Gotcha Day – 17 Years Ago Today

We met Lily 17 years ago today! Her name was Ling Guang Su at the time. She was 20 months old and wore 9 month old clothing. We were required to have her with us for 24 hours prior to finalizing her adoption…which we have always celebrated tomorrow on August 31st….the day she became Lily Su Grace Messina. Today I was looking at one of the many photobooks we have of our trip to the People’s Republic of China to get Lily. We took both of our sons with us to get Lily. They were 10 and 12 at the time and we were there for 19 days. I wrote out her story in the first page of this particular book and I thought I would share those words with you now:

This is the story of a trip to the Far East to bring a daughter to the Messina family. The Messina family was blessed with two wonderful sons, Joe and Tim, but felt there might be a little girl out there in the world who could use our family’s abundance of love. We had friends who had adopted internationally and thought maybe that should be our path as well. Our family and friends were supportive in our endeavors. once we arrived in Okinawa, Japan, we were closer to China than we would ever be and felt the time was right to go searching for the little girl who would be our daughter.

We contacted Harrah’s Adoption International Mission and quickly hired them as our adoption agency. On December 12th, 2005, their fourth Waiting Child list was released to families wishing to adopt. The list contained the names of 40 children: 20 girls and 20 boys from various provinces in the People’s Republic of China. All of the children on the list had special needs of some kind. We poured over the list of children, looking at the little faces and reading their brief stories written by their orphanage directors and their nannies. Joe and Tim looked at the list with us and listened as we read the narratives with the photographs. After some research and talking as a family, we petitioned for a little girl who was called “SuSu.’

SuSu was one of the youngest children on the list. Upon seeing her baby picture the very first time, we all commented on how she had such big cheeks. She had thoughtful little eyes and very little hair as she was very young in the pictures the orphanage provided. SuSu had two strikes against her in China: she was born a girl and she was born without a left hand. Together those two circumstances meant a life that would be unimaginable to Americans. She would not even be allowed to attend school because of her missing hand.

SuSu had been abandoned at the Guangfeng County Government building outside of Shangrao City in Jiangxi Province. She was found in the early morning by two women who were coming to work. She was in a cardboard box and had a blanket and a bag of powdered milk with her. She had been placed where she would be readily found. She was obviously deeply loved by a family who just couldn’t keep her and wanted her to have a better life. Their sacrifice became our joy.

SuSu was found on January 18th, 2005. She was placed in the Shangrao City Social Welfare Institute after being looked over by physicians. They guessed her age to be approximately two week and gave her an official birthdate of January 4th, 2005. This is important in Chinese culture. She was born before the Chinese New Year in 2005 and therefore is considered a Monkey. The director of the SWI gave the baby girl a name: Ling Guang Su. Ling is the last name of every child in the orphanage and relates to the beautiful mountains nearby. Guang is a shortened version of the location in which she was found. Su means plain; white. It was not a traditionally beautiful name of a flower or precious jewel like most girls received. They did not have much hope for her future either, it would seem.

On December 17th, 2005, we receive a call at 0330 in the morning saying that we were chosen to be SuSu’s adoptive family. For months we worked on the required paperwork and in August 2006, we were approved to travel to China to pick up our daughter. We had decided her name would be Lily Su Grace Messina. Even though we weren’t going around the planet to pick her up, just a couple of quick plane rides away, the anticipation of visiting China and adopting our daughter was incredibly high. This is our journey to China to get Lily in pictures and our own words. This trip changed all of our lives forever…for the better.

Lily was terrified when we first met her. She had been taken away from her foster mother that morning….and Director Ye (the orphanage director) had her on a hot bus ride for 3 hours to get to the capitol city of Nanchang. We were waiting for her on the 26th floor of the Civil Affairs Office. There was one other family waiting for their daughter along with us….another American family whom we had actually met trekking the Great Wall of China outside of Bejing the day prior. What where the chances? We still keep in touch…17 years later. Their daughter came in first. Then there was Lily. She was so afraid. She was trying to be so brave…she tried to hold her tears until she just broke down. It was heartbreaking. I knew we could give her a life she would never have in China…and yet, this huge change in her life was really traumatic and very hard to be a part of. The boys were great. They were so excited to have a baby sister that they were doing all sorts of tricks to try and endear themselves to her. They brought bubbles to entertain her with…toys….balls…snacks…and stuffed animals. Unfortunately, she had never seen a stuffed animal before and it petrified her. By the evening in our hotel room that first night, she started playing with Joe and Tim, and snuggling with her Baba (dad). She started pushing me away almost immediately as I was trying to replace her foster mom. I spoke enough Chinese to try and explain to her that I was her new mom and I loved her…but it was a few days of me doing all her daily care activities for her to start to warm up to me.

Now Lily is away in college learning how to make the world a more beautiful place with her artistic talent. She is funny and smart and inquisitive, and I really enjoy spending time with her. She always makes me laugh and I love the way her mind works. I miss her a lot….today especially. We are trying not to be helicopter parents but I will most likely try to talk to her tonight or tomorrow night. Here are some photos from the time we spent in China together….our bonding time alone with our new family of five. It was a really magical time. We had to set a timer for the boys to take turns pushing her in the stroller because they fought over her. She was literally starving….she ate us all under the table for the first six months we had her. We were told that she would be formula fed mostly until at least age two to keep her petite. We quashed that right away. Enjoy the photos…which are photos of photos in a book…so they are a little grainy looking. It was easier for me to find these photos this way though. Happy Gotcha Day, Lily Su! We can’t imagine how boring life would have been without you!