There is a part of me that doesn’t know where to start, so I am just going to run with it. First off, we woke at 5 am and gave up the fight at sleeping anymore. I double checked the bags and put a bunch of stuff for the baby in my carry on in case the bags got lost again. They picked our bags up at 7 and we were told to be in the lobby at 9 to catch the bus to the airport. We were also told to change a good amount of our US Dollars into Yuan for the various bits of paperwork we would be doing with the baby on Monday. Once we all had our money, we headed for the airport. We flew on China Eastern airlines for this short flight and they were fast and efficient like everything else we have experienced in China. After we had been flying about 15 minutes they said, “Our flight is 1 hour and 50 minutes long and we will serve you lunch.” WHAT? Real food on a short flight? And a ticket that only cost $200? Anyway you should have seen these women move, in less than 45 minutes they served everyone a bottled water, then they came through with the food, then they came through with a regular drink, then they came back through for the trash. Speed racers! And all the Chinese people on the plane knew the drill and that you have to eat and drink fast so they can clean up. It was very entertaining.
Now back to the emotions….I thought that my stomach was going to jump out of my throat. Mike and I kept giving each other the countdowns. 5 more hours, 4 more hours and so on. The flight was smooth and once we landed in Nanchang (pronounced Nan-chung) you could see the excitement/stress on all the parents faces. We were ready!!! No more talking about it and making plans, get us to those babies! We were driven to our hotel where we checked in and our guide Michael took one person from each family to buy formula, rice cereal and bottled water. While Mike did that I moved everything for the babies needs into my pink backpack and then started to fidget. By the time Mike got back, I was unpacking all our stuff, just to make the time go by faster. It didn’t help 😉 So I tried brushing my hair and generally making sure I didn’t look totally travel weary. I didn’t even bother with make-up because I was so sure I would have cried it all off.
At 3:15 we were supposed to meet in the lobby to go get the babies. So we were all cheering each other and talking about it and off we went to the Civil Affairs office. First, it’s just in the middle of town (okay a town of 2 million people) on the 26th floor of a regular office building. It was BLAZING hot in there. There were nannies and babies all over the place. There were other families there from another agency. On the way there one of the mom’s (Tina maybe) said, “Embrace the CHAOS that is Gotcha Day.”
It was CHAOS!!! Mike was calming looking at the babies and I was frantically scanning the babies trying to see which one was Nadia. (Would she have a shaved head? Would she be healthy? Was she going to cry?) I thought I was going to pass out I was so excited. Then a couple moved out of the way and across the room a nanny was pointing the baby she was holdings’ hand at me and saying, “Mama, mama.” And I just looked at her and screamed out, “Is that my baby?” And she shook her head and kept pointing and saying, “Mama, mama.” I thought my heart was going to burst right out of my chest right there. So I was grabbing at Mike saying, “There she is, there she is!!!!” And I tried not to cry too much, but it was overwhelming.
Then they started calling the families over one by one and the babies started to wail! We waited our turn and got to watch most of the other people in our group get their babies and it was so sweet. Mike was holding the video camera up high trying to get shots of Nadia with the nanny, but it was madness in that room. Then they called our name and I was over the edge. I had our passports and the nanny was already handing her to me before they double checked it. Nadia just checked me out and was holding on to her little tag that had her “mug shot” photo from referral day on it. She was really interested in the other babies that were crying and looked at me and looked at Mike, but she just didn’t get upset.
Some of you may be wondering how the nanny knew me. We sent a care package a few days after we got the referral with socks for the babies, candy for the nannies, 2 disposable cameras and a photo album with photos of Mike and I inside. So they must have been showing it to her and so they knew. We got the photo album and the 2 cameras back and I can’t wait to get them developed. What a treasure since we couldn’t visit the orphanage.
So we got out of the way and were just talking to Nadia and checking her out. She was so HOT! Her little jammies were absolutely soaked and it was just too hard to get any air in there. Babies were crying everywhere. Nadia was just looking at them, and then looking at me. They moved us down a hallway to take our family photo and she became fascinated with Mike’s little tag he wore around his neck with her photo and Chinese name on it. He had that in case the Chinese people ask why we have her. On the back it says that we love her and she is our daughter and we are taking her back to America where we will provide for her. It also says that we will bring her back to visit her home country when she is older. Our guide Michael gave it to us and Mike added Nadia’s photo. She is hooked on looking at it and playing with it hanging around his neck.
Once all the photos were done, we were allowed to ask the nannies a few questions and Michael translated for us. We found out that 2 of the babies in our group were her crib neighbors. One family lives in Sugarland and the other in Florida. Cool! We found that she didn’t have specific nannies and that they all helped with all the babies. We found out that there was no note or any other information on her when she was found. We learned that she likes to have her back scratched when she needs to calm down. Right around then it seems that she crashed out in Mike’s arms and stayed asleep until we were back at the hotel.
Once that was all done they told us to go back to the bus and we were going back to the hotel. Once there Michael was able to give us the babies sleeping and eating schedule. They say Nadia wakes at 5:30, takes 3 naps a day, takes 6 bottles a day and goes to bed at 7 pm and sleeps through the night. WHOA! We headed up to our room where I was dying to get the sweaty jammies off of her and cool her off. Once she cooled off we were playing with her and she even laughed and smiled.
Nadia never cried through the whole Gotcha Day event. She watched all the other babies wailing and watched Mike and I very closely, but never cried. She is a very inquisitive little girl. She tries to get at things and see if they make noise or what they do. We played with her a bit and then realized that she might be hungry and it was one of her feeding times. She was not having any part of that. We tried making the nipple hole larger, I made the second bottle even hotter. Nope, she was not eating. She started to get a bit fussy and we just walked around with her, but she never full out cried.
She is a tiny little one and I got on the scale, then Mike put her in my arms and she is only 15 pounds. There is NO WAY she weighed 14.5 pounds at her referral. I think they weighed her with all those clothes on. I got her on the bed lying on my chest and I was just whispering to her and she fell asleep. And as I was laying there I thought of Eddie and Kim and their kiddos. Many a time when we were visiting them or they us, Claire or Reagan would fall asleep on their chests like that and I remember thinking it was the sweetest thing. And here I was with the most amazing baby who fell right to sleep on my chest.
I kept saying to Mike, “I can’t believe we are really here and we really got this baby girl.” It’s a bizarre and overwhelming flood of emotions. I imagine this is what pregnant moms feel when they finally see the face of the baby they have carried around with them for so long. I just can’t believe it!
