Monday June 30: a brand new Day*

Has finally arrived...and boy, what a day it has been!

I'm writing this at almost 8pm China time, 8am EST. Georgia is finally asleep. She never napped, and ooooh boy!!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day started off with mom and I waking up around 5am. I was torn between excitement and nervous anticipation...and that laced with a bit of fear. How was Qian Ya - soon to be miss Georgia Grace Qianya Day going to react? I knew that she might cry and scream. It would be a perfectly normal reaction. In her eyes we don't look right, we don't sound right...you name it! The adults in our family may have been anticipating this day for the past 2, almost 3 years....but she hasn't. She was perfectly content with her life just as it was, thankyouverymuch.

But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. We had breakfast around 6:30 am and came back to the hotel room to kill time...and somewhere in there I managed to get hold of Royce on the Skype and talk to him. He, Steve and Thomas had an eventful day themselves, but that's a post for another time. ;) At last, it was time to go. The ride to the Civil affairs office was not quite an hour, I think...and we families were just about hyper with excitement. Veronica once more stressed what our children's reactions might be...and how the screaming and crying was normal, and she reassured us that eventually our children would feel our love and grow to trust us... it might not happen in one or two days...it might take quite awhile, but it would happen.



This is the Civil Affairs office. As I followed the group, I just had no idea of what was in store. When we got in past the main doors, we could hear many voices. Ours was not the only group receiving their children this day...there were a large group of families from Sweden, at least one Australian family (waves at Penelope) and who knows what other nationalities... and there were the sounds of babies crying.



My heart did a flip-flop when I saw this sign. Yes, this really was real..and not some crazy thing I imagined. (You would think being in China itself would have made it seem real, but I do have a vivid imagination...)



Another view, this time inside the office itself. Here I had to present my passport to prove I was the parent of this particular child. Actually, at this point I am still not the legal parent.... I basically signed a 24hr temporary custody agreement. See, China adoption law requires a "24 hour harmonious period" - which gives prospective adoptive parents a chance to observe the child and be 100 percent sure that everything is okay (within reason) and that they want to proceed with the adoption. Then, after that is concluded, the parents either adopt the child -- or go home childless (unless the Chinese officials and the prospective parents agree there is a good reason not to proceed -- like an child that has a previously undisclosed special need or something)

It was a mass of confusion... babies crying (not our groups yet, they weren't due for another 10 minutes or so...) moms and dads crying, etc. There really wasn't a dry eye in the house. Many parents were crying tears of joy, of course...this was a long awaited and much anticipated and worked for dream come true. But some parents were crying in sympathy with the clearly confused and upset children. There was just so much overwhelming emotion in the room its impossible to describe unless you have been there and lived through it yourself.

And then I saw her.

I recognized her even with her back turned toward me. She was wearing a pink shirt, a white dress and a pair of squeaky sandals. Standing and holding someone's hand... I am not sure if it was her nanny or the director or what... I only had eyes for her, And when Veronica pointed to me...and whomever it was turned her to face me... our eyes met....

And she screwed up her face and began to wail. Loud, unconsolable sobs. Well Veronica and the officials talked to her in Mandarin...reasurring her, or trying to. And for my part, since I honestly was prepared to get just such a reaction, I held her despite her struggles to get away and kept patting her back and saying "Wp aye nee Qian Ya. Wo aye nee. Mama aye nee Qian Ya. Mama aye nee Qian Ya."


*The Brand New Day is similar to what we said in our announcement when Thomas was born, it seemed appropriate to repeat it here for his sister.

***to be continued tommorrow sometime... I am writing this at 9:21pm China time... Georgia finally fell asleep at 8pm...and I turned off the lights, which also killed the circcuit the laptop is plugged into. The battery is down to 20% and I don't want to push my luck and lose this.