Journey to Chang Ji Zhong

An Invisible Red Thread Connects those who are destined to meet

Regardless of time, place and circumstance.

The thread may stretch or tangle,

But it will never break.

Chinese proverb

This is one of the first pictures I had ever seen of my son, Chang Ji Zhong. He was born on July 26, 2006. He is currently living in the Changzhou City SWI. His Chinese name means: "Chang"- the city he was found "Ji"- the year he was born and "Zhong" is a common male Chinese name equivalent to "John" in the United States and pronounced almost the same way. To all those wondering, he WILL have an American name blended with his Chinese heritage. Just not yet....

The story of how I came to know him started a few years ago, and a year before he as even born. The road to adoption is long and fraught with twists and turns and can be heartbreaking and rewarding all at the same time. Someone once told me that regardless how hard it seems sometimes, the child that is meant for you, and you for him, will come to you and it will all makes sense in the end. That person was right. And it makes the 'Red Thread' proverb make that much more sense.

To begin with, this beautiful baby was not merely "given up" or just abandoned. In my heart of hearts I know that his mother did what she felt was right for him. Ji Zhong was born with a very large benign tumor on his neck that would have been very conspicuous upon his birth. From what I know, it was so large that his if not removed very soon after birth, his quality of life would have been greatly affected. Now I am only speculating here and maybe its my way of romanticizing things, but I believe that his parents did the best thing they could for him. Maybe they had no financial means to have the surgery done. Maybe, not knowing exactly what was so obviously wrong with him, they feared the worst and did the only thing they could to ensure he would get the help he needed. So in my humble opinion, they didn't give him "up". They gave him a chance. They gave him to me. I believe that when in one place a mother grieves for a child she must leave, in another place there is a mother whose is praying for a child for her family. And God sometimes answers both of those mother's prayers at the same time.

I will never meet Ji Zhong's birth parents. I don't know who they are and they will have no knowledge of his adoption. But I will never forget them and the great sacrifice they made out of love and the gift they gave to my family and I.