Quinn's Necklace

We have adopted twice from China. The first time we went in March/April of 2010 to bring home our daughter Kate Xiomei from Hunan. Her adoption was done the "old way." We were "logged in" August 27, 2007.  We decided to switch to special needs on Halloween of 2009 and got her referral on January 18, 2010.

Our second adoption we did a bit differently. First....our daughter, Quinn Anne Shen Mu, is our "oops" baby, if you can have an "oops" adoption! We did not plan to adopt again! We have four biological children and our daughter from China. We were DONE. We signed all the papers saying we were done. We let everything expire.

Then I saw Shen Kai Mu on an advocacy list a few days in a row. I filled out a form and sent it to the agency asking for her file.

Then I asked my husband :)

We decided Labor Day weekend of 2011 we would ask China if we could adopt Shen Kai Mu, and they quickly said we could.

This adoption we were doing backwards, or so it seemed to me. We had our baby, but we had no paperwork done! It seemed as if we would never bring our little girl home.

I was given my necklace from Jiayin Designs as a gift for Christmas of 2011. It has my daughter's name Kai Mu, and I wore it as we completed our paperwork and waited through all of the steps of the process to bring her home. It is also the necklace I wore to China when I went to get Quinn Anne Shen Mu.

When Quinn is older, I will give her my necklace, and tell her about how we waited with great anticipation to bring her home. She will have a necklace with her name to keep as her own.

If I were to be chosen for a gift certificate to Jiayin Designs, I would purchase another necklace with our first daughter's Chinese name. I would like her to have a necklace like Quinn's when she is older.

You can head over here http://www.myoverthinking.com/2013/01/what-it-means-to-you-jiayin-designs.html

to read about the necklaces of other families and what they mean to them!!!