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Gainesville family aims to adopt special Chinese girl
Ava is 3 years old and has already been abandoned twice.First, she was left by her biological parents, who dropped her at the gates of an orphanage in China. The second time, she was given up by an adoptive family in 2008 after they discovered her many special needs.
But this month, Ava will move to Gainesville to become the fifth adopted child of Nicole and Brandon Baker.
“I wanted to be a mom” said Nicole Baker.
The Bakers have an 18-year-old daughter named Katelyn but almost 10 years ago, Nicole Baker lost twins in a complicated pregnancy and was told she couldn’t have any more children. The pain and grief of her tragedy took her many months to recover from. As she was healing, the plight of orphans around the world became her passion.
“There are 147 million orphaned children in the world today” she said.
As she started gathering information about the world of orphaned children, she felt called to adopt.
The Bakers' first child, Jacob, was adopted in July 2002 from St. Petersburg, Russia. Since then, the family has adopted three other children, all from China: 4-year-old Kiah; 3-year-old Luke and 2-year-old Logan.
Now, the Bakers are preparing for Ava.
“Ava is a beautiful child who has been abandoned twice in her short life” said Baker.
The 3-year-old is considered a special-needs child because she has a complex disorder called giant congenital nevi that has left her with a large birthmark on 50 percent of her face and five other birthmarks on her body.
She is, said Baker “a beautiful child who needs a new life”.
Adopting a child is expensive. Costs average around $23,000 but can vary depending on the condition of the child.
The average time it takes to adopt a child is five years, however, for a special-needs child, the time frame is generally shortened to one year.
Special-needs issues include anything from cleft palates to major health problems and Ava's birthmarks qualify her as “special-needs.”
“We jumped at the opportunity to adopt Ava even though we didn’t know where we were going to get the money,” said Baker. “We are an average couple but we believe that by adopting one child you can positively affect generations to come. If God calls us to do it, he will get us through it.”
The financial cost is great, said Baker, but her family has found a way to cover the costs of adopting their other children and she believes they'll find the money for Ava as well.
The Bakers are seeking financial assistance in their adoption quest and have created a Web site at www.bringavahome.blogspot.com.
All contributions will include a 10-percent donation to the Philip Hayden Foundation, which provides care for orphaned children with serious complications.
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