Wednesday, November 8, 2006
ADOPTION DAY!

Well, it’s official. Katie has forever joined our family, and we couldn’t be happier!

Before we get into the Katie news, and the events of the day, Aunt Karen, Joe and Toby took off this morning for the Guangzhou airport. Destination: Chengdu, Sichuan Province and the Chengdu Panda Research Facility (if you’re remembering that they were supposed to go to the Wolong Panda facility, you’re right. We had a change of plans when Karen received an email that the road to Wolong was under construction and would require an all day trip. We decided that they could accomplish their panda-holding goals at Chengdu. Additionally, Eric was supposed to go on the trip, but due to the delay in getting Katie, he had adoption-related appointments he could not miss, so Joe took his place on the trip). We are excited to see pictures tomorrow of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, and the giant pandas and will post some when they get back tomorrow evening.

So, back to Katie news:

First, she is an incredible sleeper. When she crashed last night just before 8:00 pm, she slept the night through until we had to wake her up just before 7:00 am. She’s used to sleeping in an institution, obviously, so the noise we made this morning getting up and ready didn’t even faze her.

Second, she really likes being held. In fact, she’s not very happy at all when we try to put her down. She likes to be held up high, and fusses when she’s lower on the hip. I’m sure she’ll relax a bit, as she gets more comfortable with us, but for now, our back muscles are getting a real workout!

Third, she is happiest when she’s not only being held, but when the person holding her is moving (usually Mom)…no sitting still for this little one!

Fourth, she’s tiny! We were told she was 17 pounds at 6 months, so we expected her to be closer to 20 lbs. Wrong. She fits nicely into 9 month clothing, of which we brought only a few pieces. 12 month sizes will be too big, but too big is cute on babies.

Fifth, she comforts herself by sucking on the back of her right hand. Quite often, she’ll place her left hand dramatically across her forehead while she’s doing this or drinking her bottle (it’s pretty cute in a Scarlett O’Hara sort of way!).

Sixth, we had a frustrating evening yesterday and morning today when she refused to take any bottle at all. We tried every bottle/nipple/formula temperature combination we could think of, but she refused all of them. This morning, at breakfast, we offered banana, yogurt, dry cereal, and congee (liquid rice mixture), but she wouldn’t eat anything. Today, at the Civil Affairs office, another family offered us one of their bottles and we put a bit of warm water in it, and she did drink some of that. Then, we put formula in the warm water and she finally drank a full bottle of formula. We weren’t too worried, but we were very happy that she finally ate.

Seventh, she’s forever ours! We went back to the Civil Affairs office and spoke to two different officials. After confirming what our dossier said about our ages, income, biological children, length of marriage, etc., we had to explain why we wanted to adopt a child from China, and to promise to love her, protect her and never abandon or abuse her. Just that quickly, the adoption was finalized! One of the two officials (a man) was quite intimidating to us. He seemed very surprised that we had three sons and still wanted a daughter. He made a point of saying to me that I would be very busy taking care of such a large family, and that Eric would have to work very hard to make more money so he could support us all. He also asked us if the boys were happy to be getting a baby sister, and when we answered, he immediately asked if the boys were sad to be getting a baby sister!

We’re back at the White Swan now, and Katie is napping, and we’re watching CNN (Eric) and doing homework (Kegan). As soon as the baby wakes up, we’ll head out to buy more formula and diapers, and check out the cute shops on Shamian Island. (post note at 8:30 pm : We had dinner with some of the travel group at Lucy’s, a popular western style dining spot favored by adoptive parents.)