Chenzhou - More Photos of Reagan

I wanted to quickly update you on some of what we found out about Reagan once we received her translated file.

I guess we were not prepared for all of the information that they provided. They did tell us her exact finding spot, including the street address. I am hoping that on our trip we will get to go there.(stay tuned for my next post where I will be giving you some of the new details surrounding our travel to China:)

In addition, they gave us a very detailed descripiton of everything she was wearing the day she was found and told us that she had a note in a red envelope. That is how they knew her birthday was November 23rd. She was only 10 days old when they found her and after the police were notified, she was immediately taken to the Chenzh@u CWI where she was cared for by the nannies.

She was named "Chen WenYi" Chen is short for Chenzh@ou, I believe all the babies in this CWI have the same surname. The CWI staff gave her the name "WenYi" hoping she would grow up to have knowledge and dreams, and will have a happy life.

They provided us some of the things she was doing at 1, 3, and 5 months of age.

According to the medical file we received, she was 7 months old when they ran the medical tests and measurements included in the file. At that time she was 25 inches long and weighed 14lbs. Just wondering if that was with or without 3 layers of clothes:)

Her developmental report seemed to be on track but again, just like her measurements, we won't know for sure until we have her in our arms and can see for ourselves what she can and can't do.

When we received Reagan's referral last monday and I read that she was from the Chenzh@u CWI in Hunan. I really had no recollection of this orphanage and couldn't recall any other families off the top of my head that had brought children home from Chenzh@u. Since this is the place she has been since 10 days old, I wanted to find out all I could about this particular orphanage.

Let's just say I have quickly been brought up to speed.

I am sure almost everyone feels this way, but the minute I saw her face and got the translated file telling me about her, I felt it was just not enough...... I wanted more information. I wanted to get my hands on anything I could that might be something I could start to collect as part of her lifebook.

As luck would have it, through the wonderful world of blogging, I received a few emails from other Chenzh@u families giving me some INCREDIBLE information.

The first thing I learned is that the Chenzh@u CWI is one of the orphanages run by Half The Sky . In addition they just built a new building that houses all of the children. I believe it was built sometime in 2008.

I have spent a good deal of my time emailing back and forth with a few people that were recently at the orphanage to visit. A few of them had older children that had been there as babies and they went on something called a Heritage Tour. I also was able to make contact with a group of ladies that went there as part of a mission trip in July and actually spent 3 or 4 days in the orphanage playing with the children and babies.

Low and behold..... LOOK WHAT WE FOUND........

Pictures of some of these lovely ladies holding our precious girl!!!


This is my favorite photo.... I love how she is sucking her two fingers..... I think she must do it often. Look below:)







Needless to say, these photos are INVALUABLE to us and we cannot thank these girls enough.
They are priceless and will be treasured ALWAYS.

This group of ladies did such a wonderful thing. In looking through their photos, I was able to see first hand how much joy and happiness they brought to all the children of Chenzh@u. They spent a lot of time with the babies and the older children. They came prepared with bubbles, jump ropes, face paints, tutus, and arts and crafts. I am sure the children loved every minute of it......and it looked as though when their trip came to an end, the goodbyes were very difficult for all involved.

I have attached this video that someone was kind enough to forward to me. It was taken in March of 2009. You can get a good look at the inside of the facility..... and some of the children too. I have cried each time I have viewed it....... and cried once again, when I saw more than a few of the children that were in this video, in the recent pictures the girls took on their mission trip.
They are still there waiting.......and hoping to have a Forever Family.

Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of the page and turn off my pop out player before you play the video.

UPDATE: I forgot to add this in this post..... when we found out what her Chinese name meant, we made a slight revision to the name we were going to give her "Reagan Elizabeth WenYi" We couldn't leave the Wen without the Yi:)