Everything came together just fine. I received some very late night phone calls and emails from our agency state side and here in China. Actually the coordinator hear in Nanjing had to call Tom in the middle of the night in order to find us. Apparently, the agency director in New York had given them the wrong hotel. Nanjing is very big so tracking us down was next to impossible. What a relief it was to make contact with everyone and make plans to get our daughter!
Addisyn was already at the adoption registration office when we arrived. She recognized us and before long we were looking through the photo album with her that we brought to her last year. I had forgotten about many of the things that we had brought for her. She had the backpack, toys, blanket, photo album and sign language and chinese album that Baylee and I had made for her. We also were given two large memory books that the orphanage staff had made for her. They were quite extensive since she had lived there for over four years. It had pictures and lots of writing in it, we will have to try to get it translated for her.
Everything was going really well and then she got a bloody nose, a pretty good one, too! She started crying and was very upset. They were all trying to put her head back to stop the bleeding or at least stop it from coming out of her nose and I kept trying to keep her head forward so all of the blood didn't run down her throat. We finally got it to stop and I took her to get cleaned up. Everything calmed down again. Then I left briefly left the room to go to the bathroom and Hayden came running in saying that Addisyn was screaming. Everything sort of fell apart for her at that point. We don't know for sure what exactly it was or it was probably everything, but she literally was screaming her head off, her nose started bleeding again and she was inconsolable. We still had to take the "family picture" too. Everyone from the orphanage and our facilitator were trying to distract her with noises and toys, etc., which was sort of crazy considering she is deaf and wasn't really responding to much at all. It reminded me of taking a 12 month old to get their picture taken at some studio in which they are unfamiliar with, with people they don't know and the photographer dangling things in front of them and making weird sounds to get them to stop screaming for one second so they can snap a picture.
I think it came together for her that this wasn't just a short little visit like last time. I can't imagine how she felt. She was pushing us away and sitting on the floor just screaming. When it came time to go we had to literally pull her into the taxi peeling her hands away from the door. The orphange director was crying. It was heart wrenching. Luckily, however, it was fairly short lived. By the time we were to our hotel she had stopped screaming and was relaxing. She was fascinated by the fancy hotel and the elevator. When we arrived at our room and let her open the door with the key card she turned the corner and we have been fine ever since.
She is so sweet and full of life. She was obviously adored by her caregivers and quite attached. We spent the rest of the day letting her get to know us and trust us. We gave her lots of snacks, went swimming and went out to eat. She ate like a champ! We are staying in a part of Nanjing called Aqua City and the hotel is attached to a mall that has all of these water features. At night they are all lit up with bright colors and the water shoots out in all of these formations. She really liked that.
Tomorrow we go back to make the adoption official and then she is officially ours!
Enjoy the pictures (hopefully I can get them attached and posted!)
No comments:
Post a Comment