She lives (for now) at the GUIXI Social Welfare Institute, about a day's drive southeast of Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi province. She was born 11/9/96, which makes her 21 months old. We asked for 2-5 years - go figure!
According to Bethany's on-the-spot assistant, she's up to 9 kg (20 pounds), 71 cm (2'4"), walks, and eats three meals a day - and she has ALL her fingers & toes!!
Are we excited?!?!
The only thing I can REMOTELY compare this feeling to was when Barb tottered back from the bathroom at four in the morning fourteen years ago, and said those magic words, "The water's broken, honey." Only THIS labor is two months long!!!! WHAT are we gonna DO with ourselves until August?! We have a baby, a perfectly beautiful baby of our very own, and we have WEEKS to go before she's delivered! And our bosses expect us to WORK?!?!?
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Yes, they do. Well, our hearts certainly won't be in it, will they? Sometime this August - sooner, if we can make it - we'll be hopping that big bird to China, and bringing Rebecca Jade home.
July 9, 1998
It's hard to describe in words what we feel like now. But, once you set about creating an online journal, it's ridiculous not to make a journal entry, at this time of all times! So here goes:
We have our travel itinerary - we know, after TWO SOLID YEARS of waiting, and praying, and filling out endless documents, and going to meetings, and < of course!> reading all those delightful online adoption stories! - we finally know THE DAY we will see our newest daughter. Soon, VERY VERY soon now, Rebecca Jade will be part of OUR family, forever. Is it like having my other daughters? Yes it is. I remember the anticipation, I remember the relief when they were finally born - all the waiting and planning, and finally fulfillment - and I believe, deep in my heart, that we MUST be doing something right, when the girls I have turn out so well - it MUST be that this newest family member will turn out well, too.
The funniest thing happened to me last Thursday. I work in two places, two different small towns. Last Thursday, the girls in Lowell announced they were having - a baby shower! Nice banner on the wall, everybody brought in nice things for a potluck, and out came a slew of gifts, in baby wrapping paper!
I'm a man, right? It's a given that I'd NEVER had a baby shower before. So I did what any red-blooded man would do: I called my wife at HER job, for advice on how to handle this new, unknown, and frankly terrifying situation. She said, "Just do two things, and you'll bring honor to us all: (a) Say, over and over again, 'Oh, isn't that CUTE?!?'; and (b) squeal a lot when you open everything."
Well, it WAS cute - doggoneit. Y'see, we live in the Greater Urban Metropolis of Grand Rapids, Michigan (fruit farming, Steelcase, and Jerry Ford's Presidential Museum); whereas almost all Lowell's city hall employees live further east, in the trackless rural hinterlands of Ionia County - or, as I am overfond of pronouncing it, "Ah-own-ya Caountee", usually with a stalk of timothy grass between my teeth.
So it was the girls' great idea to get all the gifts with a farming theme: a set of farm animal tubby toys, some 18-month Oshkosh denim shorts & top, a cute (there's that word again!) little stuffed cow, and - a Lil Tykes tractor! Well, I draw the line at teaching her to hay! OR tip cows!
Good grief - where was I?! Oh yes - WE HAVE OUR ITINERARY! We'll be flying the Northwest Air Great Circle flight - out of Detroit over the ice cap direct to Beijing - fourteen hours, instead of the twenty hours it takes over the Pacific! So - one good thing already!
The last major hurdle is lining up a housesitter - who will also take care of Lexie, Abby & Gypsy (our 3 cats), and take in the mail & paper. I THOUGHT I had one lined up - my kid brother, who's currently living with Mom - but then Mom objected. Oh well - everything good comes hard, doesn't it? This HAS to work out - as I've learned from these adoption stories, everything works out for an adoptive parent!
July 11, 1998
Today we got our visas back from the Consul-General's office in Chicago - my, that Express Mail (both ways) is FAST, isn't it?! Time to go to the Nanchang site, and see what awaits us. And after we digest that, maybe take a look at the Beijing webpages. Oh, this is going to be so much FUN!!!
(To be continued - from China!!!)