7/29 Gotcha Day

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We set our alarm for 9:00 Sunday morning - figuring that we'd grab a quick breakfast in our room and still have time to meet in the lobby for the bus at 10:30. At 6:30, I woke up and pretended to still be asleep until about 7 or 7:30 when I nudged Kim... "you awake?" "yea" "wanna just get up and go have breakfast downstairs?" "ok"

It seems like most of the rest of our group had the same insomnia as almost everyone was already down at breakfast when we got there around 8. The hotel has a nice breakfast spread each morning: lots of Chinese food but also some things we recognized from home - including a made-to-order egg station, bacon, toast and pastries. After breakfast, the whole group went for a walk with Tom at the lead... we saw the Walmart Supercenter, another of the Department Stores (about 6 floors plus a supermarket in the basement), bookstore, and an electronics "mall" where there were dozens of kiosks with all sorts of electronics there from different vendors. We also saw a KFC. In Super Walmart, we saw one boy wearing "split pants" (pants with no back for potty training) and later on, saw just how those split pants worked as a boy was taking a potty break in an alley.

The sidewalk was shared by mopeds, bicycles, pedestrians, and in some places cars! There are a lot of bicycles - but more mopeds than I imagined there would be (actually probably fewer bicycles than I expected actually). Automobile traffic is just plain crazy - later in the day, we'd learn why Tom rented such a large bus for us... first off, there are 8 families. Next, the bigger the bus, the more apt other cars are to get out of your way when you're driving where you need to go.

We had lunch at the same buffet restaurant at the hotel - there was a strolling gaucho serving different meets like a Brazilian BBQ restaurant and a good array of Chinese food on the buffet, including Nanchang fried noodles and rice (at every meal). I also had some pork (breaded & fried - like sweet & sour pork) with eggplant sauce (very little eggplant sauce was evident). Kim had noodles and fruit. We both had ice cream ;-) Lunch cost 68 RMB / person - which is about $10 each. One of the nice things about meals in the hotel is that we've been able to charge these back to the room (and will be able to square up at the end of our stay using our credit card).

After lunch, we relaxed in the room until about 3:15 when it was time to go get the girls! We met in the lobby and boarded the bus, when I realized I'd left our passports in our room. "do we need our passports" I asked Tom (our coordinator) - "uh.. yeah, otherwise how do they know you are who you say you are." I sprinted up to the room, got the passports and sprinted back to the bus (this is a recurring theme... stay tuned). We drove by bus to the Adoption Center - it took barely 10 minutes to get there. On the way in, our group passed another couple on the way out with their new daughter. Wow - the reality of this was really sinking in. We took the elevator up to the 26th floor. When the doors opened, we were hit right in the face and ears by the sights and sounds of a hallway and room full of about 30 families, babies, travel coordinators, orphanage representatives and caregivers and Chinese officials. The temperature was well over 100 degrees - this only added to the chaos of the situation.

Within 5 minutes of being there, Tom called out "Baker! Travel approvals and passports!" - We started moving towards Tom and a man we later learned was Mr. Zhou - then one of the caregivers started handing a beautiful scared baby to Kim. "You can't touch the baby until we see the paperwork" - so I literally dropped our cameras on the ground and pulled out the required documentation. When we'd been checked off - Jillian's caregiver handed her to Kim. Mr. Zhou handed me his business card, a brochure with information about Fuzhou SWI, a letter (in Chinese... that we still need to have translated), and a disposable camera (presumably the camera we'd sent to Fuzhou via a care package we'd sent about a month earlier - hopefully, there will be some pictures of Jillian at the orphanage on that camera).

Now back to Jillian: she had probably had the longest day of her short little life. We learned that the SWI was about 2 hours away (by bus) and had pretty either missed an afternoon nap or had just been woken up unexpectedly from that nap. Kim, the caregiver and I took turns trying to console her and finally started to help get her settled down. After a few more minutes, we moved into a small office for a photograph of the 3 of us that will ultimately be included in the adoption registration. After 3 tries, a young man with a digital camera got a picture of us (Kim - looking beautiful, of course; Kyle - eyes half-closed blinking; and Jillian - with her eyes and mouth open)

Before we knew it, it was time to leave the Adoption Center and return to the bus. Jillian fell asleep on the bus ride home and we took her up to the hotel room to continue her nap.

The whole episode was a blur, including bus rides and "Gotcha's" - it took less than an hour. We were back at the hotel before 5. There are some distinct images that will stick in my head forever: 30-some (newly expanded) family groups and all the noise associated with that many people in such a small place; how hot that room was; shaking hands with Mr. Zhou and thanking him profusely in the short time I had with him; Jillian's caregiver working with Kim and me to calm her down; and a beautiful nervous little girl pulling the neck of her dress up over her nose and mouth to "hide" and comfort herself.

I've gone back and reviewed our digital camera and see that I had time to take some pictures of some of the other families in our group with their daughters. When we watch the video, we'll surely see some other things that I'm not recalling right now. Hopefully, we'll be able to share pictures and video with the other families in our group so we can all get a complete picture of what happened during that short time when our worlds changed.

Ultimately, we now have a gorgeous daughter - the one that was meant for us - and "the wait" doesn't seem like it was that bad after all. We have about a week and a half left here in China to get the rest of our paperwork in order, but mostly Kim and I are looking forward to spending this time getting to know our daughter Jillian.