One of Bryn's referral photos and her Chinese name.
A year ago today we saw our daughter's face for the first time. Since we didn't have a blog back then many of you don't know the events of the months leading up to that day. Let me fill you in...
After sitting on the fence and thinking about it for over three years, we finally decided in February of 2005 to adopt a baby from China. That March we chose our adoption agency, Family Outreach International (FOI) and had our first meeting with our provincial social services office. The first week of May we had our first of three home-studies (which, coincidentally, were the only three days since we've lived here that our house was spotless). The paperwork and legwork was endless -- police checks, forms, meetings, interviews, physicals, photos -- on and on it went.
Finally on Sept. 5, 2005 our application for a baby was logged in with the Chinese Centre of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). The official wait had begun. When we had our first home-study we were told the wait from log in (LID) to referral (the day we would receive photos and information about our baby) would be from six to nine months. Yikes! We were shocked. We didn't expect it to happen so fast. Suddenly we had so much to do. The shopping and planning and wondering and worrying and the decorating (and redecorating) of our baby's room began.
Then came the delays. China was deluged with applications from all over the world from people like us who wanted to adopt one of their children. Each delay made us more frustrated, more anxious and, I hate to admit it, really grumpy.
On Nov. 30, 2006 the CCAA posted on its website that babies had been matched to all families with LIDs up to Sept. 8. We finally made it! Since we hadn't had any official word from our agency, we were a bit reluctant (pessimists that we were) to believe we were actually in. The next day, a Friday, we had an email from FOI confirming that we actually had been matched with a baby. It was a looooong, agonizing weekend waiting for word from our provincial office telling us they had our referral. The call came Dec. 4 at 9:30 a.m. Our file was in Regina and likely wouldn't be in Saskatoon until late that afternoon or the next day. They did, however, have a fax of our baby's picture. Did we want to come down and see it or wait until the next day when the color photos and the rest of the information arrived? Haha! What a kidder.
I've never seen Girard move so fast. Twenty minutes later we were looking at our beautiful baby's face for the first time. Yu Cai Xing, which translates to "colorful star", couldn't have been a more perfect match for us. We knew that the second we saw her. The six to nine month wait had turned into 15 long months. Funny, though, at that minute it just didn't matter. And we weren't grumpy anymore. We had, or almost had, our baby and we already loved her to pieces. We'd have to wait another two months until we held her in our arms but she was already forever in our hearts.
Now here we are a year later. A year older. A year wiser. And a year more in love with our colorful star, Bryn.
Happy "One Year Later" to our extended family in our travel group...enjoy reliving the moments. We miss you guys.
6 comments:
Happy Referral Day! I can't believe it's been a year. My memories are so vivid. I'm grateful that we were able to email back and forth to keep each other sane, and that you were able to talk to Michelle so I could see my referral quicker. Thank you!
I love seeing referral photos again. Bryn has grown up so much. I'm thrilled to see your family complete, Rae and Girard, and I've been honored to go through this process with you.
Bryn's must be one of the most dramatic transformations from her referral photo! You can hardly believe it's the same little girl! I guess that's true for all of them in some way or another. Ava's face was so serious and look at the monkey she is! It's just that with Bryn it seems extra incredible - that little slip of a babe to the grown up strong girl she is now. Thanks for sharing your story, more and more I realize that in spite of how close we feel to all of you there's so much we don't know about each other outside of our 2 weeks together, but it's been so much fun finding out more and more all the time. miss you
Happy anniversary of your referral! I can't believe how fast the time has gone, especially because the time waiting went sooo slow. (And yes, we were very grumpy too during that time.)
Thank you for your beautiful post. I so enjoyed reading about your journey to Bryn. I didn't recall that her name means colourful star, so I'm glad you posted that too. What a little beauty she is.
On a lighter note: what's up with that crazy sumo wrestler magnet on your fridge?! I got a great giggle from that!
Monica, our sumo wrestler fridge magnet is a great conversation starter! I thought about Photoshopping it out of the photo but then I thought I'd leave it and see if I had any comments. Bryn likes to play with it, so his poor legs have been taped up a few times but he's still fighting!
Beth, I must admit, there are times when I look at Bryn's referral photo and wonder if it's the same girl. She's changed so much it's amazing.
Love reading about your referral day...isn't it crazy to look at the referral pics and to look at our girls now? They look so grown up. Is it just me or does that first photo of Bryn remind anyone else of Ava? I've never thought that before, but as soon as I saw it I thought it looked so much like Ava!!
And here we are, a year later, keeping in touch even more than we were back then. I'm so happy about that. To have made life-long friendships with our travelmates is the icing on the cake!
Wow, what a difference between the two photos! We can't believe how much Bryn has grown up into a beautiful little girl (with great piggies!) You can see all your love and care in her.
Love Anna and Auntie Spider
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