There's so much about our daughter's life that we will never know. Here's some of what we do:

The day Zitao was born, she was abandoned in the Hefei Bus Station with a package of formula and a bottle. A bus station employee found her, and after a search for her birth parents, she was brought to the Hefei CWI to live. Since December of 2004, Zitao has benefited by living in Sunbeam Village with a foster family. Sunbeam Village is a project that organizations like Half the Sky and Love Without Boundaries have sponsored; these are organizations that Dave and I have contributed to, too. So perhaps, indirectly, we have helped to support Zitao before we even knew her.

Zitao is a *little* one - she's not much bigger than our Genevieve, who is 3. I bet she'll sprout up soon, we'll see what kinds of good things we can get her to eat when she comes home. Even so, she's average height and weight for kids in orphanage situations. She has been given some immunizations in China - we'll have titers done when she gets home to see what else is needed. According to the report, she's on target developmentally, which is good news. She seems like an intelligent little girl, and I bet she flourishes once she's home.

I'm delighted every time I read her description. Her penchant for art, reading, music, and playing outdoors is described, and her report says that she has very good hand-eye coordination. It says that she loves to be praised, that she is kind to her foster siblings and other children, and that her favorite toys are building blocks (wonder if she's ever seen a Lego - Sarah will surely help with that introduction!). Her report also indicates that she is not a picky eater, has a good appetite, and sleeps soundly.

So - why was this little girl on the waiting list? Well, she had an incident where a small amount of blood (not readily visible) was found in her urine when she went to the doc to cure a cold. She was diagnosed with nephritis, and with medication, it seems that her kidneys have healed very well. Her blood pressure is normal, she has no blood or protein in her urine, and all the doctors we've consulted have said that she should be fine. Some people we've told (people who are generally unfamiliar with China adoption) have latched onto this information as if to say, "Aha! A flaw! Surely this is why China doesn't want her!" For one thing, it's not a flaw - anyone with kids knows they all get sick from time to time. Zitao's illness, even if it doesn't resolve completely, should be only of mild concern (many thanks to the AWESOME doctors, nephrologists, and professors of medicine who sent us wonderful reports on their own time!). Zitao was up for adoption beforehand, too, and probably didn't fit the age requests of the droves of parents who want babies AYAP (as young as possible). Babies are beautiful, but so are toddlers, so are preschoolers, so are first graders! Of course, there are so many more orphans than adoptive families, that girls like Zitao sometimes fall through the cracks, even with parents being willing to take a variety of ages. Our agency representative said that this mishap may have "saved this little girl's life," by giving her a chance to be more visible in the waiting child program.

We think it may have saved our lives too, by helping us be able to find our darling girl! (I've never been keen on the "saving an orphan" bit - my motives are admittedly rather selfish. I just want to bring my daughter home. And give me paperwork over pregnancy ANY day!)

I've been given the "go-ahead" from our agency rep to share pictures of our little girl with family and friends. This is good, since I can't wait! Zitao is lovely, and I'm so glad I get to be her Mama! (BaBa, JieJie and MeiMei are excited, too!)

(Progress note: USCIS 2nd filing was today, so we should get that coveted I 171-H anytime in the next few weeks. We're coming, Zitao!)

This little Anhui girl is gorgeous!

It's been a great day!

The family that was interested in the same waiting child we were has decided they do not want to adopt this particular girl (they said she's too old for their situation). Well, we think her age is just perfect for our family! We know this was a hard decision for them, but we're also really glad we have the chance to bring her home! She was born in May of 2000 - a little dragon girl (I'm a dragon, too)! We know there will be some adjustment issues with adopting an older child, but we're lining up our resources to make sure we're ready. She is currently living with a foster family in the Sun Beam Village in Hefei, Anhui province. Her description says: "She is a bit introversive, but likes listening to music and reading books. She is a good girl and knows to take care of the younger sisters and brothers. She has very good appetite." Books, music, and food. She'll do well in our family!

We have decided to write a letter of intent to adopt this little girl. SO EXCITING!!!

She's beautiful, too. I will post pictures soon.

Well, Dave and I have been fingerprinted now. We drove to Aurora today, which is where the USCIS "application support center" is. I laughed when Dave and I were each handed a number - mine was 75, and his was 76. The good news was that only one person was ahead of us (so, they weren't on number 19, as I envisioned a couple of posts ago). However, there were some three different displays showing what number they were supposedly on (with different numbers and letters), so until we heard somebody call the next number out, we were clueless as to where we actually were in the queue. Actually, they called out the letter "L" before they called out number 74, so we were *really* confused for a minute! And yes, there were old men and babies, but the old men were being taken care of quickly, and the babies weren't crying too much. They were beautiful, black-eyed babies with long eyelashes and doting mothers.

The office was pleasant and efficient, and much better than most DMV offices I've visited. This may be due in part to the fact that this isn't the main USCIS office for Colorado - it only handles those people who have already had some paperwork processed and have been invited to be fingerprinted, etc. A large man in a uniform scanned my fingerprints into their nifty biometric machines. He used Windex to add moisture to my fingertips, which made me think of the Greek dad in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," who used Windex as an instant solution for whatever problem was at hand - wounds, spills, stains, etc. He also brushed a plastic card rather uncomfortably against my fingertips, and I asked if he was "ruffling my ridges." He laughed and said, "Yep, just like the potato chips." I thought to myself that this looked like a man who was on good terms with his potato chips. A nice assistant gave Gennie something to draw on and keep her occupied - the back of an unused customer service survey (don't worry fellow adoptive parents, it wasn't your I 600-A). They wished us well in our adoption process, and we were outta there in no more than about 20 minutes. Not bad at all.

Our home study report should be sent by Adoption Alliance back to CCAI fairly quickly (hopefully by early next week), then it goes on to USCIS. I've heard of some people getting their I 171-H forms in only a week or two, but I'm not counting on it. This is the government we're talking about, after all - the immigration department, too - and I don't expect much while operating on bureaucratic time.

Just a quick update to say that our home study has been approved by CCAI, and has been sent on to Adoption Alliance for their approval. We've been invited to be fingerprinted at any time now, and then we just wait for USCIS to finish processing our I 171-H.

No news on whether the little girl we're interested in has had her hold released by the other family that is interested in her. Seven days sometimes feels like a long time (and our understanding is that they can extend the hold if they have good reason).

All we can do is wait and see.

Yesterday wasn't a very good day. I posted about the waiting child snafu, and later that day I got what I thought would be a perfectly done stack of certified adoption documents from the Colorado Secretary of State. Well, most of them were certified, but a pile from a particular notary had a letter attached that said that the signature did not match what the state had on file for this particular notary. Huh?

Now, I have to say that this didn't surprise me hugely. We went to our local Wells Fargo branch to find a notary (they notarize for free for customers). Well, this guy was at the front desk, and he had multiple things going on, and he was disorganized as hell (a theological note - surely hell involves disorganized bank clerks and customer service people). He notarized a few documents for us, then had us stop midway and finish up our notarization with the manager of the branch (since he was busy being rude to us by continually picking up phones, talking with other people, etc. while we stood and waited).

Now, I understand being busy, but he did not invite us to sit down, he did not find any one of several other notaries that were sitting at their desks in the back, and he did not pay attention to us when we talked about how we needed specific wording for notarization of adoption paperwork, and that these documents were incredibly important. The branch manager, on the other hand, is an angel of a woman who told us to feel free to let her know when we'd be traveling, so she could order "fresh" bills for our orphanage fee (apparently she's had that request before)! And *she* brought us back to a quiet office where we could sit down while she did her notary work.

Now, given a guess as to which notary's signature was problematic - whose do you suppose it was? Duh.

So I called this particular notary, and asked if he knew why the Secretary of State might not have recognized his signature. He said, "Well, uh, I know I'm not real careful about my signature. I didn't know they would check it." Apparently he was very precise and used perfect little cursive letters on the Secretary of State's records, and decided a harried squiggle was good enough for us. As per the Secretary of State's instructions, I took it back to have him cross out his old signature, initial it, and resign. Mr Squiggle was sheepishly apologetic, but he still managed to omit the initials until I doublechecked his work. Good grief! I will NEVER let him notarize anything of mine again! Still, I told him it was okay when he apologized. I figure it's bad juju to be mean about it, when I'm supposedly a sweet adoptive mom, eh? Although, this kind of thing has the tendency to make me go into mother bear mode - you do NOT want to come between me and my kids - whether they come by birth or adoption!

I didn't want to re-FedEx the documents to Denver again, in case Mr. Squiggle still hadn't signed it right, so I walked the documents in to the Secretary of State's office in downtown Denver. The building is gigantic! There are two huge steel and glass atriums that connect via a glass tunnel over Broadway street, and the place made me feel like a real country mouse. Still, the woman at the desk smiled at me (I had spoken with her on the phone about the whole situation), and asked what Mr. Squiggle had said about his signature. I mumbled something about how he was surprised that he had been checked on, she lamented about how careless she thought this guy was, and then I got to the meat of the issue - were the signatures good now? She said they were, I breathed my sigh of relief, and we should expect pretty certification pages coming via FedEx by Thursday. Yay!

The only other issue we've had so far was when the state of Oregon sent an apostille instead of a certification page for my birth certificate, and that was corrected easily enough. Hopefully I haven't totally jinxed us by talking about how our journey so far has been relatively smooth.

Now we just wait for the home study report to be sent to USCIS, and for that magic I 171-H to arrive. We hear that Colorado USCIS is pretty fast - I guess we'll find out! (I envision USCIS as a horrid little office where people have to take a number to wait for service, and your number is 72, and they're only on number 19, and babies are crying and old men are falling asleep in their folding chairs and all the magazines are 8 years old and falling apart. I'm glad we can do this via the mail!)

I had e-mailed one of the waiting child coordinators over the weekend to ask about putting this little girl on "hold" until we could have the medical stuff reviewed. Hadn't heard back. Just called. Apparently a family called them first thing this morning about her, faxed in their home study, and put her on hold first. So - if they decide they want her, she's theirs. Trying not to be upset about this... gives us time to evaluate her medical info too, and we ARE for sure next in line. Still - doesn't feel good.

I e-mailed my mother-in-law, and her reply:

We repeat "she will get a good home and that's what REALLY matters", "she will get a good home and that's what REALLY matters", "she will get a good home and that's what REALLY matters" until we are blue in the face, yes?

But why are they first if you asked about it over the weekend???

Jean

My reply:

'Cause apparently they answer their phones quicker than they answer their e-mails. I'm trying not to be mad about it, because the lady was really nice on the phone, apologetic even, and I would be happy to work with such a friendly person under most circumstances, but I was surprised by how I had to swallow pretty hard when I heard that we had been "beaten" timing-wise. I SHOULD HAVE CALLED WHEN I WOKE UP THIS MORNING!

This is when I wish I believed in that God that is supposed to make sure everything turns out exactly how it's supposed to. Or at least PEOPLE that make everything turn out how it's supposed to... can we find a few of THOSE?

Here I try so hard to say "maybe she's not my girl, anyway" from the beginning, and when she really might not be, it actually hurts a bit. (More than a bit, actually, but I'm trying not to acknowledge that right now). No fair.

I was talking on the phone the other day with my mom, and she said she could tell my "motherly juices" were flowing because I was talking about adoption stuff a lot. Hmm, I thought, I wonder what "motherly juices" are like. Sweet or sour? Sticky or smooth? Actually, the whole idea is a little bit disgusting, but intriguing nonetheless.

So, I came across a little girl on a waiting child list. She's six years old, she lives in Anhui province, and she's the most beautiful little person. She's also not with CCAI, so we're hoping that we'll be able to switch agencies if we decide to petition for her. All of a sudden, it may be a GOOD thing that our dossier is not in China yet.

We need to have some specialists take a look at some medical info on her. She has some issues that could be just fine or very scary depending on how it's interpreted. However, I'm finding that it's very easy to get attached to a face, to a few words on her description. Grandma in Utah is also rather smitten with the pictures, and is enlisting all her doctor friends to get some idea of the true health of this child.

So - if we find out that her medical issues are manageable, my motherly juices and I (and Dave, kids, and grandma, too!) may be heading to China MUCH sooner than we thought!!! Someone else won't be so cautious, I know, and may snatch her up. I hope her file hides from the rest of the world long enough for us to decide one way or the other.

Realizing that THIS MAY BE MY BABY is overwhelming! Perhaps motherly juices are sort of warm, watery, and salty - tears of hope, sadness, joy, worry, love....

David had a surprise waiting for me when I got home from the university yesterday. He bought me a little charm pendant in the shape of a little girl, and said that he hoped it might help until we bring our own real little girl home from China. (The charm is set with clear and blue stones, and he bought me a pair of earrings with blue stones to match, too). I think I may have the best husband on the planet. It was one of the most thoughtful, lovely gifts he's ever given me.

This adoption is probably the most exciting, and the most frightening thing we've ever done. We go to get a bunch of documents notarized today, including our adoption petition, financial statement, physical exam forms, and employment verifications. Then we add our Colorado Bureau of Investigation clearances (which we already have notarized), and send the package off to the Colorado Secretary of State via FedEx. Our home study also goes to CCAI this week, which makes me more than a little anxious for reasons I can't quite pin down. We know for a fact that our social worker approved us, and I think we know we're good parents - it's just so strange to be examined like that. I realize that all will likely turn out just fine, but it's nerve-wracking nonetheless. Only a month after orientation, and all we need is to finish the sealing process on these documents, get fingerprinted, and wait for our I171-H. Our birth and marriage certificates are already at the San Francisco and Washington D.C. consulates. Not bad for a month's work - knock on wood that everything coming up goes as smoothly.

I went to office hours with Zhao Laoshi, my Mandarin professor, and she was sweet about helping me with some phrases that will come in handy when we go to China to adopt. (Her name is actually Zhao Hua, but "laoshi" is teacher in Mandarin, so "Zhao Laoshi" is the equivalent of "Professor Zhao.") A friend had given me a huge list of these phrases, but none of the pinyin had any tone markings, making it essentially useless (depending on which tone you use, you might be calling your mother a horse - ma1 = mother, ma3 = horse). As she read through the various phrases, she would often exclaim, "Yes, that one is very important!" or "How good that you think to include such a thoughtful phrase." And of course, there were several that were deemed "awkward Mandarin" that she graciously corrected for me. Zhao Laoshi is a very sweet woman, and we've spoken quite a bit about the adoption process, and she has been very complimentary about our desires to adopt. I told her that our motives are primarily selfish, that we want to complete our family in this way, and she has argued that she still thought it was a very nice thing we're doing. So that felt good. Zhao Laoshi told me about how she was in the "first generation" under the one-child policy when she was growing up in Beijing. She often wished for siblings, but laughed when she said that she supposed there were good and bad things about having brothers and sisters (which I confirmed - much as I love my two sisters). She also said that she feared many "only children" were being spoiled in China.

She went on to ask me if I was nervous about the adoption. I tend to get emotional when I talk about China adoption with her. I don't know why, but I've had to swallow more lumps when I talk with Zhao Laoshi than with any other person. No actual tears have made an appearance, but I think she's noticed that my emotional state changes. I replied that I just want everyone to be shu fu (comfortable), and that it's overwhelming to think about the scope of it all sometimes. She nodded and smiled in her compassionate way. She is single, and has only been in Colorado for a few weeks. I invited her to come to dinner at our home sometime, which she was very happy about. Such a sweet person; I hope she becomes a long-term family friend.

Anyway, I may be bringing in some mooncakes to share with the class for the Autumn Moon Festival. Zhao Laoshi laughed when I offered to do this - she asked where I had managed to find mooncakes here. She laughed again when I told her that I had them overnighted from a Chinese bakery in New York. Apparently their Chinese club hasn't had the best luck with their mooncake acquisition process. Then again, it's pretty funny that we need to order our mooncakes from several states away, there are probably plenty of Chinese households in Colorado that make their own! I need to work on my bean paste recipe, myself! I bought a book on Chinese festivals that includes many recipes for Chinese food. I'm hoping to try a few before heading to China, although I may have to find an Asian food market first. I don't think there's a "lotus seed" aisle at the local Safeway.

The past couple of weeks have been insanely active. We had our first visits with our social worker on August 24th and 26th, which were both happy and stressful. There's this impulse to flood the woman with all the good information about our family, so she can create the best propaganda possible to represent us. On the other hand, it's also her job to ask the difficult questions, to find out our imperfections and our weaknesses. I admit the visits have made me feel insecure, especially since we're revealing our private lives to a total stranger.

We are close to having all our documents done. Our last social worker visit is on the 7th of September, and we'll have all our paperwork together by then. After that, we just need to finish the sealing process, and get the home study report sent to USCIS. Not bad for just having had orientation on the 12th of August! I've been using FedEx a LOT lately!

Along with the adoption whirlwind, I've also started at CU again. I'm teaching a class I've never taught before, and I'm enrolled in a crazy-hard neuroscience course. I'm also taking Chinese 1010 on a no-credit basis. I'm amazed by how laid back I'm managing to be for the teaching and the neuro, while Chinese creates this pit in my stomach. I want so badly to be able to communicate with my daughter when she comes home. I won't even get a grade for my efforts, but I know that the outcome matters more in some ways than the other courses. The good news for the other courses is that I'm interested in the material, and I'm not over-registered for once in my life, so I may actually get through without driving myself nuts. Knock on wood. Again. Oh, and we closed on a mortgage refi in our spare time on Monday. (ha ha... spare time... sigh...)

Today my cousin Missy visits, with her husband and two little boys. I haven't seen her since I was in middle school; she's pretty much a stranger to me. It'll be nice to see them. I did have to warn her last night that Gennie has a stomach bug, and Sarah's been coughing. It's the start of the school year, so we're all coming home with various fun germs to share. She says they'll probably brave it out, so I'm taking no responsibility for their continued health. It does mean I have to vacuum. (Vacuuming = I care that you're visiting). Of course, now people will check for those telltale vacuum lines when they come over. Hey - if you can't detect them, just know that you must be very close to our family, and that I trust you won't broadcast to the world that I do, indeed, get dust bunnies.

Tomorrow we head to the UU Fellowship, in a grand attempt to be social and gather a community of support around us (it feels like rather a selfish effort, in that sense). I'm hoping it will be good for everyone - Dave will find other geeky guys to hang out with, the kids will find other children to play with and will benefit from the Religious Education program, and I'll find other worn out moms to sit with (as we stare at each other and grunt nonsensical small talk). Energetic people are too... um... perky. Of course, they're easier to be around (I do make some effort to be a positive person, if rather challenged by the pace of my life), as opposed to total Eeyores. All I want is to find a nice, imperfect, slightly disheveled young mother to smile with and make note of how pretty weeds can be when they're left to flower. "Look! I can be artistic by drawing in the dust on my coffee table!" Unless, of course, your long-lost cousin is visiting - one can't be sure that she's appreciate that particular art form. I'll sign off now - I have to go create the illusion of organization.