What a day

So we woke up early this morning and headed down for some breakfast. After breakfast we had an hour or so to kill so we stopped by the room where we would be meeting our babies. The room was dark and there was nobody there so we went back to our room to put together a diaper bag with some things that we would need for the day.


We headed back down to the meeting room around quarter to nine and there were a couple families there already waiting. Everyone was very antsy waiting for the babies to arrive and trying to figure out who would take pictures and video for that special moment. At around quarter past nine the babies started to trickle in. There were around 14 families in the room so to say things erupted into chaos would be an understatement. The actual hand off process is all very official so we couldn't just walk up and grab our baby if we recognized her. I think this may be the just about the cruelest form of torture known to man. After waiting almost three years for your baby that last 5 minutes is probably the hardest.


Finally it was time to start giving the babies to their new families. They call the families up one by one to make sure everyone has enough time for pictures and video. I think we were the 4th or 5th family called. They handed her to Jen and I got my turn to hold her a few minutes later.

The next few hours were spent filling out paperwork. We finished all of the paperwork by noon and went for a quick lunch and then pretty much had the afternoon to get to know Gracie a little better. So far things are going really well. She has cried a little bit here and there. Mostly she just wants to be held and fed...this girl likes to eat. Which is probably why she weighs in at 20 pounds. She is definitely not a malnourished baby. She was well taken care of and has the rolls to prove it.

Around mid afternoon a group of us took a little field trip to a local grocery store to pick up some baby supplies. We got quite a bit of strange looks as we were walking along the street. Imagine the spectacle of a dozen white families with Chinese babies walking down a crowded street in China. After our field trip she took a little nap but we had to wake her up to take her down to see the doctor that is traveling with us for her checkup. She passed the doctor's examination with flying colors.

Tomorrow is another day of paperwork and we sign the official adoption agreement. We are right now in what they call a harmonious period. Kind of a trial before we officially are her parents. She seems to like us ok and we are just in love so I think she is stuck with us for the long haul.

Overall our first day with her has gone really well, she has cried a bit but that is to be expected given all she has been through. Our arms are really sore from carrying her around everywhere but she deserves all the attention we are giving here. She has eaten pretty well and we even got a few laughs out of her at lunch when feeding her congee. We haven't really figured out the whole bottle situation as they feed babies a bit differently in China than they do in the US so I think we are going to need to work with each other on that one.

Our real test will be tonight I think. We put her down about and hour ago and were told she sleeps for eight hours so we will see. We will just leave you with a couple more pictures of our angel. Pretty amazing isn't she...