She was born in China with a rare eye disease, but she’ll grow up a ‘Bama girl

Only 10 days after she was born, a young girl named Junfen was abandoned in China because she had a cleft lip and palate. But that isn’t the only hardship the young girl faced. She also has severe scoliosis.

Now, at the age of 7, and here in Minnesota, Junfen is finally getting the medical care that will change her life.

When we first met Junfen, she was getting ready for back surgery. But she had already won the hearts of everyone at Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul.

This first-grader has been in the hospital for seven weeks. A halo was holding her head to prepare her spine to be straightened. Scoliosis had severely curved her back bone and fused her ribs together. There’s no room for her lungs and heart.

Junfen was abandoned as an infant in China with a cleft lip and palate. She had some surgery for that but her scoliosis left her tipped to the right.

As an older child with medical issues, Junfen’s chances for adoption were not great. Then Jerry and Karin Freihammer came along.

“We saw this picture of a spunky little girl,” said Karin.

“On the steps of the orphanage, and the smile,” said Jerry. “One shoulder very prominent up. That was the picture that caught us.”

The Freihammers had hoped to adopt an infant. But with nearly a 5-year wait, they decided a child with special needs needed their love.

“A child’s waiting, we’re waiting, why not get together,” said Karin.

They talked with doctors at Gillette before adopting Junfen. And they knew surgery in Minnesota could change her life.

“Our concern was with the scoliosis because her curve is over 100 degrees and it was progressing,” said Karin, “So surgery, it’s a must, it wasn’t really an option.”

Surgeons inserted Vertical Expandable Prosthetic Titanium Ribs, or VEPTR, along Junfen’s spine. It’s a delicate operation on such a small child. And there will be surgical adjustments every six months until she stops growing. That will probably be at least another five years.

Six days after her surgery, Junfen is home. She loves playing on the computer and is adjusting to the change.

“She saw her back in the mirror for the first time and she goes, ‘Oh, my back is straight,’” said Karin. “And it’s just a whole new world for her now.”

Junfen still feels some pain from the surgery and prefers to be carried.

It’s not that the curve of her spine ever kept Junfen from doing anything she was determined to do. She adapted to being off center. Now the little girl from Wuhan, China will learn a new kind of balance.

“We’re very excited about the results,” said her parents. “It’s almost a miracle.”

Junfen has only lived here in Minnesota for about a year and she is perfectly fluent in English. She’s attending an immersion school in St. Paul because her parents want to make sure she remembers her Chinese.

Original Article

By SLOAN BREWSTER, Press staff

MIDDLETOWN — Joanne Swift said U.S. adoption agencies refused to even consider her and her husband, Bob Vess, as potential adoptive parents.

That’s why they turned to China.

“I chose China because we had four biological children at the time and there was no one else that would consider [us],” Swift said.

Now Swift has seven children, three of them girls she adopted from China.

Swift, a resident of Cromwell, and her daughter, 11-year old Amelia Vess — the first child she adopted from China — were at the Book Bower in the Main Street Market Friday, where Swift discussed a chapter she wrote in a book about the journeys of families with children adopted from China.

“Our Blessings from China,” is an anthology of nine authors, each giving their account of the challenges and rewards of adopting from China.

Adopting a child from China can run a family between $20,000 and $30,000, Swift said, explaining the amount includes staying in the country and a “donation.”

One other adoptive mother, Carla Jayson, of Middletown, attended the discussion. Her adoptive daughter, 7-year-old Natalie Jayson also from China, wandered around the store, snacking on pretzels, and occasionally stopped by to hug her mother.

When Swift and Jayson were asked how it felt the first moment they took their adoptive babies in their arms, they rambled off answers, their faces exploding with wonderment at the memories.

“Tearful, indescribable joy,” Jayson immediately piped up.

“Kind of surreal,” Swift chimed in.

“I mean, you’ve been waiting so long,” Jayson exclaimed.

“They just hand you this baby and, don’t they realize this is a whole person?” Swift asked rhetorically.

“I had to take a Xanax that morning,” Jayson relayed.

“I almost felt like saying ‘no, no thank you,’ because you feel like you’re taking something that you shouldn’t. I mean, it’s a big loss for someone; for me it’s a gain, but for someone … ” Swift explained.

Amelia quietly leaned on the chair where her mother sat, smiling as she listened to stories of her adoption and upbringing. Occasionally, she responded to tidbits her mother conveyed, such as when Swift explained one of the reasons she returned to get another child from the far away country.

“Amelia pointed out to me when she was very small that nobody in the family looked like her and she wanted a sister that looked like her,” Swift said, recalling the child told her, “I have a sister that looked like me in China.”

Amelia leaned back and looked at her mother, “I did?” she asked.

Swift nodded and assured her the tale was true, adding the sister in Amelia’s birth country was imaginary. It also cemented an idea she was already pondering.

“I was looking for a reason to go out and fill out the paperwork,” Swift said.

The second Chinese baby Swift adopted is Allison, now 8.

“My 8-year-old said to me, she said, ‘You don’t know anything about raising Asian children,’” Swift said, relaying an incident that occurred the night before. “She didn’t clarify, but she was so annoyed with me. I figured she was overtired so I sent her to bed, she stalked all the way up.”

The third Chinese child Swift adopted is 7-year-old Cecilia.

Included in the struggles she and her husband had to deal with when first getting the foreign girls was potential illness, she said.

“All our babies had fevers,” she said.

“I was there in the SARS outbreak, and some of our babies were sick,” Jayson said. “We didn’t know what was going on. Thank God she was alright.”

Since adopting from China, Swift has incorporated Asian foods and customs into her family. Amelia sometimes cooks and makes “the best stir fry on the planet,” her mother said.

“You do Chinese things with the kids,” said Angela Leavitt, a friend of Swift’s who attended the discussion. “I’ve seen Chinese things at your house.”

The three girls also kept their Chinese names, as middle names. Li Ping is Amelia’s middle name.

“What would you like people to take away from your experience?” asked Book Bower owner Linda Bower.

“I think everyone should adopt,” Swift said.

Original Article

BEIJING, May 8 — The reason only 12 earthquake orphans have been adopted by new families is because authorities have been respecting the wishes of the children, the head of Sichuan civil affairs bureau told a press conference days before the one-year anniversary of the earthquake Thursday in Chengdu.

“Most of the orphans prefer to live with their family relatives, such as grandparents or uncle and aunt,” Huang Mingquan said at the meeting.

“The family relatives also strongly ask for the custody of these children,” he said.

Some 630 orphans were left following the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Sichuan province on May 12 last year.

Foreigners are not allowed to adopt earthquake orphans, according to the China Center of Adoption Affairs under the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

“Other earthquake orphans, who do not have any family members or their family members were unable to take care of them, have been arranged to live in various social welfare institutions or boarding schools,” Huang said.

Each quake orphan could get 600 yuan a month from the government backdated to last December and continue to receive the funds until they are 18.

The financial support extends to the 635 elders and 184 disabled people who lost all of their family members in last year’s earthquake.

(Source: China Daily)

“Child seeks married parents, under 50, skinny and pretty. No antidepressant medicine for the last two years. Must meet economic and educational standards.”

China has enforced stricter adoption laws since May 2007, according to a Time magazine article. In the past, I have kept my mouth shut about China.

Everyone else has been giving the country so much flack for its environmental sins, censorship rules, human rights violations and toys - but China’s new restrictions on adoption have forced me to join the club.

At one adoption center, the number of adoptees plummeted from 7,906 in 2005 to 3,909 in 2008, according to the same article. Another orphanage’s numbers plunged from 1,152 in 2005 to 422 in 2008.

Cory Barron, foundation director of Children’s Hope International, said, “These are China’s children, and they can set the requirement to what they deem is best.”

Try again.

“I think they are saying, ‘You know what? We have fewer children now and so we are looking for better parents,’” said Josh Zhong, founder and director of Colorado’s Chinese Children Adoption International.

Since most Chinese couples preferred baby boys to girls, the country is currently facing an overwhelming men-to-women ratio. Time magazine reported that the shift in China’s perception of daughters has resulted in fewer orphans, so the country can afford to be more selective.

Last I checked, after taking one step forward, it isn’t mandatory to take two steps back. Adopters can’t be obese or have facial deformities, which is beyond ridiculous. People’s faces and weights do not determine whether they’re going to be good parents or not.

Society has been sending girls the message that they have to be gorgeous and a size -2 to be successful, whether it’s in modeling, relationships or life. Now, China is telling them that they must be physically appealing to be first-rate parents?

Perhaps China doesn’t want obese, depressed or old parents because they could die early, leaving the children orphaned again. However, I know people who have developed healthy habits once they’ve had children.

My uncle has been taking vitamin supplements for his liver because he doesn’t want to leave his sons alone - his father died of liver cancer when he was young.

Similarly, obese and depressed parents may start taking care of themselves once China guarantees them a child. Before having a child, they probably had no reason to eat better. Now, they’ll have no better reason.

Moreover, adoption grants infertile people the chance to start a family. Some of them just happen to be over 50.

Whether it’s because they waited too long to find their soul mates or to do everything on their lists - you know, the one with all their hopes and dreams - that’s not the point. No one should be deprived of having a family.

If China thinks people’s marital statuses limit their family dysfunction, they have another thing coming. Some people can offer better homes divorced than they can married.

Poor, uneducated people don’t necessarily make bad parents. Bad people make bad parents, and the poor and the uneducated aren’t bad people. Being a good parent is dependent on a lot of things, but I’d say that China’s latest restrictions are the exception.

Fear not. It’s not all bad. More wannabe parents are considering adopting a child with a disability, which carries a shorter wait, according to the article.

While it’s great that children with disabilities are finding homes, it feels like China has its priorities mixed up. The country should enforce stricter requirements for adopters of disabled children, not put them on the speed track to parenthood.

These children don’t require just any care, they require specific care. Haven’t you heard? They can’t get that if their parents aren’t skinny.

I couldn’t imagine my aunt, who had two miscarriages, not being able to adopt from China, if that’s what she wanted.

I couldn’t imagine my siblings, who claim they will forego labor pains, not being able to adopt from China if that’s their place of choice.

I certainly couldn’t imagine celebrities, such as Meg Ryan, not being able to adopt from China if that’s their fate.

In an InStyle magazine article, Ryan said of her adopted Chinese daughter, Daisy, “I feel like we made some agreement, long ago and far away, to meet in the way we did.”

Original Article

Tue, Apr. 28, 2009 Posted: 02:33 PM EDT

Eric Young
Christian Post Reporter

Becky Freer says adopting a ten-month-old baby girl from China is the best thing she has ever done. When Freer, a 44-year-old resident of Austin, Texas, recently decided to further expand her family by adopting a sister for her now three-and-a-half year old daughter, she thought China was the obvious choice. But as a single woman, Freer is no longer eligible. “Three years ago I was an acceptable parent and now I’m not,” she said. “It seems kind of unfair.”

While her daughter will have a new sister — Freer has since been approved to adopt a child from Ethiopia — she is one of a growing number prospective parents who are unable to adopt from China under new adoption laws Beijing put in place in May 2007. The stricter guidelines, intended to limit the overwhelming number of applicants to China’s well-regarded adoption program, have been effective — international adoptions from China to the U.S. have dropped by 50 percent, according to the U.S. State Department. The new regulations require, among other things, that adoptive parents be married, not classified as clinically obese, under 50, not have taken antidepressant medications in the past two years, not have facial deformities and meet certain educational and economic requirements. In 2005, American citizens adopted 7,906 children through the state-run China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA). In 2008, that number fell to 3,909 kids. (See pictures of American children up for adoption.)

But the new laws are only part of the reason that fewer Chinese children are being adopted by American families. While the Chinese government does not release domestic adoption figures, U.S.-based adoption agencies say more Chinese children are also being adopted at home. “You have this cultural shift along with the economic shift, where more and more people can not only afford to adopt a child, but culturally, it’s more accepted,” said Cory Barron, foundation director at Children’s Hope International. Historically, adoption was not socially acceptable or a viable economic option for many families in China. But orphanages were getting more crowded, prompting the government to open up to international adoptions in 1992. Josh Zhong, founder and director of Chinese Children Adoption International in Colorado, remembers what it was like in China just 10 years ago. “You would see hundreds of thousands of children,” he said. “Orphanages begging you to come in, saying, ‘Please help us, these children need to go home.’” A slow shift in gender perception may also be playing a role. While girls still make up 95 percent of children at orphanages, Zhong says that, too, has shifted. “Peoples attitude toward having girls is changing dramatically,” Zhong said. “I have friends [in China] who have girls, and they are just so excited.”

With fewer children being put up for adoption but the foreign demand going strong, China can afford to be more selective. “I think they are saying, you know what, we have fewer children now and so we are looking for better parents,” Zhong says. His organization has experienced a drop from 1,152 China adoptions in 2005 to 422 in 2008. And while Beijing’s new standards may sound harsh to Americans with their hearts set on a baby, they have little influence in the matter. “These are China’s children and they can set the requirement to what they deem is best,” says Barron.

International adoptions in the U.S. gained popularity in the 1990s as families reached out to poorer corners of the world to adopt a child in need. Adoptions increased in not only in countries like China, which has always had a trustworthy system, but also in countries that didn’t have a good system of checks and balances. By 2006, the U.S. began implementing some provisions from the 1994 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, a treaty intended to crack down on abduction, exploitation, sale and trafficking of children. The U.S. went on to fully adopt the regulations in April 2008, and has since stopped processing adoptions from Vietnam, Guatemala, Liberia and Kyrgyzstan until those countries meet the Convention’s standards. At the same time, China tightened its own laws, resulting in a worldwide drop in international adoption from a peak of 22,884 adoptions in 2004 to 17,438 last year.

Adopting a child from the CCAA has never been a simple task. After submitting a long list of required documents, including home studies completed by social workers and federal background checks, applicants’ paperwork is approved by the CCAA and the wait begins. Fees and expenses can amount to upwards of $20,000 before families are cleared to take home their new child. And the wait can be long. Today, China has a backlog of approved applicants from around the world, and is just now placing children into homes of families who were approved for adoption in March 2006.

For some families, that’s too long, and so they look to China’s “waiting child” list of children with special needs, ranging from everything from cleft lips or deafness to more severe physical and mental disabilities. Prospective parents can read about a child’s disability in a national database and decide if it is something they can take on. “Kids who would probably never be adopted in China, and maybe wouldn’t have been adopted in the U.S., are now getting homes,” Barron said. Lee Ann Laune, a 37-year old director of special education programs in Missouri, says she probably looked at more than 100 children over the past two-and-a-half years before finding her daughter, Hope. “When we first got into this, there was a six-to-nine month wait,” Lee Ann said. As time passed, Lee Ann said she and her husband, Paul, would look through the “waiting” children to see if they came across a child that was meant for them. In April, the Launes were approved to adopt Hope, a four-and-a-half year old deaf girl from Hunan province in China. “When we looked into her eyes, it was an automatic for us. It was ‘We can handle this,’” she said. “It’s unbelievable to know we are going to be that saving grace for her.”

“It was awkward in a way to receive these awards, because I know a lot of it has to do with people wanting to say, ‘We love you and are with you,’” said Chapman backstage at the Doves, acknowledging the prayers and support his family has following Maria’s death on May 21, 2008 when their teenage son, Will Franklin, accidentally ran over her while backing the family’s SUV out of the driveway. The Chapmans have three biological children — Emily, Caleb and Will Franklin, and have adopted three daughters from China — Shaohannah, Stevie Joy and Maria.

“I know a lot of the reasons why I’m standing here has a lot to do with what we’ve been through this past year,” he continued in the Doves’ press room. “There’s a lot of mixed emotions. I never wanted to be here doing this acceptance speech under these circumstances … but my family knows this is one more encouragement from the Lord to say how loved we are.”

Dove Awards 2009

AP

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Steven Curtis Chapman, right, accepts the award for artist of the year as he is joined by his wife, Mary Beth, at the Dove awards in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, April 23, 2009. The couple’s 5-year-old daughter, Maria Sue, was accidentally killed last May. The Dove awards honor Christian and gospel music. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

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2009 Dove Awards

Steven Curtis Chapman, right, accepts the award for artist of the year as he is joined by his wife, Mary Beth, at the Dove awards in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, April 23, 2009. The couple’s 5-year-old daughter, Maria Sue, was accidentally killed last May. The Dove awards honor Christian and gospel music. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

AP

Steven Curtis Chapman performs at the Dove awards in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, April 23, 2009. Chapman won the award for artist of the year. The Dove awards honor Christian and gospel music. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

AP

Miss California Carrie Prejean, left, signs autographs after the Dove awards in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, April 23, 2009. The Dove awards honor Christian and gospel music. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

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Singer Natalie Grant performs onstage at the 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards held at the Grand Ole Opry House on April 23, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards - Show Grand Ole Opry House Nashville, TN United States April 23, 2009 Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage.com To license this image (57261376), contact WireImage.com

Rick Diamond/WireImage.com

Singer Kim Hopper of the Hoppers performs onstage at the 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards held at the Grand Ole Opry House on April 23, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards - Show Grand Ole Opry House Nashville, TN United States April 23, 2009 Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage.com To license this image (57265320), contact WireImage.com

Rick Diamond/WireImage.com

Musician Steven Curtis Chapman onstage at the 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards held at the Grand Ole Opry House on April 23, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards - Pre-Telecast Grand Ole Opry House Nashville, TN United States April 23, 2009 Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage.com To license this image (57264240), contact WireImage.com

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Musician Steven Curtis Chapman performs onstage at the 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards held at the Grand Ole Opry House on April 23, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards - Show Grand Ole Opry House Nashville, TN United States April 23, 2009 Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage.com To license this image (57261789), contact WireImage.com

Rick Diamond/WireImage.com

Musician Kirk Franklin and Actor Billy Baldwin speak onstage at the 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards held at the Grand Ole Opry House on April 23, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards - Show Grand Ole Opry House Nashville, TN United States April 23, 2009 Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage.com To license this image (57264030), contact WireImage.com

Rick Diamond/WireImage.com

Musician Kirk Franklin and Actor Billy Baldwin speak onstage at the 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards held at the Grand Ole Opry House on April 23, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards - Show Grand Ole Opry House Nashville, TN United States April 23, 2009 Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage.com To license this image (57262084), contact WireImage.com

Rick Diamond/WireImage.com

Musician Brandon Heath speaks onstage at the 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards held at the Grand Ole Opry House on April 23, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards - Show Grand Ole Opry House Nashville, TN United States April 23, 2009 Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage.com To license this image (57261803), contact WireImage.com

Rick Diamond/WireImage.com

During the show, which aired live on the Gospel Music Channel, Chapman performed ‘Cinderella,’ a hit song inspired by his youngest daughters. In the chorus, he sings, “So I’ll dance with Cinderella / While she is here in my arms / ‘Cause I know something the prince never knew / Oh I’ll dance with Cinderella / I don’t wanna miss even one song / ‘Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight / And she’ll be gone.”

Chapman’s performance elicited a tearful and prolonged standing ovation from the audience in Nashville’s famed Grand Ole Opry house. Later in the show, his wife, Mary Beth, was by his side as he accepted his seventh Dove award in the Artist of the Year category. (Chapman is the most awarded artist in Dove history with over 50 statuettes to his credit, including 10 wins in the Songwriter of the Year category.)

Backstage he talked about how difficult the past year has been, especially handling media requests to talk about the tragedy. But Chapman also spoke of how his faith has sustained his family as they navigate what he calls “the new normal.”

“Scripture hasn’t just become more precious, but it’s become the air that I breathe,” he said. “There have been some mornings where I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get out of bed, but now when I read the Bible, it’s become my oxygen.”

Chapman has been touring with Michael W. Smith on the United Tour, which he says has aided the healing process. “There’s something so powerful, so profoundly healing about proclaiming the word of God is true. There’s so much I didn’t understand until I walked through this,” he said addressing reporters in the press room. “The Psalms have become so much more real to me because I understand so much more now of the struggle David was going through in writing those. All the verses that have always been in my brain, this experience has made me take them into my heart.”

The Chapmans have long been advocates for adoption, launching Shaohannah’s Hope in 2001, named after their nine-year-old adopted daughter. This week a new name, Show Hope, and website were unveiled. The organization aids orphans around the world and assists parents looking to adopt who don’t have the necessary financial resources. To honor Maria, the organization is building Maria’s Big House of Hope in Luoyang, China, a six-story facility to care for orphans with special needs. Click here to find out how you can help.

Original Article