March 18, 2008

Officially Ours According to China 26

by Wendy • Adoption Shmoption

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Time is just flying by in a blur.  I realize that I am a day behind on my blogging and I feel pretty bad about it because I want to try and journal all of these experiences that we are having to share with you all and to have the memories for the future.  We have had our hands full with Catherine and with all of our appointments that I just run out of time.  I feel like some of the things we did yesterday we did today and some of the things we did today we did yesterday.  Ugh…

Yesterday we had our appointment at the Civil Affairs Bureau in Chongqing where Catherine officially made our daughter according to China.  We were ushered up to an office floor that was decorated in red.  I thought it was actually a pretty fancy office.  There were a few other families from other agencies that were there to make their adoptions official.  We had to take a family portrait for our documents, pay our orphanage donation, get fingerprinted and then we were presented with a beautiful certificate and a gold plate as a gift from China.  We were supposed to be interviewed by some officials from the government but because of some traffic jam, the officials weren’t able to be there, so we didn’t have to do that part.  I was a little nervous about being interviewed, so when they said we didn’t have to do it I was relieved.

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After the CAB appointment, we spent some time in the area looking at small park/mall type area.  So many of the people stopped to look at the babies and at us.  We had many people tell us that Catherine was beautiful and that she was a lucky baby.  When people tried to touch her or talk to her, she started to cry.  I think that’s a good sign because she is attaching to us.  It was pretty intimidating to have so many people crowd around us just to stare.

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After that we went back to the hotel to just hang out.  We put Catherine on our bed to play with her toys and man does she love toys!  She loves her keys, and a ball that our friends the Richters gave us, her books, and the beach ball.  She is starting to scoot along and is definitely more active.  She loves to giggle and show her toothy grin.

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Bedtime is a rough time for us.  She loves to take a bath and splash in the water but she does not like to be dressed or actually go to bed.  She cries and cries for about 30-45 minutes before she finally falls asleep.  We are pacing the hotel room and rocking her and it starts to make my arms and back hurt.  It’s so heartbreaking to cry so loud for so long.   Once she goes to sleep though she sleeps deeply and throughout the night.

Today has been a rough day for all of us.  Catherine has been so cranky for most of the day. If she wasn’t sleeping she was crying.  There was a point in time that I just started crying too because I didn’t know what else to do for her.  John finally was able to get her to calm down and go back to sleep.  John spent a couple of hours filling out paperwork for our Consulate appointment and Catherine spent most of the day in bed.  In the afternoon all of us families managed to venture out to a shopping area near the hotel.  Again we were followed, stared at, and stopped to see the babies.  We wanted to go out and get some fresh air and to find a fan (it’s so freaking hot here that I am miserable during the day) but the trip was a bust.  We couldn’t find a fan that a store would sell to us and Catherine started having a breakdown so we headed back to the hotel.

When we finally got her down for a nap, the other moms in the group (Robyn and Cathy) and I went to the mall that is attached to our hotel to get away for about an hour.  We had fun window shopping and looking at all of the stores that are so unique to China.

Tonight was also rough trying to get Catherine to bed.  It took about an hour and a half of pacing the hotel room trying to get her to sleep.  As soon as she would nod off she would wake back up screaming.  I just get so sad because I wish I could make her feel better but I know she is grieving and she has gone through some very big changes and this is her way of coping.  I pray that she sleeps well tonight and we have a better day tomorrow.  We are supposed to go to Wal-Mart to stock up on some things (like a fan) in the morning.  The rest of the week we don’t have too much planned until we head back to Guangzhou.  We are wanting to take a cable car across the Yangtze River but we shall see how things go.

In spite of all of the tears and sometimes helpless feelings we are just so happy that she is officially ours according to China.

I have to say that I am ready for some American food like mashed potatoes and chicken pot pie. 

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