Got Her

Noelle loves her new Mommy!

Ann patiently coaxes Dan Dan into her crib but, as soon as she recognizes where she is, Dan Dan starts crying and wants Ann to hold her. The day has gone amazingly well, though. This is the first time Liu Dan has really cried today, and we've seen many smiles. It appears that Dan Dan is a lot like Emma, outgoing and happy. They're going to be quite a pair.
We started the day with the amazing breakfast buffet downstairs, then met everyone to get on the bus at 9:30 for the 20 minute ride to the Registration Office. There are 13 families in our group - the largest in quite a while - and we're together adopting 14 children. There were also a few families from other countries there today so the gotcha room was crowded and noisy. We arrived about 10 a.m. and children then started arriving by car or van from various parts of the province, one or two at a time. A car would arrive out front and a lady would carry a child up the steps and into our room with everyone watching to see whose it would be.

We were only spectators, watching and taking pictures for other families, but it was still an emotional time. At about noon we all boarded our bus to the hotel, everyone carrying their new child except us. But while we were enroute to the hotel our guide got a call that the train carrying Liu Dan would be arriving at 12:40 and she would be at the hotel around 1 - 1:10. We were to wait in our room for the phone call that Dan Dan was there.

As it happened, there was no suspenseful waiting. The time was upon us before we knew it. I had just returned from another family's room to borrow some Cheerios and Ann was hurriedly preparing the room. Dan Dan was taken first to our guide's room, just a few doors down the hall from ours. When I got the call I went out the door and there was Liu Dan walking down the hallway toward me. Ann rushed out to see her and we spent the next 15 minutes sitting in the hallway outside our door, slowly introducing ourselves as Dan Dan toddled around the hallway and looked at herself in the hall mirror. When Ann, sitting on the floor, first picked her up, Dan Dan raised her arms and arched her back to wriggle out of Ann's grasp. But she didn't cry and the protest didn't last long. By 2 p.m. our family was alone in our room getting used to being the new us.

We had a paperwork meeting at 3 p.m. and then Emma and Paul walked to the Walmart to pick up a few things while Ann stayed behind to spend time with Dan Dan. When Emma and Paul returned, we went out to eat with another family, taking Liu Dan along. She sat in Ann's lap smiling and laughing and playing with her chop sticks. I couldn't believe how much she ate!

The most emotional part of the day for me was seeing, when we changed her clothes and diaper, that Liu Dan was healthy. A couple of the children were emaciated or had diaper rash or scars but Dan Dan apparently has been well fed and well cared for; appropriately plump with nice smooth skin and not a trace of diaper rash.

She's also a much prettier little girl than I realized before meeting her. Maybe I'm biased... No, she really is a pretty little girl and very outgoing, much like Emma. I'm sure that she'll get her share of the attention.

Well, Ann finally got Dan Dan to sleep in the crib. She had to cradle Liu Dan in her arms so that the transition to the crib wouldn't awaken her. Maybe this will be our first good night's sleep. That would be nice. Tomorrow we take a bus at 9 a.m. back to the Registration Office to do some paperwork and then to the Notary Office for more paperwork before returning to the hotel at about noon