Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Naming Xian Cheng
I think we have decided on a name and this is how it happened.
Before we had our son Reidar, Cean came up with the name
Ariana. We weren't sure this was the name for our dd (darling daughter) and decided
that we would know after we received the referral.
Her name is Xian, which the Xi sound sounds like "she" the entire name is pronounced "she-ann" (we believe). So we looked in the baby book for names that started with a sh sound. We couldn't really find anything so Cean looked up Xian in our Mandarin phrase book. It said "thread". Well we truely believe that we have a
red thread to our daughter.
In the Chinese adoption community there is a Chinese proverb that has been adopted. It says "An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never breaks". Now we knew what the Mandarin phrase book told us about her name but that still didn't really help us with an American name. Then Cean decided to look up the name Ariana to see what it meant. Our book said (and I had never read this before) that it was
Greek, and it meant "The mythological daughter of Cretan King Minos,
who gave Theseus a thread to guide him out of the mazelike prison
known as the Labyrinth."
Cean said, don't tell me anymore names that is it. That is our sign.
Thus we have, Ariana Xian Burgeson. Oh yeah, and Reidar's birthday
is also on the 24th, but in March!
Monday, June 27, 2005
Our Referral!
June 27, 2005
Today we recieved a call from our Social Worker at 1:30 pm. We thought we would find out today because people were posting on the internet that they had received their referrals. Both, Cean and I were finding it very difficult to work. Then the call!
Sarah, our social worker said, "You have a daughter". I quickly found Cean and we put Sarah on speaker phone in my office. We were both shaking. She told us our babies name was Xian Cheng and that she was in foster care in the province of Hubei. She also told us that Xian had just celebrated her 1st birthday on June 24, the Friday before. That was all the information that she had but we set up a meeting for the following day because Xian's packet with photos was being overnighted to Traverse City. We were so happy and excited. We called a bunch of our family and began spreading the word of our new daughter. Now, we had to come up with a name!
Today we recieved a call from our Social Worker at 1:30 pm. We thought we would find out today because people were posting on the internet that they had received their referrals. Both, Cean and I were finding it very difficult to work. Then the call!
Sarah, our social worker said, "You have a daughter". I quickly found Cean and we put Sarah on speaker phone in my office. We were both shaking. She told us our babies name was Xian Cheng and that she was in foster care in the province of Hubei. She also told us that Xian had just celebrated her 1st birthday on June 24, the Friday before. That was all the information that she had but we set up a meeting for the following day because Xian's packet with photos was being overnighted to Traverse City. We were so happy and excited. We called a bunch of our family and began spreading the word of our new daughter. Now, we had to come up with a name!
