Our Referral

Friday, January 02, 2009

Where's Mia?

You can click the picture below to make it bigger. From what I hear, we will go to Changsha to receive Mia which is where the adoption paperwork for Hunan Province takes place. Because of this we probably will not get to tour the orphanage because it is about 240 miles from Changsha. I have heard lots of good things about Changsha and the experience there.
I have been able to find very very few pictures of Mia's orphanage and the surrounding area of Dao County. But I did join the DaoXian Yahoo group and there are some photos posted there. I have emailed those people to see if it is ok for me to post their pictures of the orphanage on my blog.
From what I can gather so far about the DaoXian SWI (Social Welfare Institute) it just recently began doing independent adoptions around summer 2007. Before that it was part of the YongZhou SWI (which includes many other SWI's under it's belt as well). This is why Mia has the last name "Yong" and the middle name "Xiao". All the babies from this orphanage are named "Yong Xiao _____". From what I can find, this is a very small orphanage, around 30-40 babies at a time. And the SWI was just recently redone and a new building was built and completed some time this year I believe. Hopefully I can post pictures later. I have met some very nice people through this yahoo group and the Hunan Families yahoo group who have made me feel very good about our upcoming trip!
Everyone says children from the Hunan province are "spicy girls". I'm told even the local Chinese will tell you this when you tell them your child is from Hunan province! We sure can't wait to go get our little spicy girl! I'm sure she will keep us on our toes!!!