All the articles and stories I've read on adoption websites and heard from other adoptive parents tell of the moment they saw their first picture of their child, of how they knew it was their son/daughter. So I naturally had that in my mind as how it was supposed to happen for me when I first saw my daughter.

As I anxiously opened the email from the agency that had her picture, my finger held the little white arrow over the attachment as I prepared myself for my big revelation. I opened it. I looked at it. "Oh, a Chinese baby." She was adorable, she was precious. But no fireworks going off in my head, or instant connection being formed. I was wondering what this meant.

Paul and I decided to take the route of praying about her and thinking about her over the 24 hours we had to make a decision and seeing if any red flags came up in our minds. None did, and as I spent the day going over her medical records with doctors and researching cleft palate programs, staring at her picture between phone calls, a connection slowly started to form. Already I was being a mother, learning about her medical condition and trying to figure out the best way I can help her.

Now it's been a week since we were matched with her, and our bond is growing. It really is excruciating, not having her here with us and having no idea when we can go get her. For now we are trying to make the most of our time with Malia and trusting that God has perfect timing, just as He's always had.

What's in a Name?

So I showed the Chinese characters for "Qin Ying" to a Chinese friend, and he translated it as "fragrance of cherry blossom." It's beautiful. We plan to keep it as a middle name. We're still discussing a first name to give. Any suggestions? :)

Ai Yai Yai

It didn't take long before we hit another snag.

It turns out that the next step is to wait for China to respond to our Letter of Intent to Adopt by sending us a Letter of Acceptance. Nothing else can happen until we receive this. The only problem is we don't know how long it will take to hear from China. It could be 45 days at the fastest. It could also be 6 months... gulp!

So I spoke too soon on the timeline. We have at least 45 days to wait before we can process any further paperwork and then plan the trip to meet Qinying (an additional 2-3 months).

It's harder now to wait. We've seen her picture. We imagine all of the developmental stages we want to be a part of. She's no longer an abstraction. She's a real person.

Sigh... This is going to take patience.

The Long-Awaited Call Has Arrived

It has been more than a month since our dossier was completed and sent in, and we were just in a holding pattern, getting antsy for the phone call from the adoption agency, Holt. Yesterday morning that call finally arrived.

We were informed about a 10-month-old girl from central China named Jiang Qin Ying. My Chinese friend tells me that her name probably means "hardworking" and "excellent." The name was given to her at the orphanage since she was anonymously left at the Child Welfare office's front doorstep, swaddled in a blanket with a bottle as her sole possession. She was approximately 2 days old.

Yesterday Eliza and I spend the evening discussing this moment and our big decision. Is Qin Ying our daughter? I'm going to let Eliza fill in more of the detail, but in brief, the answer is YES!

So the journey continues, now at a much more accelerated and anxiety-producing clip. We appreciate our dear friends and family who have been walking alongside us all along. It's about to get really exciting...