The Call: How It All Went Down

 I better put all the events of the past few days to pen before some of the details gets lost in my brain somewhere.  This is mostly for my sake, so it will be long and detailed.  Warned.  

Friday March 7 the international rumors of the next batch of referrals being complete were out there, but my agency wouldn't confirm.  Monday nothing, Tuesday I prayed that I would not idolize my phone and computer all day.  12:15 I figured I would check our agency website (for the first time that day) just in case - excitement screaming, jumping up and down and tears ensued .   There was a message that referrals were in and we would have "the call" the next day.  I was pretty much fog brain that day!

THE DAY

I skipped my Wed morning Bible study.  I needed to do some errands before the craziness started.  We had a planned phone call for 2:30 so the kids could take part in it.  We rushed home from school with barely a minute to spare.  Everyone on the road seemed to be going too slow.  Didn't they know I had a child to come home to see?

As the five of us sat at the kitchen table staring at any of the 3 phones to ring and a computer and the camera ready to roll - our power went out.  Seriously, a wind storm now?

It surged just enough to knock out our cable for 30 seconds and miss the first two attempted calls.  Erik frantically got the cable rebooted while I finally got a phone answered.

I was on the verge of the biggest surprise of my life.   We had requested a 2-5 year old boy or girl.  However, because of China adoption policy, they had the right to offer us a younger child.  What were we going to have?  A baby boy?  3 year old girl?  Diapers or kindergarten?  The suspense had racked me heavily for days.    
We were all on speaker phone.  There was small talk with Laura at our agency for a minute then ..."it's a girl!"  4 years and 2 months old.  Her beautiful name is Xiu Si Ai.  Xiu is her sir name.  Si means "to think" and Ai means "love".  She is affectionately called AiAi.
  After that, all I wanted was the picture.  I had to endure about 10 more minutes of information that wasn't my priority before getting to see my daughter's face.

   FINALLY!!!  Isn't she adorable??

I think it looks like she is wearing a Land's End little outfit

Adorable face I can't stop looking at.

She is from the province of Chonqing.  I had many other provinces on the tip of my tongue and the routes we might take to get there.  I admit, I had never paid attention to this small little province nestled deep in the heart of China.  In the days to come I found out what a huge vital city this is to the country.  30 million people in this municipality and it is talked of as being the "new Shanghai"

The biggest blessing was that she looks so healthy mostly in part that she was living with a foster family as part of the largest orphanage in China.  There is a great story to tell there.  But for now, that is how this precious little one stepped a small little foot into our world.