The White Stork and the red couch

We have been in Guangzhou since May 1 and are currently staying at the White Swan Hotel. This hotel is called the White Stork in China adoption circles because most families stay here while completing their paperwork at the US Consulate. Normally the place is crawling with adoptive families, but because of China's May Holiday (which lasts a week) not many families are here now. We are fortunate, though, that we are with two other CCAI groups, and we are getting to know each other. One family is like ours, adopting a child from the waiting child program. The others are a group where most of the families have one or more parents of Chinese descent. Three of the families have girls around Grace's age who are also going through the big sister adjustment period. One family is even vegetarian.

Meeting these families has been a God-send. It has given us people to talk to who are going through similar things. We are going to places we would never have thought to try on our own.

It is tradition to have your adoption group photographed on the White Swan's red couches. Since we are technically our own group, we thought we'd be on the couch alone. But these nice folks invited us to join in.