Gotcha Day Part 1

For most of you, this may be way too long and too many details, but just bear with me. I am using this blog not only to keep family and friends informed on our journey, but to also have a record so I can remember all the details to be able to share with Lily Mei when she gets older.
We were all up early. I think everybody was awake by 5:00am. The boys came in our room and we all piled up in the bed together. I think we were all very nervous and really excited. Anyway, we all got showers and went to breakfast at the buffet in the hotel. We were supposed to meet Doris, but she didn't show so we managed on our own and the food was actually pretty good. They had a lot of different breads and danishes, eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, sausage, and lots of Chinese food. After breakfast, we went back to the room. We checked on Doris and she had overslept. She said to meet her in the lobby at 8:40.

We arrived at the Civil affairs office at 9:00. We were loaded down with cameras, diaper bag, my folder of papers and gift bags. We went inside and sat down in the lobby. Doris was working her magic with the paperwork. She came back and told us to go to another room to wait because the babies weren't there yet. We moved to the other room and had just sat down when I saw her. She was wearing a little yellow outfit and looked exactly like the picture we had fallen in love with. Same pouty lips, same chubby cheeks She was holding what looked like a cookie still in the wrapper in her little hand. There was an older lady carrying her and two younger girls following. Doris came running over and said "that's her". She never cried or changed her expression. She just looked at us and at all the other things going on around her. She studied everything and was really taking it all in. We both held her while Doris finished the paperwork. Then they told us to come to another room where the three of us (Steve, Lily Mei and me) had our picture taken. Then back to the other room while Doris waited for the picture to develop. When we went back the older woman (who we found out was her nanny) kept talking to her and patting her cheeks. Then she motioned for Steve to put her down. Doris said she wanted to show us how she could walk. She walked to the nanny and back to Steve (with a little coaxing from the nanny). I can tell she hasn't been walking long because she is still very wobbly. She had on these little white shoes with pink flowers on them. They seemed to be way too small for her feet.

After our picture was developed, we went to the counter and stamped our fingerprint on our signatures on the adoption paperwork. Then they put Lily's fingerprint beside her picture. We went to another station at the counter and the man from the police station wanted to see her face. He compared it to the picture from her refferal and signed off on those papers. Then we went back to the big room to wait for Doris. There were two other families recieving their babies today so there was a lot of things happening at one time. While we were waiting for Doris, the older lady kept coming over and talking to Lily Mei in Chinese and patting her cheeks. She later told Doris that she smiled a lot in the orphanage and she didn't know why she was being so serious today.

Doris asked the nanny several questions for us because my brain was too foggy to remember what to ask. We found out that she gets up at 7am and eats breakfast, she has lunch at 11:30, naps from 1:00-2:30, snack at 3, supper at 6 and bottle at 9 when she goes to bed. She is taking formula, which they brought a bag for us and also a bag of cereal. The nanny said she also eats egg and congee. She said she was quiet and did not like to cry. She said she "holds it in like an adult". She sleeps alone in her crib and she likes to sleep on her stomach, not her back. She told Doris to thank us for loving her and giving her a good home and she asked that we send pictures from time to time. Doris told her how much we appreciated her taking good care of Lily Mei for us and that we promised to love her and keep in touch. We presented the nanny and two younger girls with gift bags and gave the other 4 bags to the civil affairs workers and the policeman.

All this time her expression stayed very serious and she was holding on to that cookie for dear life. If someone tried to touch it, she would jerk her hand away She would occasionally let me pinch off a bite and she would open her mouth like a little bird.