the time had arrived!

for 14 months we had been praying and loving for our daughter a half a world away. when the whole adoption process began- she had not made her appearance into the world.

after 11.5 months of paperchasing and waiting- we received information on who and where our daughter was- Cheng Tian Xi was born on april 24, 2004 and was waiting for us in Xiaogan City- Hubei Province- Peoples Republic of China.

for 7 weeks- we had 3 pictures of our daughter. i studied those pictures until i had every detail of them burned into my memory. every detail from the dirty mismatched clothes, the rosy chubby cheeks, her sharp vigilance, her excited look when she tried something new.

yet- in spite of all of the praying, waiting, picture memorizing- nothing compared to the emotions I felt when I actually laid eyes on xixi for the first time.

at 3:30- we arrived at the civil affairs office where we would meet xixi for the first time and finalize the adoption-

our bus pulled up at the same time the babies did-

4 precious little girls in matching yellow sweat suits-

it took us a few minutes to figure out which child was xixi- she was bald in all of her referral pictures- but one of the other moms said "look- she's the one on the left- look at her face!"




of course! how could I forget those cheeks!


all of my hopes, love, excitement, joyful anticipation were thrown out of the window- I was looking at my daughter for the first time. the world stopped. all i wanted to do at that moment was hold her and never put her down.


as soon as I snapped a few pictures- the babies were whisked off to a room until we had signed and sealed all of the official paperwork.


that was the longest 45 minutes of my life!


when they brought xixi out to us- i grabbed her out of the nanny's hands. our 14 month journey to katherine grace tian xi blauwkamp had ended. GOD at last- had united us as a family!




xixi's first hours with us were not as joyful to her.


she took one look at us and screamed bloody murder for 2.5 straight hours.


in one short day she went from the foster family who had cared for her since she was two days old, put on a bus for 2 hours, had a hot and stuffy sweat suit stuffed on her and handed off to 2 people who looked like aliens and smelled like sour milk.


and yet- here were are- 3 years later- the family god put together.


god knew that xixi was our daughter and we were her parents. he sent us half way around the world to unite us- but here we are!