Letter From Mom

At a few minutes after midnight on Sunday, the phone rang, it was Elizabeth and she happily announced " We have her Mom, she's right here in Mark's arms!"
Allowing for the 16hrs. difference in time, it was actually 4 p.m. Dec. 27, Monday.

The brief story is, that they were in Changsha in a big room filled with American families waiting for their babies. The babies and their nannies had traveled for 6 hrs. on a bus from the orphanage, they were brought into the room, the adopting families name was called out and then the baby handed to them. Elizabeth said that Linsey arched her back and started to cry as they handed her to Elizabeth, but they pulled out the cheerios and she became their new best friend, fell asleep in Mark's arms in the middle of all this noise.. The room was chaos as crying babies and crying parents came together. Nick and Amy both had cameras and got many pictures of the event. Lib is going to try to e-mail some to us. They were back in their hotel room when Elizabeth called. Linsey only cried briefly each time they handed her to another family member, which I heard as Mark handed the baby to Amy. It will be interesting to see how the night went.

They will be in Changsha for another couple of days filling out more paperwork ,sight-seeing, shopping. They fly to Guangzhou on Friday where the American Consulate is. Linsey will have a medical exam and they will get her Visa.

It has been very cold and snowy in both Beijing and Changsha. Sight-seeing has not been enjoyable. Guangzhou is supposed to be tropical so maybe they will get warmed up. They fly back to Beijing on Wed. the 5th and then home on Thur. the 6th.

Keep praying for all of them, especially that they will stay healthy

Mom