International Adoption - China

"Can I have a potsticker for dinner, daddy?" (China)

Our adoption story

My friend, Jill and I decided to celebrate getting our referrals by going to Babies R Us and registering. We were like 2 silly little girls! It was such a wonderful time. One couple from our group of 6 families had the entire group over to a get-to-know-you party. It was very nice and everyone's first time with Chinese adoption. We were all pretty excited. Four couples had other children and 2 couples had no children.

Our dossier went to China on May 1st, 2003 and our referral came on January 20, 2004. I will never forget the moment. I was on my treadmill and the phone rang, it was Kim saying "I have wonderful news for you, it's a girl!". I couldn't believe this was it, our daughter. I was anxiously waiting for her photo to be emailed

and when I pulled up that photo, I cried. She was such a tiny, pretty little girl, smiling at me from her rocking 'bird' chair. She was very tiny, her name was Fu Shu and she was 14 months old. She was in Sichuan, China. I quickly emailed it to my husband at work and Jill emailed me her babies' photo, sitting on the very same rocking 'bird'. Our babies will always share a special bond.

My parents drove Bob, Blake and I and Tony and Jill to Sea-Tac airport on February 27th. We were flying on Alaska airlines to Los Angeles to meet the rest of our group. In L.A., we met all but one couple of our travel group and convened to catch our China Southern flight to Guangzhou, China. 16 hours later we were touching down in smoggy and muggy Guangzhou. We barely had enough time to catch our flight to Chengdu and we were lost in the airport. Well, my hubby saved the day and found someone there to help us and we barely got on that flight. We arrived in Chengdu, met by our facilitator, Lin. She was wonderful.

We checked in at the Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn in Chengdu and had just enough time to shower and get back to the lobby so we could meet our children and the foster families. Someone told us they were arriving and we all went to the balcony to look. There she was, my little girl wearing the pink outfit I had sent her in her care package, I started tearing up. Her adult foster sister had a huge smile on her face, she recognized us from the photo we had sent in our care package! We were presented our children, one at a time. Our baby was crying and very, very upset. She was tiny, smaller than the other babies and the only baby crying. They called her Shu Shu. When she was placed in my arms, it reminded me of when we were presented with baby Blake, red face and screaming!

That night, our poor baby cried and cried. She slept with her arms tightly around my neck, sometime in the middle of the night, I fell asleep and my husband put the baby in the crib where she woke up continually screaming. We went through about four days of this. At about the 4th day, she all of a sudden decided she was happy and smiled and played with us in the hotel room. It was amazing. She ate constantly, it was her security blanket. We spent a week and half in Chengdu, we visited the Giant Panda Reserve, which was a highlight for all of us. We then flew to Guangzhou and stayed at the White Swan Hotel. We really enjoyed Guangzhou. By this time, our daughter was attached to us and was interested in things around her. By this time, she understood most of everything we were saying to her. She knew the word mama and was applying it to me. So, after nearly two weeks in China, we flew home with our new daughter. Our China experience was positive, beautiful and amazing! (more...)

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