On December 13th at 11 o'clock in the morning we boarded a plane headed to Beijing, China. It was finally the day, finally the hour. Every effort, every paper, every signature, All the wait. The the heartache. The longing. It all came down to this. The final leg of the journey we had been on for the past year and a half. I had dreamed about how the moment would feel when we boarded that flight. We had prayed and been prayed over time and again. And we had such a great hope and anticipation in our hearts. It was finally time.
We landed in Beijing after a grueling twelve hour flight, yet our spirits were still high and we were running on adrenaline through customs. We were greeted at the airport by a driver from the foster home who was tall and had a kind smile . He assisted us to the van and we started our 2 plus hour drive to New Day Foster Home. Night quickly fell, we got only a glimpse of a smog-blanketed city before it became completely dark and very cold. We were dead tired and freezing without a heater through the long van ride. Above us hung a full moon in the night sky. It was as big as a harvest moon and shone a brilliant hue of yellow. I thought about how we would meet our daughter in the morning and how significant it was that we were arriving on a full moon. It was the end of our labor and a new birth was imminent. We arrived at the home a little past 7pm and went straight to sleep. It was crazy to think that our daughter slept only a few rooms away. We woke in the morning and devoured an authentic Chinese breakfast. We then attended a sweet time of morning prayer with the staff. Before we knew it we were walking toward the preschool room where Charlotte was playing. We walked in and there she was. Standing there looking right at us. They asked her who we were and she pointed at us and said "Mama, Baba." It was a very surreal moment. With all the range of emotions I felt during the process, I was expecting for them all to come flooding out. But they didn't. In fact, I don't remember feeling any emotion other than curiosity when we met for the first time. I was just so curious to meet this child that we had only known on paper for so long. We approached her slowly, sat next to her and started playing with some toys. I looked her up and down for quite a while. Memorizing her hair, her skin, her eyes, her little hands, her tiny body. All these things I had wondered about and imagined were now right in front of me. I just remember thinking she was so beautiful. We spent the next two days at the foster home with Charlotte. We followed her schedule and spent some one on one time with her. It was a very bittersweet time. The people at New Day loved her so well. She knew love. She was cared for and had relationships that were deep and meaningful. To meet the people she loved and to see their faces light up when they saw her- it stirred emotions in Ben and I that we had never felt before. It almost felt wrong for us to be there. Wrong that any child should have to go through this upset. To have to be uprooted from their home, their relationships, their country, their culture and to be planted elsewhere. It was hard knowing this path was ahead of her. This is where adoption gets real. Where we struggle to find some way to balance the joy and hope of a future with loss and grief of a past. Our time at the foster home flew by. It was priceless to have that experience. We felt honored to be welcomed into what had been Charlotte's home for the past two years, and to be treated as family. We left the foster home and headed for Inner Mongolia on a Sunday. That night, Charlotte spent her last night as an orphan on the overnight train with her nanny. My heart was anxious and heavy thinking about her leaving behind all she knew but also filled with such thankfulness for finally being united with her forever. We would meet Charlotte in the lobby of our hotel at 10am on Monday morning, December 19th. We headed down early because I don't think that hotel room could hold the anticipation that was overflowing in all four of us. Our guide, Aggy, was already there and we found a quiet spot in the lobby to sit and wait. We ordered tea and drank it mindlessly. It helped to have something to keep our hands occupied while the nerves flowed erratically through them. All the emotions finally welled up and were overflowing. Logan spotted her first and announced her arrival. My heart skipped a beat and it felt like my stomach was in my throat. These were the feelings I thought would arrive at our first meeting, but here they were unexpectedly, on the brink of our forever. Charlotte was carried by her nanny and in the blink of an eye she was in my arms. It was holy ground, a heavy moment. Just like that an orphan became a daughter. A sister. She was ours and we were hers. Ben and I were ushered to our seats as we had many papers to sign. Charlotte's nanny sat next to me and I offered her some tea. She declined with a smile. I yearned to talk to her. There was so much I wanted to say, so many questions and so much gratitude I wanted to convey. But we sat next to each other om silence through the paperwork and only exchanged smiles. This was all business and she seemed to know it. I wondered how many children she had delivered into families. How many mothers arms has she placed crying and confused babies into? How many times has she sat by a nervous mother and smiled at them comfortingly? How many children has she loved and said goodbye to? It's admirable work she does, she is the hands and love of Jesus, if she knows it or not. Before I knew it the official and the nanny were standing and putting on their coats. She gave me one last smile, knelt down and said something to Charlotte and walked away without looking back. Charlotte looked concerned and whined a little bit but she didn't cry. I picked her up as she kept her gaze fixed on her nanny until she was gone. I remember feeling a bit weird in that moment. I longed for her nanny to be able to stay and help us, help her, with the hard that was before all of us. But that is not how things are done in China. So there we were, a family that had instantly just grew by a 2.5 year old. Ben and I took a deep breath, looked at each other with a bit of weary and shock-y, yet excited and "can you believe it?!" eyes. It was done. We had a daughter. To be continued...
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Kelty. Archives
September 2018
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