PART I: So what's the big hurry anyway??

It's not just that we are excited and anxious to meet Ava-Yin. To finally have her in our arms. To learn who she is and how she responds to us, her parents, and to Caleb, Briton (oh my!), and Zoe (double oh my!;)). It's not just all of that.

It's this:

" A well-tended child is fed, cradled, and soothed when she cries from hunger and crankiness. This scene plays out hundreds of times in the first month of life alone...Deprived of a caretaker who touches and cradles her, the growing child cannot learn to bond with other people or even process sights, sounds, and sensations...without vital sensory input, a child's brain circuitry becomes impaired. Children who were neglected early in life so often display delayed learning, social ineptness, attachment difficulties...Isolation is more damaging to an infant than early mistreatment."

The Connected Child by Karen Purivs

Ava-Yin has been in an orphanage since she was found at the gate of a gas basin factory when she was three days old. In her orphanage there are 105 beds occupied by 96 abandoned infants. 

96 infants!!??!! How could a caregiver possibly give all of those babies the love and attention they need?

They can't. And that's one reason why we're in such a big hurry. Three years is already too long to not have a soothing voice to comfort her cries, a loving voice to reassure her that she's safe, loved and cared for. It's been too long to not have a family to call her own. It's just been too long. It's time for her to come home.

There's also another reason...