Today has been great! We just returned from the Adoption Centre with Alicia Mae!! She is so cute!! We both woke early this morning and got ready for the day. Paul took a shower first (in the 5 head shower!) and came out saying that it wasn’t good. Apparently the drain in the floor can’t keep up to the amount of water….so I opted for a bath instead. We headed to the bank to exchange our US money into Chinese and then we went back to the little supermarket. We thought we should have some cookies or crackers for Alicia…thinking that if she didn’t like us, we could at least bribe her with food.
At 11am, we gathered in the lobby to make the journey across the street for our babies. Have I mentioned how dangerous it is for pedestrians to cross the street in this country?? You take your life into your own hands in doing so!! Pedestrians do not have the right of way here……I should say traffic laws are simply a guideline here. I’m not even sure why they paint lines on the road, no one seems to follow them! Anyway, we had to cross a very busy street to get to the building that holds the adoption center. We made our way to the 26th floor and were led into a room lined with chairs. We were asked to do our paperwork first, since our group’s babies were from two different orphanages, we had to wait for some of the babies to arrive. I’m glad that we could do our paperwork first. When they told us yesterday that it would be babies first and then paperwork, I thought how on earth are we going to be able to concentrate. We were working on our paperwork and all of a sudden they started bringing in the babies. I kept looking at each one of them. Alicia was the last one brought into the room with her caretakers. They started calling out the babies names and once we verified our identity match the paperwork we were handed out baby. Alicia was the second to the last one called…she came right to me and then right to Paul. She only cried a little bit when she realized that the other babies in the room were crying. She was smiling and laughing at the center when we were playing with her. We finished up our paperwork and got the babies ready to head back to the hotel. Alicia was asleep in my arms before we even got to the elevator.
Once we got back to the hotel I laid her down and she slept for about another 30-40 minutes. We just finished the first diaper change…….Daddy decided that I should do the first one since he got to do Marcus’ first diaper change. He said “At least you don’t have a poopy one!” She and Paul are just laying on the bed staring at each other right now. We have to head back to the Adoption Center at 3pm……they give us 3 hours to decide if we really want her or not. I don’t think that I could pry her away from Daddy at this point if I tried!! She has not made one sound since we left the adoption center! She just looks around checking things out. We are headed to the notary office tomorrow morning and then to Walmart for diapers and stuff. We haven’t changed her clothes yet, but she looks pretty small! I brought size 3 diapers and they are way too big. Maybe tonight we will attempt a bath before bed and see what size clothes she’s in.
Marcus……we love and miss you very much!! We will try and call you on Monday night!!
