We woke up on Tuesday, August 8th with a tiny little lady sleeping in our room. She was still in our pack n play and we tip toed around the room, getting ready for the day. Today is Adoption Day, the day that we become the legal guardians to Maggie in the eyes of the Chinese government, the day we officially adopt her.
I kept looking over at her, waiting for her to stir. I went to check and she opened her eyes, saw me and burst into tears. Poor sweet girl. What a hard thing to wake up too. Not in your home, not with your normal caregivers and a strange white lady who spoke in a language you don't know and keeps talking to you.
We quickly got dressed and headed down to breakfast with Maggie. We brought her rice cereal to feed her, since the orphanage told us that she was starting to eat some rice cereal in her bottle and they left us a small amount to use for her. When I made the cereal and then tried to feed it to her from the baby spoon, she just looked at me and pushed the spoon around in her mouth. It was like feeding a 6 month old. She had never had a spoon in her mouth before! We were the first to spoon feed her.
She took a few more bites and played around with the spoon.
Soon after we loaded up into the van and went back to the same Civil Affairs building, this time with two little scared ladies with us. There are no car seats in China. You just hold the babies on your lap. There are also no seat belts, at least very few that are accessible. Part of the reason this works is that they have a very low speed limit. They rarely drive over 50 mph. If you saw the crazy, I go where I want, style traffic, it would make sense.
We arrived at the building and saw the nannies right away. Maggie's main caregiver made a beeline over to her and started talking to her, rubbing her head and feeling her new dress. She took her from me, which I was not suppose to let her do. It was such a hard thing though. How I could I tell this woman who obviously loved my daughter and took care of her for her whole life, "No" you can't hold her one last time?! I couldn't. I could tell it was hard for her, so I let her hold her and she was good about it. She told Maggie that I was her "mama" and pointed to me. She held her a bit longer than I took her back.
We went into a small room filled with flags and our guide pulled over the American flag and put it by the podium with the Chinese flag. We signed the official adoption document, took pictures between the flags and that was it. She was ours!!!
The nannies and the orphanage workers left quietly and quickly this time, no tears, just a swift good bye. Unfortunately, sweet little L, the other little girl that was adopted that day with us, saw them leave and broke out into heart wrenching tears. Her sad cries made everyone in the room tear up. We were ready to move forward and leave the past behind. We quickly shuttled the girls out of the room, blocking the view of the nannies leaving in their vehicle as well.
I will always be forever grateful to those women and the influence and life-saving role in my daughters life.
Our next step was to go to the Notary and have all our legal papers notarized, as well as the girls' US visa applications. After smiles, and swearing to protect, not abandon or abuse and always love our girls, we notarized our adoption documents and were one step closer to bringing them home!
We spend the afternoon resting and napping, learning more about our new stoic girl.
Likes: Plastic cups.
Dislikes: Being sat on the ground. Or put down. Also: sink baths.
After Ryan spent most of the afternoon trying to find places that do take out...or speak english to ask if they do "take away," we decide to head down to the hotel restaurant for dinner and we met with the other family we were traveling with.
Ryan decided on the full buffet, and it was probably his favorite meal of the trip. Ryan is MUCH more adventurous eater than I am and he tried everything...including duck heads, quail, rabbit, various sashimi and much more. Fun fact; they don't really debone their meat, so it usually is full of gristle and bones, even in the soups. So you constantly have to spit out bones. I stuck to the local noodle dish, which was delicious...and mostly vegetarian!
Maggie slowly started to open up a bit to us. She still was very stoic, but we would get a few more smiles. We hold her until she sleeps because she cries instantly when we lay her down in the pack n play. I would hold her until she was asleep and then lay her down in the middle of the bed.
Day two with our sweet stoic little girl went well, especially with all at the meetings and the changes for her. Again.
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