The Long Awaited Day

As you have hopefully surmised, the blogging is being written and produced by Steve.  Let me start off by saying that after seeing our new daughter for the first time live and in person, as a father I am a little bit worried.  You’ve all seen her pictures and know she is very pretty.  Let me tell you right now so you are prepared that the pictures do not do her justice.  She is drop dead gorgeous, and I am already trying to work on my introductory speech to give to every young  man that comes a’callin.  You parents of girls in our new demographic will all have to clue me in on this; should I expect to have my speech prepared when she turns 11 this coming May?

On a more serious note, Gotcha Day has come and gone in a whirlwind of chaos and a surprising amount of charm.  It is still hard to fathom that this was our first full day in Guangzhou.  We started pretty early (again) but this time not until almost 5 am.  As I write this it is now 4 am in China and it is starting to look like Dad will never sleep through the night, although I crashed on the couch while Kathy was updating everyone on Facebook (registered trademark here.)  We had our first taste(s) of the talked about Garden Hotel breakfast buffet.  Kathy and I were spoiled by the coffee at the Crowne Plaza back in Beijing so we tried the coffee here.  The stories we’ve heard are true; the hotel coffee here is not worth writing home about so I won’t (ooopsie, I already did.)  The rest of the morning was pretty calm.  We sat around the room, played a little bit and watched TV,

Burying the dead man game; my future in about 4 more hours

 finally got to walk through the Garden after the rain had stopped, and ventured out to visit the Friendship Store across the street.

Then came the big moment.  We met our guide Sarah in the lobby at 2:00, met our fellow Guangdong Province WACAP family who know all about Downers Grove, IL since they live in Winnetka up on the North Side of Chicago.  We have no idea where we went with the traffic and all the twists and turns, but we ended up in a surprisingly older interesting retail and wholesaling district.  Upstairs (actually up elevator) to the Adoption Office, and then sitting on a room length couch to await our future.  I’ll let the video do the talking for the next few moments; listen to the soundtrack.  Those of you who have been here and done that will recognize it.

In all of that chaos and pandemonium of scared kids whose worlds have just been turned upside down and don’t know what is actually going on, Juliana was calm and appeared well prepared for this moment.  We are thankful the God has prepared her heart and used the caregivers to help her be ready for a new family and a new life.  She proudly showed us her full backpack that had the camera and photo album we had sent.  She seemed very pleased to pose for pictures, was incredibly polite, and was fairly outgoing the entire time.  She did get a moment of sadness perhaps when she asked Sarah if we would be leaving to go home soon (as in CT, USA home) and had to be told not for another week and a half.  Here is the poster shot of this day; the three beautiful women that are all the loves of my life.  I am very seriously outnumbered now.

My 3 Girls

The SWI staff from Shaoguan City gave us the most amazing and precious gift that we were not expecting.  They pretty much filled up the remainder of her photo album with pictures of Fu Yang from a very early age to her most recent update photos.  I was shocked to see one picture I had already seen from the Half the Sky website.  She was in this picture that  I had seen several times and I never realized it.  Here is the real kicker; we now have way more pictures of her from her first three years of life than we do of Hailie.  How ironic is that?

The girls are getting along pretty well so far; here they are in the office.

And on the bus as we are leaving Provincial Affairs.

We went out for dinner with Sandy and her daughter Lucy who turns 14 on December 10 (those of you doing China adoption know the significance of the 14^th birthday to the CCCWA) and Gerry and his toddler son Tommy.  We got to know Sandy through Rumor Queen as she adopted another older girl back in the spring with a similar special need as Juliana.  We went to (you guessed it) a Chinese restaurant, and thanks to Gerry’s knowledge of Mandarin had an excellent meal.  The best part of this trip was this restaurant was right above the Paddy Field Pub, so now I know where I can go to get my Guinness.  Here is what usually happens this time of day though:

Too much dinner and too much day

Luckily, she woke up about 2/3 of the way back to the hotel and walked back in which was good since my back was entering meltdown stage.  We hung out in the room to wind down, and the girls both willingly climbed into bed together, and we had everyone down and out a little after nine.  It is now 4:39 am and still all quiet (crossed fingers emoticon here.)

We send our greetings to all of our friends and family from China.  Yes, we are extremely tired, sometimes overly crabby and frazzled, suffering from kid overload most of the time, but we wouldn’t trade this for anything in the world.  We can feel God’s love, your love and prayers, and believe me it helps.  I should be a vegetable by now with how much sleep I am not getting, but the power of God overcomes anything the world of man can throw at us.

In just a few short hours we begin another day with a trip that officially makes us a Forever Family for Juliana.  I can’t wait to get there.