We can bring her home

These were my words to Tal yesterday, through tears, when the friendly Chinese woman at the American consulate, sitting behind a large plexiglass window said, "Congratulations!", handed us a piece of paper with instructions for going through the "Foreign Passport Holder" line at our point of entry in the United States, which will be Chicago.

We took our papers and our little bundle of a girl and sat back down with her, her little hands holding onto her XueBing rice cake We hugged her and hugged each other and both cried some more. It has been a long, long wait for our little Bao Bei, our precious treasure. We kissed, then she looked at both of us, and put her hand to Tal's head and pushed it to mine. Kiss again. Then she puckered her lips and kissed her Daddy, then her Mommy with her one big plump wet lower lip and her two little split upper lips.

I hadn't realized how much emotion I was holding inside these past 11 days, holding in until we were given the OK by our government to grant our Chinese child a visa to come back with us. It first hit me when I looked through the plexiglass: sitting on the counter was Dongling's Chinese passport with an ornate and official visa to the United State including her photo. The look of the American document, the photos of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks on the walls, the American flag, the 60 other Chinese kids in the room with their mommies, daddies, grandparents, siblings, and guides, took me out of my Chinese mode and brought me back to my own life, and the reality of bringing Dalia back home to Vermont to meet her big brothers, Henry and Calder, her Grandma Ginger who has been working so hard to get our home ready for our return, her "Aunt" Blair who has been sending love to Dalia as we all communicate via Skype, Renee and John, all of our dogs, cats, guinea pig and chickens and all of the people in Ripton, Middlebury and throughout Vermont, Hudson, Atlanta, St. Paul, Boston, L.A., Beijing, Minneapolis, NYC, Australia, New Mexico, Florida, Texas, Philly... and everywhere else our friends and loved ones live and receive our letters.

The experience at the consulate was once again not what I had expected. We took a bus from the hotel with about 25 other families. We had seen many of these families every morning at breakfast, filling up their plates to fill our American bellies, diaper bags, bottles, stuffed animals, dazed looks. We've listened in on conversations both heartening and disappointing, "Well, her hair has grown in since we've had her, I mean, she's not on her back all day." "Yeah, we should all get together again, how about someplace nice, like the Bahamas." . . .We've seen them in the elevator, laughing around the fish pond and water fall. Tal bumped into a Daddy from Atlanta yesterday who said, "hey, no problem, we're just dodgin' and rollin'." We are all in this together. On Saturday night, at the White Swan Hotel, the whole thing starts all over again.

Yesterday, we went to check out the "deli" - a little store with fresh baked bread, rolls, bread-roll concoctions filled with meats or beans or cheese, soda, sandwiches, pastries, candy and Chinese food to go. I noticed a little American girl with beautiful thick red long curly hair in ringlets, along with her young and clean-cut American Dad, and a boy whom I thought was her American brother, an albino boy about 8 years old. I had one hand on the counter while I was waiting to pay. I looked down and this little boy was kissing my hand. It was the sweetest thing - and I could not figure out what was going on, why was he kissing my hand?

Later, we saw this family at the consulate. The boy was speaking fluent Chinese. Turns out he is the one being adopted. He was going around the room, picking up dropped sweatshirts and handing them to people and being generally helpful. Wow. I looked around the room. There was another adorable boy, about 4, who walked with a limp and had one arm that looked as if it didn't move so well, who had stopped to "talk" to Dalia yesterday. There was a tiny girl with a birthmark of very dark skin on her neck and chest and a thick mane of hair on her lower head and neck. There was the little boy, Henry, with a cleft lip that had been repaired whom Dalia approached our first day here and immediately touched his lip, and two more girls with cleft lip and palate. This is the first year that the number of special needs babies outnumber those without special needs. Babies 2 and over are also considered special needs.The number of domestic adoptions is increasing. This is good news for China, in my opinion.

Along with 35 other families, we were dropped off at the big modern building downtown Guangzhou near the Eastern Train Station. We passed the train station where Tal, Jean Gaines, Dave Case and I stepped out of 22 years ago when we first traveled from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and everyone outside the train was wearing either dark blue or dark green matching shirts and pants.

The consular office is set up almost solely to provide visas to the U.S. In 2009, 3,000 visas were granted for Chinese children to come to the U.S. The other families rode up 5 flights' of escalators; Connie whisked us along and said, "let's take the lift."(She prounounces "lift" with a silent "t".) We all went through security, shoes off, no electronics. then we all waited in the big room. Three consular officers called off names, one at a time. "The family of Hu Dong Ling, China Adoption with Love." We jumped up as fast as we could to the window with our little Dongling.

That night we celebrated by going to a local Chinese restaurant on Shamian Island within walking distance of the hotel. I did the nightly conversation with a waitress and manager to get some help ordering. We ended up with noodles, Chinese spinach, rice, and deep fried beef ribs on the bone. Little Dalia celebrated by eating a lot of noodles by herself - I was elated. Drank a big bottle of Chun Sheng beer (from Guangzhou) and were relieved.

She is doing great. She is flopping around the bed right now and we are hoping she will fall asleep. She is talking to herself, making noises, lifting her arms up and down as if to retell the stories of the day -- visiting the Chen Family Temple, bumping her head on the floor, bumping her eye on the shelf, burning her hand with hot water, running up and down the halls, finding the Xi Yang Yang comic book, taking a long nap while lying on top of Mommy.

We leave in 12 hours for Shanghai, then Chicago, then home. So many more things to tell. We are grateful to have people to read our emails and to care. We will post stories and photos on our blog when we return home, after some sleep.

I will also forward something Tal wrote a few days ago for his students, who are dealing with some challenges related to how to treat each other, how to decide what to say about each other and to each other to be respectful and honor each other. We are all learning from Dalia.