There's No Place Like Home

[DaisyD]

I think we've discussed this before, but it would be much more cost effective and more kind to send doctors to China to do these procedures. This hosting program, at least to me, is a form of voluntourism. 

[Toothfairy]

On Wednesday, June 08, 2016 at 7:21 PM, SummerRocks said:

 

Jean on naming their new puppy;

 

"We loved all of the names but decided we would not name her human names!

After all we have 19 kids and almost three grand babies with hopefully many more on the way!
We wanted to leave the human names to the humans!

We decided on Daisy!" 

 

Since when is Daisy not a human name?! 

Wtf? 

On Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 11:11 PM, dianapavelovna said:

They hosted a child last summer winter; I'm pretty sure we talked about it here (dunno which thread it was, though). Here's one of Jean's posts about it: http://theresnoplacelikehome-family.blogspot.com/2016/01/our-hosting-comes-to-end.html

If they adopt again, I fully expect it to be through "the blessing of domestic adoption" aka rehoming. For whatever reason, pretty sure they are cut off from adopting directly from China.

They should never adopt again.

[SummerRocks]

So it's not a Daisy

On the blog; 

 

Her name is Elodie

pronounced like Melody with out the M!

We love her name!

 

Matt and Caitlin have chosen not to put her pic on the internet for now.

If or when they give me permission-

 you bet I will share it with you!

----

 

Good for you Matt and Caitlin no picture of little Elodie on the internet! ! 

[Queen Of Hearts]

On 7/15/2016 at 8:55 PM, SummerRocks said:

So it's not a Daisy

On the blog; 

 

Her name is Elodie

pronounced like Melody with out the M!

We love her name!

 

Matt and Caitlin have chosen not to put her pic on the internet for now.

If or when they give me permission-

 you bet I will share it with you!

----

 

Good for you Matt and Caitlin no picture of little Elodie on the internet! ! 

Interesting that Matt doesn't want his daughter's picture on the internet.  I am sure that is driving Jean crazy.  Jean has said in the past that not all of the older kids were instantly on board with the adoptions and there has been speculation that Matt may have been one of those kids... Regardless, congrats to Matt and his wife on their new baby and for standing firm on some ground rules for their family!

[SummerRocks]

The ground rules are broken. Jean updated her post.

 

I wonder how that conversation went.

Matt; no mom, no pictures of my daughter online. We are not comfortable with that

Jean; oh Matt, please my followers want to see beautiful Elodie. 

Matt; no mom

Jean an hour later; Matt, I blogged about Elodie, are you sure I cannot post a picture? 

Matt; I'm sure mom

Jean; So can Elodie never be on the banner with the entire family?

Matt; ok mom, whatever post her picture

 

 

[lilwriter85]

Last night, I checked that blog and I saw the posts with the picture, I didn't know about the post without pictures.  I can also see a scenario like SummerRocks described in which Matt had to pretty much give in because of the blog banner and other things.  I don't think Matt and his family are close to the adoptive kids and so they might be not visiting as much as Katie and her family.

 

[jegfile]

The crew at "There's No Place Like Home" is adopting another child... from China! When they were turned down in 2015, I speculated that any further adoptions would have to be from disruption. Jean and Jim are getting older and I'm sure the size of their family causes China to gulp. They hosted a child last Christmas and have now been given the opportunity to adopt him. (Weirdly they gave him the same name as the boy they couldn't adopt).

That brings them to a grand total of 14 adopted from China, 1 adopted domestically and 5 biological children. 

[ILoveJellybeans]

Really? But she just got Jenny/Joy. She adopts far too fast. All of those 14 children, have been adopted in as many years, I think. She gets one (or two or three), and then goes for another straight away. Does she even give them time to bond and fit in with their new family before adding more children?

[jegfile]

5 minutes ago, ILoveJellybeans said:

Really? But she just got Jenny/Joy. She adopts far too fast. All of those 14 children, have been adopted in as many years, I think. She gets one (or two or three), and then goes for another straight away. Does she even give them time to bond and fit in with their new family before adding more children?

Nope. That's the short answer! It's funny because common things that I criticize adoptive parents for (like fundraising) are not true for Jean and Jim... but they adopt way too fast! It makes me think of the song in Hamilton: "Why do you adopt like you're running out of time?" It might be their ages since I think they are approaching 60 (if they are not there already).

[SummerRocks]

Am I the only one still reading Jeans blog? 

 

I am bawling, BAWLING! Y, the boy they hosted a few months ago, is going to be adopted by the Mulvahills! Seriously ... bawling. I could not get over how I felt he was mistreated (the whole cruelty of the hosting experiernce and Joy being adopted while Y was there) 

 

Y will be called Jacob and they plan to go get him at the end of the year ... seriously ... bawling (I keep repeating myself) I truly am so extremely happy for Y. 

 

Jean says there is more good news ... so my guess is they will be adopting another child along with Y as the Mulvahills seem to adopt more then one child at a time.

[iheartchacos]

How did they get approved this time? And I must have skimmed over the details of what happens when they were last denied...can someone link?

[alexandracabot]

I'm really happy that that poor child is going to be adopted. It must have been so hard to come and live with them - and so many kids who HAVE been adopted - only to be sent back to the orphanage. I remember my heart breaking for him at the time.

However... they have too many children, plain and simple. It feels so clear to me at this point that adopting children from China is essentially an addiction. They need to stop, for the sake of the kids they have now. 

[SummerRocks]

9 minutes ago, alexandracabot said:

However... they have too many children, plain and simple. It feels so clear to me at this point that adopting children from China is essentially an addiction. They need to stop, for the sake of the kids they have now. 

Could not agree more with you! And like said above ^^ I do think the next big news is Y will be adopted together with one (or more?!) children from China when they go in November or December to pick him up

 

I still am confused how they can afford their house/lifestyle/all these kids/ trips etc - I know none of my business but I wonder! 

[lilwriter85]

32 minutes ago, SummerRocks said:

Could not agree more with you! And like said above ^^ I do think the next big news is Y will be adopted together with one (or more?!) children from China when they go in November or December to pick him up

 

I still am confused how they can afford their house/lifestyle/all these kids/ trips etc - I know none of my business but I wonder! 

Jean came from a well to do family and inherited a lot of money. Jim is a lawyer, but disbarred in Minnesota. He currently works for a company that is developing dental anesthetics.  My guess is that Jean's inheritances combined with the money Jim has made over the years has been enough for them to constantly adopt and still do nice and big things.

54 minutes ago, iheartchacos said:

How did they get approved this time? And I must have skimmed over the details of what happens when they were last denied...can someone link?

From what I remember Jean didn't go into deep details over why they were denied. It was speculated here that she and Jim were cut off due to age reasons.

[Mercer]

1 hour ago, iheartchacos said:

 And I must have skimmed over the details of what happens when they were last denied...can someone link?

As far as I recall, they never gave much detail. That said, the reasons they were denied are probably pretty straightforward. As the number of healthy young children in China becoming available for international adoption has declined, the Chinese government has become much more picky about who is approved. My guess is they were denied based on parental age, family size, income relative to the number of family members regardless of total income, and possibly square footage available to house a child. 

It's more surprising to me that they were approved for this adoption. My guess is that because their future son is older and was a waiting child, and likely has special needs, that the rules were more relaxed. That's not atypical in itself, but I'm not used to seeing the rules become quite that relaxed regardless of the circumstances.

[SolomonFundy]

5 hours ago, Mercer said:

As far as I recall, they never gave much detail. That said, the reasons they were denied are probably pretty straightforward. As the number of healthy young children in China becoming available for international adoption has declined, the Chinese government has become much more picky about who is approved. My guess is they were denied based on parental age, family size, income relative to the number of family members regardless of total income, and possibly square footage available to house a child. 

It's more surprising to me that they were approved for this adoption. My guess is that because their future son is older and was a waiting child, and likely has special needs, that the rules were more relaxed. That's not atypical in itself, but I'm not used to seeing the rules become quite that relaxed regardless of the circumstances.

I'm with you on the oddity of this approval. Many, if not most, of their adopted children had known medical/social/developmental issues when they were adopted. Jean and Jim set their sights on special needs children early on (the cynic in me believes that they purposefully picked the kids that they were most easily able to collect in bulk quantities), and yet have struggled to finalize an adoption since China closed the 2014 attempt. It seems very strange that they suddenly are able to adopt now. They presumably have the same income, the same home, and the same number of children in the home. The only difference between now and 2014 was the hosting they did over Christmas. I'm guessing that maybe they offered to host more children in the future (paying for the visit, and possibly medical and material needs for the children during their stay), and that was enough of an enticement to the agency to get around the prior restrictions.

This family gives me heartburn. On one hand, they are giving these kids (many of whom have significant and ongoing needs) attention, a clean and loving home, and access to the care they need. That has to be better than some of the orphanages that originally hosted the children. On the other hand, they are blithely and willfully white-washing these kids, depriving them of their birthnames and any ties to their native culture, and stacking them like cordwood in evangelical suburbia. Is life with Jim and Jean better than an underfunded and medically insufficient Chinese orphanage? Almost certainly. But is it better than life with a family that has only one or two other children? Probably not, though there's a great chance that most of these kids would have never been adopted otherwise. Still, NPLH bugs me. The adoptions may have benefitted the kids overall, but the motivation behind bringing these kids "home" just seems impersonal and business-like. 

[Ausje]

They're recycling a name again: Jacob is Sam's middle name.

[ILoveJellybeans]

At this point, their family is basically just a really good orphanage.

[Black Aliss]

I wonder if, by hosting a child, they were able to go through a different agency or bureaucratic arm of the gov't, and perhaps even not have to reveal how many children they have already. Given that Jean and her husband don't seem to be into TTUAC methods, I think these kids do have a better life here in the US than they would in their home country.

[Queen Of Hearts]

I guess one or more Mulvahill kids will be getting pushed to the back of the bus (I.e. unsafe makeshift seat in the cargo area).

As for the other mystery news, I wonder if they are doing a realty show or documentary? Or maybe be precious Katie is preggo again. Or the son with the gf is engaged.  I just hope it isn't an additional adoption.

 

 

[iheartchacos]

They're also adopting an 8 year old girl with Spina Bifida...Grace


http://twentyless.com/luanne/

[Mercer]

11 minutes ago, iheartchacos said:

They're also adopting an 8 year old girl with Spina Bifida...Grace


http://twentyless.com/luanne/

Wow. Grace seems like she will have pretty high needs. I hope those needs can be met by this family. 

Obviously I hope for the best for Grace, and it's great to see older waiting children find families, but this just seems like a really challenging situation.

[alexandracabot]

8 hours ago, iheartchacos said:

They're also adopting an 8 year old girl with Spina Bifida...Grace


http://twentyless.com/luanne/

Did she post about it?

They'll now have 16 children between the ages of 7 and 14, yes? Holy shit.

Edit: Ah, I see the post now.

Edited September 13, 2016 by alexandracabot

[SummerRocks]

They are taking "quite a few" of current children to China with them. Oh man, I can't wait to see her blog about the travel plans. I guess they figure Jacob already knows them and Grace can be part of their pack immediately.  

One of the things that bothers me most about this family is that each child's needs are put aside for the need of the family. In this case Jacob, poor Jacob, could have been home by now (as per Jean) but no ... Jacob has to stay in China cause his new sister Grace will be picked up at the same time. Guess that's how it goes in these big families ... 

I know Jim has a great job and I get that Jean inherited money ... but seriously ... they must have some money trees on that huge property of theirs. 

 

PS I don't think everyone will fit anymore in their sprinter, not even when putting some kids randomly -and most likely unsafely- in the trunk. Grace has club feet for which she did not have surgery yet, so I assume they will need to bring along a wheel chair as well for longer walking.

Edited September 13, 2016 by SummerRocks

[Ausje]

And again with the name recycling! Grace is Sarah's middle name.