I was up late last night wrestling with glossy photo paper and HP imaging software trying to print up photos for an album. It occurred to me about halfway through the project that I should be doing this for myself someday, and for my progeny, who might appreciate having an actual book with pages in it as opposed to an imaginary folder inside a virtual directory contained in a laptop that will no doubt be considered a quaint antique by the time the aforementioned progeny are old enough to be curious about such things.

I remember leafing through photo albums with my mother when I was a child. It's an activity that pretty much means "nostalgia" to me. Isn't that the association everyone has with that word? Old photographs?


So, I was up late printing out actual photographs for a physical album. This was part of our China packing. In several weeks, we'll be returning to Chongqing Municipal District. Our new son(son!) is from Yunyang Chengxiang Social Welfare Institute, as are most of the children being adopted by our travel group. But at least one family, from Texas, is adopting a daughter from Fuling First Social Welfare Institute, where our daughter spent the first year of her life. As far as Chinese SWI's go, Fuling seems to be pretty well put together. It's got a website with maps and photographs -- and an area (password protected) for people to look through baby pictures taken at the orphanage. Is that one ours? Is that one? Is this image a part of our daughter's past? Is that her holding that strange Westerner's hand? Is she the one in the fifth crib back?


The Fuling 1st SWI has an email address where you can communicate with someone who speaks English. I've sent a few photographs there as attachments, but I've never gotten a reply. I like to imagine there's someone there who remembers Daughter as an infant. At the time of the big handover, she seemed to be a favorite of the director (although, you know, it's an emotional moment, and thus hard to tell for sure). The people there -- nannies, aunties, nurses, workers, call them what you like -- seemed to... or, well, I like to believe they cared. They had to have cared. Who can hold a baby (or, well, more like 50 babies) and not care? (And, one barely dares to think, might one of them know something off the record about someone who can't be discussed openly who gave birth in Fuling on a foggy, moonlit night in December 2003?)

So, we're carrying an album to China. For them. We've gotten in touch with one of the other families from our old travel group and they're sending pictures, too. Until such time as Daughter can go in person and say, "Ni hao, Fuling. Wo shi Meiguoren, keshi wo shi Fulingren gun nimen ichi bing." Only with better grammar. I'm American, but I'm also a Fulinger with y'all.