Why the name Oscar?
Many people have asked us why we chose the name Oscar. When we found out that we would be bringing home a son, we thought about all of our favorite boy names. The only one that we both agreed on and that fit with our hyphenated last name was Oscar. Also, the more we looked at his photos, the more we felt he looked like an Oscar. My personal reasons for choosing this name reflect my admiration for the great poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde. Chris decided on the middle name of Beckett after one of his favorite poets and playwrights, Samuel Beckett. We both agreed to maintain Oscar’s Chinese name, but we decided to combine it into Qiandong. Yes, we realize this makes for a very long name for such a little boy, especially with the addition of both our last names. Because of this, we have decided to call him Oz.

About his Chinese Name
Wu is his last name. It means “valiant; fierce; military.” Wu is the last name given to all the children at the Wuhan Children’s Institute. Qian is the name given to all the children who entered the institute in that month. Qian means beautiful, handsome. Dong means he was born in China – the east of the world. So Qiandong combined would mean handsome man from the East. We couldn’t agree more!

Qian Dong is described as an active and smart little boy who watches adults carefully and mimics their actions. He enjoys cartoons and television commercials (like his daddy) and is said to be very clever. He is a healthy sized boy standing at 33 inches and weighing 26 lbs at 22 months old. We call him our little bruiser! We have also very lovingly given him the nickname “Chubba,” for his adorable, chubby cheeks.
 

How we were matched
We originally began our adoption process in February 2006. We paperchased, completed our homestudy, and were logged in November 2006. During our homestudy process, we began to research the special needs program. We were interested in this route, but thought we might be better off as first time parents to request a healthy, non-special needs child. We requested a girl, as young as possible in our application letter. We decided we would keep a close eye on the waiting child lists because in our hearts, we strongly felt this is where we would finally find our child.

Within 2 months of being logged in at the CCAA, we saw the first photo of our soon to be son. I began chatting with another adoptive mom on one of the message boards. She mentioned the waiting child list of her agency and said they had some amazing little boys still waiting for families. I went to the list, and there he was, staring back at me from the screen. He reminded me of my husband, and he also reminded me of my father with the grumpy little expression on his face!

I showed his photo to my husband, and we quickly agreed to contact the agency. Unfortunately, this was not our adoption agency, but a different one. At this point, we didn’t care if we had to switch agencies. We knew we had to find out about this little boy.
The second agency was wonderful and sent us the file on the little boy with the pouty lips. The file stated he had a repaired cleft lip and an unrepaired cleft palate. This was one of the special needs we had vigorously researched and felt comfortable handling.

Within 2 weeks, we switched from the NSN program to the SN program and also switched agencies. We are very thankful that we were able to make this switch because now with the new rule changes, families are unable to switch agencies.