Dec. 13th - I have a daughter !! (Cheryl)

Well, Kaeli and I have now met and fallen in love!

We had a restless night (Laurie and I) and were up before our 6am wake up call. We got all our things together for the day and caught the bus to our meeting at the Civil Affairs Bureau. We all lost our breaths as we pulled into the building's parking lot and trooped off the bus, just to find out that the offices had moved! Sarah, our guide, found an official who jumped on the bus and took us to their new location.

We got off the bus again, and went into an office building to wait for the babies, who hadn't arrived yet. We waited nervously in a stark room with chairs and a table and a water cooler. Then we saw another bus pull up outside, and three women whisked three bundles with black hair into the room across from us as we all stopped breathing completely!

Then we were all called in one by one to the other room to be given our daughters. I was the first one to go in, and was introduced to Kaeli , my gorgeous wide-eyed daughter. I took her into my arms and she just stared at me. We spent the next hour getting to know each other, and I am amazed (knock on wood) at how quickly we clicked - it might have been the Cheerios I was feeding her! It got to the point that I could put her down on the floor at arm's length and she would hold up her arms and toddle back into mine. We asked questions and signed papers and held our daughters, who were being so well behaved! All three had their footprints made in red ink on the adoption papers, and we had our first official family picture taken. We notarized all the papers and were thanked for adopting the girls, and were led back to the bus, with Kaeli in my arms!

Buses are not something she likes, evidently. She cried for a few moments, then burrowed her head in my shoulder and curled up tight and was quiet the rest of the bus trip back to the hotel. Kaeli and I laid down on the bed to try to nap, while Laurie went down to get lunch for us. Kaeli was not interested in laying down, so we played on the bed with the stacking cups and bounced up and down, and then she threw all the cups off the edge of the bed, took one step away from me and fell over fast asleep. She slept for about an hour, then woke up. I think she was startled, and cried for just a few seconds, then settled down again.

We met everyone downstairs at 3pm and walked to the nearby Walmart, where we had an experience of a lifetime!!! Very crowded store, with all the labels in Chinese (imagine that!) and wiggling babies to try to figure out what fit best. We were quite an attraction, also. We bought some things to donate to the orphanage in place of the clothes the girls came in today, which we will keep as momentos. We checked out, and Walmart delivered the items to the hotel for us!

We then went out to dinner at a local restaurant, where we discovered waitresses really like babies! The other two families had stayed at the hotel, so Kaeli was the star attraction. One of the waitresses feed her two bowls of soup and an egg custard dish, on top of the two containers of baby food I had already fed her.

Back to the hotel where we played and had the last diaper change, and got ready for bed and read a bedtime story. Then we tried to put Kaelil to bed, which she would have nothing to do with. So we played some more, and learned that she can do somersaults by herself. But no going to bed. Finally, at 10pm, she was so tired she started crying and wouldn’t stop. Laurie and I tried everything, and nothing helped. We finally got Dr. Susan in on the action when Kaeli started getting hysterical, and she couldn’t get Kaeli quieted either. So we pulled the stroller out and Dr. Susan and I walked her up and down the hallways, where she quieted down and stopped crying, finally. She’s asleep in the stroller next to me right now, and we’re going to try to get her into the crib without waking her once she is sound asleep. Wish us luck!

And I still am madly in love with her!!!