November 3rd 2006

May 2006

May 2006

May 2006

As hard as it is to really truly believe....it has been a year since we received "the Call" from our agency to tell us that we had our referral. November 3rd, 2006...a Friday morning...G and I both staying home with the day off from our workplaces in anticipation of "the Call". We nervously and anxiously had our coffee and breakfast talking about everything and nothing. Finally, close to 10am, our social worker called to officially announce that we had our referral. She asked if we wanted her to tell us about our new daughter or wait until we arrived at the agency. We opted to wait...although she couldn't help but tell us that she was "reeeeallly cute!".

We excitedly and immediately grabbed our camera and video camera and jumped in the car; heading down to the agency office to finally see for the first time the daughter the CCAA matched us to and her to us. We had that morning decided that Autumn Rose would be her name along with the name she was given in China. G had laid awake that morning thinking and all that came with being anxious and anticipating the big day when 'Autumn Rose' popped into her head. Autumn was the name I had favoured most while G had liked the other name we had agreed to chose from. Rose came from...? we don't know really. And on the way to the agency G kind of mentioned how it would be funny if her given Chinese name had something to do with flowers.

Finally after arriving and sitting down with our social worker at one of the tables in the room...the folder was placed in front of us and we opened it to meet Wan Chun Lan from WanZhou District in ChongQing. The referal photos of her were both beautiful and a bit heartbreaking...noting the look on her face in each picture. We read through the files and signed the acceptance letter. She would soon be our daughter...our adorable, "reeeeally cute!" daughter. Chun Lan would become part of her name (which we chose to meld together as ChunLan) and yes.....her given name had everything to do with flowers. Spring Orchid.


Here's to the one year anniversary of our referral of Autumn and the 5 hectic crazy weeks between then and when we flew to China to get her. The next big day being December 11th when us and the nine other families in our group finally met and received our children.