Two years ago, my husband and I said, "I do."

It wasn't our wedding day. That happened almost 15 years ago. Those 15 years have taught me an awful lot about the cover-all-bases wisdom of the traditional wedding vows.

At 22 I could not have conceived vows that included contingencies for sickness, health, poverty, wealth, good days and those other kinds of days - the days when the sound of your spouse delicately blowing her nose for the 375th time of the morning makes you want to hop a freight.

(I'm sorry, sweetie. I promise I'll find a better allergy medicine.)

At 22, my vows would have read something like, "I promise not to leave if your taste in music goes south, and I promise not to stay just because of your cool stereo."

Fifteen years ago we said, "I do" to each other, and it seems to have worked.

Two years ago, we said, "I do" to our daughter. It was a typical May morning in Nanchang, China, the capital of Jiangxi Province, which is affectionately called one of the "Four Furnaces of China." In reality, it's much, much, MUCH hotter than a furnace, so by 10 a.m. that morning, we were beginning to wonder about the temperature at which the human body literally melts, explodes or evaporates. It was clear that we'd reach evaporation point before noon. And our daughter, who had met us for the first time the evening before, was living up to all the warnings we had been given about babies' grieving when they are placed with their new families.

Buttercup's grieving wasn't a weepy, homesick, wilting grief. It was a full-blown, all-hands-on-deck, no-tears grief. She was 19 pounds of outrage. In our group, there were 11 other babies about the same age as our Buttercup. They sat in their new parents' laps, took bottles, played with stacking cups ... smiled.

Not Buttercup.

With her face bent into a perpetual expression of unholy indignation, she howled at us. She howled at breakfast that morning. She howled as I tried to put her into the attachment-promoting baby sling I had bought online a month earlier. She howled on the short bus ride from the hotel to the Civil Affairs Bureau building.

She howled when a young woman in smart but not ostentatiously fashionable clothing sat behind a desk and asked us if the screaming, sweaty little girl in my arms was the child we had agreed to adopt. She is.

Are you satisfied with this child?

Yes, I am.

Do you love this child?

I do.

Buttercup, of course, did not.

But she was happier the next day, and happier still the day after that.

According to the law, we became mother and daughter that sweltering May morning. But the reality of becoming mother and daughter is that it's an ongoing process.

I say "I do" to something new every day - to a child who demands that we clean her room RIGHT NOW, to a daughter whose pajamas must match exactly, to tea parties and cooking games and all manner of girlishness I didn't force on her and didn't expect. I say "I do" to ticklehugs and mornings when I beg for just a little more sleep and afternoons when the nap was clearly not long enough.

I say "I do" to my big strong girl who knows what she wants and is not afraid to howl. I say "I do" to my little girl who needs an extra nose kiss and announces "I love my family!" to no one in particular as we walk down the sidewalk.

Is this the child I agreed to adopt? How could I have known - she is a different and more remarkable girl every day.

Am I satisfied with this child?

And then some.

Do you love this child?

I do. I do, I do, I do.

Elizabeth Trever Buchinger is a freelance writer who sold her baby sling for a bullhorn. She can be reached at VillageWordsmith@hughes.net.