"Fly to Jesus and Live"

The moment we met her in the clinic at The Philip Hayden Foundation, something immediately happened within my heart. We were there to take pictures for this special needs orphanage, so we had our camera's and began meeting the sickest of the children who were located in this particular house. Mei Mei was dressed in a blue and white dress and wanted to see the pictures on our view finder. She pointed to the picture of herself and said, "Mei Mei," which in Chinese means Beautiful. I thought she was so amazing to know that she was beautiful regardless of her physical limits and lack of family to properly love and care for her. Later, I learned her name was Mei Mei, but what a beautiful portrait of God's love, that he points to our picture and says, "Mei Mei!"

Mei Mei could not walk due to the multiple heart conditions she had, so she rode around on a little scooter, from room to room. Her lips were blue, her finger tips swollen and blue from a lack of oxygen, her legs and arms as thin as sticks, yet beautiful and worthy of love and a family.
In late July, we inquired with Holt Adoption Agency, about making an adoption plan. She was so sick and labeled as having an "inoperable heart condition," that left her unadoptable," or at least, probably, undesirable for adoption prospects. In September we found out her actual diagnosis and it was a blow, after my research and reaching out to cardiac specialists seemed to only confirm that her condition was truly un-fixable. Here was the diagnosis we received:

TIFFANY/MEI MEI: "She is a frail and beautiful 4 yr old with an inoperable heart condition that came to us on 4-2-08. She has Single ventricle, ASD, persistent truncus arteriosus and tricuspid stenosis. She has been evaluated before, but over the past few months we have taken her to our heart surgeons to see what they would say. Last week they redid an MRI and a heart echo and feel that they cannot offer her any surgery as she does not have the vessels needed to be able to do any shunts. She gets quite
cyanotic and is treated with Oxygen as needed. At the same time is quite active and happy and is always the first one to greet any new visitor with a big hug. She is one of our very special Heart Babies and we will continue to see if something can be done to help her."

Also in September, we contacted WACAP, another adoption agency and asked if they would be able to assist us in our pursuing Mei Mei's adoption. They responded, saying it would be difficult to request a specific child as typical Chinese adoptions are "referred," not by choosing a specific child. They asked for more information about Mei Mei, and we gathered it quickly with help from a Yahoo Group we belonged to.

Chinese Name: Song Yangmei

DOB 9/2/04

Original Orphanage Placement: Yangxi Orphanage

Diagnosis: Single Ventricle ASD, Persistent Truncus Arteriosis

Her birthday is a day later than Grace's and her birth city was also extremely close to where Grace had been, relatively, with China being so large, we smiled, certainly as sign that she was to be in our family.

September 30th, we heard back from WACAP, informing us that they had contacted Mei Mei's orphanage and felt confident that they would list her as adoptable if their was indeed a family willing to adopt her, despite her delicate health conditions. Ironically, that same day, the impact of the financial world and declining economic climate became apparent to us and faith in Brian's job for our financial needs began to come crashing down. We replied to WACAP advising them that an open door in China, was met with a closing one within our current means.

Many of these stories end with the happily ever after, God awing miracle...but, this one ends differently. We found out this morning that little Mei Mei, the beautiful girl that unexpectedly caught our hearts while on our 2008 missions trip to China, passed away this morning.

Why did it have to end this way? Were we not faithful beyond what we knew we could humanly accomplish? Was she never meant to be ours? Did God spare our family from catastrophic and irreversible heart break that we would not have recovered from? I don't know the answer to these questions! Does it absolutely kill me that this innocent and sick precious child did not have her safe place to fall? Where will condolences be sent? Who will mourn everyday for her? Who's life will be changed because of her leaving this world? Where will her file and paperwork go?

And with your final heartbeat,
Kiss the world goodbye,
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side...and

Fly to Jesus,
Fly to Jesus,
Fly to Jesus and LIVE!

Lyrics from "An Untitled Hymn," by Chris Rice

Pictures of Mei Mei, collected over the past year-and-a-half, since our meeting and longing to have her join our family.