A Summary of the Miraculous Circumstances and Events Leading to the Adoption of our Daughter Calynn.

1. Calynn’s Story
This email was specifically written for two groups of people. The first is for friends and
family member who may be aware that we have been trying to ado
China but who do not know the details. The second group of people is the dozens of
doctors, nurses, volunteers, and caregivers who have played a crucial role in this story.
This has been a very personal and emotional adventure for our family and so we have
been somewhat reserved about sharing all of the details
family members.
There are two things I hope to accomplish by recording and sharing our experience
with this adoption. The first is to communicate
to supportive family and friends, gratitude to all of the people that he
life saving operation, and gratitude to a loving Heavenly Father who has blessed me
and my family. The second purpose for recording these experiences is for our
daughter Calynn so that one day she can read this and know how much we love
and how much we want her to be part of our family.
I also need to begin by apologizing. Technical writing has never been one of my stron
suites and I hope the typos and questionable grammar
special story. I will begin with the earliest information we have on Calynn.
December 11, 2005 – Calynn’s estimated birth date
April 3, 2006 - Calynn was found by a Policy O
pedestrian crossing near the Fuyang City
China. After searching the local area for anyone with knowledge of her parents
she was admitted to the Social Children’s Welfare Institute of Fuyang City.
Upon admission to the Children's Welfare I
comprehensive physical exam. It was determined that she had a heart
murmur, delayed growth, mal-nutrition,
After the designated waiting period the Children's Welfare Institute became
her legal guardian. Calynn had no identifications
determine her exact birth date or original name so they named her
(spelled Xin-Jia and pronounced sheen-jaw).
name is made up of two characters. The first character means
second character means excellence. Some of you may know her by her
Chinese nick name Jia-Jia or by Susan (a name used for her in some of the New
Hope Foundation newsletters). We are naming her Calynn (pronounced Cal
lin) so this is the name I will use throughout th
was specifically written for two groups of people. The first is for friends and
family member who may be aware that we have been trying to adopt a little girl from
The second group of people is the dozens of
s, nurses, volunteers, and caregivers who have played a crucial role in this story.
This has been a very personal and emotional adventure for our family and so we have
been somewhat reserved about sharing all of the details even with close friends and
by recording and sharing our experience
first is to communicate a deep sense of gratitude. Gratitude
upportive family and friends, gratitude to all of the people that help Calynn get her
life saving operation, and gratitude to a loving Heavenly Father who has blessed me
The second purpose for recording these experiences is for our
o that one day she can read this and know how much we love her
and how much we want her to be part of our family.
. Technical writing has never been one of my strong
and questionable grammar will not detract from this very
. I will begin with the earliest information we have on Calynn.
estimated birth date
was found by a Policy Office. She had been abandoned at a
Fuyang City Fertilizer Plant, in AnHui Province
After searching the local area for anyone with knowledge of her parents
she was admitted to the Social Children’s Welfare Institute of Fuyang City.
to the Children's Welfare Institute she was given a
determined that she had a heart
, and a very pale complexion.
After the designated waiting period the Children's Welfare Institute became
had no identifications so there was no way to
birth date or original name so they named her ‫ן‬
jaw). Like most Chinese names Calynn's
name is made up of two characters. The first character means heart and the
Some of you may know her by her
Jia or by Susan (a name used for her in some of the New
). We are naming her Calynn (pronounced Cal-
use throughout this story.
Fuyang City is in the North
West Corner of AnHui Province
Location described in the police
report (less than a mile north
of the Fuyang train station)
Fuyang City is in the North
West Corner of AnHui Province
Location described in the police
report (less than a mile north
of the Fuyang train station)

2. According to her medical file, Calynn’s condition improved over the next
couple months but she frequently experienced what are described as "heart
attacks". These episodes increased in frequency until her first hospitalization
six months later.
November 19, 2006 - Calynn was admitted to the hospital with severe cyanosis
(appearance of a blue or purple coloration of the skin due to lack of oxygen)
and bronchopneumonia.
During her stay at the hospital she suffered cardiac and respiratory arrest four
times and each time was resuscitated after 5-15 minutes of CPR.
December 7, 2006 - Just before her first birthday Calynn had her first bypass
surgery. The surgeons at the hospital preformed an operation that created a
pulmonary-to-systemic shunt. Her condition improved steadily after the
operation and she was released from the hospital.
December 19, 2006 - Calynn was transferred from the facility in Fuyang to
another facility just north of Beijing called the New Hope Foundation. This
facility is run by Robin and Joyce Hill, a lovely couple from Australia that have
decided to use their retirement years running an orphanage for children with
medical condition rather than enjoying the beaches in Australia.
http://www.hopefosterhome.com/
Jan 10, 2007- Approximately one year later she was hospitalized again with a
respiratory illness. She spent a month in the hospital with alveobronchiolitis.
During her stay in the hospital further tests confirmed that her heart condition
was inoperable. It was also determined her condition would ultimately prove
fatal as her body continued to grow and demanded more of her heart.
She was ultimately released from the hospital and sent back to the New Hope
Foundation.
The New Hope Foundation in
Beijing
Robin and Joyce Hill
This is the earliest picture we have
of Calynn for January in 2006

3. As a beautiful little girl with a terminal heart condition, Calynn literally became
the poster-child for Love without Boundaries Heart Bridge program. Leila
Ashton painted a portrait from a photograph of Calynn. And Love without
Boundaries sold the original painting at an art auction in 2008. These funds as
well as revenue from continuing sales of these portraits and generous
donations help fund heart surgeries for orphans in China.
https://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/special_programs_jia.cfm#
This is the part in the story where we first learned about Calynn and so for
many of you that may be reading this that do not know us very I feel like I need
to briefly introduce myself and my family.
My name is Reed Quinn. My wife Charity and I live in Highland, Utah. We have
been married for about 10 years and have 5 children. From oldest to youngest
their name are Cydney (7), Cayman (6), Carter (5), Charles (3), and Cuzco (2). I
grew up on the east coast (New York, Pennsylvania, and Maine) and Charity
was born and raised in Taiwan. I served a mission in Taiwan for the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and speak Mandarin Chinese. Charity and I
were both students at Brigham Young University when we got married. We
left BYU just after the birth of our daughter, Cydney, and spent a year working
abroad in FuYang China. We ultimately came back to Utah when I took a job
doing product development in China for a US consumer product company.
Now I make a product called KT TAPE in China.
The New Hope Foundation in
Beijing
Robin and Joyce Hill
This is the earliest picture we have
of Calynn for back in 2006
Picture of Calynn after her first operation
Portrait of Calynn by Leila Ashton
Picture of our Ugly mugs
It is actually easier to
heard a pack of cats
than to get our kids to
stay still for a pictures
so here are individual
shoots of our band of
miscreants

4. November 2007 - Charity and I were visiting family in Maine over the
Thanksgiving break and my father asked us to translate some Chinese medical
records for a little girl in China. This was the first time that we met Calynn (at
least on paper). We helped translate the medical records to determine if there
was anything that could be to correct her heart condition.
As with just about every major event in this story it took almost a year from
the time we translated those records until she actually arrived in the US for her
operation. This is a recurring theme throughout this whole story. It seems like
whenever multiple government agencies are involved it will always take at
least six months to a year to get anything done. Permission was finally
granted, passports and visas were issued, travel arrangements were made and
Calynn came to the US in August of 2008.
There was a lot going on in August of 2008. Some of you will remember that
the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was on August 8, 2008. This
was probably the most significant event for China in modern history. The
Beijing Olympics and the subsequent 2010 World Fair in Shanghai were both
powerful catalyst for many significant economic, political, and domestic and
foreign policy changes (including adoption policies).
August of 2008 was a new beginning for China and also for Calynn. For most of
her early life an honest appraiser would have put Calynn’s chance of surviving
and living a health and product life at somewhere between hopeless and non-
existent. This all changed in August of 2008.
It is important for me to communicate how much love and respect I have for
the Chinese People. I do not judge or blame Calynn’s parents for their decision
to abandon her when she was 4-months old. The average salary for factory
workers in the Anhui province in 2005 was somewhere around 600 RMB or
about 85 USD a month. The average lever of formal education was also
somewhere between 3rd
and 4th
grade. Calynn’s parents had about a much
chance of getting her the help she need an ant does moving a freight car.
Looking back, August 2008 was also a new beginning for our family. Charity
and I were both under a significant amount of stress. Six years working for a
demanding and fast growing company had taken its toll on our family. This was
exacerbated by the fact that I had decided to go back to graduate school and
was halfway through an executive MBA program at BYU. In addition to sixty to
seventy hour work weeks and nightly conference calls with suppliers in China I
Calynn in 2008
Carter in 2008
Our middle son carter is the
same age as Calynn. They will
grow up as twins. It is a good
thing that they both look the
part.

5. was also spending three nights a week at school and a lot of time on weekends
studying. Our youngest son was born also born August 14 of 2008 and I think
that the fact that Charity was nine month pregnant and caring for four other
children (4 years-old and younger) might have had something to do with our
elevated stress levels.
For over a year I had been feeling like I need to find a job that allowed for more
balance in my life. The company I was working for was being sold and I had an
opportunity to strike out on my own around August 2008.
It was during the Beijing Olympics that I was first introduced to Kinesiology
tape on the shoulder of an Olympic athlete. The heightened awareness of this
product generated at the 2008 Olympics was the spark we needed to launch KT
TAPE. A lot has happened since then but two and a half years later we are still
reaping the benefits of the 2008 Olympic coverage.
Of all of the significant things that were going on in my life in August of 2008,
the most significant by far was our decision to adopt Calynn.
Charity and I were about as atypical as perspective adopting parents can be. I
would describe us as a relatively young, slightly-frazzled couple with kids
coming out our ears in the middle of some big life transitions. But as I hope to
explain our circumstances had very little to do with our desire and decision to
adopt Calynn.
To understand our motivation you have to also understand that Charity and I
believe a loving Heavenly Father and that this belief permeates every aspect of
our lives. We believe that God is not only aware of us but that He also knows
what is coming up on the road of life ahead of us. We believe that if we have
faith and are willing to listen that He will direct our paths. In our faith we call
this direction from our Heavenly Father revelation. I don’t want to go into too
much detail but I feel that an understanding of our beliefs and motivation is
particularly relevant to the rest of the store and its central theme of gratitude.
For me this spiritual guidance has never been so obvious as burning bush or a
voice from the sky but its impacted on my life has often been just as profound.
Most often I would describe these spiritual promptings or impressions as a
thought or an idea accompanied by a feeling. Sometimes they are subtle and
easy to miss if I am not paying attention but sometimes they are so powerful
that they have literally stopped me in my tracks.
Picture of Olympic Gold Madalist
Kerri Walsh with KT TAPE
Me as a missionary in Taiwan

6. Sometimes these impressions come when I do not expect it. I as a missionary
in Taiwan I often felt like I was guided to take certain routes, or talk to certain
people or stop at certain corners. Sometime the reason was obvious after the
fact and sometimes it was not. Other times I have specifically sought out this
spiritual guidance through prayer and meditation.
Often the answers that I am seeking comes when I am alone and pensive. It
could be when I am driving in the car, or taking a shower, or lying awake in
bed. I will find myself thinking about a specific problem or question and
turning it over and over in my mind. As I try and break the problem down to its
most basic components my mind often latches on to a specific idea or solution
and it just feels right. It feels right in the same way that it feels right the first
time you hold your new-born son or daughter. It feels right in the same way
that you feel when you go out of your way to do something nice for someone
else when they least expect it.
In August of 2008 just a few days before our youngest son was born. I was
thinking about Calynn and her upcoming operation when I had a strong
impression that we she was supposed to be our daughter. I told Charity how I
felt and we discussed it as we were getting ready for bed that night. She was a
lot more receptive to the idea than I had thought she would be. As stressful as
it was to have so many young kids we knew that for medical reasons this would
be our last pregnancy. We had been blessed with 5 beautiful, health children
and so we tried not to dwell on it, but both Charity and I we disappointed that
that Cydney would be our only daughter.
The first time Charity and I discuss adopting Calynn she had already arrived in
the US but had not had her operation yet and we did not want to get our
hopes up. The procedure carried a significant amount of risk and a relatively
high mortality rate.
This being one of those major life decisions, we decided to go to the temple
and to pray together about it. I will not take very much time here to talk about
Latter-day Saint temples but the best analogy I have for a temple is that it is
like an embassy. I have visited several embassies in the US and abroad and am
fascinated by the fact that when you enter the gate of an embassy you literally
step out of one country and into another. With and embassy it is almost like
someone scooped up a city block from one country and transplanted it in the
Calynn in April of 2007
Calynn in May of 2007
Calynn in December of 2007
Calynn in June or 2008

7. middle of another country. When you enter an embassy the language,
customs, and even the laws of the surrounding country do not apply.
Embassies are often the focal point of communication and administration of
affairs between the two countries.
In a very real sense LDS temples are like heavens embassies on earth. When
you step into the temple you leave the surrounding world and worries behind
and you enter a little island of peace and calm. For Charity and I temples are
the ideal place to pray and seek spiritual guidance.
I do not feel that a mass email is the best place to share the specific details of
these kinds of special experience but it is sufficient for me to say that we felt
strongly that this is what Heavenly Father wanted us to do. The experience
that prompted our decision to adopt Calynn was among the most spiritual
experiences of my life and it did not allow me give up despite the significant
challenges that we encountered along the way.
There we were in August of 2008, me working on a startup that was still in the
idea phase with no regular income, halfway through graduate school, and
Charity nine months pregnant, and caring for a four-year-old, a three-year-old
a two-year-old and a one-year-old but both of us thoroughly convinced that
Calynn operation would go smoothly ad that she was supposed to be our
daughter.
At this point we return to Calynn’s story.
Calynn arrived in the US on August 9th
accompanied by Mrs. Wang (ang sounds
in Chinese are pronounced ong as in song not ang as in slang). Mrs. Wang was
one of Calynn’s care givers at from the Fu Yang Welfare Institute. She had
never been on an airplane before let alone an international flight. She did not
speak any English and from my brief conversation with her over the phone
while she was staying in the US she seemed a little shell-shocked. She was
genuinely grateful to talk to someone else who spoke Chinese, and I made an
instant friend.
Not knowing anything about Chinese adoption Mrs. Wang was my first source
of information. I asked her what Charity and I needed to do to adopt Calynn.
She seemed to think that it would be fairly strait forward. She told us to send
her a letter of intent and some supporting documents and she would take
them back to China. From our conversations she thought the process might
Picture of the Mount
Timpanogos Temple, a few
minute drive from our house
Calynn in August of 2008

8. take a couple months and that Calynn might not even have to go back to China
after her operation. I did not fully appreciate at the time just how wrong she
was.
September 4, 2008 - Calynn’s operation was performed by a marginally
talented Heart Surgeon who coincidently is also named Reed Quinn.
All joking aside my Dad is at the top of the list of people that Charity and I are
most grateful for. Our kids will be very lucky if I can one day achieve the same
standard my Father set as a parent.
During Calynn’s stay in the US, dozens of amazing people, opened their homes,
donated their time and assisted in so many different ways. The operation
went very smoothly and Calynn returned to China in October of 2008. Many of
you that are reading this email may know more about her stay in the US than
we do. We have piece together as much information about her childhood as
we can find but if you have some pictures or experiences from Calynn’s stay in
the US that you would be willing share, please write them up and send them to
me. reed.quinn@kttape.com
I only have contact information for a fraction of the people that helped facility
Calynn’s operation so if you know someone that would be interested in
knowing the rest of Calynn’s story please forward this email to them.
Although I did not meet Calynn face to face while she was in the US I did see
her in November shortly after she returned to China. I had some business in
China and after spending a week or two visiting some suppliers I joined up with
a medical mission group. Several of us broke off from the group going
sightseeing in Beijing and visited the New Hope Foundation. A driver took us
to a home a few minute away where we met Calynn’s new foster family.
That trip was particularly poignant. I got to play with, talk to and hold Calynn
and then I had to leave her with her new foster parents. They seemed like
good people but I couldn’t help feeling like I was leaving my daughter with
strangers. It may sound a little unreasonable but also felt that somehow I was
letting Calynn down.
These feelings were compounded when Charity called me later that same day. I
don’t recall how but Cydney, our oldest daughter, had broken her arm. With
our recent work changes we had also changed insurance and Charity had no
Reed Quinn MD
Nurse Lori Hafner wit Claynn

9. idea which instant care facilities were covered under our new policy or even where to find our insurance
policy for that matter.
She was not looking forward to spending five hours in an emergency room by herself with a kid with a broken
arm, three very active toddler boys and a three month old nursing infant. Most people that know Charity
would find it hard to believe but under these circumstances she told me in not very obsequious language what
she thought of me and my decision to pursue a career that required international travel.
Everything ultimately turned out fine. We located the insurance information, found a neighbor to watch the
boys and Charity, Cydney, and the baby were in and out of the hospital in less than two hours. We can laugh
about it now but I can remember how anxious I felt at the time. For me there is nothing worse than the
feeling that I had not been there when Charity and my kids needed me most.
I contact Mrs. Wang before and again during that trip to China. She said that she had given our letter of intent
and other supporting documents to Mr. Yang, the administrator at the FuYang Children’s Social Welfare
Institute. Although I have never met Mr. Yang in person, I know exactly what he is like. He is one of the quite,
component, managers with little formal training or education but with a good heart and a lot of patients.
There are so many people just like Mr. Yang that land in positions of authority and influence within many
different Chinese government agencies. In ten years working in China I have probably met over a hundred Mr.
Yangs. It is always refreshing to find these wonderful individuals sometimes in the most unlikely places. It’s a
little like finding out that all of your best friends actually work for IRS, the tobacco industry or the mafia.
Orphanages in China can be scary places especially through the eyes of
a middle class American. With a limited amount of resources and a lot
of children (many of which have special needs) these orphanages
sometimes have to make tough decision about who gets medical
attention and who does not. In some rare cases these decisions are as
bleak as who gets food and who does not. There are many accounts of
Chinese orphanages with unsanitary living conditions, survival of the
fittest policies and death rooms where sick children are sent to die. I
do not deny that such things existing but my experience has been that
in general the caregivers at these orphanages and welfare institutes
are loving and honest individuals that have a desire to make a difference in the lives of as many children as
possible.
Mr. Yang was extremely helpful and candid. He asked us questions about our family and why we wanted to
adopt Calynn. He answered some of our question about her childhood and admitted that as an administrator
at an orphanage he had little to do with the international adoption process. He was almost exclusively
focused on the welfare of his children. Mr. Yang did tell us that the agency that processes all Chinese
Picture of an Orphanage in Rural China

10. adoptions is called the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) and he recommended that we call them to
figure out what we needed to do to adopt Calynn.
On a side note, Calynn’s full Chinese name is Yang Xin Jia. In Chinese the Family name comes first. I assume
that she was given the family name Yang after Mr. Yang own family name. From my conversation with Mr.
Yang I feel that this is appropriate as he truly watch over these children as if they were his own.
To this point Charity and I were still very naïve about the process for international adoption. I was still
operating under the assumption we could make a few phone calls fill out some paper work, and go pickup
Calynn. Our only sources of information so far were Mrs. Wang and Mr. Yang and they both seemed to be
very optimistic.
The CCAA was the first of many agencies to bring us back to reality. On Mr. Yang’s recommendation we call
the CCAA in China to ask what we would need to do to be able to adopt Calynn. I remember that it took us
about a dozen calls to finally get a live person on the phone but eventually we did talk with a very curt Chinese
lady at the CCAA who told us that adopting a specific child from China was impossible. “That is not the way it
works” she said “If you want to adopt a child from China you have to apply, get approved and then we, the
CCAA, assign you a child. You do not get to choose the child you adopt”.
She also told us that due to recent changes to international adoption policies we would have to work with an
approved US adoption agency. The CCAA strongly discourages any direct contact between adopting parents
and orphanages in China. I did not go out of my way to tell her that we had already broken that rule.
She also told us dozens of other discouraging tidbits. She told us that not every orphan in China is available for
international adoption. So even if we did apply and were approved Calynn may not qualify for international
adoption. She also told us that the process of qualifying for adoption can take many years and cost tens of
thousands of dollars and that there were no exceptions or shortcuts.
Once we decided that we had gotten about as much information as we were going to get out of the CCAA I
started calling China approved US agencies. I called about a dozen agencies and most of them told us the
same thing. Ten years ago we might have had a chance to work directly with an orphanage on what some of
the older agencies called a “designated adoption” (and adoption of a specific child) but these days it was
virtually impossible.
Most of agencies were hesitant to even discuss designated adoptions. There business depends on their
relationship with the CCAA and they did not want to make waves and risk their status as an approved agency.
Some agencies told me that in addition to the CCAA’s policies their own internal policies prohibited a
designated adoption. Agencies are assigned specific children to place. They all have a waiting list of approved
adopting parents and even if they were assigned a specific Child record they would have to match it with the
family that had been waiting the longest.

11. Charity and I learned a lot more about the adoption process from ten hours on the phone with adoption
agencies. We learned that there are two kinds of international adoptions in China. The first is regular
adoption which usually involves two foreign parents and a health Chinese baby. There is a huge demand in
the US for young health Chinese children and the current average waiting period for a health Child from China
is about five and half years. The second kind of adoption is what is called “waiting child adoption”. These are
usually slightly older children with moderate health conditions. There is less demand for adopting these
children so many of these children are waiting for parents.
One of the US adoption agencies that specialize in waiting child adoptions told us that if Calynn was available
for adoption and was placed on the waiting child list we might have a chance to adopt her. Contrary to what
the CCAA told us, in a waiting child adoption the parents do have some say in which child that they want to
adopt.
This was our first glimmer of hope since our rather dismal conversation with the CCAA. Before you get the
wrong idea I have to describe just how small this ray of sunlight was when compared to the surround
darkness.
In order for us to even have a chance to adopt Calynn there were a couple of really BIG IFs. If we were
approved to adopt a waiting Child and if Calynn was available for international adoption and if she was placed
on the waiting child list and if the US agency processing our file also got her file as well, and if they had no first
come first serve policies, then they could matched our records and we would be able to adopt Calynn.
Let’s take these situations one at a time:
If we were approved for adoption – From our conversations with the US adoption agencies we had learned
about two requirements for adoption that we simply did not meet. The first requirement was an age
requirement. Back in 2008 I was only 28 years old and Charity was 32. According to Chinese Adoption Law,
adopting parent must both be at least 30 years old. The second requirement that we did not meet was that
we already had 5 children. Again, according to Chinese law, adopting parents can have up to 5 children
including the one that you adopt. The US adoption agencies that we called told us up front that the CCAA is
very strict about eligibility requirements and some of them were even a little miffed that we had waist so
much of their time when they found out my age and how many kids we had.
If Calynn was available for International adoption - The administrator at the orphanage in Fuyang seemed to
think that Calynn was an excellent candidate for international adoption and since it was his responsibility to
prepare her file and submit it to the CCAA we did not worry about the possibility that the CCAA would reject
her file. Looking back this probably was a valid concern.
If Calynn was placed on the waiting child list – Mr. Yang was not even aware that there was a difference in
the process for adopting healthy children and waiting children. This designation is assigned when the file is
processed at the CCAA.

12. Before Calynn’s operation, her inoperable and terminal status disqualified her from international adoption
even as a waiting child. After her surgery most of the US adoption agencies seemed to think that even if she
was approved for international adoption she was unlikely to end up on the waiting child list and her record
would be assigned to specific agency.
If the US agency processing our file got assigned her records – Healthy children are in such demand that
there records are never up for grabs. They are individually assigned to an agency for placement. There are
hundreds of approved agencies in the US and abroad so the chance of guessing which agency would get her
file if she was processed as a health child was very low.
Our best chance to adopt Calynn, was for her file to be processed as a waiting Child. At a certain time each
week new files are added to the waiting child website. Approved agencies can login to the website and search
for children by age, gender, and medical condition. In 2008 so few children we added to the list each week
that many adoption agencies would have people watching the list when it is updated so they could lock the
records of the healthiest waiting children for their clients.
We learned that as a three-year-old female with a heart condition, Calynn’s file would probably be locked
within a matter of minutes of appearing on the waiting child website. It is true that sometimes records are
locked and then released after they have a chance to read the whole file but given that Calynn heart defect
had already been corrected this was extremely unlikely.
Even if Calynn’s record was processed as a waiting child a couple minutes to find and lock her record was not a
very big window of opportunity. Despite the obvious challenges this was still slightly better odds than if her
file was processed as a health child.
I asked each adoption agency that we talked with to put a percent chance on the likelihood of us being able to
adopt Calynn. No one gave us more than one chance in a thousand. One China Adoption Director told us that
we were trying to do was akin to placing a $10,000 bet on a single lottery ticket number and he wanted no
part of it. Most people were not that direct but shared the same general sentiments.
We ultimately decided to go with an agency called Children’s Hope International (CHI) as our US adoption
agency. They were not any more hopeful that things would work out than any other agency but there attitude
was considerably better. I remember the China Program Coordinator telling me “I doubt it will work and you
are probably just wasting your time and money but we are willing to try if you are”.
So it was decided. The game plan was to get our file to the CCAA as fast as possible, hope that they over
looked some crucial eligibility requirements and approved our file. Stay in contact with Mr. Yang and get a
heads up when Calynn’s file was submitted to the CCAA. Hope and pray that she was approved for
international adoption and processed as a waiting child and then have the staff at Children’s Hope
International watch the waiting Child list like a hawk for Calynn’s file to appear and match it with our own.

13. We began the first step in international adoption, the creation of a dossier. At one time I would have thought
that processing Charity’s immigration paper work to get her US citizenship was onerous. Don’t tell the USCIS
but US immigration has nothing on international adoption in the same way that a broken femur has nothing
on third degree burn.
Just to give you an idea of what it takes to complete an adoption dossier. There are about 40 documents that
need to be collected. These are things like birth certificates, a marriage license, police reports from each state
and country you have lived in, a lovely 30 page document called a home study, adoption training certifications,
medical reports, financial statements, a letter of intent, letters of reference, background checks, biometrics, to
just name a few.
Each document has to be prepared just so, each form has to be filled out precisely and each document can
take house to prepare. In addition to paper work there are the meetings with the social worker who write the
home study and the 30 hours of adoption training.
Once all of the forms are collected, signed notarized and approved, the dossier goes to the state government.
If the document is a Utah document, like a Utah birth certificate it goes to the Utah State government for
Authentication, if the document is from another state it goes to that states government office for
authentication. If the document is from another country than it really gets ugly.
After all of the documents are certified by the state governments they go to the US State Department in
Washington DC for Certification. After they are certified in Washington DC they go to the Chinese embassy for
the final certification. Some of the documents are rejected for one reason or another and you have to begin
the process again, any one document can hold up the entire dossier.
It takes about 8-9 months to complete everything for a dossier. Our first dossier was submitted in July of
2009. I had just turned 29 and Calynn had already been back in China for 9 months. At the same time we
were preparing our paper work, Mr. Yang, the administrator at the orphanage was preparing Calynn’s file as
well. I don’t know all the details of this process but it sounds pretty complicated as well. When our dossier
was ready I called him and he told us that Calynn’s record had just barely been submitted to the CCAA and we
knew that it would only be a matter of a couple months before she would either be assigned to a specific
agency as a health child or appear on the waiting child list.
In international adoption, completing the dossier is usually about the half-way point in both time and expense.
We had spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars over the last nine months knowing that our chances
were slim. Even so I had high hopes that our dossier would be approved before Calynn file was processed and
that everything would work out.
CHI submitted or dossier to CCAA and for the first time in the whole process we got a quick response from a
government agency. Within a week we heard back that our dossier had been rejected. The reason they sited
was my age.

14. At that point we knew that Calynn’s record would likely be assigned to an agency or posted on the waiting
child list soon and we would not be able to adopt her. I was devastated.
Although I am not one to give up easily, it was not with a whole lot of hope that I asked CHI “How soon before
my 30th
birthday can we try again.” CHI told me not to contact them until March of 2010. This was three
month before my 30th
birthday and if Calynn had not been adopted yet we could discuss our case again.
Charity and I both decided if it was meant to be Calynn would still be available for adoption when I turned 30.
The next nine months passed with no communication between me and the orphanage in China or the US
adoption agency. I did not want to get my hopes up only to have her adopted by some other family at the last
minute.
During those seven months our family moved on in a lot of ways. I finished graduated school and Charity and
had a blast touring Europe. We moved from our starter home in Orem Utah to our current home in Highland.
Some of our kids stated school and pre-school and got involved in sports music and other activities. KT TAPE
was really taking off but the work hours were manageable especially compared with my previous
employment.
March 21, 2010 (exactly 3 months before my 30th
birthday) I sent an email to Children’s hope international
and one to Mr. Yang at the Children’s Welfare Institute in China. CHI responded first and initially told me that
Calynn had already been adopted. About two days later I had not heard from Mr. Yang so I found his number
and gave him a call. He said that Calynn had not been adopted and that she was in foster care in China. I
don’t know how CHI mixed things up but I’m glad I double checked. If I did not have a way to contact the
orphanage in China I probably would have given up at that point.
During my conversation with Mr. Yang I asked how it was possible that Calynn had not been adopted yet given
that her recoded was submitted nine months earlier. He told us that her file, like ours, had been rejected by
the CCAA.
Mr. Yang still believed that she was a good candidate for international adoption and he had been working on
her file and planed to re-submit it with some new information. It was like someone had hit the reset button.
Nine months had passed but we had a second chance to execute our original game plan.
At this point we were very excited. I called CHI and told them that Calynn had in fact not been adopted and I
asked them what we needed to do to be ready to lock her file if she was approved for international adoption
this time.
I don’t think CHI has ever had to re-do a dossier because it took them a week to get back to us. They had their
China office take our old dossier to the CCAA and ask which documents were still valid and which needed to
be re-done. The answer came back a week later that out of all the documents in our dossier the only ones
that they would accept were the birth certificates. On everything else we would have to start from scratch.

15. We immediately began the process of re-doing all of the documents, this including our home study,
immigration approvals, biometrics, medical reports, financial statements, everything. In truth it did go faster
the second time. We had just gotten most of our paperwork back with the state governments when Calynn’s
record showed up on the waiting child website. I remember very clearly the day was May 19th
2010. The US
adoption agency called me and told me they had located her file but that they could not lock the record in the
first 30 days without a completed dossier. They also told me that in order to lock a record they needed to fill
out information about both parents including birth dates. As it was just over a month unit my 30 birthday, the
system would not let them match our files.
We also learned that after 30 days on the waiting child list if the record is still available, any agency can lock
for any parents even without a completed dossier. Since the record was uploaded on May 19th
, the first day
that the record could be locked by an agency for a family without a completed dossier was technically June
19th
.
Since June 19th
fell on a weekend and the US Agencies are closed on weekends, the first day that the agency
could lock the record was Monday June 21st
2010, my 30th
birthday. We kept working on our dossier and I
check in with the agency weekly to make sure that her record was still available.
At this point several things were working in our favor. Most people that adopt from China want very young
children. Calynn was already four years-old and so was probably not the first choice on many adopting
parent’s lists. China really limited the number of international adoptions in 2008 leading up to the Olympics
but in the two years following they did a lot of catching up on the backlog and the waiting child list had grown
substantially. Agencies did not need to be so vigilant about immediately locking records. The details of
Calynn’s operation in the US were buried deep within a 30 page medical history attached to her file so most
people who glanced over her record would not know that her heart condition had already been fixed. Of all of
these reasons I think the most significant may have been that the black and white picture they used on her file
was not very flattering (thank you Mr. Yang).
After almost 2 years of being told it was next to impossible for us to adopt Calynn, our files were match on
June 21, 2010.
It took another 6 months to complete all the authentications and certifications for our second dossier. We
had to submit documents to the state department twice because Hilary Clinton left off one signature of one
document. We had to submit everything to the Chinese Embassy three times. Once because one document
was out of order, once because they were missing a photo copy and the third time our paper work could have
been sent back for an equally trivial reason without another small miracle.
I was returning from one of my trips to China and I had about a dozen voice mails when I landed in the US.
One of was from a blocked number and they had not left a message just a couple second of silence before
hanging up. I had a feeling that this was someone at the Chinese Embassy and that I needed to call them back.
I looked up the number and called them while I was waiting for my luggage. I couldn’t get anyone on the

16. phone. So I started trying random extensions. The first person to answer was the lady that was processing
our file. She was just about to put everything back in the envelope and send it back to use when I called. She
did not speak very good English and so I flipped into Chinese and told her told her a little of what we had been
through to process this adoption. She broke protocol unstapled some papers, made a photo copy, changed a
date, re-stapled it all back together and added the official seal of the Republic of China to our last document.
Our second dossier was complete!
We submitted our second dossier to the CCAA, re-paid all of our fees and waited to see if it would be
accepted. The first time we were rejected because I was not yet 30. Now that this was not an issue the only
thing I was worried about was that they would reject us because of our five children. Within a month we
heard back that everything had gone through smoothly and we would travel to China within 6 months to bring
Calynn home. Submitting the dossier was a major milestone but there was still a lot left to do. I will not bore
you with the details but for 6 months it seems like some document needed to be filled out, notarized and
mailed somewhere just about every week.
Our Embassy Appointment in China is May 31st
2011. The week before that we will be in Anhui Finalizing the
adoption. June 2 2011 Calynn comes home to meet her very excited brothers and older sister.
Over the last few months we have known with a high degree of certainty that we were going to be able to
adopt Calynn. As we have shared this information with a few close friends and family members. Our good
news has been met with mixed reactions.
Many well-meaning family members and friends with little understanding of what it took to get to this point
would ask questions like “How are you going to handle are those kids?” or “I just don't know how you do it?”
and “Are you ready for this?” or similar questions. I truly appreciate everyone’s concerns and know we are
blessed to have so many friends and neighbors and family members that are looking out for us.
Many times Charity and I have been at a loss as how to answer these questions. The honest answers might be
that we don't really know how we handle our kids. We mostly just try to keep them from tearing the house
apart, fight with each other like a pile of rabid monkeys and running naked through the streets. If we can avoid
these three things it has been a good week.
I don’t know how we could ever be ready for this. We are no more ready to adopt a little girl from a foreign
country than we were to get married, have kids, or run a half marathon cold turkey. Since when has readiness
been a prerequisite for anything? Of course we are not ready and yet we not only survive but continue to love
and support each other and enjoy our beautiful little family.
I also do not want to paint the inaccurate picture that both Charity and I went two years with unwavering faith
always knowing that things would work out. It makes you wonder whether Daniel fully expected to end up as
lion-food, or if Moses wasn’t at least a little surprised when the Red Sea actually parted. When I condense

17. two years of events into twenty pages it seems like one miraculous event after another. Living it was a much
different experience. There were times when adoption was a prickly topic at our house.
In truth, even toward the end Charity and I were still very anxious about this decision. Let me clarify. We both
knew in our hearts that it was the right decision but at times we have been anxious about the consequences of
the decisions.
It may be hard for by-stander to understand what we could be anxious about but try and put yourself in our
shoes. As you see your kids play together you might think “How will Calynn fit in to our family? Will our other
kids be as close to her as they are with each other? How long will it take?” Questions like this are popping up
every day. As I register Carter for kindergarten I also registered Calynn. Immediately a hundred questions
came into my mind, questions like “Will her English be good enough after just a few months in the US to
understand what is going on in school?” or “How soon should we start to teach her reading and writing?”
Charity and I handled our anxiety during this adoption process in very different ways not because we were not
experiencing many of the same feelings but because Charity and I have very different personalities.
It has been my experience that more often than not, people’s greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses are
connected like two sides of the same coin. One of Charity's key strengths is compassion; she cares deeply for
everyone around her. She cares how they feel and what they think. This ability to perceive other needs makes
her a good friend, neighbor and an attentive parent. The opposite side of the same coin is that she worries
incessantly.
I don’t mind taking the frequent worrying as long as it is connected with the unfathomable compassion.
Charity’s capacity for empathy is one of the reasons I gave her the name Charity in the first place (her Chinese
name is Tang Zhu Jun – Don’t worry about how to pronounce it, we simply don’t have those sounds in English).
Many of Charity’s other strengths and weakness are tied to this core attribute of compassion like a string
anchoring a helium balloon. On one hand she is flexible and adaptable but the opposite side of the coin is a
tendency to second guess her decision. Sometimes this indecisiveness can be kind of amusing. She returns
about one in five non-food items that she purchases (sometimes the same day that she bought them). She is
humble and unassuming but the opposite side of the coin is that she sometimes lacks self-confidence. She
holds herself and others to a high standard but on flip side she sometimes finds it difficult to forgive and
forget.
I could go on for pages about this wonderful little woman that I have been blessed to have as a companion for
the last ten years. I tell Charity all the time how much I love her but I rarely get an opportunity to tell anybody
else. I love Charity. She is my best friend, and eternal companion and I cannot imagine life without her.

18. It is only fair after telling you so much about Charity that I also give you a candid analysis of myself. If I was to
choose my core attribute it would be something like determination. On one side of the coin I keep working at
something until I find a way to get it done but on the other side of the coin I can be rather stubborn. Many of
my attribute are tied like a chain to an anchor to this core attribute. On one hand I am hard working and
meticulous on the opposite side of the coin I can be single-minded and un-balanced. I am self-confident and
not afraid to learn or try new things on the other hand I can be proud and too comfortable with taking risks. I
am very efficient but on the flipside I can also be hasty. I am logical, methodical and analytical on the other
side of the coin I can be blunt and impersonal.
Where Charity is sensitive I can be rather numb (probably on par with a wooden crutch). Where Charity
worries a lot I can be confident enough for both of us. When I get too focused on the mundane Charity
reminds me what is most important. In this way we balance and complement each other.
As we faced our own apprehension about this adoption, we dealt with it in very different ways. Mostly I
expressed told myself and Charity that everything would be fine and then I would go build something. I enjoy
working with my hands. It gives often gives me time to think and to breakdown problems and decide what I
want to do. During this adoption process, I framed, wired, sheet rocked, painted, carpeted and finished three
rooms in the basement. I built a cedar strip catamaran, landscaped a yard and built five 300 lbs garden boxes.
I got little carried away with shelving, and built shelves in the reading room, theater room, garage, and two
storage rooms. I installed an irrigation system, resurfaced the driveway, and installed a home computer
network. These and countless other small projects really help me work out my much of my anxiety.
Under a steady barrage of her own anxieties and those of concerns of friends and family, Charity’s unease
increased incrementally like links in Marley’s chains. She carried this burden around with her all the time and
her confidence seemed to wax and wane like the phases of the moon. One month she would be excited, eager
and engaged and the next she would tell me all the reason that she thought we were not good enough
parents to handle six kids.
It was on one of these moonless days that Charity called me at work in tears. She had forgotten to pack a
lunch for Cydney and when she tried to take one to school, she realized that there was a field trip that day.
"How can I be a good mother to Calynn if I can't even take care of the kids that I already have?" Charity's
concerns came back to the same core question. Weather she was a good enough mother. Those of you who
know her well you may find this amusing because if we took a vote I am guessing that her mothering skill
would be rated somewhere between exceptional and supercalifragilistic.
I left work early that day. We got a babysitter and we went to the temple with the specific purpose of re-
confirming our decision to adopt Calynn. Again the details are not appropriate for an email but from that time
forward Charity has had no consternation about any of the consequences of our decisions to adopt Calynn.

19. Some may ask, “If Calynn was meant to be our daughter why was
she not just born into our family?” or “Once we knew that we
were supposed to adopt her why did it take two years for
everything to come together?”
I do not pretend to know why events unfolded they way that
they did and my heart hurts when I think of the last two years
Calynn has spent in an orphanage while we were mired in paper
work not knowing for sure if it was all a waste of time.
The first reason that comes to mind is that maybe we were not
ready. A lot has happened in our lives in the last two and a half
years. Looking back at 2008 it is obvious now that those were
indeed some of our darkest days. After our last pregnancy
Charity struggled with a multitude of health problems form hormonal imbalances, and post-partum
depression, to mono, urticaria and candita. She visited a dozen different doctors that prescribed everything
from antibiotics to osteopathic remedies and dietary changes. The thing that helped the most was time.
Despite Charities health problems and my busy schedule, there was always love in our home. August 2008
was the turning point but in truth it took hundreds of small changes over the next year to feel like had
weathered the storm. Our kids got older and more helpful. My work situation improved dramatically and I
finished graduate school. Our kids started school and when we moved to highland it was a nice change of
scenery and an opportunity for a fresh start. Life is by no means simple or carefree now but at least we are not
drowning. I truly believe that great blessings follow great challenges. It was hard to have so many young kids
in such a short period of time but now they are best of friends and look after each other.
Another reason that comes to mind is that there are sure to be more challenges to come. Maybe we needed
to overcome some significant obstacles in a miraculous way now during the adoption process so that we
would never have reason to doubt our decision.
Whatever the reasons, our hearts are filled with gratitude for our countless blessings. I would like to end
Calynn story with the passage of scripture that stands out in my mind. This is from the Book of Mormon. The
Book of Mormon is a book of scripture similar in purpose and time period to the Bible. In this book there is a
prophet named Jacob who write a store about vineyard.
21 And it came to pass that the servant said unto his master: How comest thou hither to plant this tree, or this
branch of the tree? For behold, it was the poorest spot in all the land of thy vineyard.
22 And the Lord of the vineyard said unto him: Counsel me not; I knew that it was a poor spot of ground;
This is a picture I snapped with my phone one day
when I came home from work in October of 2008. It
was typical to find the kids squeezed together in some
corner with Charity as she read them library books.

20. wherefore, I said unto thee, I have nourished it this long time, and thou beholdest that it hath brought forth
much fruit.
In this story, the Lord of the vineyard is Heavenly Father and the vineyard is the world. It is hard to imagine a
“poorer spot of ground” than starting life as an orphan with a complex heart condition in rural China. We truly
believe that God has a plan for us. As the
Lord of the Vineyard He has both the
foresight to plant us where we can learn
and grow from our challenges and the
patents to nourish us for a long time. This
experience has taught us that Calynn is
surely one of Heavenly Fathers most
precious children and we are so grateful
that he has entrusted her to our care. It is
with this in mind that we pickup Calynn
tomorrow in Anhui China.
Our most recent picture of Calynn sent to us by the US adoption agency