Lilyana Ya Ying Castro

Ya Ying, the name given to her by the orphanage means

Elegant Beautiful Jade

click here for more pictures of this lovely gem

Match Day - Thursday, April 8th 2004

We got the call around 2pm that Thursday and our hearts lept with joy. Nancie was speaking on the phone to the agent at Chinese Children Adoption International and I was on speaker phone.

"We have great news for you...you've been matched you with a beautiful baby girl!" "Her name is Xin Ya Ying and she's beautiful with big brown eyes" "I'm e-mailing you a picture right now" were the words that came from the agent....we were shaking with anticipation as we waited for our first glimpse of our little Lilyana and...   WOW!!! There she was... I could barely breath as the tears came streaming from my eyes. Nancie was weeping and giddy on the other line. "I have some information for you...do you have a pencil"? Sure I did but I was shaking so much I couldn't write anything down on the little 'post-it' I had nearby. Nancie fortunately had a pad of paper handy....

Lilyana was born on March 1st, 2003. This picture was taken in February of 2004. We have some other pictures from this time and are fortunate enough to have some from last August when she was about 5 months old. Xinhua is the name of the town where she is from and Xin was given to her as a temporary last name. Xinhua is in the Hunan province of China. Hunan is about 400 miles North NorthWest of Hong Kong. Xinhua is on the Yangtze River and close to the lake region of Dongting Hu. It's humid there and we'll be traveling at the beginning of the Monsoon Season. We need to pack appropriately...

In 6-8 weeks we'll have Lily in our arms...