We're parents!

Wow - what a day today!  We're finally parents after all these years of waiting.  In many ways it hasn't sunk in yet because today was such a whirlwind of activity.  Alexis is beautiful and a lot of fun (when she's not crying).  We had some nice moments late this afternoon when she was in a very cheerful mood.

Short version:  Up at 4:45 am and to airport by 6:00 am.  Flew to Nanchang after 1.5 hour delay.  Received Alexis upon entering hotel (utter chaos).  Back to room for 45 minutes to prepare for civil affairs office visit.  Did paperwork and met orphanage director from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.  Back to hotel, enjoyed some time with Alexis, ate dinner at the hotel, gave Alexis a bath and put her to bed.  She was out like a light.  We expect to be too.

Long version: Malcolm didn't sleep much Sunday night but Marilyn did better.  We got up early to get to the airport to catch our 8:20 am flight. Four other families went with us to Nanchang.  Other families went to Shanghai, Xi'an, Guangzhou and one other province to get their children.  We'll meet up with them again on Friday night in Guangzhou.  The five families going to Nanchang sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes in Beijing due to air traffic control, which seems to be common.  Flew on an Airbus 320 to Nanchang and didn't arrive until around 11:45 due to the delay.  This put us behind schedule.  We had all expected to get to the hotel late morning and then get our children early afternoon.  We were all full of nerves during the morning and the delay didn't help, as we were all antsy.  When we got on the bus in Nanchang our guide Mary gave us the most important in-country adoption paperwork to review.  So here we were, just arriving in the city to pick up our children, bouncing along on the road, trying to review and fill out paperwork.  They don't waste a minute.  Then Mary told us that due to our late flight we would get our children upon arrival at the hotel.  What a surprise!  No time to change clothes, get our baby items prepared, or eat lunch.  We pulled up to the hotel, got out, walked in the door and there was a group of caregivers with the children all waiting for us in the lobby.  We dropped our bags and within a minute we were handed Alexis.  There were definitely tears, but it was so different from what we expected that we rather shell-shocked.  The five Nanchang families expected to receive their babies one at a time so we could all witness each other receiving our children, take pictures and video, and enjoy the moment.  Instead, everyone was handed their child at the same time.  It was a crazy and joyous moment - one that for many years we had been waiting.  It just went much faster than we expected.

By now it was just after 1:00 pm and we were told that we needed to be back in the lobby at 2:00 pm with some paperwork, fee payments, and gifts that we had brought.  Now it was true craziness.  First, our minds couldn't think straight because we had just received beautiful Alexis and we trying to pay attention to her, change her diaper, and make her feel comfortable.  At the same time, our luggage was delivered to our room, along with a crib, stroller, and baby bath tub.  Our luggage was strewn all over the room so that we could find the necessary items for the civil affairs appointment.  We hadn't yet figured out how to use the Baby Bjorn carrier so we just picked up Alexis, the gifts, our paperwork, and diaper bag and went down to the lobby.  We met our guides and the other families and then embarked on our first life threatening adventure with our new child - crossing the street to get to the civil affairs office.  Chinese traffic is crazy and walking across the street in busy traffic is basically a death wish.  We somehow made it across and went into the civil affairs office.  Nanchang is very hot and humid as was the civil affairs building and office.  There we did some more paperwork, paid some mega-fees, had a photo taken, were interviewed by a civil affairs employee, met and asked questions of the orphanage director, and got our adoption certificate.  One of the more interesting things we learned is that Alexis has been in foster care with a 50 year old nanny since around 2 weeks after she was born.  Another child lived in the same house with her, who was adopted by another family in our group, so Alexis and Mya are already pals.  We distributed our orphanage gifts and received a gift, too.  Then we went back to the hotel and were on our own - this after another harrowing street crossing.  The ironic thing was that we had just promised not to harm our children and then we walk out of the civil affairs office and go right into harm's way crossing the street.  It was funny once we made it across.

We got back to our hotel room and fed Alexis some food after some failed attempts earlier.  She seemed to prefer eating from a spoon rather than formula from a bottle.  Poor Alexis had quite a day - leaving foster care, driving to Nanchang, meeting new parents, seeing all sorts of new sights and sounds, enduring civil affairs office appointments, and getting a bath.  We found a few skin issues that hopefully will go away with some more frequent diaper changing and lotions.  Please pray about this because Marilyn's medical background causes her to always consider the worst, and she can sometimes obsess about things like this. 

Alexis is so cute!  We can't get over her beautiful eyes, and we spent a lot of time just hanging out with her and looking at her.  She kept us quite entertained - funny faces and lots of babbling (and we probably we entertained her, too).  She has been charming us and it's an amazing feeling to be parents.  Things are still surreal.  She seemed quite happy once we were back at the hotel, and had a good evening with us until we bathed her, which she didn't like very much.  After the bath she quickly fell asleep.  She has short hair because Chinese often shave the baby's hair a few times at a very young age to encourage thicker growth.  She had 2 major crying times - both of which were just before she fell asleep - this afternoon and tonight.  Otherwise, she has been calm and/or happy.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we have a notary appointment and we'll shop at Wal-Mart (there is a literal Wal-Mart here!) which is down the street from our hotel, the "Galactic Peach International Hotel" - quite a name.