Care Package for Jaime

We have made a small care package up for Jaime that she will get sometime next week. Our agency coordinators are taking a group to China to get their children on Saturday and she said we could send a small box of baby gifts and she will mail it directly to Jaime's orphanage while she's in China. So here's a list of things we sent... a disposable camera (so the orphanage nannies can snap some pictures of her that they will give back to us for developing), a taggies blanket (thanks Catherine), a plush toy duckie rattle, teething keys, and a photo album containing pictures of all her new family members. We have been counting down the weeks until we travel... five more Saturdays to get through and then we leave!!

Fu Die, or Fudie, or Fu Tieh, or Fu-dieh, or what ?

David's been trying to figure out what her middle name is going to be. Or, more precisely, how to spell it so that the average Joe Canadian gets it sort of right. The way it was translated on her dossier ("Fu Die") lends itself to being pronounced it like the English word "die", which is a little odd to have in your name. We certainly started saying it that way when we first read it, so likely everyone else will too. The way it's really pronounced in Mandarin is actually closer to "dieh", or maybe even "tieh", or maybe a combination of the two ("dtieh").

阳 = yáng (listen here)

福 = fú (listen here)

蝶 = dié (listen here)

David even consulted his Taiwanese friend from work who speaks Mandarin, who in turn consulted her mother and a phonetic dictionary. Listen here to how she says it. The phonetic dictionary she consulted actually translates 蝶 as "tieh", compared to the "die" in Pinyin. [Aside : for those unfamiliar with Pinyin, it's a standardized way of "romanizing" Chinese characters, ie translating them into the Latin alphabet. It's sort of phonetic but not really.]

Anyway, I'm sure you're less interested in the process and more with the conclusion ... after much discussion, we decided that we will make her middle name "Fu-dieh". Jaime Fu-dieh. Sounds kind of nice :)

Setting up the crib

Well, the whole family pitched in tonight and helped get Jaime's room ready. Jared showed his prowess on the screwdriver in putting the crib together, Emily did the heavy lifting of the mattress, and Caleb brought up the basket of baby toys and picked out a ball she's bound to love.

It's mind-boggling to think of the happy and excited preparations that are being made for her, of which she is completely unaware.

10,000 hits

Wow, it's hard to believe, but since we posted the news about Jaime, we've had over 10,000 hits on this page ! We're happy to have as many people as possible celebrate her with us; hope you keep checking back as we get closer to bringing her home !

Judge for yourselves

No, these aren't both Jaime ... the one on the right is a baby picture of Melissa (circa mid-1970s). Part of the application included sending current pictures of both the parents, ostensibly for the purpose of using similarity in visual features as one of the many matching criteria. (The Chinese government didn't have this picture, but we dug it up to see if there was any similarity.) I'm not sure quite how that all works; it seems pretty subjective to me ... but who knows, maybe they've got fancy CSI-calibre pattern recognition software :) Anyway, judge for yourselves ... did Melissa look anything like Jaime at her age ?

Her name will be Jaime

Well, we've decided ... Yang Fu Die will join our family as Jaime ! It's pronounced like "Jamie", but spelled like French for "I Love" (j'aime). We're going to keep Fu Die as her middle name, but Canadianize by making it into one name (something like Fudie, we'll work on the actual spelling of that once we figure out how it's supposed to be pronounced). Apparently, from her file, the staff at the orphanage gave her the name (which means Fu = Lucky, Die = Butterfly) because they wanted her to be "as beautiful as a butterfly, and have a happy life." We echo their blessing on her !

Here she is !!!

We just got in from seeing the Transformers movie with some good friends, checked our email, and saw that our agency had emailed us her pictures ! She's awesome, we even think she looks like Melissa (sort of). Her Chinese name is Yang Fu Die, and she was born October 28, 2006. We're so excited - we'll have to show the kids in the morning when they wake up (since it's midnight) !

Unbelievable news !!

We just got news that we'll be traveling to Chóngqìng, which is in Sìchuān province ! That's spice-land ! We don't know anything more at this point, but we assume that this means our child will be a spicy girl ... since David was hoping that of all places to go in China, Sìchuān would be the best, this seems like unbelievable news ! Stay tuned as we should get her picture in a day or two ...

It's official...

The CCAA has updated their site and they have matched families up until Nov. 14/05. They don't normally update the site unless the referrals have been sent out. So we wait a little longer. Perhaps we will get the call on Monday but I'm still hoping for this afternoon!! Thanks for checking back and all the well wishes in the comments, we appreciate them!!

The stork is in the air...

We have heard that people on the West coast have received "the call" from their agencies. We expect the East coast and Canada to receive their referrals on Friday!!!I can't believe the wait is almost over. David and I are really excited. We can't wait to share our good news with you!!