We are Parents... Again

This is surreal. What a day it has been. At 3:00 PM we all met the other 12 families in the lobby and waited for our guide to tell us it was time to board the bus for the short ride to the Civil Affairs office. The mood on the bus was tense and our guide tried to use some dry humor to ease the anticipation. While he got a few chuckles that was about it. After another harrowing ride in the Nanning traffic where there seems to be no rules to the road we arrived, filed off the bus and headed to the fourth floor.

We entered the stifling hot room that contained nothing but a podium and several flags. We all stood along the walls of the room and got ourselves ready for what was about to come. The wait was short. First a lady from the Civil Affairs Office gave a speech at the podium. Of course I can’t remember a word she said. By now we could see the “aunties” in the hallway with the babies so we were trying to catch a glimpse of Chloe.

The first set of children that entered the room were from our orphanage, Guiping. We were the third family to get our baby. They called out Chloe’s Chinese name, Jin Yu Yu, and that is how we knew it was our turn… and our baby for that matter. Oh my goodness! She was beautiful. A gentleman handed Chloe to me. At first she was fine. He said to her “ma ma” and pointed to me and then he walked away. That is when the state of things changed. Chloe cried and screamed. We did everything to calm her down but nothing worked. This went on for an eternity. We were not alone. Several other families had similar situations.

While Chloe cried while in Ted’s arms, she screamed while in mine. We quickly assessed that she was more comfortable with Ted than me, so he basically held her the rest of the time. We handed her toys and lovies. We made her a bottle and we changed her diaper hoping this would help, but it barely had an impact. We had to take a picture for the CCAA office and then we could leave. As soon as we arrived on the first floor of the building everything changed. I have no idea why. She not only stopped crying she was giggling at Ted.

We road the bus back to the hotel and Chloe was doing much better. A few tiny tears, but now they seemed to come more from the fact that she was exhausted. The poor little thing not only sobbed non-stop for over an hour, but before that she had a taken a four hour bus ride from the orphanage to the Civil Affairs Office. To top it off she was also teething.

Once in the hotel she was curious about her surroundings. She checked out the water fountain in the lobby and the garden area near the restaurant. When we arrived to the room Chloe warmed up even more. We pulled out a bunch of toys that we brought for her. She enjoyed the stacking cups, the teething rattle but her favorite toy was a little Baby Einstein “radio” that played classical music and lights would flash to the melody. We gave her a bitter teething biscuit which she enjoyed but she ended up wearing more then she ate. So we moved on to the ritual that I personally think could actually be the catalyst for ending wars and promoting world peace… the sharing of the Cheerios. She LOVED them! She let both of us feed them to her. She fed them to herself. And we even found another use for the stacking cups. It was also while eating Cheeios that Chloe did one of the most amazing things… she started to sing a song. We have no idea what it was but she was signing.

Ba Ba (Daddy) played peek-a-boo with her but it turned into hide-and-seek. She was sitting on the bed and he was on the floor. He’d duck down and pop back up which made her giggle. But then when ba ba would duck down again, she would lean over the edge of the bed and look for him. When she found him she’d giggle even more.

Remember how I said that Chloe took to Ted more than me. Well, we had evidence of this when Ted would attempt to leave the room because she would start to cry. If I left she was fine. Ted can’t go anywhere without her.

We gave her a quick bath (which she disliked) and then another bottle. Then she laid down on the bed with ba ba and fell asleep. After a short while she woke up and began to play a game with Ted. She was lying on her back and she would look away from Ted for about 30 seconds. Then she would turn to look at him to see if he was still staring at her. When she saw that he was in fact still watching her she got this gigantic smile on her face. This went on and on.

This evening we finished all of the paperwork to complete the Chinese portion of the adoption. We have to go meet with government officials tomorrow for an interview and to make the adoption official. We will let you know how that goes in our next post.