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Sunday, March 5, 2006
FINALLY RECEIVED ZOE!
Today we met our daughter. Let’s just say Zoe is sleeping
peacefully right now, but the first few moments weren’t so
peaceful. After the long wait of 18 months becoming a Dad is
finally realized and it exceeds my wildest expectations.
We left our hotel in Beijing for the airport around 9:15 and
breezed through check-in where we met up with our travel
group. We boarded the plane for the 2-hour flight to Nanchang
and surprisingly the announcements were just like in the
States – seat belt, exits, oxygen, etc. We met our guide for
the rest of our trip, Jack, at the airport and boarded a bus
for the Gloria Hotel. We were told to be downstairs at 4:30 to
go to get Zoe. The first picture is the travel group anxiously
waiting in the hotel lobby just before 4:30.
We went to the Civil Affairs Office and were asked to wait in
a room with a bunch of wooden benches for our daughter. The
first child brought in was for one of our travel group members
from a different orphanage in Jiangxi Province. Then the next
three daughters arrived at once. While the director checked
our paperwork, Steve videotaped Zoe in the arms of a
caregiver. Then we were all handed our daughters at one time.
Zoe cried, and cried, and cried. She stopped for a while when
we began to head towards the bus back to the hotel. Once in
our rooms, she continued to cry. We were told that she was
recovering from a slight cold last week, and should give her a
little Tylenol. When we gave her the medicine, we were
convinced that she was hungry even though we had been told she
had eaten at 4 PM. Well that did the trick! She wolfed down a
bottle of formula and stopped crying.
We attempted to change her and she obviously thought we needed
some help with that part as she kicked off her clothes and
almost dressed herself in the new outfit. She also started to
take an interest in the toys we brought with us and finally
let go of the orphanage tag she had clung to so desperately.
Then it was on to dinner.
Zoe had a feast! She ate Cheerios, Rice Conji at first plain
and later two bites of steamed egg, and Watermelon. She
started eyeing everything Amy and I had on our plates as well.
I won’t even mention what the floor was like when we headed
back to our room. Somehow Amy and I were able to eat in
between feeding her.
Back in our room we thought we’d give her a chance to go to
the bathroom the same way they do here. Amy held her over the
toilet and whistled. Well that did the trick, however, from
the bathroom could be heard Amy saying “Everything’s okay,
I’ve just been pee-ed on!” While we knew what the foster moms
do, we didn’t know how they hold the babies until Jack
demonstrated in the hallway for us. Needless to say, we’ll be
doing some laundry tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning it’s back to the Civil Affairs office to
complete lots of paperwork and hopefully meet with the
Director of Ruijin SWI. We’ve been told that there are some
cameras waiting and we are desperately hoping that two of them
are ours.
Sorry there aren’t more pictures to share, but we chose to
video most of the day instead.
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