Update On Our Adoption
Well, for those of you who have followed my adoption sale, I wanted to give you an update on what has turned out to be a beautiful and wonderful time in the lives of this Rowley family. Right around a month ago, we headed out China to meet the newest member of our family. My whole family went with anticipation and nervousness. Our bigger girls had never been on a flight this long…almost 24 hours of air-time alone; we had never been away from our home, family and friends this long, and we certainly had never been to China! We didn’t know what to expect….except jet lag.
Minus two times when barf bags were needed…and weren’t supplied, the flights went very well. There were no delays and no changes, and for 4 flights across the world, that’s not too shabby. We arrived in China in decent shape and were greeted by our translator. He instructed us to go have a seat at the “KFC” and get something to eat, while we waited on another adopting family to show up. This was our first interaction with the public where we had to figure out how to order when neither of us knew what the other person was saying. I pointed to some sandwiches and paid the cashier and went away somewhat proud that I had successfully “hunted and gathered” in a foreign land. Now, I know the sign said “KFC” but it just wasn’t. It was pretty terrible, even by fast food standards. And seeing how I couldn’t get them to not put ice in the drinks, we threw them away nervous of the water.
The next day we met our precious little girl. We were among 3 or 4 other families who were also waiting for their children, and ours arrived first. All eyes were on this intensely emotional first interaction. There she was, standing right in front of us after a year and a half of waiting. This moment had been written in time before we even existed. This little girl was meant for our family. She saw us for the first time in person, opened up her photo album we had sent her previously and immediately started making the connections between who she saw in the photos, and who she saw in front of her. We were her family, and she was starting to put the pieces together.
The two weeks that followed were filled with joys, laughs, anxieties, confusion, giggles, tears, frustration, and pretty much every emotion that was created. It was wonderful and trying. It was beautiful and exhausting. And other than my middle one getting a sickness that sent her to a Chinese Doctor, and my youngest getting an infected cut that gave her a fever, there’s not a lot I would change. It was meant to be. We spent our time in China filling out paperwork and touring the area a bit. We went to a local zoo, where we as Americans became more of an attraction to those around us than the resident Pandas. We went shopping where we got to bargain for odd items, and we went out to eat at places where we almost couldn’t recognize the food.
The flights home were uneventful “barf bag wise”. We discovered that if we readily had them available before the flight took off, we never needed them. It’s like expecting it to rain, when you remembered to bring your umbrella. There’s a better chance it won’t happen if you’re prepared.
We got home ragged, tired, safe, happy and blessed. It has taken us almost two weeks to shed the jet lag and get back into a routine, but we’re doing great. The whole family is adjusting to each other better than we could ever have imagined. It was just meant to be, and already we can’t imagine our lives without Ivy-Ann in them.
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