Oh yeah, oh yeah – doing a happy dance over here,
She slept ALL NIGHT! She only woke herself up (sort of) when she started coughing right after she went to sleep. That said, you can pick her up and soothe her for like a minute and she will fall right back asleep. Heck, pretty much any time she cries you can pick her up and you are almost immediately rewarded with a huge smile
*This* is an answer to a prayer, y’all. I can handle this trip soooo much better with sleep.
We left off last night with some sister playtime…
Today we finalized Merry’s adoption. This means that she is now ours legally and forever.
We started the day out early with breakfast at the hotel where Merry ate 422 dragon fruits. I exaggerate only a little. She LOVES these things – and they even provide long lasting entertainment, too. Have you ever tried to pick a million of those little black seeds off of a baby once they dry on there? Good times. In addition to the dragon fruit she had eggs, congee, banana bread, and whatever else she could snag off of my or J’s plate.
After breakfast we took our black speckled baby and her big sister and headed to the provincial registration office (which is where we met the babies yesterday). After lots of paperwork and a seemingly neverending wait we finally all stood and listened to a short congratulatory speech from the registration official before being presented with our adoption certificate. I teared up, of course, but managed to hold it together. It’s hard to do that, y’all. I’m just so darn grateful that I have been given the opportunity – twice – to parent these amazing kids.
After the registration portion most of us got back on the bus and headed to the notary office where the remainder of our paperwork awaits processing. This office will process the adoption paperwork and issue us the remainder of the official documents.
I will never forget this trip – if only because the office we had to visit was on the sixth floor of a building with no elevator to which I had to walk up loaded down like a Sherpa with all the backpacks, diaper bag, and camera bag while dragging a reluctant 5 year old whose shoe was falling off and who didn’t want to go in because “it smells yucky – like smoke.” (She was right, it did.) J got off easy since he was carrying the sleeping baby – who weighs in at about 15-16 pounds soaking wet. Did I mention this was SIX flights of stairs???
By the way, Merry was so impressed by the significance of this day that she slept right through most of it - including the notary pictures. (Did I mention how freaking cool it is to have a kid who sleeps anywhere and everywhere? This is a new experience for us. I like it.)
After we finished all of the legal stuff we celebrated like any red-blooded Americans will do in a country full of amazing local cuisine…we went to McDonalds where Merry experienced her first fry and Ava got to have corn as her side in her happy meal.
It was a win for all – especially since I got my long-desired fried pineapple pie (OMG – can’t even tell you how much I love these things).
We pretty much just crashed in the hotel for the rest of the day (where I was *that* parent who allowed my child to run up and down the hallway). We even had dinner in an overpriced hotel restaurant. Can I just tell you how surreal it is to be eating dinner in an Italian restaurant in China while a cheesy lounge singer and her guitar playing, backup singing cohort plays Lady Ga*ga tunes? And to watch my Chinese born but American attitude through and girl throughly entertain the entire restaurant by dancing her tush off and loudly applauding when there were finally (thankfully) done.
Loving our travel group, by the way. They’re an amazing group of people!
These are only a few of the ones someone snapped on my little camera. We haven’t downloaded them from our big camera or gotten the ones our travel mates took for us.
That’s okay. I think you’ll get the idea. 
On the way out the door:
The view from the provincial office while we were waiting on Merry to arrive:
Ava’s viewpoint of what Gotcha Day looks like:
No captions necessary:
Aaaaannnndddd, back where we started (+1):
I don’t even know how or where to start.
I guess with last night. I was a wreck. I posted a plea on Facebook for my friends to help me because I was fretting so much – and they did. They gave me some very wise words and much encouragement to face today. I don’t know why I was fretting so much but I was. I was sooooo worried about everything.
We left the hotel at 9AM this morning and headed to the provincial office which was about a 20 minute anxiety ridden ride. There are 6 families in our group and our babies (all special needs and all under 2 years old) were coming from 5 different orphanages with ours being the furthest at 4 hours away. One baby was already there (not ours) when we arrived so the day started off rather quickly. I started crying pretty much right then and mostly didn’t stop until the end of the day.
Let me stop here and say that Gotcha Days aren’t always pretty. Most often they are not. While we, the parents, are overjoyed there are a whole lot of people that aren’t. The foster parents, the orphanage workers, and the babies themselves are experiencing a great loss. I couldn’t help but shed tears right along with the orphanage workers as they wept while handing over a baby to her new parents.
Babies trickled in one at a time as they arrived from their respective orphanages. We were told that we would likely be last since Nanyang is the furthest away so J took on the role of photographer for many of the other families. You know, of course we were taken by surprise when the Nanyang babies (there were two) showed up rather unexpectedly. Fortunately ALL of the other families were taking pictures and video for us and captured most of it.
Merry was second through the door and I made a beeline as soon as I spotted her. J got his chance at holding her first this time – she was a little hesitant to leave the orphanage official’s arms for a moment so we allowed her a few minutes before J took her. She was fine with him immediately but took a couple moments longer before she decided I was okay. And then she smiled. A lot, At everybody. And the minute she reached out and patted my face and touched her forehead to mine is when I fell in love with her and knew this was all going to be okay.
Ava, on the other hand, made a beeline in the opposite direction. She headed as far away as she could go in the room and had no interest in seeing this baby sister she’d heard so much about. I went to get her and Merry won her over very shortly. I would imagine it’s hard to resist someone who looks at you as adoringly as Merry does Ava. We’ve had a little bit of jealousy but not too bad – yet.
She is just the sweetest and most good-natured little thing. She is happy (which is what the orphanage has said all along) and it is clear that her photo books have been well used. She definitely recognized us and has had only a little anxiety since the handoff. She laughs often, follows Ava around like crazy, is very ticklish, loves to eat EVERYTHING, uses the cleft bottle like a pro, went down for her nap with no issues, and is quite likely the happiest baby I’ve ever seen.
She’s tiny but not horribly so (9-12 months clothing, I’d guess). She’s sharp as a tack and mimics everything. She was a little bit quiet early on but is starting to verbalize a bit more now. She makes great eye contact and shows no aversion to being held. She holds on tightly and will reach for J and I to pick her up. She seems healthy and looks good. Her smile and laugh are contagious.
She is a bit sick – coughing and congested – but otherwise seems fine. Her cleft lip is exactly what we expected but her palate (to my untrained eye) is complete but doesn’t look as bad as we feared. There was some question as to whether she has a hernia and I’ll say the jury is still out on that one. I don’t see anything but I’m not a doctor so who knows. She has a pretty bad diaper rash that looks chronic so we’ll work on that.
She came to us wearing the ‘Little Sister’ onesie we’d sent to her so she matched Ava’s big sister shirt that she was wearing today. She also had on the fleece pajamas that we had the picture of her in (that are the same as Ava’s favorite pair), socks over the footed pajama feet, shoes that are way too big, and a track suit. I’d say about half of the clothes I bought are too small so we may have to hit W*l-Mart again for a couple of outfits (maybe).
I was very worried about her ability to eat. Yeah, no problems here. Already today she’s had congee, noodles, soup, cheerios. yogurt melts, baby food, and pizza. Girl can chow down.
No pictures today – too tired and my kids (!plural!) are sleeping. More tomorrow, I hope.
Quick update only – and no pictures (sorry!).
We made it to Zhengzhou. We departed Beijing early this morning and after a short but VERY turbulent flight we landed in smoggy Zhengzhou, which is the capital city of her province, just after noon. The flight was only about an hour long but the turbulence was just awful.
The CCAI facilitator here (Yisha) is very organized. She had us on the bus in no time and started going over paperwork right away. We sort of have a clue now how this is going to work and what we need to do. Our whole travel group is pretty awesome and it really helps that the families are also looking out for and taking care of each other. Yisha has even tagged us with a lanyard and a card attached (in Chinese) what we are doing here and why we’re toting around Chinese babies.
Also – we got a nice surprise on the bus in the form of a short update on our children. More on that later.
Got to the hotel and since I’d booked my room online we went ahead and checked in. I’d booked a non-smoking suite but found ourselves in a smoking room anyway since the hotel is pretty much full due to the Luoyang Peony Festival. I briefly thought we could handle it with some Febreeze but quickly realized that was a no and enlisted Yisha’s help to get us into another room. Ava’s allergies are just too bad to have her in a room saturated in smoke for that long. We’re not in a suite now – which I know will make the next 10 days here a little more challenging – but we can breathe and I think that’s more important.
Not really sure why CCAI chose this particular hotel. It’s more than a bit dated and could use a good deep cleaning and some TLC. I would not choose it on my own and am wishing I’d gone with my gut and booked the Holiday Inn Express next door. Ah well, it is what it is and we’re here so I might as well make the best of it. After a quick lunch/dinner at the noodle shop a group of us headed off to the bank to exchange money and then a trip to Walmart.
Yes, I can now say I’ve been to a Chinese Wal-Mart. Let’s just say that was interesting. And kind of smelly (in a fish-y kind of way). It’s always fun trying to shop for things when you don’t read the language. Kind of like Christmas when you open the package of crackers you thought were plain and suddenly discover they are seaweed flavored. They were pretty good, though. So were the chocolate filled Oreos.
Ava finally lost it today, though. Totally flipped her lid. I’m hoping that was one and done because ugh – that was no fun. She’s sweetly sleeping now after apologizing (unsolicited) about her behavior today. I love that kid so much – screaming tantrums and all.
So. On to our update.
Merry is now 15 months old. According to the information we got today she still wakes for a bottle during the night. She is not walking by herself yet (although I suspect that will happen quickly once she has our dedicated attention) and she sleeps in a crib by herself. She loves vegetables but not fruit juice, is still mostly bottle fed, and is not fussy. She gets along well with others, is lively and active, and loves her cloth doll. No allergies that they are aware of, no medical problems other than her known special needs, and she loves animals.
So that’s what we know about her today. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
We meet her in 12 hours!