2 years ago today!

If you've known me "pre-Audrey An" and followed our adoption journey, you'll remember THIS SPECIAL DAY!!

This precious yet sad little face stared back at me from a computer screen for the first time...the first time we "met" our daughter!  An Xiaoli, you melted our hearts!

So...two years later THIS is the precious face that smiles back at me now!!!  It's hard to believe she's even had 3 hair cuts, since she's been in our family!

Okay, so I drafted the following post on January 30 of this year, but was waiting for a good time to share it.  I think TODAY is a great time to share it!

Can I just tell you how much I love this little girl???  To the moon and back!!!  We had one of the sweetest yet heart wrenching conversations this afternoon.  Audrey An and I were having some mommy/daughter time and she began talking about her life back in China.  I LOVE having these conversations with her.  It just gives me such insight into her little heart and mind.  I'm thrilled she wants to talk to me about it, and I think I learn something new each time we have a "China Talk".


Two of the treasures we brought with us to our new home is the digital scrapbook I made for her that pretty much sums up her first year with us and the other is the scrapbook we received from the orphanage on our "Gotcha Day".  One of our hopes and dreams while we're on this side of the world is to go back to China and meet her foster family, visit her orphanage, and hand deliver the digital scrapbook to them ourselves!  She can sit for 1/2 an hour or so looking at all the pictures (and this is seriously about the only time she sits still I might add!!!).


Anyway...she began showing me "her" scrapbook pages of her and her foster family and proceeds to tell me that she misses them and she's sad.  She actually tells me she misses them quite often, bless her heart.  I imagine she does!   I know they miss her, too. They're the only family she knew for quite a few years prior to us.  I really DO know they miss AA because we've exchanged emails a couple of time in the past few weeks....that's another story!  I asked her if she was always sad for them or if she had any happy in her heart.  She said, "Yes, I have happy in my heart."  I said, "Oh, good!  Why do you have happy in your heart?"  She hugged me up real tight and squeezed both of my cheeks and said, "because I have a family now!" SNIFFFFFF!!!


THEN...came the questions we've been waiting for since the summer of 2009.  She started asking more details about her birth mommy.  One questions led to another with such a inquisitive little and thoughtful little face.  David and I have purposed in our heart from day 1 that we'd always be as truthful as we could about with what we knew of her life in China.  We never wanted to paint this rosy picture of what "may" have happened the day of her abandonment or what exactly what her birth mother's situation was.  We agreed to always tell her the facts.  Some facts we'll just simply never know, but some things we do know.  It will be a lifelong process for her and us in knowing how to deal with all the "knowns" and the "unknowns" of her life prior to becoming apart of our family.  She asked me how she got to he orphanage, etc.  Well, David and I know that fact, fortunately.  We have the honor of having the name of the kind woman who God placed in our daughter's path the day she was abandoned on the side of the rode on December 27, 2004 and took her to safety.  We know the the police station she was taken to and we know that they were the ones who took her to the Children's Welfare Institute (orphanage). 


Like I mentioned, she was very attuned to what I was saying.  I could tell that she was deep in thought digesting all she was being told.  She then said, "Well, mommy, there's just one thing wrong with this.  People just can't leave children on the side of the road!"  I just took a long, deep breath and just thought "Wow".  One of  the cold, hard realities and circumstances of so many orphans is just that.  I don't know why she was abandoned.  It could be for so many reasons, and I told her that.  It could have been that her birth mother was very young and could not care for her.   It could have been that her birth parents already had a child and because of the law they could not keep her.   It could be that her birth parents didn't have the means to give her medical help for her cleft lip.  She then asked, "What's a cleft lip?"  I loved that question!  She's never noticed (as many others have never noticed) that her lip looks any different!  I also have never point out her repaired cleft lip.  I figured she'd notice it one day.


So, we ended the conversation with praising God for the lady (who I choose to leave anonymous on here) who found her and took her to safety. We praised God for her birth mommy choosing to give her life (and privately in my on thoughts praising that her life wasn't discarded like a piece of trash)!

Also,  On January 1, 2011 we received an email from her foster sister- THAT'S a miracle in itself, too!  Persistence and the grace of God pays off is all I can say.  I had enough insight on "Gotcha Day" to ask for the director of the foster care program's email address.  After 13 returned emails (due to not being able to make out one character she wrote down and trying every possible combination it could be!) and about 6 months later I received an email from the lady who brought AA to us at that government building.  She obviously was forwarding our email (as requested by me) to AA's foster family.  We've emailed numerous times since then and have sent numerous pictures.  They've been so kind and gracious to us...thanking us for adopting and "give her good life and make her so happy".


I love you, Audrey An Xiaoli, and I can't imagine our family without you!  I love our snuggle times, and I love our sweet talks.  I count it a privilege that you remember so much about China and that you choose to let us in on that part of your life.

Since I couldn't choose my favorite from our photo shoot....here's a few to show her spicy little sassiness!