Monday, September 18, 2006

Hello Everyone! Today was an amazing day! We got Zoe Li this morning at 10:30.

All through this process I’ve been saying how surreal this whole thing is. Well I woke up this morning feeling that it was very real. The entire group was supposed to meet in the lobby at 10 am to take the bus to a local government office to meet the babies. We were all so anxious that we met much earlier and just discussed how we were feeling. It was very emotional. Many tears of joy.

We left for the office at 10 am and arrived at around 10:20. There was a van outside with lots of babies who were being brought in at the same time we were walking in. It turned out that they were our babies.

We were allowed in the office at 10:30 and right away the first family got their baby. It was amazing. We were all crying (I’m crying now typing this just at the memory) We were all busy trying to capture every moment for each family, but they called our names so quickly. When they brought Zoe out, I didn’t recognize her because she was so tiny and she had some hair. But sure enough, it was her. I was crying so hard that I had Tom get her (we had actually been deciding who she get her, but at that point, I just said “you better take her”) I don’t remember too much about her Nanny, but I do know that Zoe didn’t cry a bit. Tom held her for a while and I was afraid to hold her in case she would cry. There were many other babies crying, but there were a few calm ones as well.

I finally took her in my arms and she still didn’t cry. She was looking all around taking everything in. She is very active. Loves to bounce and move. She is teething, so everything we gave her went right into her mouth.

Two families didn’t have their babies yet and it turns out they were stuck in traffic. We waited for about 15 minutes (with the doctor, social workers and friends of the families snapping many pictures) This whole thing is well documented which is a good thing because I was crying so much.

Well, I told you yesterday that the Great Wall was amazing. Well the Great Wall is nothing compared to our new daughter! She is just a bundle of joy! She really didn’t cry at all for the first few hours so we got brave and took her down to the restaurant for lunch. When Tom put her in her stroller, she cried. She did not like her stroller (which is very upsetting to Tom who has become quite fond of our new strollers at home) I’m not too concerned, though, because it was quite a day for Zoe. Her orphanage is over 4 hours away so they must have left very early to meet us at 10:30.

We were very fortunate because the Orphanage director brought the coin and the note that were found with her when she was left at the orphanage. We also got some of her clothes and a few more photos. They also returned a disposable camera that we sent (hopefully full of pictures of her and her surroundings)

I have so much more to write, but I’m so exhausted from the day. I hope to write more tomorrow. I just got Zoe to sleep (she was wiped out) and Tom fell asleep right after. I snuck down to the business center to give everyone an update!