China Trip - December 5 - Adoption Day

When I got back to the room last night, Kevin had Graycen asleep. I figured she wouldn’t sleep through the night, because she hadn’t had a bottle or anything besides Cheerios since we got her. I got Chinese formula and cereal to make her bottle the way she is used to. I was getting everything organized for today until midnight, and I heard some rustling over in her crib. I looked at her and she was smiling at me! I couldn’t believe it. I knew she was hungry, so I left her in the crib and fixed her bottle. I fed it to her, and she sucked it down quickly and didn’t even burp. I layed her back in her crib, and she slept until around 6am, when Kevin and I were up trying to get pictures sent to the boys back home, because I am still unable to get anything updated on our website. We got everything together and went down for breakfast. Babies everywhere. I really wonder what the Chinese people working at the hotel think of us crazy Americans.

After breakfast we were off to the civil affairs office to make the adoptions official. There were 2 other families there from , who were also adopting babies from Gansu province. This is where we paid our fees and signed everything that we did accept Graycen as our baby—we didn’t want to return her! We stamped our thumbprints in red ink over our signatures and Graycen signed with her footprint. That was it! All those months of waiting and working and in just a few minutes, ta-da, she’s ours!



Back to the hotel, where we just spent time playing with Graycen and getting used to each other. She is doing really well, and doesn’t seem to be missing her foster family—maybe she’s a good actor, but she really seems to like us! The only time she cries is when we give her a bath, wipe her face or bottom, and when she couldn’t go #2 today. We are working on that issue, and hopefully everything will come out okay (ha, ha).

We went to supper at around 4pm. Shiyan had the hotel come up with a special menu for the adoptive families, because their prices were a little high, she didn’t recommend us to go out of the hotel here to eat, and we will be here until Friday. There are no American restaurants here like there were in Beijing and will be in Guangzhou . Our “set menu” has choices of beef burger, pizza and something else American with soup, salad & dessert for about $7.50—it is a really nice restaurant, so we are happy. Kevin had the beef burger, which is really a hamburger, and I had a cheese pizza. Graycen ate some of my bananas from my fruit salad.

Then back to the room to play with Graycen again. We are working on getting her hand/eye coordination a little better, sitting up and rolling over. Right now she can’t do any of these things, which is very delayed for an almost 11 month old. We are questioning the accuracy of her age a little bit, because the other babies that are her age seem to be not as delayed. The bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter, we still need to work on these things with her.



We are definitely smitten with a beautiful baby girl from China!!