Adopted teen with blood condition finds biological family and will receive help for treatment

EDMONTON (CityNews) – CityNews previously reported on a story of a little girl with a blood condition being adopted from China by a Canadian family. She was left outside a police station at the age of one without any identification.

Hosanna Crowell, now 14-years-old, lives with her adoptive family in Edmonton. She undergoes blood transfusions every two weeks and sleeps with a needle attached to a pump every night.

“She was six or seven and we were at the hospital and it was a hard day and she said ‘mom am I going to have transfusions my whole life?’ And it was like a dark cloud over us and I said yeah unless we find your bio family and you have a sibling, you have to do this your whole life,” explained Cathy Crowell, Hosanna’s adoptive mom.

The condition she has can be helped with a bone marrow transplant – something that requires tracking down biological family – which, for Hosanna, would be nearly impossible.

“When my mom said that she was going to look for my biological family, I was like ‘you’ll never find them’ because china has such a big population,” explained Hosanna.

“One Chinese doctor said to me ‘it’s going to be like finding a needle at the bottom of an ocean if you find her family’,” explained Cathy Crowell.

She wrote an open letter pleading for the family to come forward. She shared it with OMNI TV who caters to ethnic audiences. That’s when the letter went viral on a Chinese social media site.

Months later, OMNI TV anchor, Bowen Zhang had unbelievable news for the Crowells.

“He responded and said I think we heard back from the family. He sent me a photo of a man and it was my daughter. I could see my daughter in this man’s face and it blew me away,” explained Cathy.

“I was amazed and it was definitely a miracle. I saw some pictures and it was so cool,” said Hosanna.

The Crowells were in touch right away and biological testing confirmed this was Hosanna’s family. They even travelled to China to meet them.

“I just had peace and it was really cool walking through the door and seeing all these faces that were my family.”

“I think they were so amazed and blessed to see she was doing so well like can you imagine? This was their last hope that someone would find her and that she would get the medical help that they couldn’t afford,” said Cathy.

Cathy added there is no animosity towards Hosanna’s biological family, she is in full support of Hosanna building a relationship with them.

“At one point, she was standing by her biological mom and her mom just put both arms around her and just pulled her in. it was very sweet.”

Hosanna does have siblings and one of them is a perfect match for the bone marrow transplant. When the world allows it, Hosannas’s sibling will come to Canada for the surgery.

“I’m really excited to form a relationship, especially with my siblings. They don’t know English but I know a bit of Chinese!”