The Short Version

The past 24 hours would take days to explain. Let me give you the very short version. After the flight to Nanchang our group of ten families went on a bus to our hotel that had been promised as first-rate and wonderful. This description may have fit 20 or 30 years ago. Seedy was the word most used by our group. There was complaining, but we accepted it as done and unpacked in one hour to prepare to receive our daughters. The group then got back on the bus and went to the provincial adoption agency office. This is a fairly new place on the 26th floor of a large building in downtown Nanchang. I (Mark) received my first indication that this was going to be even more surreal than I had anticipated when as we exited from the elevator there were several families from a European country getting on the elevator, all carrying stunned little Chinese daughters, waiting to go back down. We entered a reception area already half filled with about a dozen French families who had just received their daughters. Then it occurred to me, this happens all day (three days a week I was told). It is a constant stream of people around the world coming to adopt Chinese girls. We had about 20 minutes to adjust to all of this before a group came in with the daughters for us. They had traveled several hours from the orphanage in a rural area. All the girls were dressed in identical new snow suits (they looked like they were ready to go to the moon). It is a Chinese custom to dress children very warmly. They each had on 4-5 layers. Then one at a time they called our name and handed us a child. We were first. It has been two years that we had dreamt of this moment. Nothing in our dreams could match the emotions that poured over our bodies. So happy, and shocked, and scared and thrilled and confused and….

After all our families were united with their daughters we each had a family picture taken and were interviewed by agency officials. They asked if we wanted her, what are plans were for her, and if we would guarantee that we would never abandon her. It was an easy test to take, but quite nerve racking to do.

Then we all went back to our bus to find that our guides had booked us in another hotel. So, back to the first hotel to repack, back on the bus to the new hotel, check into new hotel and finally get to our rooms. By the time we all met for dinner about 8:00 it was hard to tell who was more frazzled, hungry and tired, the parents or the children. The new place is very nice and we are happy. During all of this about half the babies were crying uncontrollably and half were silently stunned (like Allie).

There are many questions to ponder—big ones about societal problems, wealth and poverty, the place of children, cultural differences—but all that matters to us right now is that we are so very happy that this little girl has come into our lives and, yes, we will do everything in our power to help her have an amazing life.