July 18, 2007

This blog is set up for friends and family of Frannie Fay. We will use this mostly to keep everyone apprised of her/our progress in the adoption process and during the trip to China.

Frannie info: Her birthday is estimated to be November 2, 2005. She presently lives in the Shaanxi Welfare Institute in the Hope Haven section. Her Chinese name is Qin Rui Zhen. She was found (near the orphanage?) on November 25, 2005 weighing only 4.4 pounds and "very furry" according to one of her nannies (Sophie) who has graciously e-mailed us from Australia. She has a missing right thumb and "slight" scoliosis, whatever that means. As of this date, as far as we know, she is 18 pounds, 26 inches tall (wearing a 9-12 month size despite being almost 21 months old).

The story of her name came about (skip this if you are bored or have heard this before) when Kevin and I were tossing names around before we even knew we were getting Qin Rui Zhen or any other baby. He had been out of town and I woke up with a start one Satruday morning thinking "Oh MAN, she has to be named Frances after Kevin's Mom." When I spoke to him later that morning he thought it sounded great, but had not been sure if I would like the name or not. At that time I had a "Lives of the Saints" in the house, but didn't bother to go look for it just thinking I would look up a Saint Frances later to see which females we had to choose from. Weeks went by and I kept thinking I would look her up, but kept forgetting. After being persuaded into going to adoration one day by a fellow adoptive Mom I looked over in the chapel to see the Saints book and opened it to the exact page for Saint Frances Cabrini, Patron Saint of Immigrants. Weeping openly on my way to the car, I dialed Kevin and I'm sure he could barely decipher my words but I finally relayed what had happened and it was settled. We talked about "Frances Elizabeth" for a while. When I spoke to my buddy Kathleen at school (a fellow Catholic) around this time and told her about how it happened she immediately told me we had to name her Frances Cabrini, NOT Elizabeth and she should be nicknamed Brini (pro. Breenee) and I laughed at her assuredness. Kevin surprised me and agreed so Frannie (Brini) will have an Irish/Chinese/Italian identity to work through....

We received her referral on May 1 (thank you very much Blessed Mother) and were not certain for 7 days whether she would be granted to us or not by Hope, due to another family checking her out too. After about 1,000 crying and praying episode that week, we got the call from Hope that she is ours. I was so emotional that I had to drive down to Turner Field and sneak up on Kevin working at High Home and squeeze him. We had our Letter of Intent sent over to China a week or so later and the waiting began. Thank God that Hope put us in touch with the other families who also had their LOIs sent over at the same time. After e-mailing and talking, we finally met the Harkness family and Donna Straight the same night at the "Third Friday" meeting in Lawrenceville. The Harkness family had chosen their daughter from the same list and she is living in Frannie's orphanage as well. Lucy and I bonded instantly and promised to share info, ship the girls some goodies together and since Lucy is already a Mom, I asked her lots of questions and felt instantly connected to her family. At this stage, we were expecting to wait 100 or so days for the "Letter Seeking Confirmation" to come back to us from China, but it only took 51 days! As of today, we are anticipating going to China to get her around August 15, staying for 2 weeks (for those novice China adoption people, there's a whole lot of crap in between there, and for those skilled in the ways of this titillating process, you already know!)