Seven Years Ago

Last year I posted this, on the six-year anniversary of what international adopters have learned to call "Gotcha Day"--the day the child you've been approved to adopt is actually placed in your arms. That post was a re-post of a Facebook note from the year before, on the five-year anniversary. I was going to re-post that again this year, but I decided to do something different instead (maybe because it's actually a couple of weeks past Gotcha Day by now). Feel free to click on the link and read it (or re-read it, as the case may be). But this time I've gone back and found the emails I sent around to family and friends while I was over in China on the trip. Here are some excerpts from the first one, slightly edited with a bit of surplus removed. More to come.


Letter #1, sent Wednesday, March 2, 2005:

Ni Hao! OK, I was getting a bit skeptical that we'd ever get to this point, but we're here. To start off with, the first leg of our domestic flight was cancelled. So I'm freaking out thinking that we're going to be late getting to L.A., miss the flight to Guangzhou, etc. Well, they got us on a flight to Minneapolis and we got to L.A. in plenty of time. And the wonder drugs really did work and I slept on the plane quite a bit, despite the fact that for the trip overseas I sat in what was unquestionably the most uncomfortable airplane seat I've ever experienced. So we get to Guangzhou and yes, one of my suitcases DID NOT make it there (it arrived the next day, none the worse for wear).

I stood in a long line to fill out the forms, and eventually met up with the rest of my group, only to discover that we were not going to get the babies that afternoon as scheduled but in fact the next day. At which point I almost cried. In retrospect, though, it was undoubtedly a good thing. There was a bit of a delay for some people in checking in to the hotel, plus by about four o'clock Kellie and I were both pretty fried. We were watching Chinese TV in the hotel room and laughing a lot at things that probably weren't really all that funny. So, we were in better shape the next day.

Gotcha Day was suitably emotional. Lots of tears all around. Kellie got a very good picture of me just sobbing (duh). This whole thing has been kind of a bizarre trip, though. Monday was Gotcha Day, Monday night was administrivia, and Tuesday was the day that the adoptions were finalized. It's kind of weird having the registrar and notary ask you if the child is satisfactory--in a way that sort of makes you think that if you say you were hoping for a cuter one they might exchange her! But of course I said yes she's wonderful, I signed on the dotted line, and it's now official. Yesterday was a free day which Kellie and Thalia and I spent at a trip to the Guangzhou art museum. We might do Jade Market later today.

This morning at breakfast was pretty much of a disaster. She upended an entire container of vanilla yogurt all over herself and me. Then it got worse when she did the same with my hot coffee. She got a bit scalded but not bad. She did, however, wake up anybody still sleeping in on the first six floors. After all that, I decided I just wasn't up to the zoo this morning. I'll try again at some point to make another entry. Maybe some night after she's in bed asleep. Right now she's sitting on my lap and dying to type. I'm just afraid she's going to break my connection. So I'm going to have to sign off for now.

To sum up, Thalia's beautiful, bewildered, sad, developmentally delayed but probably temporarily and probably otherwise OK. Kelliegirl is keeping me sane. Guangzhou is very interesting. Weatherwise I was very excited to see that it was on the same latitude as Cuba/South Florida, but in fact I might just as well be adopting from Seattle. It's rainy and chilly every day. I'm tired and mildly stressed and in every way on cloud nine.