lost in translation

leaf, the wonderful friend she is, translated our faxed copy of the referral docs that came with Joy's pix. it starts like this:

Zhao Meiwen (female) was found by Ms. Sun Yanfei at the lawn of Ruanling County Track Field in the morning of November 6, 2004. Besides the baby, a bag of powdered milk, a milk bottle and a bag of glucose were found. Ms.Sun Yanfei reported to Ruanling Welfare Institute immediately . . .

there's a ton to unpack in such a small space of words. here is just a sampling of the unpacking i've been doing:

where is Ruanling? can't find it in on the web. yet.
nov. 6. joy's estimated b.day is oct. 3. what happened those first 30 days?
for fear of emotional shut down i haven't truly tried to picture ms. sun yanfei walking to her morning exercises and discovering a one month old infant. i can't imagine.
and then, the real kicker - this is my daughter's story.

the translation goes on to say they named her mei (beautiful) wen (gentle) because that was their hope for the kind of person Joy would become. within a week she was placed with foster parents, where she lives till we go get her as soon as everything is arranged. the docs paint a picture of a happy little girl. how she eats. how she sleeps. how she plays.

i walked the two blocks over to my sister-in-law's house today to join the rest of the family for some dinner and some swimming. i had stayed behind a few minutes to attempt to email everyone and anyone about our happy news. as i strolled i got a quick flash forward of a dark haired, tiny girl trotting along side of me. just happy to be with her daddy. i've got plenty more unpacking to do. i'm already smitten with this little girl.