his room - and bunk beds. Clothes are already hanging in your closet for you.

Your new name, JT, stands for your given name and for John, after your father. The T is for Theodore, your future grandfather. You were born on his birthday.

Friends and relatives know how strongly your new family feels about you. They're doing what they can to help John and Monica come up with the remaining $6,000 they need out of the roughly $20,000 it costs to adopt a child from China.

Folks at St. Frances Cabrini, where Aiden and Ireland go to school, are throwing fundraisers.

Monica and friends also have wrapped presents and sold baked goods outside of OshKosh, where Monica's working to help cover the costs in a small way.

Your parents want to share your story with as many people as possible.

They hope it will encourage other parents to take that leap of faith and adopt a special-needs child.

Because every waiting child deserves a home.

http://www.savannahnow.com/node/411914






China-Babies Research