Back in Time (IV) actual event happened in October 2006

(Pictures on the second trip to Taiwan to be with S and take care of "business")

Two weeks after I came back to America, my lawyer told me that we got our first court ruling 4 days after the court hearing and our final decree would be issued around Sep 18th. That came as a HUGE surprise, because we did not expect the ruling until December based on other adoptive parents' experience in the Tainan District court!! We then had to scramble, because S had a scheduled training in New York during early Oct. The timing actually worked out fine, because I still had other paperwork to take care of for the orphan visa application with AIT. I quickly booked my flight to go back to Taiwan and was back in Taiwan less than 3 weeks after I came back! Definitely not complaining, because Shaun had grown and changed so much in 3 weeks!

Our organization skills came to the rescue again! (1) Arranged to have all the Taiwanese documents translated to English by someone I found over the Internet. (2) Shaun's birth grandfather applied for and received his passport in 3 days, then got the household registration change done. (3) Soon after I arrived at Taiwan on Sep 26th, I took Shaun to MacKay hospital for his medical exam required for visa which took around 7 business days to be ready (& I was still working full time as well.) (4) Requested our visa interview with AIT for Oct 16. (5) Simon arrived at Taiwan on Oct 9. (6) We then went back to my home town, Chung Hwa the next day, because my cousin J and her husband wanted to take us on a road trip around Taiwan. Interestingly, we were actually able to relax in the hot springs of Tai-Dong and enjoyed the most amazing scenery of Taiwan- the Taroko Gorge! (7) We got back to Tao Yuan from the road trip on the evening of Oct 15th to pick up Shaun and the visa documents from my cousin's house. (8) Checked in a hotel that evening and had our visa interview as scheduled on Oct 16th. It was a breeze.....hahaha...looking back NOW- in reality it must have been a lot more hectic and stressful than I recalled.:)

After we got Shaun's visa, we went on other day trips with my cousin T. Flew back to the U.S. on Oct 21 and that officially concluded the adoption "Journey" and started our life as a family of "Three".. :)

Back in Time (III) August 2006

Here are some more pictures from J's first trip to Taiwan in August 2006.

Back in Time II (August 31 2006)

(The Tainan District Court where our heairng took place)


(Inside the Tainan District Court)




(J and J)

(J and J's favorite noddles in Tainan done in the traditional way)



(Tainan's famous "Chi-Cken Tower"- trust me, the name sounds a lot better in Chinese)

The Sunday before I was about to leave Taiwan, S started having diarherra and there was blood... we had to rush him to the hospital. He was hooked up to IV for 4 days while the doctor tested for the cause. He couldn't eat anything and was so weak and looked so helpless.. That was THE moment when I really felt that I was his mommy and he was not just some random ugly baby who had no relationship to me.. The test showed that he had Salmonella infection!! We were not sure exactly how he got it, because none of the adults had it! His doctor said that it is actually common for kids in Taiwan to get Salmonena infection in the summer. S's symptom was considered mild, because he only had diarherra for a few days. According to the doctor, some babies/kids would vomit and have diarrhea for a week! I postponed my trip back to the U.S., because I wanted to be sure that he was fine. Luckily he got better in a week.

Our adoption court hearing date also happened to be on Aug 31 when I was still in Taiwan. I decided to attend in person, even though our lawyer had full power of attorney to represent us in the hearing. I took a 4-hour train ride to Tainan from Tao Yuan and spent the night before the hearing in Tainan. My younger brother J drove from Kao Shuiang to meet me in Tainan the next morning. I was a little nervous, because I have never been to a Taiwanese court. The hearing started on time and S’s birth family didn’t show up. The first question the judge asked me was “how much do you make a year?” ok… that was an easy question.. He then asked another couple of questions like ‘what do you for a living?” and “why did you want to adopt?” He then asked our lawyer why the birth family didn’t attend the court hearing. Mr. Cia told the judge that the birth family had given him the full-power of attorney to represent them and the judge was fine with that answer. The whole hearing was less than 15 or 20 minutes!

After the hearing, J and I went for some great Tainan food and on a little sight-seeing, because I have never been to Tainan before. I haven’t seen J for more than a year since he moved back to Taiwan, so we were happy to spend the day together catching up on life and things. I took the train back to Tao Yuan in the afternoon. On Sep 4, I finally came back to the U.S. I didn’t really want to leave Shaun behind, but I felt bad working from Taiwan for a month already and I missed Simon too!

Back in Time

(Jul 31, 2006)




(Today is actually Dec 2nd 2007
It's kind of strange to go back in time to see all the pictures and try to remember what had happened in the past. Memory does get fuzzy, but I want to write this down so that not all memory was lost.)

Way back in July 2006- after we have completed gathering all of the paperwork needed to file our adoption case in Tainan District Court, I decided to go back to Taiwan to spend 2 weeks with Shaun. Luckily my manager was supportive of me working from Taiwan for 2 weeks.
The first moment I saw S, I said to my aunt... "oh... that is one ugly baby.." hahaha....(Simon thought I was soo mean..) You can't blame me for saying that!! My family had shaved all of his hair AND eyebrow in accordance with Taiwanese tradition (when he turned one month old.) Unfortunately, S has really really slow growth when it comes to hair, so he was still bald with no eyebrow when I saw him on July 31 2006.
He was not 3 month old yet, so he didn't respond to my effort of trying to make him laugh... Sometimes he even cried really hard when he saw my face!! Not exactly an ego-booster to mommy, so from there we started our very sloooooow bonding process..:)
*However, I have to admit it was more fun being a "part-time" mom! My aunt did most of the work and all I had to do was to hold S and play with him a little bit.

Our Adoption Story

After trying to have a baby through "artificial" means (a few unsuccessful IUIs) for a couple of years, we found our "miracle" baby all by accident. I still remember vividly on May 9, 2006, 8th day into my first IVF treatment, I read a news article on Taiwan Yahoo about a baby boy needing an adoptive family. I thought "ooh.. poor baby, nobody wants him in Taiwan, so let me give him a home in the U.S..." Maybe not so fast... When I contacted the hospital in Tainan County, the hospital said that their phone was ringing off the hook... They had no time to talk, and asked all interested adoptive parents to drive to the hospital to visit and register in person or send a family to do so on their behalf. S and I talked about it and decided to give it try, even though we knew that so many families wanted to adopt him and that he was not a "poor" baby as I had assumed. I asked my dad to drive to the hospital to visit the baby the next day!!

I think it was fate! My parents spent most of their time in China and my dad just happened to be home in Taiwan that week. When he arrived at the hospital, he was surprised by the numbers of families showing up and standing in line in the hospital to visit the baby!!! The response was so overwhelming that the hospital had to separate the applicants into several stacks: "most promising", "promising", "maybe" and "no chance." It was so "competitive" that my dad caught families trying to move their application from the "promising" to "most promising" stack!!! The hospital then presented the final four families from the most promising stack to Shaun's birth family to choose from. Shaun's grandfather "interviewed" us over the phone and was going to decide in a week. He then narrowed it down to final 2 families: we were up against a Taiwanese doctor in Pennsylvania!! At that time, we thought we had no chance... I mean all Taiwanese LOVE doctors!! I didn't want to pressure Shaun's birth family, so I didn't call them again after the phone "interview", but my dad was calling me everyday from China asking whether "he" should call the birth family. One week of waiting turned into 2 weeks, and still no decision, & no news. I told my dad to leave the birth family alone so that they can make the right decision for the baby. However, one morning my dad decided to ignore my “instruction” and called the birth family from China, because he woke up early and had nothing else to worry about. The first sentence from Shaun's grandfather to my dad on the phone was "He is yours."
Ha…. What happened was that the birth family was having such a hard time choosing between us and the doctor from Pennsylvania that they finally decided to leave it up to fate... Shaun's great grandfather decided whoever called first the next day would get the baby!! The doctor from PA had been calling them everyday, but that morning my dad called before they did!! I don't know what it was, if it were not "fate." :)

The paper chase afterwards all seemed like a blur now, but it was a miracle that we were able to pull it off by ourselves. We had no clue at the time how complicated, time consuming and stressful that an international private adoption can be!! However, we were able to quickly put our research skills learned from business and law schools to work and completed the whole process in 5 months.

I have not kept up with most of my relatives since I left Taiwan in 1987, because I was always busy studying, traveling and working. I spent 2 months in Taiwan to be with Shaun and get his paperwork ready and also spent so much time with my family and relatives that we became close again. I feel that not only we have found our son in this adoption journey; I have also "rediscovered" my families in Taiwan. My dad's older sister took such good care of Shaun that Simon and I had to beg her to come to the U.S. with us for three months!

Life has not been the same ever since we became a family of three. We are so lucky to have so much support from our families in Taiwan and the U.S. & we feel blessed that they have embraced our unexpected and unplanned adoption so whole heartily.