We'll miss you, Rui

Today, we took Zoe to the American Consulate in downtown Guangzhou to receive her U.S. Visa. After verifying that her face looked like her passport photo, we were asked to take an oath along with about 50 other families. And that was it . . . Zoe is now officially ours according to both the Chinese and United States governments. She will become a U.S. citizen when we go through customs in Newark.

This event marked the end of our 1.5 year journey to get Zoe.

And the China part of our journey was made so easy because of the leadership of our guide, Rui (pronounced "Ray"). It was like having a personal assistant for two weeks. In addition to managing our paperwork, money and travel, she arranged for our sightseeing tickets, made dinner reservations for us, organized wake-up calls, facilitated networking between the parents, acted as a tourguide, arranged for buses and taxis, served as a translator, sang to our babies in Chinese on the bus, and was available 24 hours a day (remember when I had no pants at 10:45 at night?). She also told us jokes and Chinese stories on our long bus rides.

I cannot say enough about Rui. She was fantastic, and really seemed to care about us, our babies, and our families. We will miss her.