Hannah's Current Home - A Gift from God!!

We are blessed beyond measure!! God is so good and I cannot thank Him or praise Him enough for my precious daughter!!

A friend emailed me recently and mentioned that I might want to read the post that I put up on March 1, 2009. Wow....just WOW!!! Little did I know at the time that Hannah was just 2 days old!! My sweet baby girl had been born and was living in the Social Welfare Institute (SWI) God had planned for her.

2 weeks ago yesterday I learned that Hannah's SWI is Daoxian (Dao County) SWI in Hunan province and it is a great home for her!! Every single person who has contacted me who has a child from this SWI says that their child was loved, healthy, well cared for, has transitioned well to home and the nannies truly loved them! I cannot tell you what this does for my heart! I'm overcome with thankfulness to God for taking such amazing care of Hannah before He brings us together. It takes my breath away!! It should not surprise me that God is taking such care of her but adopting a child from another country comes with no guarantees so I am blessed beyond measure and thankful that God chose Daoxian to be her first home.

Daoxian is a smaller orphanage with an average of 30-40 babies in it's care at any one time.

One gal came home just recently and she shared that in their group, 2 of the babies were from Daoxian. The drive from the SWI to Changsha where the families meet the babies is 5 1/2 hours. These 2 precious babies were escorted by 4 nannies and the orphanage director!! Wow! And, the tears of both the nannies and babies when they had to say good-bye was testimony to how they were loved.

For sleeping arrangements, rather than all the babies being in a large room, Daoxian babies live in more of a dorm style room. In smaller rooms there are 4 cribs and a nanny's cot. I believe there are just 4 little ones who are bonding daily with a daytime nanny and a nighttime nanny! I've seen pictures of the SWI and it is really nice! (Sorry, I've been told that they're not public photos so am unable to share them here.) The building was built just last summer so it is super fresh and clean. You can see this in her referral pictures too. Something that absolutely melted my heart and gave me such peace was to see little mattresses in each of the cribs. It is common in Chinese SWIs for babies to sleep directly on wooden boards so when I saw little mattresses my heart soared!

One of the other families in our group also received a referral of a Dao baby and in her picture you can see toys in the background. Yay! Mary and I are hoping and praying that our baby girls are in a room together so that they will make the long journey from the orphanage to Changsha with a friend and possibly they will recognize one another as we're together in China. So thankful that we live close to one another and hopefully the girls will have an opportunity to keep in touch as they grow up.

I don't know at this time if I will have an opportunity to visit Hannah's SWI but I will do everything in my power to get there. It may be a long drive but having learned how helpful it can be for the babies to transition I would like to visit. If would also be a wonderful opportunity to meet the precious women who are loving my baby before I meet her and to express my thankfulness to them and also see where my daughter will have spent the first 8 months of her life. This will be so important to her in the future if I'm able to visit. I've expressed my interest to my agency director and am waiting to hear back from her. I'll let you know what she says later.

(If there are any Daoxian families reading this who have pictures I could see (and maybe some I'd be allowed to share here) I'd really like to hear from you!! Have any of you had an opportunity to visit Daoxian SWI?)

Thanking God for placing Hannah in Daoxian SWI and for those who are caring for Hannah and loving her now.