Gotcha Day

I don't really even know where to begin to describe this day. We left our hotel at 2:30 pm on a bus for the civil affairs office. We were a bus full of nervous, excited people. On the way to the civil affairs office, I decided to try to video tape some of the city as we were driving. After a bit, I realized that most of it would just be a blur, so I started just taping at stoplights. We got to one stoplight and I saw a man getting a chinese baby out of a van. Since our focus was on chinese babies at the moment, I started taping it, then Jimmy commented that they had a whole van full of chinese babies and I responded wouldn't it be funny if those were our babies. At that time the bus started again, and turned the corner into the same parking lot and Jimmy and I realized that they WERE our babies. By the time we got parked, the babies were out of site. We went into the building, and up to the fifth floor, where they put us in a room with 4-5 brown couches. We all sat down and dug out the cameras. I tried to set mine up on a tri-pod, but either it or my hands weren't cooperating, so I just decided to hold the camera. We watched the first 2 babies being given to their families and then it was our turn. I handed the camera to Cindy Hemry and Jimmy and I walked toward the door where the caretaker handed the most beautiful baby to Jimmy (sorry all of you who already have daughters from China, but they really did save the best for us. :oD) She looked at Jimmy very curiously but didn't cry. I gave him his few minutes (ok maybe only seconds, who's counting) and then I took her. She never did cry. We watched all the others get their babies and took a bunch of video footage, the Wendy, our guide said we needed to get back in the bus and go back to the hotel. The orphanage officials would meet us in her room and we could ask any questions we wanted. As we were leaving the room, Susanna, or LanLan as the caretakers call her, started making noises and we thought, oh no, she's heard all the other babies crying and now it's our turn. Then we realized that she was laughing. It was incredible. She really did well with that initial period, looking us in the eyes, smiling, looking around. We got on the bus and I just had to video tape the back of her little head as she sat on Jimmy's lap. It was just going back and forth with wonder as she watched the traffic and people we were passing by. At the hotel, we got to ask our questions, and we gave the orphanage workers some gifts that we had brought for them. In return they gave us back the package that we'd sent to Susanna with a disposable camera (all the pictures were used, so now we need to get them developed) and a picture book of Susanna, some pictures of the orphanage, a cd of the town she lived in and a map of the town with the location of the orphanage circled. After that we went back up to our room and practiced making a chinese bottle (7 scoops of formula, 13-14 scoops of rice cereal and a little water to make it moist-I like to refer to it as swill). Jimmy made the first one pretty well (yes, you heard right, Jimmy made the first bottle). Then I left her with Jimmy so I could go back down to our guide's room and fill out paperwork. When I came back to the room Jimmy had her laughing by giving her a little toss in the air. This girl is amazing. When I was doing the paperwork, we found our our baggage had arrived. Yay! Finally a change of clothes. We met the Chen's and Hemry's for a very expensive supper (tip: always ask how much the buffet costs before you order it and never do the supper buffet at the white swan unless you want to drop $60 US dollars). Halfway through the meal, Susanna reached over for me from her high chair and when I picked her up, she laid her head down on my shoulder and after a little bit of rocking fell asleep. We went back upstairs and she woke up on the way. I started unpacking and at one point I looked over to see Jimmy snoring away with Susanna on his chest, wide awake. So she and I had a little dress up session to see what fit (Lisa C.- the outfit fit her and she wore it to her official adoption day the next day. Lisa B. -ditto on the little pink sheep sweater). Also she loves hats and headbands.! Finally at 9:00 I laid her down on my chest and she fell asleep for the night. I transferred her to her crib and she slept through the night.

Catherine