Pinch me...is this real??

Ok, ok…many of you already know but until I make it official by updating this blog, I won’t feel like I have informed everyone yet…so, here goes.

Unbelievably, only a few short hours after I posted that first blog, we got “the call” - (the wild timing of that made me feel like I should have posted this adoption blog months ago!!)

Here’s how it happened.
On January 21st, I had actually already gone to bed at about 10pm and was just drifting off to sleep and heard my phone beep that I’d missed a call…then I heard Shawn answer his phone downstairs. I began to wonder at that moment, “Could it be??” I heard Shawn pause and then I heard him say, “Are you f*&%ing serious??” (Now, you have to understand that we both have a great relationship with the ladies at our adoption agency and so they thought this was HILARIOUS!) Anyway, once I heard that, and then Shawn come bounding up the stairs, I just knew (but still didn’t want to get ahead of myself). He came to the bedroom where I met him in the doorway and with tears in his eyes, said “We’ve got our girl.” I immediately felt like the wind was sucked out of me and began to cry. The next few moments were a whirlwind of information, instructions, tears, laughing, and thank you’s to our consultant. The next few hours, all I could do was shake…you would have thought I had hypothermia with how much my teeth and every other part of me was rattling, but I think I was just in shock. We immediately called my mom and Shawn’s parents, who were all in shock and disbelief. It was wonderful to be able to call them with such good news. My mom is already beginning to make clothes for Mali, just like she did for me when I was a baby. I am so thankful and love having my mom to share this with me. After the calls we just sat there in awe, talking and looking at each other, grinning from ear to ear…eventually we tried to go to sleep (which didn’t work at all!)

The next morning, we headed to Children’s Hospital to talk to the director of their International Adoptions Clinic, Dr. Powell. Our agency had emailed Mali’s records to them the night before so they could review everything and inform us more specifically about her condition and development. Mali was found in a box, just outside a hospital in Guangdong, at just a few days old. They believe her DOB is 3/6/08. The police tried to locate her parents, however could not. She was eventually admitted into a social welfare institution which is where she has been ever since, and given the name Xu Suirong (which we will keep as her middle name upon adoption). She has a unilateral cleft lip and palate on her left side. Upon looking at her file and photos, Dr. Powell said that he is hopeful that the placement of her cleft should make for fairly simple surgeries with not many adjustments needed later. He said that her growth is right on target (which is another clue that her cleft is not very severe since she is able to suck and feed without much difficulty) and her social development is also very good for an institutionalized child as she is noted to giggle, babble, have a ready smile, and enjoys being “teased” by her caregiver. Once we had gone over the briefing with Dr. Powell, he asked if we would like to see our daughter. (At this point, we had not yet seen a photo of her because the agency did not want us falling in love with a photo if there were hidden conditions within her medical records that would be more than we had expected or felt capable of handling.) Of course, Shawn and I answered in a resounding “YES!!” And when Dr. Powell showed us her face, we were instantly in love. I know that we are biased, but Shawn and I think that she is the most beautiful and perfect little girl we have ever seen, and each day since then, we have just fallen more deeply in love with her. I can’t imagine how we’ll feel once we can actually hold her and look into her eyes in person.

Gradually, over the next few days, we told various people with an overwhelming response of support, joy, and love. It felt wonderful. After so many months (and years) of disappointment, it was amazing to know that so many people are nearly as excited as we are to bring Mali home. We drove to Riverside hospital to tell my grandma Hart since she volunteers there on Thursday nights. We brought the pictures to her and told her we just wanted her to look at some pictures we had developed, but not what they were. When she saw them and realized that they were actually her great granddaughter, she was ecstatic! She has been so excited for us and even bought Mali a Christmas gift last year…we thought she definitely needed to be one of the first to know.

We waited to tell my dad until we could do it in person and I am glad we did. The timing was great as we called my dad and told him that we had a gift for him for Chinese New Year. He suspected nothing. We wrapped the framed referral photos and placed them in a bag (all done in glittery red and gold since red is the color of happiness and gold is the color of royalty in China). I filmed my dad, Lisa (my step-mom), and Blaize (my brother), opening the gift. When they realized what it was, they all were very surprised, but none more surprised and moved than my dad. He cried, and cried, and cried some more. It was really touching. After a lot of hugs, tears, and excitement, we had a champagne toast and then lit off a huge Chinese firework that my dad had been saving for just such an occasion. (And luckily this time, he didn’t light the back yard on fire! Ha Ha – Yea!!) I’m really glad I got his reaction on video. It was so worth it.

Anyway, so far it’s been a week and a half and it is STILL sinking in. When you wait for something so long, and it finally happens…it’s hard to really believe it. I mean, really, deep down in your bones, believe it. I go through phases where I am able to completely embrace what has happened and I want to hire a plane to write it across the sky to let everyone know that we are now the parents of an amazing little girl…and other times I am still in denial and just want to keep it all a secret for fear that something will happen before we can make it over to her and bring her home. I know this is probably just lingering worry, doubt, and mistrust from all of the ups and downs of this whole experience…so for now I am just trying to accept the doubts and slowly talk myself out of them, working on having faith that it will all fall into place as it should. It’s hard though, a day by day process still.

By allowing myself to go through every emotion, even denial, it has really helped me come to a new place now where I feel okay with updating this blog and moving forward with more of our preparations for her homecoming, (which I was even afraid to start doing at first because I didn’t want to jinx anything – I just couldn’t bear the thought of having an empty nursery staring at us everyday if something bad happened). We’ve called the agency numerous times for reassuring words and encouragement and consistently we’ve been told that it would be fine and encouraged to “Show her off!” So I suppose at some point, we just have to trust.

For now, we have registered at both Babies R Us and Target and I have ordered her crib and mattress. We have slowly been cleaning more stuff out of the house and have been preparing her room. The agency tells us that we will be able to go get her in about 4-6 months. Obviously we are hoping it will be sooner rather than later, but we still have about 3 more rounds of official approvals with the Chinese government. I won’t feel 100% confident until we touch down in Columbus with her in our arms. However, once we get to the second round of approvals (which we’re told can take about 2-3 months), I will probably post her pictures on this blog. So then, you can all see what a gorgeous little pumpkin she is!! :)