Five Years Ago Today....

We packed up our gifts for the nannies and for the children at the orphanage, 

drove 45 minutes to Bac Ninh and arrived with with the other families,

got our first glimpse of Ngo Minh Hanh and one of her nannies,

witnessed those who cared for her for eleven months as they said their goodbyes

and placed my daughter in my arms.

Then the government of Viet Nam did the same legally and officially.

One person in this photo is in heaven, and  I'm guessing the other is thinking, loosely translated,  "What the hell is going on and who is this man holding me like he's known me his whole life?"

We were encouraged to bring a pacifier to soothe her, so we stuck this in her mouth.  She obliged for a couple of minutes and then spit it out, never allowing it in again. 

It wasn't clear to us at the time, but now we easily see the confusion, aloofness, and fear on her face from those first moments and days.  

Flash forward five years:

While we were eating breakfast the other morning, Beatrice-out of the blue- stated "I wish I was born from your body Mama."  After my gut unwrenched, I asked her what would be different if that had happened?  She said a few things that were tough to hear because for five years we've tried to normalize, celebrate, and at times even glamorize, her adoption, different types of families, and her cultural identity.  But in this moment of time  she was wishing for a different beginning.

  I don't think she feels that way most of the time, and I don't want to react negatively to these moments and make her stop talking and letting me into her heart and thoughts. I know it's a normal and necessary journey as she sorts out her identity. Since that breakfast talk, she's asked me a dozen times to tell her about the day she was born and/or the day we picked her up from the orphanage. 

I tell her the truth, that I don't know much about the day she was born, but that I was certain the moon shone bright and the stars twinkled brightly and that her presence immediately improved the world. 

  I tell her moment by moment of April 8, 2009, and focus most on the second we spotted her, how we knew who she was by her "pineapple ponytail," how she was shy but came to us willingly, how she put her head on each of our shoulders within minutes,

 how she was the only baby who was allowed to sit with the parents during the G&R, how she fell asleep on the hard table, how she stared at me in the van and sat contentedly with Daddy, how she slept soundly that first night and had congee and yogurt for her first breakfast with us, how she finally showed us her 8 teeth during her first smile nearly 24 hours later, how Daddy and I were in love with her right away.

Almost two thousand days have passed and nearly as many photographs and one thing is nearly always clear:  Beatrice is a happy girl.  Countless people have commented about that. She's happy with her house, toys, books, pets, extended family and friends, but she'd be the first one to tell you what makes her happiest:  Mama and Daddy. The three of us clung to each other those first days in Hanoi and we haven't really stopped since.  G&R, "Giving and Receiving".....I don't remember giving much at all that day or the months preceding,  but what we received was the extraordinary blessing of sharing this life and day to day existence with the most precious human being on the planet.