Official... again!

After Eight months, several errors by our adoption agency, multiple trips to the courthouse, and too many fees to count, Reagan will finally be adopted (again) tomorrow! Since Dan and I both traveled to Vietnam, Reagan has legally been ours since the Giving and Receiving ceremony there in May, but here we are replaying the game through the California system. The real carrot at the end is a U.S.-issued birth certificate. There are added benefits related to inheritance issues, and we will legally change her name to ours as part of the process, but mostly we didn’t want to have to depend on our ONE official copy of her Vietnamese birth certificate for the rest of her life – that’s just way too much pressure! I anticipate that the court hearing will be much like the one in Reagan’s hometown - a few signatures and photos, maybe a couple of little speeches exchanged - and though this one doesn’t change Reagan’s legal status as our daughter, she feels so much more like our daughter this time around. For that reason tomorrow will be a special day.
The day of Reagan’s first adoption was a little overwhelming – for her and for us. She had just left everything and everyone she had ever known, including the caregiver who clearly loved her and the four walls that had been her whole life, for the arms of some very odd looking, odd smelling foreigners. She was content – even happy (she repeatedly laughed and smiled at me that day!) – but her sweet little personality was still hidden. We had loved her in concept for almost two years, cherished her photos for 5 months, and visited her in her orphanage for three days, but she was still very much a stranger to us.
However, today I love Reagan in the deepest, mommy-est sense of the word. I know her as only a mama could. I understand her cries, her babbles, her patterns, and her preferences. I cherish her giggle, her swagger, her soft jet-black hair. I love the way she laughs at her brother, cuddles with her sister, can’t stop kissing her cousin, and embraces her role as daddy’s little daredevil. She just fits into our family. For all that went into finding her, bringing her home and now making her a Californian, it’s so clear that God made and choose her just especially for us. Reagan Thao-Van was “ours” legally on May 15th, 2007, but now she’s “ours” because she’s one of us.