January 24, 2008, David Chuan Jian comes home! (Skip to home pictures added 23 Feb 2008, or skip to pictures added 14 May 2008)
He began life in Anhui Province, China. Here is what the Chuzhou Welfare Institute recorded about his beginnings:
Chu Chuanjian, male, was born on 2004-10-9, was brought to the institute by Lai’an County civil affairs on 2004-10-11. His family name "Chu" is after Chuzhou city, orphans who were born in 2004 would get their middle name "Chuan", "Jian" means healthy. He was then wrapped with cloth. He was a little fat, cleft lip and palate and about 2~3 days after birth. No birth information was found with him. He was done a check-up: head size was 13.2 inches, chest size was 14.18 inches, height was 20.49 inches and weight was 6.6 lbs.
We began investigating adopting from China in early 2006, partly due to several friends who had adopted. In the fall of 2006 we gathered all the documents we needed for our adoption dossier. In late August 2007, we received a note from our adoption agency about a young boy with cleft palate, Chuan Jian. Here is an excerpt from his description dated April 2007:
Chu Chuanjian was taller this year. His skin was still fair. In April, he joined "little sisters" program, which was a teaching program for children from 18 months to 8 years old in welfare institute. He would receive formal, novel and unique teaching in the class. When he entered the class at first, he didn’t fit in with the environment. But he adapted to the new environment soon with the teacher’s help.
He is a smart, energetic, introverted, and naughty child. He likes to climb objects. He is active, understands adult’s facial expressions and knows how to react. After he joined "little sisters" program, he was still fearless. He was not cabined, though the children there were older than him. If other children had the food or toys he liked, he would try to get them, even confront with them and try to grab. So there usually were scars left on his face.
Here is the photo they sent, probably taken early 2007:
We immediately fell in love with this delightful boy! So we updated our paperwork and waited for approval by China which came in late November 2007. In late December we received our travel approval, and left for China January 10. Unfortunately, the Philadelphia plane had mechanical failure so we did not leave for China till Jan 11, arriving in Beijing late on January 12 and leaving early the next morning for Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province, a couple hundred miles west of Shanghai. The following day the CWI director brought Chuan Jian to our hotel. He was quite late because of a snowstorm, a contrast to the previous year when they had no snow all winter.
