Sammy was found on February 15, 2009 near the Quinglong Dam in Sanmenxia, Henan, CHINA. He was diagnosed with congenital cleft lip and palate. His birth date was estimated to be February 5, 2009.

We believe that his family wanted to keep him, as he wasn’t found until he was 10 days old. Since cleft babies have a real challenge with sucking, maybe his birth mother couldn’t feed him and the family had no way to get him help. Whatever the real story is, we will never know, but we will be forever grateful to his birth mother that she carried this baby and that he was left knowing he would be found.

Sammy was brought to the Sanmenxia Social Welfare Institute, and then transferred at 2 ½ months old to a charitable foundation that provided care for his condition and through his lip surgery. His repair was done at 6 ½ months old. We were fortunate to get all his paperwork from his surgery, along with the pictures, and were able to talk with the head of the cleft surgeries at Children’s Hospital. He thinks they did a great job on his lip. Sammy will have his palate surgery 3-6 months after he returns home, then a few other surgeries in years to follow. He is now back in the Sanmenxia Orphanage, waiting for us to get him!

The province of Henan is newer to international adoption than some other provinces, and Sanmenxia has only very recently opened its doors to adoption. In fact, our agency, which is the largest Chinese children placement agency, has placed only 1 child from this orphanage. Our agency has prepared us that the child to nanny ratio is likely to be quite a bit higher, compared to other provinces. Consequently, some of these children will most likely experience physical, emotional and mental delays beyond the “one month for every three months spent in the orphanage” currently advised.

We have had an update recently that Sammy was not yet crawling at 9 months. This could be due to the fact that it is winter in China and children are heavily bundled because of the heating situation in the orphanages. Or this could be one of those delays of which we have been advised. Whatever it is, we know that he needs lots of holding and love, and we feel so fortunate to get him from the orphanage at such a young age.

There is such limited information sent from China that we hang on every word. The update also said:

· His personality is docile, easy going (we can only hope!)

· he can sit by himself

· he tries to support himself standing

· he gained 5 pounds since his surgery 3 months ago

· he likes to suck his thumb

· he likes his bath.

They also sent us a picture of him sucking a bottle, showing that he can eat fine.

We are hoping to travel to China on February 17 and anticipate seeing Samuel's sweet little face for the first time on February 22.