Our Chinese Son

IMG_0871So guess what? There are more than just girls in Chinese orphanages.

Who knew, right??

We’re amazed at how God used our love for our daughters, and passion for righting the injustice towards girls in China, to stir our hearts to initial action and ultimately bring us to our son.

While it’s true that daughters are tragically and overwhelmingly relinquished (or worse) at birth as a result of the country’s strict one-child policy and underlying social pressure for sons, I’ve recently learned of the additional flux of Chinese boys in orphanages. What is glaringly apparent is that this is largely due to compromised health and/or physical abnormalities.

In a centuries old culture that places the future of an entire extended family squarely upon the shoulders of a single male heir, families face tremendous social pressure to produce a “perfect” son in a ruthless job market to provide for them in their old age.

Like many boys found in Chinese orphanages, our sweet son was born with congenital cleft lip and palate. Many babies born with cleft lip/palate are unable to successfully latch and suckle at birth, and as a result can be severely malnourished. In fact, it has been reported by medical missionary teams that many children must reluctantly be turned away because they are so underweight that they lack sufficient tissue to physically close up their cleft.

At three months old, with surgical intervention, our son’s condition was corrected and he has since made a full recovery (as evidenced by his chubbalicious physique) and proven to be right on track developmentally.

Since it is illegal to relinquish a child in China, we do not have much in the way of history or background regarding our son’s origins. (Nor do we feel it appropriate to disclose it to the general public.) Perhaps the surgery that Americans consider relatively routine was financially out of reach for his birth family. I can only speculate of the anguish his biological parents must have felt at the prospect of relinquishing him. I find myself already grieving our son’s tremendous loss of his first family, but am overwhelmingly thankful that they chose life for him and did their best to secure him a bright future.

“For you created [his] inmost being, you knit [him] together in [his] mother’s womb. I praise you because [our son] is fearfully and wonderfully made…” Psalm 139:13-14


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