Fiona Joins the Family!!

The day finally arrived. After 3 years of completing documents and background checks and fingerprints and one hurdle after another, the day finally came. Fiona came home...

We spent most of the day in nervous anticipation of our meeting to get Fiona. The feeling was very much like the anticipation of the birth of your child during labor (minus the contractions and breathing). We left for the Civil Affairs Office around 2:40 with Echo for our appointment at 3:00. When we got there, we were put in a room with 5 or 6 other families who were getting their children at the same time as well. There were a number of rooms with families in them. Echo said that she thought there were 17 families in total.

We caught our first glimpse of Fiona as we were heading down the hallway to our room. We saw a little girl playing tug of war with a caretaker in another room and we immediately recognized her. For the next 45 minutes we visited with the other families and compared war stories of the trials and tribulations of the adoption process. We discovered that we all pretty much hit the same snags along the way. Every time we heard footsteps coming into the room, we all stopped talking and thought they were bringing in the kids. The wait seemed endless. Finally a crowd of caretakers came into the room and Fiona's name was announced. She was the first one to be united with her new parents. She was handed to Sue and then pictures were taken and the next child was announced.

After 6 months of looking at Fiona's baby picture, we weren't sure really what she would look like. We were struck by how pretty she is and how much hair she has! She really is a beautiful baby. She immediately seemed like part of the family.

We were also amazed that all 6 of Fiona's caretakers made the trip to deliver Fiona. You can tell that they had a special bond with her and that they cared for her. We could also sense that they were happy for her and knew that she was going to a good home. When we left the building, they were ahead of us and they kept turning around and waving at Fiona. Fiona would smile and wave back. It is comforting to know that Fiona received good care at the orphanage.

On our ride back to the hotel from the Civil Affairs Office, Fiona did the natural thing that our family does to celebrate special events...she took a nap. We knew for sure at that point that she fit right in. She slept for about an hour in our hotel room with the kids constantly fussing over her and jockeying for position right next to her. We can already tell that we are going to have some great help with Fiona.

When she finally did wake up, it hit her that she was in a foreign place without her caretakers. She cried for about 2 hours and would search the room looking for someone or something familiar. If one of us left the room, it would get her stirred up again and send her into crying fits. We finally decided that she needed to eat and have some quiet time. Sue fed her and got her ready for bed while I took the other kids and we went to do the real activity that we travelled 17,000 miles to do...play ping pong and eat chocolate cake.

When we returned, Fiona was all quieted down and happy to see all of us again. After a few minutes of bouncing around with the kids and laughing as hard as she could, we put her back down and she fell asleep.

We did find out that we've been pronouncing her Chinese name wrong. It is pronounced Fu (Foo) Ye (Yae with a long a sound instead of a long e). She also is called YeYe by her caregivers and we learned that her name means "Lucky Leaf." I'm sure she hasn't heard the end of that!

It was quite an emotional day and everyone is exhausted and asleep. Tomorrow is going to be spent signing paperwork and meeting with officials. We'll keep you posted as to how our first full day with Fiona goes.