Allison’s Story

After our family returned from China with our daughter Elizabeth, we knew we would adopt again.  Elizabeth was such a joy and blessing and we fell in love with the children in China, so we decided that in a couple of years we would go back and bring home another child.  This time we weren't sure if the child would be a boy or girl and we had no idea about the age.  We had learned our lesson with Elizabeth that sometimes what we think we want, isn't what we want at all.  We had been home with Elizabeth about 5 months when a friend of ours emailed us about  a little girl waiting in China for her family.  She was also deaf and was about 2 1/2 years old.  I knew we weren't ready to adopt again and that we needed more time to adjust with Elizabeth, so I decided not to do anything with the information I had recieved.  The thing was that all day I could not stop thinking about this child and I finally broke down and called the agency that had her file, CASI Foundation for Children.  As I began discussing this little girl with the social worker, I began getting very emotional and almost unable to speak.  I think I knew then that we would be bringing her home, but I tried to remain level headed and finished the conversation with the social worker without losing it. After speaking with my husaband, we both just knew this was our daughter and so we embarked on another great adventure.

Kendall Allison was born in GuangNing, Guangdong China in 2004 and spent 3 years in an orphange there.  Her orphange is much smaller than Elizabeth's and only housed about 25 children, most of whom were not special needs. On March 16th 2007, our family of 5 became a family of 6 when we met Allison in a government building in Guangzhou, China.  She was dressed in traditional boys clothing and had very short hair.  I was not convinced that this was my daughter at all and perhaps this was actually my son.  Once we returned to the hotel and checked everything out, we discoved that she was in fact our daughter. That was the last good news for awhile.  Kendall's transition was not as smooth as Elizabeth's and she seems quite traumatized by the transition to her forever family.  She showed very little emotion and refused to eat anything.  Actually, it appeared that she didn't know how to eat.  She had no muscle control and spent much of her day rocking back and forth.  We were quite concerned about her and decided to cancel our extended stay in China and return to the states.  Once home, Kendall slowly started to adjust to life with our family  and began coming out of her shell. In 7 short months we have seen her go from a very scared little girl to a sweet happy child that just melts everyone's hearts .  Her signing is coming along day by day and she has started to show great interest in learning to communicate.  She is playing well with her brother, sisters and friends she has met.  She is still cautious around new people, but is learning to trust people on an individual basis.  She has a laugh that is contagious, loves purses and absolutely adores corn and ice cream!!  We look forward to watching her grow and flourish in the coming months.