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Published: September 27th 2010
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Greetings Blogging Friends!
Jim has been so thoroughly and eloquently documenting our journey through China. I have chosen to rest and rejuvenate during his late night blogging sessions, so I have been thankful that he has had the desire and the time to invite you all into our journey. This blog will also be such a blessing for little Miss Julia in the years ahead.
I’ve been wanting to document some of my thoughts and experiences as well. This is an ideal time today as we are required to stay in our room from 10-11:30 am. Our guides are taking our paperwork to the U.S. Consulate for us and they need to be able to reach us by phone in case there are any problems. They tell us that 99.9% of the time there are no problems so we don’t anticipate having to scramble for corrected paperwork here in the last couple of days of our stay. (As I am completing this blog, they have indeed called already and congratulated us on our completed paperwork!) We plan to do a little more shopping and swimming this afternoon, and then tomorrow we go to the U.S. Consulate ourselves to take
the oath on our chid’s behalf. We are looking forward to this!
This “Expedition Julia” has been the most amazing journey. We have been in awe of our process of inviting Julia into our family. It feels indeed like her heart has been prepared for us just as our hearts have been prepared for her. This has been our prayer, and the prayer of many of you, and we have humbly watched this unfold.
I have had a few quiet moments, and have had Micah 6:8 on my mind, which we had read in our wedding: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” As I looked at these verses again in a quiet moment, I noticed that back in verse 6 it says, “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God?” As I looked at that, I had watery joyful eyes truly feeling a humble bowing before my exalted God. Such a feeling of gratitude and unspeakable thankfulness filled me. Yesterday, I was on my way down
to the front desk to ask a question, and I paused at the balcony view of the waterfall in the lobby of the hotel. Again, as I had this quiet moment, I was filled with the same feeling of unspeakable thankfulness and awe. I am trying to relish each amazing moment on this journey.
Julia herself is overflowing with joy and happiness as she is a content, happy, and outgoing baby. She babbles and smiles and has even belly laughed for us. Emma and Joshua are especially good at sending her into a belly laugh with their playful antics. She does briefly protest when a toy is taken from her, and she cries with legs kicking when she sees a bottle and realizes she is hungry, and she has shown us that she can have a middle of the night shrieking cry. Last night she slept through the whole night without any tears, and she has had a few other nights of just a few whimpers. In hindsight, during her first couple days with us she was in “stunned silence” as she absorbed the idea of these new strange people taking care of her. She appeared fairly content to
us without much protesting, but we now see that as she has become accustomed to us, she has transformed into a more lively and happy baby. We have had this precious little one for 12 days now. Some of you have commented that she looks like she was always meant to be a part of our family, and we would wholeheartedly agree. We are humbled and thankful to watch this unfold.
Yesterday we took part in the infamous White Swan red couch photo session. All adoptive families take a photo on the red couch. (Actually there are 6 couches to choose from in an area overlooking the lobby waterfall.) We decided to buy some traditional outfits for our children to make this a keepsake photograph for our family. Julia was happy to sit with us and have herself photographed. It is such an honor to get to walk on the well-worn path of other adoptive families, including experiencing this tradition of the red couch photograph. It will be a treasured memory for all of us.
The second part of the photograph session proved not as enjoyable for the babies, although it did provide us with another meaningful photograph.
In theory, the adopted children are all “supposed” to sit together politely on the red couch and smile for the camera. Enter reality and notice that they do not like being separated from their caregivers and forced to sit on the red couch next to the other children (all dressed in their finest wares). Julia looked around in stunned fashion as the other children started to cry and protest. She then also started to wail as the child next to her tried to stand and stepped on her leg in the process. We have not seen her cry much yet, except for when she is hungry and mad that a toy has been taken from her, so this was a new experience for all of us. Joshua was quite distressed to watch the babies meltdown, and to watch the subsequent stepping on of his sister. He wanted to immediately rush to her rescue. Both Emma and Joshua have taken their role of older sibling seriously through doting playful interactions, and even squabbling amongst themselves as to who will get to feed her. They will indeed be her staunch protectors and cheerleaders as she launches into life in America.
Thank
you for joining in on this journey with us! It has been beyond meaningful for us to have such an amazing community of support underneath us. We are so excited to introduce little Miss Julia to you all, and to have her get to know all of you over the years to come.
Xie xie friends! (Chinese thank you pronounced sheh sheh),
Shannon Leigh
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Berta
non-member comment
beautiful words
I have been so overwhelmed with emotion reading this amazing family journey... thank you again for opening it up to me. I am anxious to see you back state side and you all continue to be in my thoughts and prayers. Blessings to you in the next few days to come as well as your travels back home. Shannon, you are a beautiful mother and your words brought tears to my eyes. I love relishing in the little moments of emotion that hit at random times.... your words remind me to stop and enjoy those more... it goes so fast. Love to you all! From, Berta