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.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Cleveland

Mom and Dad left for Cleveland Clinic last Mon.
Darrell, Leila and I went up on Thurs to be with them over the weekend.

I really think Cleveland is the coldest place I've ever been.
It snowed almost continuously while we were there.
Temperatures were in the single digits (or below) and that's not counting the wind chill from the ever present breeze off frozen Lake Erie.

As far as Dad goes, it seems like things change daily.
He originally went up there to have a 'port' put in.
They did something called a 'Swans-Ganz Right Heart Catherization' on Fri.
Based on those results, they're not going to do the port now.
He has fluid buildup. As of today, they've taken 21 lbs of fluid off him, and there's still more to go.
His left leg isn't going down at all, and at this point, they're not sure why.
They changed some of his medications today.
It seems as though his options for treatment are dwindling. And none of them they've mentioned yet is extremely appealing.

Leila did pretty good to have been cooped up in either the hospital or the hotel for 4 days.
And Darrell was invaluable with his help. (He's such a good boy.) I'm glad I let him miss a day of school to go with me.

The bright spot in the weekend though was lunch on Fri.
We have friends that we traveled to China with in 2008 that live in that area.
They braved the cold and ventured out to meet us for lunch.
It was SO nice to see them and catch up a little bit in person.
I hated to see our time together end.

After leaving them, Darrell and I decided to explore a little and go see Lake Erie.
It's all frozen!
I only made it part way down to the lake from where we parked.
It was so cold it made me hurt. (We didn't exactly bring clothes for Arctic weather.)
Darrell went on as far as he could. He wanted to find a place to walk on the lake.
Not being from the area and not really having any idea where we were going, we didn't find a place with 'walking access'. He did get some good pictures though.

Leila and Claire


All Ice

1 comment:

E said...

All I have to say is Brrrrrr!

January 26, 2011 at 3:18 PM

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