Pictures of Olivia's orphanage

Some really good friends of ours (Patrick, Aleisa & Maya Lily Dunn) who adopted their baby girl when we adopted Olivia, were recently able to travel back to China and visit the orphange where the girls lived the first few months of their lives. I will cherish these photos forever. Thank you for this gift.....

The baby building at the Lianjiang SWI
Our girls lived on the third floor of this building from 2006 to May 15th 2007!


Another picture of the SWI

We are on the wall! Our group photo plus--The Jones Family, The Batdorff Family and the Ginn Family gotcha day photos were all on display in the SWI reception office. It was great seeing these pictures. (We are middle row, second from the right)


Mr. Huang ~ the director of the Lianjiang SWI (and the Dunn family)



The same nannies are still there! These are the same ladies who cared for Olivia and the other girls in 2006-2007. They are currently caring for more than 30 babies. (Boy, they look like a bundle of joy don't they :-)


Another picture of the nannies with Aleisa & Maya. We love you guys! Thanks for all the information!


The photo on the wall just outside the baby room. Unfortunately they were not allowed to take photos in the baby room. Just imagine 30 cribs each one approximately 2 feet-by 4 feet--no mattress--just a wooden plank to lay on. :o(


Outside the gate of the Lianjiang SWI--many babies are often left here. Olivia was found at the gate of Jishui Hospital, Lianjiang City. She was dressed in a white flowered shirt.

The following was sent to me from Aleisa Dunn on June 16th and I thought I would share. (I also wanted to make sure this made it into Olivia's book) Thanks again Dunn family. We love you and hope to see you soon.

From Aleisa:
So we finally got a chance to go and visit where are daughters are from! It was very emotional for me.
They had our groups photo on the wall of the reception hall--and a few other family photos from the group--the girls were so little then.
The director--gave us Maya's file and in it was a picture of her at about three months old--younger than then her finding ad photo. I cried when I saw it--it was so precious--they let us keep it! They then showed us the babies room. It was on the second floor. Our girls lived on the third floor--but it has since been turned in the clinic--since they do not have as many babies as they did when the girls were there.
In the room there were about 30 cribs--each one the same size (2x4) with metal bars and a wooden plank. No mattresses. :o( (This breaks my heart)
The babies were all wearing similar tank tops and had cloth diapers on. All of their heads were shaved--to prevent lice--so it was hard to tell which ones were boys and which ones were girls!
There were several babies with cleft palates. One baby had birthmarks all over his body and one baby had no fingers on her hand.
Overall the babies looked well--it broke my heart thought that we couldn't take all of them home with us.
We then drove out to Gaoqiao--the town where Maya and Lexi were found. It was about 1.5 hours away and extremely rural. The level of poverty was extremely high--but the folks we met in the shopping district and at the hospital were so kind and friendly.
I hope that you all get the chance to go and visit the SWI someday--it really made an impression on me and I feel like I have a better understanding of where Maya came from and how strong she is.
Our daughters are survivors!!! I know we have all been blessed.
Love to you all.
Aleisa, Patrick and Maya Lily