Saturday, July 30, 2011

I'm not sure if I'm one year or six years pregnant, but I'm due tomorrow

Alright. Let's be honest. I'm nervous like a first-time mom here. 

I know our "due date" and I've even seen a general likeness of our daughter (kind of like the 3D sonograms I had with a couple pregnancies) but it's a little unnerving to think...the day is almost here.

Maylin is on a train already heading to Hohhot. She'll travel about 23 hours with a companion from her orphanage. She'll arrive in Hohhot as dazed as we will tomorrow, but we know things that she doesn't..

We'll know Who arranged her life so that we will meet tomorrow.
We'll know what it sounds like and smells like and tastes like in her new home.
We know we are going to be fine, regardless of the struggles we each may need to overcome.
We know she'll be loved unconditionally.

She'll learn it all soon enough.

We will leave our hotel in Baotou at 7:30am with our Chinese friend, Peter. We'll have about 2 hours on the train (do not visualize the Orient Express with rubbed wood and velvet curtains.) Peter will assist us with his near-perfect English and quite perfect Chinese to locate the Sheraton Hotel in Hohhot. 

And then, I guess,

We meet each other.
While our three youngest kids at home in Florida sleep, we will be meeting their newest sister.

We'll have about 15-20 minutes with her, and then we part for the night.
Kind of a weird arrangement, but if you'd just traveled 23 hours on a train and were being adopted into a family from America, it might be good to have one more night with people with whom you are familiar.

Monday at 10am, we'll meet again, and when we leave that meeting, she'll be officially our daughter.

We'll head back to Baotou by train and hopefully be back in time to introduce 4 of the new siblings to Maylin. They too are excited!

Before I head to bed for whatever rest I may be able to get, I have had a few amazing blessings this week. Some involve former students, and some involve just little gifts He left in the cool weather, my health, friends who are near and far, new friends and old. One that just blessed my heart today was when Peter asked if we were going to change her Chinese name, Maylin, to an American name.
 I grinned as I told him that Maylin was her new American name.

Oh, he said. It is also a Chinese name and so beautiful.

Yes, it is. Indeed it is.
And tomorrow, we'll meet our beautiful Chinese daughter named
Maylin Li.

3 comments:

  1. So excited for your family! Lifting you all up to our Father for safe travels and smooth process ahead.

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  2. Thinking of you, rejoicing with you, and asking our Father to help Maylin "know " all that you already know about her future.

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  3. **as you'll see in the next posts, we received Maylin and kept her with us after that first meeting. I have no idea where I'd gotten the idea that we'd only meet, then separate.**

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