The Lucky One

by Toddie Downs

When people meet our 15-month-old daughter and find out we just returned with her from China this past June, we generally hear the same phrase over and over again: "What a lucky girl she is." What they don't seem to realize, and what no one but other adoptive parents seem to realize, is that we believe we are the lucky ones.

It feels both terribly recent and terribly long ago that we started the adoption process. I wrote an essay for this magazine just one year ago chronicling how hard it was to wait to know who our daughter would be. It seemed surreal at the time to know that our daughter was out there, somewhere in China, but not to know any details about her – her name, what she looked like, or even where in China she was.

In fact, although it felt interminable at the time, the wait was relatively short. Our agency, European Adoption Consultants in Strongsville, sent our paperwork off to China in September 2004, along with the paperwork of seven other adopting families. And on April 18, 2005, I received a call from my husband – "The referrals are here! She's from Fuling!" In his excitement and shock, much to my gentle dismay, he had neglected to find out other trifling details like her name or her birth date. However, he soon rectified that situation by driving out to the agency and collecting the packet of papers containing her name, her birth date, and best of all, her picture, taken when she was about six months old. Serious black eyes stared out at me from the photograph, unsure of the camera and the future.

Six weeks after that day, my husband and I were on a plane to China to meet our daughter, leaving our 3-year-old son in the able hands of his grandparents. The seven other families we traveled with were strangers to us, but our common bond in our daughters, all close in age and all from the same orphanage, forged a tight bond that overcame any differences. Our agency had also provided us with a guide, Zhou, who fulfilled the roles of translator, sightseeing guide, comparison shopper, cultural ambassador, and once we received our daughters, wise uncle. His friendship and easygoing leadership made China accessible and that much more precious to us.

The morning we met our daughter, we traveled past verdant green hills down to the river town of Fuling. As we entered the Fuling Social Welfare Institute, we stood outside in a spacious courtyard as locals clustered at the gate, smiling at these nervous western couples. My feelings as I waited for my daughter were a jumbled mix of joy, sadness for her past, and nervousness that I wouldn't immediately recognize her. And in fact, I didn't recognize her at first; but then I did, and my only remaining thoughts were how best to ease her transition to us. She cried a little, and clung to her caregiver, but when she saw my husband, she reached out to touch his face and peacefully allowed him to gather her in his arms. That is how our family became one larger.

The next few days in China followed a routine, familiar but at the same time new. We learned what made her smile (peekaboo), what made her cry (getting her medical exam), and what made her yell (being fed her favorite food, steamed eggs with soy sauce, too slowly). We watched with amazement as all the girls in our group started to show evidence that they had accepted and begun to bond with their new parents – a snuggle against a daddy's chest, a territorial bark as someone got too close to their mommy.

Our daughter's American name, Liann, translates as "lotus blossom" in Chinese, and she literally has bloomed before our eyes in the months since we returned home. She has gone from barely being able to roll over to walking and climbing. No longer serious, she has a rollicking sense of humor and the stubborn, headstrong nature of a born diva. She has adopted us as surely as we have adopted her.

The Chinese symbol "Fu" translates as "good fortune." It is our daughter's Chinese surname, in fact, the surname of all the daughters in our group, since they come from Fuling. Some may believe that their name offers proof that they are lucky. I believe, however, that with their name, they bestowed good fortune on us. I get to be a mother to this independent sprite, this mop of curly black hair who gives me a toothy grin every morning when she wakes. So truly, I am the lucky one.

Toddie Downs, formerly of Cleveland Heights, juggles motherhood with freelance writing in Snoqualmie, Washington.