Trip to China
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Monday, August 18, 2008 GOTCHA DAY!! After a morning spent doing paperwork including a short essay about our motivation for adopting a Chinese baby girl, and a hurried rush to the electronics store when the battery on our camera decided to quit, the focus of the day was heading over to a government hotel by bus to meet our babies. In the morning and on the way over Michael and Hannah (our guides) taught us how to say our daughters' names in Cantonese and gave us a few other helpful phrases -- Mommy loves you, Daddy loves you, Mommy hold you, Daddy hold you, and Good Girl. Michael counseled us again just to meet every need and be patient as the babies went through this dramatic transition and, no matter how we were feeling, not to cry for the babies but to greet them with a smile. As we waited all I could think of was the day we decided to adopt a little girl in the Spring of 2005 and how that decision felt and also as we counted down the last minutes I also recalled how I felt the minutes before the boys were born when the anesthesiologist said to me after administering the epidural "you are only minutes to babies" and today we were being told a few more minutes and in would come the babies. At exactly 3:30 pm the Head of the Civil Affairs office walked to the podium and introduced, to applause, the three orphanage directors who were present. And then one by one working in reverse chron age for our orphanage they brought in all of the babies and delivered each of them to their new families. Daniel filmed the first 8 or so babies that came in as they were united with their families and then as we both saw Jiang Yue come in -- well before she could see us -- we both walked toward her and handed off the cameras to Hannah. Eva was as beautiful on first sight as we knew she would be. And bright, And serious, And tiny. And very inquisitive. She looked right into our eyes and listened closely to us as we explained to her that we were "Mama" and "Baba" and watching our mouths closely tried to repeat back to us either one of those names for a second. She listened closely to everything around her but also watched and listened to us closely, not scared, not seemingly shut down though serious and not crying. And then after maybe 10 minutes of alert inquiry she out her head down on Colette's arm and fell sound asleep. As did a number of the other girls from Beiliu. And so she slept the whole way back to our hotel. Back at the hotel she woke up and began to show us all of her skills. She showed a keen interest in toys and paper and dropping objects on the floor to see where they go and if they come back. She showed us that she is sitting and crawling and can pull herself to a supported stand and can bounce up and down. She showed clear interest in clapping hands. And after we learned to cut the nipple hole on her bottle to allow for a faster flow, showed that she can grab her bottle and pull it to her mouth while also letting us hold her and make eye contact while drinking her bottle. She talked back to us with plenty of "yi yi yi" and "la la las" and after her bath (which she absolutely loved even seeming to kiss her reflection in the mirror over the sink) showed that she liked to be covered in lotion and clean clothes even if diaper changes are not her thing. Such a joy. She is now sleeping, The one thing with which she does not seem familiar with at all is eating anything other than drinking from a bottle and showed no familiarity with a spoon or any interest in licking her fingers when she had dipped them in pureed fruit. Her skin is healing, but she is a tiny peanut though well proportioned. What a day -- Eva is stunningly beautiful, we are dead tired but so happy to be expanding our family and gaining from the love of our new daughter and sister. Much love, Colette and Daniel P.S. To our great relief, our luggage that Northwest Airlines left in Minneapolis on Thursday morning showed up at our hotel in Nanning today, shortly after Eva arrived. Many thanks to our generous travelling companions who were so willing to share their clothes, toys, medicines and other things!

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