We’re David and Lois McBeath. We live in Point Pleasant, WV – a small town along the Ohio River on the western side of the state. We have 2 sons. Austin is 15. He’s a sophomore at Pt. Pleasant High School. Darrell is almost 12. He’s in the 6th grade at Roosevelt Elementary.
We actually began our adoption journey more than 10 years ago. I saw an ad in the newspaper about Chinese babies. We called about it, but it just wasn’t even feasible at that time in our life. All these years, it was always there, stuck somewhere in the back of our minds. I don't know why exactly – it just was. The thought never completely went away.
We also talked off and on about having another child. Our house was only 3 bedrooms, and we know the boys could have been in a room together, but we didn't want to do that if we didn't have to. In the spring of 2006, for some reason (I don't recall exactly what) - it came up again. We started thinking and talking - why not? So we started checking into it more. We did a lot of research online. The more we found out, the more we felt a calling, a desire and even a need to do this.
We started the adoption and added onto the house all at the same time. It took about 6 months to get the paperwork together. Then about another month after we sent it to China for them to translate it and 'log us in' (11/6/06). That's when we started to officially wait.
We finally got "THE CALL" on 7/13/08. It was a Sunday afternoon! After 2 ½ years, we are finally going to get our baby!
Leila Ann McBeath, formally known as Shun Xi Yi, was born on Oct 29, 2007. She had a cleft lip and cleft palate. The lip has been repaired, but not the palate. (We'll have to do that when we get her home.) She's in the Children's Welfare Institute of Shunde District of Foshan City, which is located in the Guangdong Province, in the southern part of China.
Shunde, the hometown of flowers, is one of four cities under the jurisdiction of Foshan City. Covering an area of 806 sq meters and with a population of 1.05 million, Shunde City is situated in the middle of the fertile Pearl River Delta, between Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It was set up as a county in the 3rd year (1452 AD) of the Jintai reign of the Ming Dynasy (1368-1644), and conferred with the administrative status of a city in 1992 by the State Council.
Foshan City is also where the actor Bruce Lee was from.
Leila loves to go places. Now she likes coming home too. There's no place like her house and her room and her bed. But she loves to run around too. We were home all day yesterday. We didn't go out at all.
Last night about 8:00, she apparently decided enough was enough. She took David his shoes. Even though she'd already had her bath, she got her shoes and her sweater and demanded that they be put on her. Then she got her diaper bag and her sunglasses. She was ready!
Unfortunately, the only place she went - was to bed.
Gettysburg
The Liberty Bell
How Cute!
Darrell and I have been on his 6th grade class trip. We left here Wed morning about 4:00 AM. We spent 1/2 a day in Gettysburg, a day and a half in Philadelphia and 1/2 a day at Hershey Park. We got back about 3:00 AM this morning. We had 3 very, very full days. The kids had a great time though. One last hurrah together before they move on to the big Jr/Sr High next year.
Leila got her 1st haircut today. Although she wouldn't sit in the chair by herself, she did really good. She never whined or even whimpered. It wasn't that her hair was that long, it was just looking sort of scraggly in the front. Kim just trimmed the ends to even them up and make them look a little neater.
The guys left for the weekend. They went on a caving trip with scouts, so it's just me and Leila here. Normally I love these weekends, because I get time to myself to do whatever, whenever I want. Now, these weekends have changed. They're no longer 'me' weekends - they've become 'girls' weekends'. Not quite so free anymore. Nevertheless, I figured we should do something to commemorate our first one, so we painted Leila's toenails. After all, it is sandal season now. Of course, that little toenail is SO little - I had a hard time even finding it.
I consider myself fortunate in that I have both biological and adoptive children. Other than the method and process of getting them, I can truly say that there is no difference between them. (Well, with biological ones, I can always blame their negative traits on David, but then you get into that whole 'nature vs nuture' debate.)
This time of year though, there's lots of poems and things like that about mothers. I found this one that is geared specifically toward adoptive mothers. I thought that some of the wonderful ladies I've had the privilege of getting to know over the last year might appreciate it.
"What Is an Adoptive Mother?"By Carrie Craft
Being an adoptive mother is not for every woman. She must possess not only the natural mother instinct but an understanding and appreciation of the situation that brought a child into her arms making her a mother.
The adoptive family came to be by choices made, choices made by the first parents and by the adoptive parents. This bond the adoptive mother has with her child grows over time, like the child did within his first mother's womb.
Day by day, touch by touch, with each tear, kiss, and memory made they became a family. Adoptive mothers have that special knack to let love grow. Adoptive mothers know that she's a mender of wounds, not just of the physical skinned knees with a band-aid and a kiss, but of the heart. She gives love, acceptance, and permission to ask and talk about the day he was born and of his first parents.
Adoptive mothers are embracers, not only of the child with many hugs and kisses, but of the child's heritage and history. She embraces the facts of her child's past with strength for herself and the child. She's not only a memory maker planning family vacations, activities, and birthday parties, but also a memory keeper. Details of a birth, photos of the hospital, and of the parents who brought her into the world are kept along side the newspaper clipping that announced it all. All these things are kept in a special book that tells the whole story.
She's a tier of shoelaces and of hearts. She weaves lives together into a tapestry of a new family, with many different brightly, colored threads showcasing their individualities and family origins. Together they create one unit attached to each other.
Adoptive mothers are experts at finding lost objects, but understand and validate the profound, deep loss left by adoption. She allows the tears to fall and grief to be felt, allowing the mourning of the mom not there. She is secure in knowing that she's not a replacement, but a finisher of a race for someone who, for whatever reason, could not run any longer.
This role is not for the weak of spirit, or the easily wounded. Loving a child not born to her but calling him her own, but this is what she does, it is her calling.
She is a mother.
