A Christmas Chinese adoption story - that also happens to be ours

New Year's resolution No. 1 - must blog regularly. My personal blog: not-so-bad. My fitness and writing blogs: in need of major TLC.

So here we go - first post of the almost new year is an easy one. The hubby and I wrote an article that was published last week in his The Sentinel-News. It speaks for itself. As if Christmas didn't bring us enough reasons to celebrate. Here's the top of the article. The link in this graf will take you to the whole thing (with lst year photos). The ending made my mama (and others) cry. Happy tears, of course. And below is a photo of our girl taken this Christmas - my how she has changed!

By Steve Doyle and Stephanie Erickson Doyle

We’d never spent a Christmas season more than six inches apart from at least one member of our immediate family – until last year.

We find ourselves nearly 8,000 miles away – literally on the other side of the world. We sit not by a decorated tree but in a chilly, dimly lit and officious conference room.

Santa would not to be seen for two more days, but we are there with two other families to receive the most precious, unique and everlasting gift a person ever could receive: a new baby girl.

This office is in Nanchang, China, a 2-hour flight southeast of Beijing, and on this gray and drizzly afternoon a woman we’ve never seen – and likely won’t again – walks into the room and hands us a 9-month-old girl swaddled in layer upon layer of clothing.

Though we had not met this little girl, we had traveled so far in so many ways and had given of ourselves for this moment: to gaze at her lovingly in wonder as she stares right back, not smiling, not weeping, just giving a peaceful look of familiarity.

We recognize her from her pictures because of her chubby cheeks and round head that has almost no hair. She sits on our laps and quietly looks about, as much as her clothing allows, or nibbles on a sugar wafer brought for that moment. Other families and their babies are abuzz around us, but we are caught in a strange aura of intimacy.

There are no carols playing, no angels singing, nothing merry and bright, but the essence of Christmas – love and miracles – could not be more alive.

This is the story of this gift, the Miracle of Savannah.