Gracie’s Story….an Ongoing Chapter

It is hard to believe that it has now been 7 years since Gracie walked into our lives.  I cannot imagine life without her.  

Now for the most part, this is a blog about my adventures living and gardening in the desert southwest, but I occasionally share about my family.  I have been sharing Gracie’s story and have been so appreciative of your wonderful responses.  You can read the previous entries by following this link. 

Okay, back to the story where we left it.  We were waiting patiently (impatiently) to get through immigration at the airport.  I kept thinking of all the family that had gathered just outside waiting to meet Gracie for the first time.  I was also dying to see my two oldest daughters….I had missed them terribly.  Finally, the immigration officer stamped Gracie’s paperwork and she was now officially an American citizen.  And so, we started to make our way out to the arrivals corridor to meet our family.

*The following photos are not the best quality, but I think they capture the emotions we experienced that special day….

My adventures living

My family, who resided in the Los Angeles area were all there along with my in-laws who had made the trip to LA from Phoenix.  It was so wonderful to see everyone so excited to meet Gracie.

My adventures living

I couldn’t wait to hug my daughters and Gracie was definitely interested in her new sisters.

My adventures living

 It was so great to see my mom (now Pastor Farmer of Double S Farms) and introduce her to Gracie.

She brought red, white & blue balloons to welcome Gracie to the United States.

We spent some time with family at my parent’s house, but we were soon ready to go to a hotel and sleep.  Gracie spent some time at the hotel getting acquainted with her new sisters.

The next day we returned to my parent’s home to enjoy a baby shower for Gracie.  I come from a close knit extended family and so family from all over Southern California and Arizona made the drive to the party.  Great aunts & uncles, 1st & 2nd cousins, grandparents, her great-grandmother…it was a full house 🙂  Everyone was so eager to welcome Gracie into the family.

I could hardly wait for people to arrive to the shower and meet Gracie…

Gracie found the ribbon and Cheerios much more interesting then the gifts she received.

Picking up Cheerios continued to be challenging for her.

It was such a wonderful day and Gracie was embraced by the entire family.  Later, she took a walk outside with her dad in her new dress and hat.

My adventures living

After a few days in Los Angeles, we loaded up our minivan and left for home.  Once we returned home, and got Gracie settled in, we took her to the pediatrician who pronounced her healthy.  

Gracie made herself at home…..

Watching ‘Barney’ for the first time….

Learning how to feed herself.

Soon we met with her orthopedist who would correct her clubfoot.  

Normally, clubfeet are corrected right after birth, but since Gracie was almost 2 years old, her case was unusual.  For the next 10 weeks, Gracie had a new cast put on her foot/leg.  Each time the doctor would adjust the cast slightly in order to straighten her foot.  

Gracie adjusted to her cast very well and did not let it slow her down.  Meanwhile, she was experiencing the joys of belonging to a family.

 Supergirl

Soon, it was time for the 10th cast to come off and although her foot was now straight, she needed surgery on her achilles tendon to fully repair her club foot.  Unfortunately, her surgery was scheduled on her birthday.  So, we had a fun-filled birthday celebration a few days ahead of time.

My adventures living

 You can tell her hair is starting to grow out a little.

Her first birthday present….ever.

All to soon, came her surgery day….

My adventures living

The surgery went very well and we were so thankful.  The nurse came into the surgery waiting room to get us and kept looking for an Asian couple.  She finally called out our names and we could see that she was a little surprised to see that we weren’t Asian at all 😉

Even though the surgery was a success, Gracie still had to wear a cast for another month.  

Now it was time to work on celebrating her first Christmas.  It had been years since I had taken my older daughters to Santa, but we had to start up our Santa tradition with Gracie.   Now, Gracie’s hair was starting to grow longer, but despite how often I dressed her in pink, some people would compliment me on my cute son.  

I did my best to ignore this, thinking that eventually she would have enough hair that people wouldn’t mistake her for a boy.  Well, this Santa photo was the breaking point for me….

Once the photo had been taken, Santa’s elf handed me the photo and said, “Here is the photo of your son.”  That was it….I was tired of people mistaking her for a boy so we walked to the earring store a few feet away and got her ears pierced.

As well as Gracie was fitting into our family, there were still signs of her earlier life spent in an orphanage.  She did have some delayed development, which is not unusual in children raised in orphanages in China and we had been prepared for that.  She was catching up and had periods of accelerated learning as she was catching up to where she should be for her age.

One thing that she did and still does each night, is rock herself side to side in bed as she falls asleep.  She would do this in the orphanage to comfort herself because there was probably a number of times that there was not an available person to rock her or provide comfort.  As a result, she would have a large tangled mass of hair when she would wake up, so we started putting her hair in ponytails before bed, which solved the problem.

First Easter and tangled hair.

Gracie’s foot was doing very well, but for the months that followed, she had to wear special shoes fastened onto a bar at night.  We called them “Night, Night Shoes”.  At first, she hated them….I would have too.

The shoes helped to keep her repaired clubfoot pointed outwards.  Gracie adapted pretty quickly and later did not complain when we had to put them on her.

During the day, she would have to wear a plastic brace on her lower leg.

Helping her dad in the garden.  You can see the brace on her right leg.

Thankfully, she no longer has to wear a brace or special shoes any longer.

When Gracie was three years old, another major change occurred in our family…..

We went back to China in order to adopt a little boy, Kai.  You can read about Kai’s story here if you like.  Gracie accepted her brother right away and since they were only 6 months apart, they played together all the time.

While we were in China during this time, we arranged a visit to Gracie’s orphanage.  We wanted to see where she had spent almost two years of her life.  The trip took 2 1/2 hours by car and when we arrived, we were warmly greeted by the orphanage director and staff.  

Here we are posing with some of the nannies, the director and the co-director.

One of the nannies is holding our new son, Kai.

At the orphanage, we were treated as honored guests and given a tour.  They were thrilled to see Gracie and see how her club foot had been repaired.  Gracie was happy to be there and let the orphanage director carry her all over…something she did not normally let strangers do.  So, maybe she still had some faint memories of where she came from.  One of the nannies picked up our newly adopted son, Kai and carried him around as well.

As nice as all the staff was, I cannot say the same of the orphanage itself.  The orphanage was a dark, rather dismal place.  We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but I do remember seeing the room she grew up in with its dark walls, lack of toys, and rows of cribs filled with babies.  Each crib contained two babies…probably so that they could warm each other during the cold winter.  Although it was obvious that the nannies cared for the kids, It was also painfully obvious that there were not near enough nannies to take care of all the emotional needs of the kids.  It broke my heart to think of Gracie growing up in this place for the first 20 months of her life.

The director wanted to take us out to lunch and asked us if we preferred Chinese food or KFC.  I am not an adventurous eater and I was not sure what kind of food an authentic Chinese restaurant in a rural area would offer, so we played it safe and went to KFC.

Gracie with her favorite nanny.

Gracie’s favorite nanny was not at the orphanage that day since it was her day off.  But, she did meet us at KFC and promptly took over taking care of Gracie.  It was so sweet to see….she took her on the little playground at the restaurant and helped her with her food.  She said a tearful goodbye to Gracie when we left.

That day was so special to all of us because we were able to meet the people who raised Gracie when she was a baby.  But, I was so thankful that she was ours now.

Gracie when she was 4 years old.

Many people tell us how lucky Gracie is because we adopted her and that we have made such a difference in her life.  But, I don’t see it that way.  Gracie has blessed us immeasurably and enriched our lives.   I am sometimes surprised when I see us together in a mirror because we look so different from each other.  The reason I feel surprise is that Gracie is my daughter and I am as much her mother as I am to my two biological daughters who do look like me.  There is no difference in the love I feel for her in my heart.

I can’t imagine life without her…. 

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."