A few weeks ago, Your Baba took the four kids on a guy's trip with his cousinand sons to camp. I stayed behind to man the adoption auction we were having and to spring clean the entire house. When almost finished after staying up to sometimes 3am working for 3 days, I stood at my kitchen sink to grab a quick drink of water and something in me snapped. I'm not worthy of you.. Or Joy.. Or Anna.. Or Ezra .. Or Eli. How on earth and why did God bless me with you five, awesome children ? Why did God bless me with a husband that wouldn't bat an eye to take four kids camping? He packed Joy's medical supplies and didn't think twice. You have a great Baba waiting for you. Standing at that sink, I wept and almost screamed at how wonderful God is: then, I sat and calmly cried tears of grief for you. You will lose everything you know and love to come with us. You are my hero!
We waited for three weeks to receive answers from you to some questions that we asked you. We finally received them Friday and, as a family, we were elated to get your answers!
1. Your favorite color is yellow ✨💛✨
This is MY favorite color, too! What a happy color that truly describes what I hear is your personality - joy.
2. What makes you smile? Traveling or visiting places. 🌴🏊
We love to travel and visit, so this was such a good thing to hear! You hopefully won't be as overwhelmed with going places like we are still preparing for. We can't wait to show you the ocean, creeks, lakes, mountains, museums, zoos, and waterparks. We can't wait to make up for such lost time.
3. Foster brothers or sisters? You have a foster brother and a foster sister. You have good friends and especially gets along with boys. 🤔.
This sounds so wonderful, yet so heartbreaking. We were a bit nervous if you were an only child on how you would transition to such monkeys around here. It's good to know you know what having a brother and sister is like. On the other hand, I wept when I heard you had them because I know how much our children love their siblings and to potentially never see them again is a tragedy. It's heartbreaking and sickening and I hate it. I've cried and cried knowing what grief your heart is already going through thinking about saying "goodbye". I especially loved the part about you loving to play with boys. When we look at your pictures with your limited information we have, we have created this picture of an athletic girl that isn't too frilly (this will be a first to me and I love this challenge and variety in children). I secretly, so far, have shared this with Eli. He BEAMED with excitement and then told me everything he wants to play with you. You will be so close in age with Ezra (four months older than you) and I can see a wonderful friendship there. You both seem to have VERY similar qualities as one another.
4. How do you feel about a family in America? You know you are being adopted to America and have mixed feelings because you love her foster family.
This is a tough subject. While waiting on this update, Justin and I talked it over that if this update came back with the answer "she is excited" we would pretty much just rip this paper up. We would know that the orphanage was lying to us to make sure we came for you OR it would mean that you were in such a terrible home, that you would want to escape. In your file, it states how you are in an excellent home and they really care for you, so I felt pretty safe that it would've been an orphanange director lying if it came back positively. I loved it said that you are having mixed emotions. That is so healthy that you've attached to this family and love them. It also means that there is something inside of you that makes you happy about having a forever home.
5. You are on no medications and you are allergic to pollen. 😷.
You're in good company with the pollen allergy. ;-) We know there are many unknowns with medical things in particular with adoption. We are prepared for anything, but so happy to hear you're not on any medicines.
6. She accepts the name Lily XiLi 🌾
This made me cry. We were so conflicted at first to even give you a new name. You will have lost EVERYTHING so why change your name? The more we have read and educated ourselves, many older adoptees are embarrassed by their Chinese names when fitting in as an American. Many other adoptees wanted nothing to do with an American name, so they wanted to keep their Chinese name. So, we decided the safest bet was to give you both and let you decide what you wanted to be cald. We will see how that goes once you come home (as we will probably call you 'XinLi' while in China and slowly integrate Lily in the verbiage. You will have a choice and you will decide - that's fair! I was, however, elated that the name that was given to us so clearly as your name, has been accepted by you. It made us really proud that we chose a name for you that you liked. We love your name and chose it with such a careful selection. It has a huge meaning and we love it's simplicity.
7. And last but not least... We asked you what your parents and brothers and sister could bring to you in China that would make you happy.
You would like an iPad 😳
This is another tricky, tricky thing to explain to loved ones. Adoptive parents get it because most have been through this. We limit our kids screen time and settings are strict. Your brothers and sisters cannot play anything until after school and only for a bit to unwind after the learning of the day. We don't revolve our lives around electronics. We don't allow phones at the table - ANY table. When we eat at a restaurant, we don't have our phones anywhere in sight. There is NOTHING more important at that time that the people gathered around that table. Our kids aren't old enough for phones, but we are training them for the future. We don't walk around carrying out phones and I've talked to them numerous times about other forms of ettuquette with electronics in public, such as talking on the phone in a store or such (they might miss an opportunity with others). So, we are very conflicted with electronics in our household. On the contrary, we are getting this iPad. Why? Because we have been educated on shutting down, over-stimulation and grieving in China. When times get rough there, we can pull out the iPad and let them escape for a moment. When we went to Nanyang SWI for your sister, we didn't carry any electronics - I don't even know if we had our phones. She was in such grief, reliving those days there, it would've been nice for her to have the ability to escape. It's totally out of our parenting ways, but parenting children from hard backgrounds is different at times. This is one of those times. As we transition home, we will teach other ways to cope, but it's a slow transition - slow is much better!!!! So, we are getting an iPad. It may be shared with the family, but we feel this is the right move to follow through with the one thing youve asked for.
On April 30th, we got a huge surprise! Just when we were calm and not expecting an email, a very important one popped into our inbox. Our agency called us first and I missed the call because we were having school, then the email came into the inbox and I missed it as well. Finally I heard a text message and it was your Baba telling me to go check out your VIDEO. My heart flopped and flipped and I started to shake.
There you were.
Beautiful, shiny, healthy hair down to your bottom and the most beautiful smile that radiated from the inside. You were perfect. We watched that video on replay for a week. You are ours - we are so humbled. The kids screamed and jumped at a moving sight of you!!!
It's taken me since March 1 to finish this one post. I kept coming back to it and editing and then close it down. It wasn't because it was lengthy, it's just
painful. I cannot explain the feeling of not having my daughter yet writing her. Hard times.
In your video, you seemed to have been contest in your home with good surroundings. I have some peace deep within that you're being cared for well. I think it's a peace straight from Jesus. I don't know how I would handle knowing you were being neglected it abused. I'm thankful for this peace. We are working so hard to get to you. We just got our government approval to adopt you and we sent all of our documents off to Washington DC to be authenticated at the State Dept then Chinese Embassy.
You are chosen treasured and loved from afar. You are our daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin, niece, and friend
Tomorrow the plan is to hang your artwork above your bed and your room will be finished! So, hopefully the next post is your finished room! We mailed you a box of goodies with a photo album and a two page letter. We didn't mail pics of your room - we want that to be a surprise!!!
We are on track as of NOW for October, but we know anything can happen. We are trying our best , Lily!
Wǒmen ài nǐ ( 我们爱你) ,
Mommy
