Daughter, whose umbilical hernia starred in one or two old entries now has a new navel. There's a scar on it, and it doesn't stick out like it used to. She was not, technically, a "special needs" or "waiting" child, but there are things that are not like other children - the scar on her abdomen is already fading, but there are other, less obvious things. Being raised in a Social Welfare Institute, to a certain degree, is a special need.

Parents who go this route get used to surprises. Some are minor, and some prove to us that we are stronger than we thought. That's a New York Times column by a mother who had a complicated adoption. If you don't like thinking about secret potential spinal tumors and medical misadventures - and misdiagnoses - you might want to skip it. But it's really worth a read.

I held on to him and cried into his chest, angry that creating a family seemed so impossible for us, and that life had already been so difficult for Natalie.

Back at the hotel, we hounded the women from the agency: Why wasn’t this in her medical report? How could a scar that size not be noticed? It was two inches long, for God’s sake.

They shook their heads. Shrugged. Apologized.

We never faced anything like that, but we did test positive for giardia, which is fairly common in kids adopted from China (and in some parts of the U.S.). What's strange is that it seemed to be a false positive - giardia is a parasite of the digestive system, and I believe the test consists of looking at a stool sample under a microscope and actually seeing the thing in there. Daughter never had symptoms, tested positive, took a course of treatment, tested positive again, and our pediatrician threw his hands up and said, "Heck, she seems fine and there's nothing different I can do." So we didn't. She's still fine.

Some adoptive parents are being more proactive about giardiasis in Chinese S.W.I.s. That's a story about Leane O'Daniel, an American public works technician who helped donate and install UV filtration systems for four S.W.I.s, including the one Daughter came from - Fuling, Chongqing Municipal District. She adopted a daughter and started noticing a lot of kids testing positive for giardia. And did something.

That's the other kind of surprise one finds on this route - people willing to help out in unexpected ways. Some are parents, and some are senators. Like John Thune (R, South Dakota) (and A-OK by me), who helped a bunch of waiting parents who almost got stuck in Guangzhou over the trade show.

"I called (Secretary of State) Condi Rice's chief of staff and said, 'I've got an emergency problem here. Can you help?' " Sen. John Thune explained of his role in breaking a logjam that was holding up visas for 96 families stranded in Guangzhou, China, last month.

The trade show is a very, very big deal and is the reason why my family didn't stay in Guangzhou while doing son (son!)'s paperwork last year. The whole city shuts down. Everything that China has for sale is sold here - the deals are signed. The worries of a hundred or so fresh adoptive parents pale in significance ... so it's nice to have a friend in a high place. Of course, it helps if you happen to be traveling with the Executive Director for the South Dakota Corn Growers Association and her new daughter, but there you go.