I will save that for the next trip back...
Police Scooter... We took this one for Tyler... We never got a picture of one when we were there adopting Tessa in 2007.... A Gorgeous Taiwanese Women was the proud Policewomen of this scooter.... she was directing traffic.
With a box of Kleenex by my side.... this has taken me almost a month to the day to post about our last day together in Taiwan. A once in a lifetime chance to meet our new daughter while waiting to bring her home forever...This is a hard one to write about....
Our last night together was one filled with tears, lots of hugging and holding... Tori knew I was packing, she knew I was organizing all the great goodies I brought to her from home and all of her new things we bought in Taiwan. I would walk room to room carrying a tissue, trying not to show her I was upset and crying. The constant knot in my throat was unbearable... She saw me crying and came to me crying. She knew this was nearing the end of my visit...I finally sat down with her and just held her in the chair and cried with her. I just kept squeezing her, wiping her tears and telling her in Chinese I Love You! She would just sob. It was so hard... I finally brought out my hand held translator and sat her on the edge of the bed and began to type in what I needed to say...I told her, you know I have to leave tomorrow. Yes she said. I told her I am packing her stuff to take back to the foster family. Yes she said. She held my hand. She was reading the translator as I typed.... I typed in I will be back to bring you home to America forever when Taiwan says all of her papers are done. As simple as I could explain it to her... She started to cry harder..... And so did I.... So hard. So horrific to try and ease my sweet baby girls sadness about her Mom leaving.... So we shared about 2 hours till we fell asleep some Keenex and love...I got up the next morning and got ready and then woke her up as usual.... Such a great sleeper. We headed down for breakfast and the knot was so far up in my throat it was hard to get food down. Then my tears started to roll out at breakfast. At this point she was almost done eating so I turned away a lot. I did not want her to cry while down for breakfast. It was all I could do to get back up to the room and go cry in the bathroom.... I didn't want her to cry anymore... So the bellmen came and took our stuff down and we sat and watched cartoons together for a while longer.. At 11:30 am we headed downstairs to meet Mr. Yeh to take her back to the center where her Social Worker works. We needed to be there at 12. When we showed up Tori said something about eating and her Social Worker said go eat and come back.... Even though it had only been about 2 hours since our breakfast we did so... Mr. Yeh wanted us to go to this nice Tea place but they were packed... So we ended up at KFC, which Tori likes and ate well at as usual... We headed back to the center to pick up Tori's social worker because we were going to take Tori to shcool. Tori had an end of marking period test to take.... YIKES!!!!!!!!!
We got to her school and I wanted to take a picture of her and she said no. Then her social worker asked her to come on and she clearly hesitated to get out of the van. She asked her again to come on she needed to go to school. She got out of the van and started to cry really hard.... It was sooo horrible. She was holding onto my leg and sobbing..... I was crying, and so was everyone else at this point.... My beautiful baby girl, crying so hard because she did not want to leave her Momma.... She stood there in her adorable pink coat, her ruffled pink umbrella crying because she did not want to see me leave.... My heart hurt so bad..... I did not want to leave her.... She is my daughter. Clearly we formed a perfect bond in the 5 days I got to spend with her.....I leaned down to her, hugged her, squeezed her even tighter, wiped her tears and told her I love you in Chinese and watched her walk off with her wonderful government social worker to check into to school.... I only watched for a minute before getting back in the van. She was still crying.... Mr. Yeh and I drove off and it was so sad.... We stopped at Starbucks for some coffee and after I added all my cream and sugar I thought all I need in it now is WHISKEY! Something to help me survive the emotions of leaving my daughter behind. We headed to the airport and I was able to catch the earlier flight and did pretty good emotionally after that. I knew in my heart, I will forever be greatful for Taiwan, Cathwell, and her social workers for allowing me the opportunity to come to Taiwan and meet our new daughter while she waits through the courts to bring her home forever.... I could never have asked for a better trip, a more perfect meeting and a more perfect week spent with Tori. I got to have many first with her.... The bathtub, the blowdryer, painting her nails, hot chocolate, hearing her sing Justin Bieber's Baby, seeing her dance, try to blow a bubble, watching her play with foam soap, seeing her pop the head off of her Polly Pocket to put her little rubber clothes on, hearing her say I Love You Momma in English, and sooo much more but especially her Smile.... We chose her beacause no matter what her situation, no matter watch she has been through.... Tori is a survivor. She always has a smile..... We love her so very much and hope the rest of her process goes very fast.... Thanks Tori! For loving your Mom while in Taiwan and I will try to wait patiently for the day I return to bring you home to America forever!
We All Love you!
Outside Tayouan Airport
I told her to write her name and she wrote Tori... Then I said ... Can you write your Chinese Name too!!!Ha Ha...
In our room right before they picked up our stuff to leave! Such a happy face for such a sad day to come.....
