Reflections

3 years ago today we became a family of 5. Today is a day to reflect with my daughter on our journey to her and her journey to our family. We don't celebrate with a big party, we don't even get Chinese food. We just enjoy the fact that we have our 3 kids in our arms right now!

On February 16, 2005, our boys were safe at grandma and grandpa's house, and Daniel and I traveled on a bus on a cold, windy, rainy day to the Civil Affairs office in Nanchang, Jiangxi, China. We were taken to a cold room on the second floor and could hear the babies crying in another room that was way too far away. They assigned each couple a number, 1-8. We were couple number 5. As the first 4 couples were called, tears would come to my eyes as I watched each daughter being united with her mom and dad. When I finally heard the words, "Couple number 5, Daniel and Jennie," the tears came more freely. We walked, Daniel filming with the camcorder, and I with passports and the one paper that would prove we are her new parents, to where a man walked into the room with a bundle of tears and anxiety in his arms. I had to show our passports and Travel Approval with her picture on it before they would give her to me. Then the most amazing thing happened, just as I had had each of my sons placed in my arms, my daughter was placed in the most longingly empty arms in the world. We both cried and daddy filmed and others took pictures. I cried out of sheer joy that I finally could hold and love my baby girl. She cried because I was so different than anything she had ever felt, seen, smelled or heard in her entire 15 months. We were strangers to her. She was scared. Yet as the day went on, she smiled, winked, laughed and ate. She would look at us with fear and with hope in her eyes all at the same time. I would hold her in front of the mirror and call her "Qiu Qiu" and "Ruthann". Then I would point to Daniel and say "Baba", and to me and say "Mama". She actually started to say mama when I would hold her over the next couple of days.

When we called her new big brothers, they were just itching to see and hold their new little sister. "When are you coming home with Choo Choo??" was always what they would ask each day when we talked. When we did get our boys back in our arms, they would just watch her, put on little shows for her, show her all their toys and her new toys. She would watch them with a look of pure joy and amazement. I will never forget the time she looked at them and then looked at me with a look of "they really are mine, aren't they?!" As she began to talk, she would always refer to her brothers as "my boys".

In just a seemingly short amount of time we went from being a middle class, American, Caucasion, Mormon, just-like-everyone-else family to being a middle class, American, inter-racial, Mormon, just-like-everyone-else family. Different challenges have presented themselves with the growth of our family. We are different from other families, yet we are amazingly the same. The challenges that have come and that will continue to come as we go forward will never compare to the joy we have just being a family. I always tell my children that no matter where they were born, no matter whose belly they came from, no matter what, where, why, or when, no matter how they got into our arms, the most important thing is that they are IN OUR ARMS NOW!

Building our family has been demanding, traumatic, exciting, exhausting, joyful, and has made for the most fabulous experiences of our lives. As we are currently in the midst of another daughter making the journey to our arms and family, we find that our part of this journey is an even more difficult, more rewarding, more insightful part of any of our journeys yet. With Isaac, Samuel and Ruthann in our arms and with Sarajune in our hearts, our family is our greatest asset and reward.