Gotcha Day

Ok, so I'm a bit behind on my blogging...give me a break - I'm a new mom!!!


Monday morning started extremely early. We had to leave the hotel at 5:30am, which meant up at 4:30am. Unfortunately both Bill and I were up at 3:00am...plenty of time to meet for our ride to the airport, but it meant just that many less hours of sleep before we received Ella.


The flight to Nanning seemed so long. Everyone commented on how it seemed longer than the 14 hour flight we all took from Chicago last Wednesday. Anticipation was playing into it for sure.


Nanning is like paradise. Bill and I are amazed at how similar to Mexico it seems. If you just change the language on the street signs you'd think you were in Playa del Carmen - minus the huge resorts. Coral colored hibiscus, hot pink bouganvilla, pink petunias, banana trees, sugar cane - they are all over here, growing wild along highways and professionally landscaped for hotels. There is farmland everywhere, and from the plane we could see that every inch of rural land is either plowed or terraced for growing fruits and vegetables. In fact, it is known as the "Green City" here in China due to its lush tropical foliage. Nanning is considered a small city in China - only 2 million people. And everyone rides a scooter here. Much fewer cars than Beijing and thousands of people on scooters and bicycles. Nanning is a direct contrast to Beijing this time of year - warm, muggy and colorful vs. cold, windy and drab. Technically Ella is from a town about 3 hours east of Nanning, but we are here because it is the capital of Guangxi Province and where we need to do all of the official paperwork.







So on to the good stuff...

After settling into the hotel for an hour, we were off to the civil building where the babies were brought by the nannies. The anticipation of our group was unbelievable. Some of us had tears in our eyes, everyone was smiling, some were shaking. We've all waited 3 years for this day to come. After what seemed like forever, one worker called each of our family names individually, checked our document and passports, and then the director of the orphanage brought our baby in and handed her to us. It was an amazing experience.







As you can see from the pictures, Ella was asleep when the director handed her to me. She slept for probably another 15-20 minutes amongst all the commotion of the other families and babies! When she did wake up, she just looked at us with her beautiful eyes and crazy hair. I'm sure we're the strangest looking people she's ever seen...we look and smell very different from what she is used to . But she didn't cry, and 24 hours later as I'm writing this she still hasn't cried at all. She seems to be very content and not fussy (so far!). She has been snuggling up to us and reaching for us. We've gotten 2 smiles out of her this morning. I think she's still in shock and just trying to soak it all in. She is a non-stop eating machine when we give her a bottle or some table food. And last night she went to bed at 8pm and we had to wake her at 7am this morning - not a peep out of her all night! (But unfortunately the beds here are just as hard as in Beijing and neither Bill nor I slept again last night!)


Ella sucks her left index finger upside down, just as I remember my youngest brother doing. She even has the same callous on it from sucking. We did hand her a pacifier last night and she took it right away and kept it in throughout the night...kind of strange considering she's almost 15 months old and has never used a pacifier, but if it makes her happy I'm all for it.




We're having a great time with the other families. You do develop a certain special bond considering we've all just gone through 'labor and delivery' together! It's fun seeing the differences in babies and their similarities due to being from the same orphanage. It seems like most were good sleepers last night, which could mean they developed that way from the orphanage schedule or maybe they were just wiped out from the long and terrifying day they had.


I'm going to try to get a nap in while Bill and Ella are napping. Ian, if Gramma is reading this to you, we miss you soooo much and can't wait to see you!


If you'd like to view more pictures of this unforgettable day, click on the More Pictures link on the top right of this page. Then click in the Day 5 - Monday folder.