Now for the serious stuff!

Ok so the majority of people know that when you adopt from Ch*na you are pretty much told nothing. Yhea you are given a birthday that may or may not be right, a finding location, and alittle about the baby's daily life. You also get three "staged" pictures of the baby. In our case the pictures were taken when J was about 5 months old in the photos. You can also get the finding ad that is placed in the paper for the baby. This was given to us while we were in Ch*na. I recommend that you wait till you go to Ch*na before you purchase the finding ad online because most people are given it while there. This has a tiny black ad white picture of J when she was a few days old along with her finding spot location. And thats it. There is your babies history.
Now in our case we were told that J was in the Fuzhou orphanage. Just before we left we found out this was not true and that she was in fact in a foster home. We were also give the name of her foster mother and age. So we go to China and get little miss J! Once we were home I knew that I had to get any little small bit of info about her life before us that I could. That is where the orphanage yahoo group comes in handy. Through posting online with the foster mother's name and asking if anyone else had this foster mother, I was given the name of a man who lived in Ch*na. I contacted him and he knew J's foster mother personally! He called her that day to make sure she was the right person and she was.
Through him I was able to write her a letter that he translated and send her photos of J at home with her forever family. In return he went to the village that J lived in and took photos of the area and the home she lived in along with pictures of the foster mother. The greatest gift I got out of this were photos of J with her foster mom taken before we got her! I know this will be wonderful for J to have once she is older. I was also able to ask her foster mom questions about J when she had her. I found out she was brought to her at 1-2 days old and she did not leave her until the day we picked her up. This was surprising because usually they take the babies back to the orphanage a few days before the adoption. This explained alot of the grief J felt when we were going through the first few days. I was also given her foster mother's address and background info along with her children's names and ages. So this is all stuff I can pass onto J as she gets older. After seeing all the photos and letter from her FM I know she was well cared for and loved. We will continue to keep in touch with this wonderful woman who took such good care of our girl. I highly recommend you do this if you are able and if you want the man's info just let me know and I can give it to you. I will post some of the photos I was given here but I will not post photos with the foster mother in them. These are for Jaden.