More About Allison

Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for all the wonderful comments and good wishes! I've got some more information about Allison to share with you. Her Chinese name is Bo Dong Ying and she is currently residing in the Boyang Social Welfare Institute in Boyang County, Jiangxi Province (aka Poyang Social Welfare Institute and Poyang County). All children from this SWI are given the surname Bo which refers to the name of the county. The name Dong Ying means "winter cherry," a beautiful plant native to China. Boyang County is located near Lake Poyang, the largest fresh water lake in China and a natural habitat for half a million migratory birds. According to her paperwork, Allison was left at the gates of a local hospital on December 24th, 2008. A physical exam determined that she was a brand new baby at that time. The pictures you see below were taken last summer so she is a bit older now. Here are some other characteristics that were noted in her records:

She is a deep sleeper. (Yes!!!)
She is fond of listening to music.
She is fond of playing with toys.
She is fond of playing games.
She laughs aloud and has a ready smile.
She is active and restless. (Yikes!)

Allison's medical records were reviewed by the Health Center for International Adoption at Texas Children's Hospital and I'm happy to report that they have placed her in the "low risk" category for medical issues. I just signed the "Letter Seeking Confirmation of Adopter" today so it's official! I can't wait to go and pick her up!

Her name is...

Allison! I'm still pondering the middle name. You'd think that after nearly four years of waiting I'd have this all figured out but I'm still mulling it over. I'm waiting to see what her Chinese name is. The Fed Ex man is supposed to come today with a package containing more information about her. I can't wait!

She's Here!!!

Hi Everyone,

After 1,396 days of waiting I finally got the call from my agency today! I can't believe it! I'm still waiting on the translation of my referral documents for more information but HERE SHE IS!!! Her birthday is 12/24/08 and she is from Jiangxi Province.

Welcome!

Hello everyone!



Welcome to my blog! I know many of you have been following my very l-o-o-o-o-n-g adoption journey so I thought I'd create a blog to keep you posted. You're probably wondering about the name of my blog. Well, that's a funny story! About a year ago, I was waiting backstage with Hong Da Chin, my international flute student from Malaysia. Hong Da was going to perform for our faculty convocation and our piano faculty member Shao-Shan Chen was going to accompany him. Both of them speak Chinese. While we were waiting, Shao-Shan asked me if I had heard anything from China about my adoption. In preparation for my anticipated trip, I had been studying a little Chinese from a web site called chinesepod.com. I had recently finished a tutorial about babies and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to show off my new found vocabulary. I mentioned that I was still waiting for the referral of my "bao-bao," the Chinese word for baby - or so I thought! Shao-Shan and Hong Da looked at each other and started to smile. Shao-Shan said to me gently, "Joy...you realize you just called your baby a meatball." "Meatball!?" I exclaimed bewildered. Shao-Shan explained that I had used the wrong tones (voice inflection) when pronouncing the word and that had changed the meaning from baby to meatball. (Chinese is a tricky language!) Well, after I told this story to friends the term "meatball" stuck. People would ask, "So...have you heard news about The Meatball?" So, there you have it! Welcome to The Meatball Chronicles! As soon as I have some news about my baby (I'm sticking with English from now on!) I'll be sure to post it here.



Thanks for visiting!



Joy