Rachel Stafeil

In May 1997, I traveled to China on a graduate school study trip. Much of the trip was spent visiting companies, but we found time to see some sights, including the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.

I remember seeing American families struggling to push their newly adopted Chinese babies over the many thresholds of the Forbidden City. Who would have known that eleven years later I would be back in China to bring home my own precious daughter?

Fast forward to 2008 and I found myself back in China with my then husband pushing our own newly adopted daughter through the sights of Guangzhou. Our two sons were home with Grandma and Grandpa while we were bonding with Lily. Maybe some business person or student saw us and will be back years later to adopt their own daughter!

In March, we celebrated eight years with Lily. I can’t believe it has been eight years – the time has just flown by. Our family without Lily is unimaginable. It sounds so cliché, but she has been a gift to us and to all who meet her. She is kind, thoughtful, loving, and just all around awesome.

Since Lily joined our family, life has been an adventure full of twists, turns, and bumps in the road that I never would have imagined. Lily has adjusted to interstate moves, house moves, crazy older brothers like a champ.  The biggest bump in the road came four and a half years after we adopted Lily – her father and I divorced. I worried about how all my children would react to this change. Amazingly they all, including Lily, took it in stride. Now, three and a half years later my kids are well adjusted and used to going back and forth between their dad’s and my house.

Adoption has added so much to my life. Besides the obvious gift of my amazing daughter, adoption opened me up to a fascination with Chinese history and culture. Adoption introduced me to a group of friends who live all over the country with whom I have the special bond of having spent the first weeks with our daughters together. Adoption has made me more thoughtful about other cultures and the struggles mothers face throughout the world. Most importantly, adoption brought me Lily.