A collection of Chelsea's writings over the past years.

Spring Newsletter 2008

Adopting Ruby

My name is Chelsea. I am eight years old. I was adopted from China when I was 10 months old. I also have a sister who was adopted from China two years later. Her name is Averie, she is six years old and is lots of fun. A few years later, my mom said she would be adopting another Chinese girl and that she would be a Special Needs baby. When I heard this I felt excited that there would be another member in the family. My mom decoded to call our new baby Ruby Joy. My mom explained that it would be a long time until she would be leaving.

More months passed and my mom started getting pictures of our new little sister. I soon found that the handicap that my sister had was that she was born without ears! I was amazed! She also had a cleft palate. This is a hole in the roof of the mo0unth.

When I saw the first pictures of Ruby I thought she looked a little strange. I thought living with a girl without ears would not be comfortable. After some more months passed my mom started packing her suitcases with clothes and toys for the long trip to China. My mom asked my grandma and my granddad to look after me and my sister for two whole weeks. I was very sad when I had to say

goodbye to my mom. The taxi came and my mom got in to drive to the airport. My granddad looked after me for the first few days and then my grandma looked after me. Living with my grandma was not easy but I got over it in no time. I had lots of fun with my grandma. Over the week my Grandma took us many places one of the places she took us to was to the library. There we got books and my grandma got us a treat. She got us chocolate milk! We had lots of fun.

Finally the day came to drive to the airport see my mom. We had to wait a long time. But finally my mom came . I was so happy to see them both. Ruby did not look at all like what I had thought, but she sure was cute. We talked and talked in the taxi on the way home. Ruby was looking all around and we were all looking at her. When we got home we had a Welcome Home Party. We stayed up very late.

Now Ruby has been in Canada for almost a year. It seems that we have had Ruby forever. Ruby has new hearing aids. Ruby’s mouth has been fixed, and she has a special Speech Therapist so she is learning to talk. Sometimes she is a pest but most of the time she is lots of fun. We love her a lot!

Life with our Special Needs baby is the best thing in the world.