What a Difference a Day Makes

Just so everyone knows, I'm not able to access my blogger site to do updates, so I'm sending these updates via email.  I have no idea how it looks or if all the pics are actually coming through, so I apologize in advance if the blog looks kinda funny.
 
Livvie slept more than 12 hours last night (she was understandably exhausted from the day before).  We were very surprised she didn't cry when she woke up with us.  She was shy and quiet at first, but we actually got a few smiles out of her.  We had her watch us give Lucky a bath and then decided to see if she would let us put her in the tub (she needed a bath something fierce!).  We filled up the tub and put her in with some stacking cups and she was great about it.  I wouldn't say she had fun, but she definitely wasn't scared.  She played with the cups and let me wash her up and rinse her off with no fuss at all.
 
After the tubby, we got dressed and went down to the hotel lobby for breakfast,  The girl likes to eat!!!  She will eat anything we put in front of her.  The orphanage staff actually cautioned us to take food away from her or else she will eat to much.  It's so sad that these kids never have enough to eat and typically feel hungry, you can see it in her eyes when she sees food that it's just a primal need for it. 
 
She was great during breakfast and then we had to head back to the Civil Affairs office to make the adoption official.  We got to the offices and they asked us "if we would promise to never abandon her", "if we would give her a good home and education", "if we liked her", and "if we still wanted to adopt her"  Yes, Yes, Yes, and Hell Yes.   So it was official, in the eyes of the Chinese government, Livvie is ours.  :)
 
During our time at the office, she really started coming out of her shell. She was running around laughing and actually called me "mama". She loves to run and give these coy little smiles and shake her head.  I'm going to try to attach a video clip of her to the blog, but I don't know if it will work.
 
Here's what we know about Livvie so far:
 
- She's a girly-girl.  When she noticed me putting on lip gloss, she went and brought me her Hello Kitty purse and held out her chapstick to me.  I opened it up and she put it on her lips and smacked them together and smiled at me.
 
- She loves the ipod touch - we are going to have to beg, borrow, or steal to buy her one of her own when we get home.  Because if we don't, there's going to be a war between her and Lucky (and she's scrappy enough, she just might win).
 
- She seems pretty ditsy (in a adorable way).  She has this way about her that is almost valley-girl / airhead / ditsy.  Hard to explain, but pretty darn cute.
 
- She was SPOILED by her nannies.  She doesn't seem to know the word no and is downright stubborn when you try to take something away from her.  She is going to be a challenge (Annie - stop laughing!)
 
So overall, today was a much better day.  But things got REALLY rough again around bedtime and she started grieving again pretty hard.  She keeps trying to put on her shoes and coat and going to the door and we know she's trying to tell us to take her back.  When she finally accepted we weren't going to, the defeat and grief in her was like a knife through the heart.  It took about an hour for her to finally fall asleep.  You can read all the adoption, attachment, process, books and websites in the world and nothing will prepare your heart for the absolute grief they go through and how completely helpless you feel while their little body is racked by the most heart-wrenching sobs you've ever heard.  I'm not trying to be a downer, but I do want to paint a realistic picture for all the followers I have that haven't picked up their little ones yet.  This trip has been harder than anything I could have imagined and I would be lying if I didn't say there weren't times I wish I could just pack up and go home.  But I have faith that we're doing the right thing and things will get better.  Hopefully tomorrow will bring more smiles and less grief.

Gotcha Day!

Yesterday was the best day and the worst day of our lives all rolled into one.  We took a van to the Civil Affairs Office with one other family at around 2:30pm.  They told us ahead of time that there would be a total of 13 families at the office all receiving their children at the same time.  Our guide Lee told us that when we arrived, we wouldn't get to see the children right away.  The plan was to complete paperwork first and then sit in the waiting room and they would call us one by one to meet the children.  Well, let's just say it went nothing like that.  We got off the elevator and all the other families were already there and had gotten their children.  And standing there in the middle of the room was Livvie looking right at us with two of her nannies.  They pointed to us and said something to her and she waved.  Of course we went right over by her (forget the paperwork!) and I knelt down to say hello.  At first she was fine, super shy, but not scared.  The nannies were talking to her and she was just kinda looking at us.  Then one of the nannies picked her up and gave her to me to hold and that's when everything changed.  She immediately started crying and screaming and trying to get away from us.  Lee told us that this would probably happen since she is older and that the best thing to do is to get her away from the nannies so she could start bonding with us.  So we walked with her down a quiet hallway to try to calm her down.  She screamed for more than an hour, calling out for her nannies. 

 

I didn't go into this process naive, I knew to expect this, but it was a million times harder than I expected.  Her grief and fear was so strong there were actually times during that first hour I thought about giving her back and just walking away. 

 

After the first hour, Lee asked me to come and fill out paperwork and talk to the nannies to get info about Livvie's routines, eating habits, etc.  Cale and Lucky stayed with her out of site so she wouldn't see the nannies again.  I could still here her screaming the entire time I was talking to the nannies and I could tell they were upset to.  I think they wanted to go and comfort her, but Lee told them no.  After we were done talking, Lee told them they needed to leave and I could tell they were very sad they weren't going to get to say goodbye.  I asked Lee if they wanted to go and say goodbye and she said she told them they couldn't because it would only make things worse.  I felt terrible.

 

So the nannies left and Cale brought Livvie back into the waiting room and we let her walk around.  We could tell she was searching for the nannies (still crying), but then it was almost like she realized they were gone and she started to quiet down.  We filled out paperwork for another hour and she slowly started to calm down.  During the last 15 minutes, Cale gave her to me while he was signing some papers and I got out the container of mini M&M's....I showed her one and ate it to show her it was food.  She stretched out her hand and took one and ate it.  Now this may not seem like a big deal, but it was!  It was the first time in over two hours that she even made eye contact with either of us.  So we ate some more M&M's and I started showing her the other treats we brought (My Little Pony, a stuffed monkey, a light up keychain).  She was interested in looking at everything and really latched on the the keychain (thanks Mom!).  She clicked the light on and off on it about a 100 times.  Still no smile, but at least she wasn't crying.  Then the moment that I will never forget, Lucky showed her his ipod and she looked at it and stretched her hand out.  He gave it to her and she started pressing buttons on it and then looked up at me and smiled.  It was the tinyest of smiles, but it was one of the happiest moments of my life.  At that moment, I knew there was hope.

 

Then, the cutest moment of the day.  I tried to take the ipod away from her (since she was waving it around and I was scared she was going to break it), the little turd hid it behind her back and then gave us the most devilish little grin and this little coy shake of her head.  Oh Boy - we are in TROUBLE!!!!!    :)

 

I will post more later about our first night together.  We miss everyone and can't wait to get home! 

 

Oh, one more thing, she just got over the chicken pox last week, so that's why she has the scabs on her face in the pictures.

Guangzhao Day 1

I'm too tired to be clever, so this post is going to be pretty boring.  I can't even begin to explain how sick we are of traveling.  24 hours of straight travel (car and plane) on Thursday, only 4 hours of sleep on Friday, full day of agency orientation and then sightseeing at the Great Wall, 5 hours of sleep becasue Turlte woke up at 3:30am this morning and was ready for breakfast, and now 10 straight hours of travel today.  We left our hotel at 8:00am this morning and went to the Beijing airport for our flight to Guanzhao and we just got to our hotel (The Victory). 

 

Here's the highlights (or actually low-lights). 

- Great Wall was beautiful, but jet lag really hit us when we got there and me and Turtle both ended up having meltdowns on the Wall.  No sleep really messes with a person and when you combine a pretty grueling hike on the wall, you get two very emotionally and physically exhausted people and one bewildered Cale (who has yet to feel any jet lag). 

 

- Food in Beijing was not great and make us pretty queasy.  The highlight of our trip so far was finding a McDonalds in Beijing....yes we came all the way to China and the best part so far has been McDonald's.  As an added perk, we were quite the rock stars in Beijing (I think because of Turtle's red hair) and when we couldn't find a place to sit in McDonalds, the staff actually made other customers get up and move and gave us a big table.  The manager also came out and gave Turtle a free ice cream cone.  And everywhere we go people stop and give him candy????   :)

 

- I shouldn't have bragged about how wonderful Turtle was on the flight because now the universe has decided we need to be humbled.  He has been a absolute BEAR the last 24 hours.  Whiny, crying, llama-drama, tantrums...like nothing we've ever dealt with him before.  We know it's the jet-lag, but man he has been a handful.  He's sleeping now so hopefully a good nights sleep will help.

 

- Living out of a hotel is very challenging, especially one with no drawers and only 5 hangers.  I have 2 weeks of clothes for 4 people and no where to put it all.

 

 

Now for the good stuff. 

 

- We get Livvie tomorrow at 2:00pm....which will make all of this completely worth it.  At the airport we saw a handful of little girls that looked to be about her age and it made us grin....looking at them and realizing we get our ladybug tomorrow is unreal.

 

- We will post pictures as soon as we can.  :)

 

 

Signing off for now....