Process in Hubei

THE ADOPTION PROCESS in the provincial capital is all about completing Chinese paperwork. The day after Gotcha Day, our adoption becomes official once the adoption affairs registrar records the adoption. So we returned to the adoption affairs office, where we had received Emily the day before, and had the adoption officially recorded. This process involved having a family photo taken for the adoption registration, answering several interview questions about why we wanted to adopt Emily and what our plans for her future might be, meeting the orphanage director and having a photo taken with him -- our famous "Mr. Lin," then exchanging gifts with the orphanage director. We offered our monetary contribution and material gifts, and we received Emily's immunization record and "finding ad." You can read more about this experience on our Adoption blog.

Our part of completing the Chinese side of the paperwork trail was complete. As we waited several days getting to know Emily, touring Wuhan, shopping, and experiencing the interesting, tasty, and sometime unappetizing cuisine of Hubei Province, Chinese officials accepted and recorded our adoption, then issued Emily a Chinese passport. Although experiencing Emily's home province is an important part of the adoption process, the truth is we were simply awaiting the passport to clear and be returned to us. The day after we all received our daughter's Chinese passports, we headed to Guangzhou.

Receiving Emily's passport marked the waning days of her Chinese citizenship, something she'll learn about much later in her life. Upon receiving her passport, we were free to travel with Emily to request and receive her United States travel visa. And this travel visa, once we arrived on U.S. soil, converted Emily's citizenship from Chinese to American, just like that.

Wuhan is a larger city that we imagined, larger in population that Hong Kong. The Yangtze River is the central feature of the city, along with the East Lake after which our hotel was named. Here in Wuhan, Chairman Mao is said to have swam across the Yangtze River when he was over 80 years of age to demonstrate his virility and strength. We have it on good authority, however, that Mao's bodyguards make have assisted Mao along the way from time to time! The Yangtze is part of China's lifeblood, and experiencing just a sliver of Wuhan and Hubei's history drilled that into us quickly. I enjoyed getting to know just a tiny bit about Wuhan and Hubei, as one day we will share this information with Emily.