Ni hao,
Some of you will be surprised to hear this, others... not so much....
On Wednesday, September 2nd, we got THE CALL from our adoption agency. Those of you who have been down the road of international adoption know the tenor of "the call". It's a run of the mill day, and you answer the phone, not expecting it to be any different from any other day. Within minutes, your heart stops momentarily, your mind goes blank and you can't think of a damn thing to say to the voice on the other end of the line telling you that that there is a beautiful little person waiting for you half a world away.
Kiyomi, Kohji and I are delighted to introduce our son and brother, Ren Ao-Xiang Miller (currently Min Ao Xiang). Xiang Xiang (we believe it to be pronounced 'Shyang Shyang'), as he is nicknamed, was born on June 8, 2008, making him 15 months old as we write this. He is waiting for us in Qinzhou City, Guangxi Province, in the south of China. By all indications, he is a happy, healthy, active little guy with a mild congenital heart condition. If all goes well, we will be travelling in February or March to meet him, and bring him home.
We're actually still a little shell shocked as we really hadn't expected any word until later in the fall, and international adoption being what it is, we had braced ourselves for an even longer wait. We'll try to post more information as it becomes available.
We're calling him Ren and Xiang Xiang pretty much interchangeably around the house and probably will for the first little while after he comes home so that he hears something familiar.
Kiyomi is ready and waiting for her little brother, although we're sure the reality will not live up to the hype for her as the realization dawns that there is a requirement to share toys and parents with him. In the meantime, we talk about Xiang Xiang, and she assures us that he should sleep on the floor in her room and he can have some of her snack. As a starter, we've changed the name of our blog to make room for little Ren in this small corner of our lives.So wish us luck as we head down a now familiar, but no less amazing, path to parenthood.
Good night from Ottawa (and good morning from Guangxi)
