We were so exhausted last night that we couldn’t even think of journaling our day – the most important one! We knew we would be in big trouble if we didn’t get those pictures posted so, that is all the energy that we had. Thanks for all of the kind e-mails. We have not had a chance to respond to many but we have been enjoying all of the kind words. Yesterday was a blur. We started out meeting our guide XiXi for a meeting to go over all of our paper work. Not much to that but we had a few hours to kill before getting on our bus to the civil affairs office. We tried to each but our stomachs were in knots. We left Shamian Island and headed for real Guangzhou. Guangzhou is crowed with people, bikes, and cars everywhere. Street signs, stop signs and crosswalks are suggestions. People just go wherever they feel like. The civil affairs office has recently moved and we were the first group to pickup our babies at the new office. The bus let us off on the opposite side of the street and we had to make our way across. It was interesting. The guys had to stay close to our other guide Bob. He was caring all of the orphanage donation money for the group of 6. No one bothered us and we headed inside.
We headed upstairs to the waiting area. When we arrived there were three babies waiting with their nannies. Natalie was one of the babies sitting in the room quietly but, we did not recognize her. The babies were whisked off to another room while the paperwork was completed. Finally it was our turn and we were the second family called. The nanny was caring Natalie and she put her down and she walked the rest of the way to us. Wait to you see the video! We got to spend some time at the civil affairs office with the nannies and orphanage personnel. They let us know about her eating and sleeping habits. They gave us pictures from the orphanage. They also had the two disposable cameras we sent over last month. We can not wait to get these developed. Once we left the office we walked a few blocks and had the bus pick us up. The people in this area of Guangzhou are not used to seeing foreigners with Chinese babies.
We got lots of confused looks. Natalie did not make a sound the whole time at the office or on the bus ride home. Once we got back to the hotel things changed. She was upset and confused. She also has a cold and was getting very cranky. She would not let us put her down. If we did she would cry. It was the most pitiful site I have seen. Her cold was bothering her and when she coughed, she stuck out her bottom lip and started to whimper. She did not want to eat or take a bath just wanted to be held. The Triaminic did not go down but the grape flavored Tylenol did. After a few hours she started to calm down and play with some of the toys. She ate a few fruit puffs but that was about it. We will try some congee in the morning. We got her down about 7:30 and she has been out almost 12 hours now. When they said she was a heavy sleeper they meant it. Its Saturday morning here and we just got her to take her first bottle. Boy is she hungry. We better take her down and get some table food. She only takes one bottle a day so this should be interesting.
