Gotcha Day in detail

I've never felt anticipation like it before. With giving birth, you are distracted by the pain. There was nothing for distraction except an excited 5 year old that has not had a nap. The excitement in the room was so great.

We left the hotel at 1:30 and drove to the civil affairs office. You know how kids normally ask 'are we there yet?', try a bus full of adults! How much longer? It was only a 10 minute ride! We went to the 5th floor for Adoption Registry Center of Guangdong Province. We were ushered into a waiting room. One couple is adopting a special needs girl. The finally took them into another room to meet their child. Since she is older, the needed more privacy. When they brought her back at the end, she was all smiles.

First they said the Huazhou orphanage was first since they were there first. They read off the names of the families and we were first on the list! We got our cameras to friends and prepared. Logan waited at the doorway next to Jeanie (our guide). Then the other orphanage showed up with those babies. One person was carrying 3 down the hall in their arms! They were all in another room to regroup. They said our orphanage wasn't ready so the other orphanage would go first. I cried because my anticipation was so built up. It just hit me hard. It's not like I had to wait that long though. We found out later it was because they were feeding our little ones. So we helped the other families take pictures and video. They reversed our order and we ended up being last. Ugh! All of this happened so quickly. It was just a matter of moments. And then they brought her in. No fussing or crying. None of the babies did at first. That is when we had the first family photo taken. And yes, Erich did get to hold her on the first day! We were joking that his Gotcha Day would be Tuesday because I would never let her go :). Since everyone then had their child, we could ask our orphanage questions. She is afraid of strangers. She does have scabies. They are scheduled to eat next at 6 PM. She does bang her head when she is cranky or frustrated. That is why she has a pink mark on her forehead in her updated pictures. One baby has a fever and the other got motion sick on the ride up. It is a 5 hour ride. The other orphanage babies are very congested. They gave us a bag of formula and a bag of rice that the children are use to and a small photo album of her at the orphanage. It was a very nice gift to us. The Darnell's baby was dressed in the PJ's she sent and she got everything back that she mailed. We got nothing. They will check at the orphanage and bring it to us on their next trip. (They come to Guangzhou every few days to a week.) We paid the fees and gave them our gifts and it was time to leave. A lot of people walked the 5 flights. I took the elevator. I was not going to chance tripping down the stairs with babe in arms. It was a good thing too because the one of the new mom's sprained her ankle on the way down. They had to take a taxi on the way back to the hotel. She is now laid up and cannot go out.

An update on the sick dad - he flew to the province Sunday night and is OK.

Back at the hotel, we stripped her clothes and she got her first bath. I had to change the water right away as she peed in it as soon as she sat down! She even sat up for it. (She is in such shock that a lot of times she will not sit up or even hold her own head up.) We did not let Logan help or in the tub because of the scabies. She did really well until we got to her hair. Erich was a wonderful help. I put the eliminite cream on her. She seemed to really enjoy the massage. We got her dressed. We just put her in pink PJ's so she would be comfy. The room here is very cold so she stayed wrapped up in a fleece blanket grandma made most of the evening. She is enjoying the cheerios, a lot. We have to put them in her mouth. She won't feed herself. That is OK though. She needs to know that we will provide for her. It will help her trust us and help with the bonding. If I did not give her another cheerio quick enough, she would nose dive for my hand (where several cheerios were) and eat out of my hand. I feel like we have a baby bird :).

Erich had to go down and do some paperwork. Logan is starting to get jealous. He is also very tired because there has been no time for a nap. We'll see how he does on Tuesday. When Erich was done, I had to sign some papers. Then we went for our first walk. We went to Lucy's for dinner. As I said before, we are not adventurous people. Lucy's is more American food. Logan and I had pork chops with veggies, fries, and baked potato. Erich got sweet and sour pork. He said it was so good. He ate too much. Logan ate very good. The pork chops were excellent. They we walked to Susan's to pick up our laundry. We dropped it off Sunday evening. It was suppose to be back at 11 AM Monday. However, the bus broke down and we didn't get them until today. We packed fewer clothes knowing we could do laundry very cheap. Maelynn fell asleep during dinner in her stroller we bought at Susan's earlier. We could have borrowed one for free from many different stores. However, we wanted to use one for the airports on the way home so we bought it. At dinner, we sat next to a multi-cultured family. I actually recognized the mixture, ages, and names, so I approached the mom. She is Lisa from one of the Yahoo groups! They got Aubry at 3:30 today too. She is from the same orphanage. Their other 2 children are with them, Max and Claire. Max is from Vietnam and Claire is also from China. Max is so sweet and more chatty than Logan! It took time, but Logan is warming up to him.

Everyone here stays at the White Swan hotel. It is located on the Shamian Island next to the Pearl River. The US consulate was located here until a couple of months ago. Because of this, the entire area caters to adoptive families. The WS is a 5 star hotel. That means the fancy stuff. A doorman at the front door. A lady on every floor to push the elevator button and hold the door for you and get you anything you need for your room. They turned down our beds tonight, gave us slippers and a little rug that says goodnight, and 2 chocolates. Very nice. The beds are harder than hard. Erich is sleeping great. I wake up sore. So sore, I did not want to go back to sleep even though I am tired. I am thinking I'll get a nap today. We have about 3 hours of paperwork to do at the civil affairs office. This will make our adoption final. Yes, we have the babies and it is not even official yet. They are on kind of a loan I guess. We will bring the game boy and a whole bag of stuff for Logan to keep him busy.

Thank you for all your wonderful comments about our baby girl!
Robin