Meeting the Babies

November 7, 2004

We met in the lobby and stood with the other families. No one was really talking. It was pretty quiet. We were all a bit nervous. We boarded the bus that took us to the Ministry of Civil Affairs to meet the babies. When we walked up the stairs, we heard the cries of babies and we knew we were only moments away. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

We were ushered into a waiting room and we all took seats. The aunties stood in the doorway and each one was holding a baby. AR pointed and said, "There she is." The baby was dressed head to toe in a pink knitted outfit. I said, "No way. She looks to small to be our daughter." Two famiies whose babies were from a differnt SWI were called first.

All of a sudden, I heard my name called and Lu Ruo Dan, our daughter's Chinese name. I turened to AR and said, "That's us," and we jumped up and ran over. He was right. He had picked out our daughter from the sea of babies all wearing the same handmade knitted pink outfit. We didn't have time to think and I handed my camera & video camera to our friends from NH.

We had originally decided that I would go up and get our daughter and AR would film and videotape, but the orphanage director wanted both of us up there. Once the auntie handed over Lu Ruo Dan to me, the orphanage director, Mr. Lu, wanted to take a picture of AR and I holding the baby. At the same time, our friends from NH were called to get their daughter, so they had to put down our cameras. Sadly, we have very few photos or video of the gotcha moment.

She didn't cry. Not at first. She was definitely scrutinizing us and her bottom lip was sticking out in a pout. I was carrying her around the room and all the other babies were crying. To say it was chaotic would be an understatement. All I can say is that when I was walking around the room with my daughter in my arms, I knew my life had changed. You obviously "know" your life is going to change, but at that moment I knew that it was for real. It was really happening and there was no going back. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the ame time. I guess that is what motherhood is like most of the time anyway.

AR was dying to hold his daughter so I finally let him. He put his finger in her mouth and she bit him! Hey, she did have eight teeth and why would you shove a finger in a baby's mouth anyway? Ha, ha. It was funny. The whole presentation of the babies only took about 10 minutes. We quickly headed back to the bus and to the hotel.

By this time our daughter was crying. She wanted nothing to do with me, Whenever I looked at her, she tried to hide her face and started crying again. I tried to feed her the formula that the orphanage gave to us, but she would drink any. I popped a Cheerio in her mouth and she spit it out. I put it back in and then she kept in in her mouth and seemed to like it.

Shortly after arriving in the hotel room, Sabrina came by with the Mr. Lu and some of the nannies to see if we had any questions. I asked if she was attached to any of the other children. We knew she was in foster care, and they told us that she was in foster care with another child who was adopted in our group, but there did not know which family adopted her. They would let us know tomorrow. I gave the nannies and Mr. Lu their gifts. It is customary to give people gifts in China, and it is also customary that they do not open the gift in front of you, and that is what happened.

We still had more adoption paperwork to do. We had to take our daughter's foot and put it in red ink and then stamp the official paperwork for tomorrow. Once we finished that we went back to our room. I was finally able to get her to drink formula, but she would not take it from the bottle. I was feeding her formula with a spoon. Do you know how long that took???

She still did not like me and cried when I glance at her. I know she must have been terrified and traumatized by the day's events, but I would be lying if I said it didn't crush me as well. AR was able to comfort her by singing the alphabet and any other song he could think of. In fact she fell asleep on AR and he in turn, fell asleep holding her to his chest. I went over and removed her from his arms and put her in the crib.

I watched her as she slept. She looked so peaceful. I carefully removed the socks that she had been wearing. These were the socks that she came to us in. They were blue and had grey stripe. Within the stripe were these words, "Happy Baby." I started to cry. I don't know where this baby came from or what her life had been like up until she entered my life, but I do know that I would try my hardest to make sure she is the happiest baby in the world.

Flying to Nanchang

November 7, 2004

We checked out at 8:30 and met the group in the lobby. Our flight to Nanchang is at 11 am and we are arive in Nanchang at 1 pm and are supposed to meet the babies at 4pm. We boarded a bus and left for the airport at 8:45. We certainly arrived at the airport much more quickly than it took getting from the airport to the hotel. I guess there was less traffic.

Since our luggae was taken last night, it was already checked in for us. Our boarding passes were ready so we did not have to do anything except go through security. I made sure that there was no metal whatsoever on my person and our sunglasses were in the carry-on bag. We sailed through without a hitch.

We boarded on time, but we were not able to sit next to each other, so that was lousy. AT least we were sitting with others from our group, so it wasn't so bad. I was surprised that I was served a meal because this was not a long flight. I suppose it was becasue it was near lunch time? It wasn't a vegetarian meal, so I ate some rice and watermelon. I wasn't hungry anyway. All I could think of was meeting my baby!

We arrived at 1pm, but had to wait for our luggage to come from the plane. We then hopped on a bus and started driving towards the hotel. The city was much different from Beijing. It was very rural and rice is the main crop grown. We passed lots of rice fields.

It was unbelievably hot in Nanchang too. I brought mostly long sleeved shirts, so I am guessing I will be a little warm here. It was 2 pm by the time we reached the hotel. The babies would not be brought to the hotel. We would have to drive to the Ministry of Civil Affairs office to get them. We were told to meet in the lobby at 3:50. In less than two hours I will be holding my baby!

Our adoption agency assigned our group a local guide. Her name was Mary and she was familiar with Nanchang so she would be with us for this portion of our trip. Sabrina was still with us too. Mary had checked us all into the hotel and gave us our room keys. We were staying in room 4111 on the Gloria Hotel. Our friends from New Hampshire were also on the same floor.

One of us had to start doing adoption paperwork, so I went to do it while AR checked to make sure the video camera was ready. We were so hot, but we couldn't even change clothes because our luggage had not yet been delivered to our room. We were hoping to change into the shirts we had made especially for this day. It was a February DTC Lovebug shirt that had a little car driving on the map of China. We both had one and thought it would be cute to wear for when we met our daughter.

I checked the adoption paperwork and there was a Jr. missing from AR's name. Other than that, everything was spelled correctly. They would fix the missing Jr. We needed this for the abandonment certificate that would be issued tomorrow. Even though we are receiving the babies today, the official adoption paperwork takes place tomorrow.

I went to our room and our luggae was delivered. We were able to change into our short sleeved shirts. I also readied the gifts for the orphanage director and the aunties. Before we knew it, it was time to head to the lobby to get on the bus to get our daughter.