We are now officially a family of five!  We received JacJac today at about 9:00am at the Guangdong Adoption Registry Center.  We were driven from our hotel to the Registry Center then brought to a waiting room.  It was just us and one other family (our friends Paula and Paul with whom we have been in contact through this entire process – their daughter is from the same orphanage as JacJac).  As we were waiting we saw two babies being walked down the hallway by orphanage caregivers.  You guessed it, those were our daughters!  They had been driven in from Shanwei City, which is about four hours away by car.

A few minutes later the girls were brought in to us.  The orphanage caregivers announced "Xiao Li" and as I walked forward, they handed our precious daughter to me.  I would like to be able to say that she was happy to see us and immediately bonded with us, but that would not be true.  Instead, she cried.  I don't mean a few sappy tears cry, but throw her head back and scream at the top of her lungs cry.  But we expected this; after all, JacJac is 18-months old and much more aware of what is going on around her than some of the younger babies.  What we didn't expect was the sobbing to continue NON-STOP for the next two hours.  It was heart-breaking to watch.  She was so obviously grieving and confused.  She kept waving bye-bye and saying "Mama" over and over.  We took that to mean she wanted to leave and go back to her nanny at the orphanage.

I held her and she cried.  Kevin held her and she cried.  We walked her around and she cried.  We gave her cheerios and she held them in her little fist, but still cried.  Bottle… cried.  Juice cup… cried.  She cried while we filled out paperwork.  She cried while we talked to the orphanage director. She cried so much that people came in from other rooms to see if we were deliberately hurting her…  The child was upset.

The good news about the crying is that it means she has attached with her care-givers at the orphanage.  Experts say this means she should not have issues with attachment disorders as she grows older.  But right then, it was just a lot of crying…

Finally, as we were getting ready to leave the Registry Center I put her in the hip-hammock carrier, and she stopped crying!  I never knew that silence was such a beautiful sound.  She must have exhausted herself because she fell asleep on the way back to the hotel in the car. 

Since being back here, she has been crying on and off.  We tried to feed her the congee (mushy rice mixture) the orphanage said she ate, but she wanted nothing to do with that.  Instead, she was much more interested in my French fries and Kev's club sandwich.  At that point, we were willing to give her anything to keep her happy.

So far, as long as one of us is holding her, she stays relatively content, especially if we are walking.  No smiles yet, but at least no more hysterical sobbing either. Needless to say, we have been walking around quite a bit.  But the weather is beautiful (upper 70s and sunny), so we can't complain.  And most importantly, we have a beautiful new daughter!

By the way, did you notice they fixed her cleft lip?  Although it pains us to think that she went through that alone, we are excited that there is one less traumatic event she has to go through when we get home.  Meeting the Davis family at Christmas will be traumatic enough… J

Much love,

Kevin and Janie