“You’ve been matched with a little girl!”We’ve never heard sweeter words than those that were spoken to us on October 3, 2005—the day we received our referral and became parents to Jin Li Bing, a baby girl living in Guangxi, China.
We had begun our process fourteen months earlier after attending an informational meeting in Minneapolis. The feeling that we were finally going to be parents seemed so far off and the paperwork so cumbersome. We followed our checklist, celebrating each step along the way, and our paperwork went off to China on February 25, 2005.
Then the real wait began. It was difficult for us; we wanted our daughter home. We wanted to see her face and know where she was. Little did we know, when our paperwork went to China, she was already three weeks old!
We traveled to China in December 2005 and had the time of our lives! We spent a few days in Beijing seeing the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Great Wall, and many other fantastic and historical sites. Then on December 11, we flew to the Guangxi province. We could hardly believe we were in her province, let alone that we were going to get to hold her finally the next afternoon.
Nothing can describe the feeling of watching your baby move from across the room and then into your waiting arms. It was over in a few seconds, but the memory of hearing her caretakers tell her “Mama, Baba” (“Mom, Dad”) and then holding her – the thought of it brings tears to our eyes. Julia was finally with us!
Julia grieved heavily the first few days she was with us. She refused to drink her bottle, would look at us and start to cry, and yet did not want Mommy to put her down. Our Children’s Hope coordinators were so caring, seemingly as concerned about her as we were. They listened to our concerns, offered suggestions, and when Julia finally drank milk they celebrated with us.
We bonded with the other families in our group. We spent evenings with all the girls playing in the hallway of the hotel. Together we shared both our concerns and successes, forming lifelong friendships with these families.The rest of our time in China was amazing. During our six days in Guangxi, and our five in Guangzhou, Children’s Hope took take care of all of the details, from paperwork and appointments to little field trips. This allowed us the time to focus on Julia. We felt like we didn’t have to think about anything but her.
As first time parents, we were so thankful! In fact we teased Anna, one of our coordinators, in the airport in Beijing that we didn’t know how we were going to get to our international flight on our own. She had been there every step of the way to tell us where to go, what bus to get on, what time to be somewhere. We were so well cared for in China!
We’ve had Julia for a year now. It is amazing how she’s grown and changed. We love watching her learn new things every day. We love hearing her say Mommy and Daddy. We love being her parents.
We feel like we are the luckiest parents in the world!
We hope to adopt another daughter someday, and we cannot imagine using any other agency than Children’s Hope. You can trust Children’s Hope to take great care of you here in the U.S., but they will take even better care for you overseas!
--Janette, Joseph, & Julia Melde, MN
