Annalyn's Story

This is the story of how Annalyn came to be where she is. She was born six weeks and one day premature. She was having a very difficult time breathing. The 'normal' thing to do would have been to let nature take it's course and allow her to die peacefully, but six hours after birth her first parents took her to the hospital. She was put in intensive care and endured a long list of difficulties and treatments. Thanks to socialized medicine, all medical care must be prepaid. You cannot get past the waiting room without payment, and every treatment, pill, shot, Band-Aid, etc., requires payment before it is administered.

After about three weeks, her parents told the nurses that her medical care was creating too much of a financial hardship. They had two choices. They could take her home to die from sepsis and weak lungs, which was the legal choice. Or, they could disappear. They could leave her in the care of the nurses and never come back, which was illegal but would save her life. I ask...what would do you?

At five months of age, Zheng NianTian was transferred from the Fudan University Children's Hospital to the Shanghai City Social Welfare Institute. Her discharge papers state that she had developed a hemangioma on her lower lip. Hemangiomas are pink birthmarks that fade as a child grows. That little spot is what put her on the 'special needs' waiting list. It's her passport to America.

I often prayed that God would mark our daughter with a hemangioma in order to get her here. It wasn't a serious prayer. It was more like a child asking for cookies. There are many special needs marked on our MCC that we could have been referred or we could be waiting indefinitely for a non-special needs child, but a hemangioma is just 'special' enough to get her on the list without being a real 'need.' Did that makes sense?

This photo seems to have been taken about the time NianTian entered the orphanage at five months. It was probably an ID photo. See how much the hemangioma has faded over the past year?