The Adventures of Terry Sipes(BaBa)

The whole story of MiMi coming to us is an interesting one.
I went to visit my newly married sister Mary, down at a beach house in Casey key that she has been renting for years. Sometime in March, being homesick(she now lives in Jacksonville), she invited my mother and father, my baby sister Teresa, and myself.

It wasn't until I joined several Chinese adoption online support groups that I realized that our referral would come literally hours after I had left town.

The agency is always cautious in letting us know the timing of things because the Chinese government can be unpredictable.

I was told possibly the end of May or most likely June.

The other waiting parents on the internet were spreading rumours that the referrals would arrive on the May 23 and the cut off date for Dossier log in dates was 11/19/2004...this was the exact date our paperwork was logged in in China.

I was nervous about leaving and I emailed the agency all of my and Terry's contact numbers.

I thought that the trip would distract me from the wait(we had been waiting for Mimi for over a year).

I was on the beach in one of my favorite places in the world and my phone rang. I ran to the phone and I heard my darling Terry. He was crying he said "You are a mom" . I ,of course immediately, became hysterical. I had been preparing for this moment for what seemed to be most of my life and here it was.

I had put a sheet of paper by each phone with all of the questions to ask the agency when they had called. Terry was to overwhelmed(understandably), He found out her age(13 months), her birthdate(April 13 2004), and her name Nan Yu Bao, Nan is her surname and it will match every child brought to the orphanage in that year.Yu Bao we would later find out means, Precious Baby in the Rain.

The agency sends us the referral, which includes photos and her medical evaluation. It also contains an acceptance form that must we choose to accept her or not and then sign. This must be returned in 48 hours.

As I am gasping for breath and asking Terry questions, my sister is yelling in the background"Fly down Fly Down"

We had a voucher left over from another trip so Terry called the agency and had them reroute our baby to Casey key. He called work and made some lame excuse and was on a plane by 6 am the next morning.

I picked him up at the Tampa airport.

The beach house that my sister rents is right on the Gulf and when you are on the porch you can't hear when someone is at the door(no doorbell).

I made my mother sit by the door so we wouldn't miss the Fed Ex person.
We arrived home at 11:30 and the envelope was there waiting for us, our baby.

My mother urged us to go into a seperate bedroom for privacy but I just began opening the envelope ,searching for her .

I had been dreaming of her. I saw her little serious face and I thought that she really didn't look like any of the names we had on our list to name her.They suddenly seemed to cutesy for this baby.They lacked history and dignity somehow.

We scoured the medical report to try and figure out what was what. It was all in Chinese and I speak a little Mandarin but I don't read the characters.

Our agency called and told us that the translation had been emailed to me.

Terry and I jumped in the car and headed to the local library to find out more about our daughter. First, we signed the acceptance and overnighted it to the agency(we didn't have it notarized and that is another tale.)

We reached the library and got to a computer terminal. The computer took forever to sign on.

I printed out the report and Terry went to the front desk to pick it up. He was walking toward me and we both said in unison"Precious Baby in the Rain".
I began to weep, one ,because this really implicates that when they found her she had been left in a place not sheltered form the rain. They commented in her file that she was wet when she came to the orphanage.

In addition to that, I call Terry my precious baby, I call my daughter precious baby. When I was growing up, I called my little sisters precious baby.

I was dissecting the report to see what they had to say about her. She is healthy, she laughs out loud, she loves to listen to adults talk, she likes music, and to play with rattle and small balls.

They went through her first year month by month. She seemed to be on target. She began to walk with help at 9 months.
She eats a lot(you can tell by the picture)
She eats pork bone soup,minced pork soup, egg soup,congee(rice cereal) fruit and vegetable juice.

In Terry's estimation, she is a genius.

I cried all of the way home. We got back to the house and started to face the next big question.Her name.
Terry refused to consider her name until he saw her. We had a list and I would press the issue because, I really wanted to name her, it made everything more real.

He then wanted to know, first, what her Chinese name meant. He tried to go online, when he first got her Chinese name and he figured it meant Jade, and knowlege.

That is Mandarin for you, it means Precious baby in the rain.

Anyway, we thought and thought...Phoebe had been in the running, Natasha...Daisy(I think that was a Fillmore name), Isabella, and Mary Margaret.

Paulina hates this name. We had inherited Terry's mom and stepdads little terrier and her name was Mary margaret of Monte Vista. I loved that dog(she is gone now).She was named after Terry's mom and aunt.

I have my older sister Mary and my younger sister Margaret. My mom's mom was Margaret, my aunt is Mary Margaret. Terry's mom is Mary, and his aunt Margaret.....many strong lovely women in our families with this name.
I made a concession with Paulina and we decided she would be called Mimi as a nickname. She accepted that.

Terry stayed with me for a few days and then returned to Michigan to work the remainder of his week. I was anxious to get home and begin all of the preparations for her coming home.

It is Memorial Day and I this has been the most emotional week of my life(along with giving birth to Paulina and marrying my darling husband.
I am exhausted, and our adventure has just begun.

More later