Our Journey to Mary Yue-Anne: Travel Journals

May 17th-Adoption Day!
This morning we started off by going to the buffet breakfast at the hotel. They
actually serve a really good breakfast. Mary was pretty good at the table, a little
loud though. She likes to be the center of attention. She had some rice, which we are finding to be her favorite. After breakfast, we prepared our first diaper bag. The hotel would not let us take the sink, but I think we pretty much took everything else. Today is the day that we make Mary officially ours. We had to go back over to the Civil Affairs office and finalize the adoption. Lucky for us, they had power today. No air conditioning though. When we first got there, we were the only group. Then more and more and MORE groups started showing up and having to wait in the same HOT waiting room. Nice. Hot mommies and daddies and hot and cranky babies. It made for a pleasant sound.

We began with the interview with the Registration Officer. The first question she
asked was the important one. "Are you happy with this baby?" Duh. Like we really had to think about that one. Even if there were some doubts in our minds, I could not imagine saying "No". We had to put our thumb print in red ink over top of our signature to make things official and Mary had to put her footprint on the certificate. Then we had to go back to the hot, screaming baby waiting room. Fun. Them we went to get our "family" picture taken for the adoption certificate. Quick and painless.

Then we had to go back to....you guessed it...the hot, screaming baby waiting room. It was all standing room only now. At least they opened up the windows so we all could get some air. Everyone was amused watching the school kids across the alley wave and yell "Whats you name??" at all the people in the window of the waiting room. They came to get one parent from each family to go see the Notary. This was the time we got to take all that money (orphanage fee, etc). It was actually a relief to not have to carry that around anymore.

Then we were done! Mary was ours! Forever! What a neat feeling. We headed back to the hotel to feed Mary and put her down for a nap. She was cranky, but then again, so were we. She only slept for about an hour and woke up crying. This was really the first time she really belted out a cry. There was a reason. When we picked her up, she was hot. I mean really hot. We took her temperature...almost 103 degrees! Freak out time! We gave her some motrin and tried to cool her off with a bath. No dice. That made her scream worse.

We called our rep, Daphne to tell her Mary was sick and running a fever. It took
her less than a minute to get to our room. The doctor was due in shortly, so our room would be her first stop. Mary's throat had gotten worse so it was time to break out the antibiotics. The doctor also gave us some medicine to fight against a virus too. Between the two meds, it should knock things out.

We met for a group dinner at 5:30 pm after an afternoon of rocking Mary back and forth and walking the length of the hotel room. We weren't sure if dinner was going to last very long with her feeling bad, but were willing to try. I'm glad we did. Dinner was great! Best meal yet. We DID have to take turns rocking her and walking around the restaurant, but dinner tasted so good that we didn't want to leave. Then our rep breaks out the cake. She had a birthday cake for all the girls that had just turned or were about to turn one (Mary included). She also had a second cake to celebrate Forever Day (adoption day). This was the day all the girls had Forever Families and it was something worth celebrating. They had the neatest candles on the cake I had ever seen. Daphne called them magic candles. When you like them, they shoot up flames like a firework, then the big flame goes down, and the whole candle opens up into a flower with candles on the petals. It was COOL! The cake tasted awesome. Some type of sponge cake with whip cream and fruit. Then Daphne gave all the girls birthday presents. She gave them a Chinese Wall Hanging (for good luck) and a copy of the Hunan Times for that day (in Chinese of course). It was very special to us and to all the families.

When we got back to the hotel, I tried to get online and update the website, but
Miss Mary had plans otherwise. She really likes to be rocked to sleep and really
loves her Mama. Rob is trying to not let it bother him that Mary merely "tolerates" him. He's doing pretty well. He has not had the guts to try a diaper yet, but he is getting good at making her bottles and packing the diaper bag.

Here are a couple pictures from today.

Waiting at the civil affairs office