China Day 3

Noelle is now officially a Zderad! It all started yesterday when we went to the Civil Affairs Office in Guangzhou to get her. There were many other families waiting for their children as well, but it wasn’t as hectic as I thought it would be. The children were with their nannies in a separate room so we couldn’t see any of them when we came in. I thought maybe we’d hear a lot of screaming and crying coming from that room, but it was pretty quiet. One by one they had each family walk over the room and a nanny would bring the child out to be given to his/her family. We were the third family called and I was so excited and nervous I could hardly stand it! I walked over to the door and within a few seconds I saw the nanny walk out with Noelle. She was crying and that made me start crying too! I took her and tried to comfort her, but of course that was hard to do when I don’t speak Chinese and she doesn’t know English. Our guide told me a few phrases to use, but they didn’t seem to work. After a few minutes Jon and I took her to a couch so we could give her something to eat and she got very excited when she saw me pull a sucker out of my backpack. When she finished the sucker we gave her a bowl of Puffs and she finished those off in record time too. We weren’t surprised when the orphanage director later told us that she’s a “big eater”. As we sat with her she began to feel more comfortable with us. At one point I got up to rinse her bowl out and she started crying. She seems like she’s going to be a mommy’s girl! Yay!! We were probably at the Civil Affairs building for a couple hours and then we made our way back to the hotel. I thought that once we got to our room she’d want to get down to play and explore, but she didn’t want any part of that. She just wanted mommy to hold her. I tried showing her various toys, but she wasn’t interested in most of them. We fed her supper and then I had to go to a meeting to fill out some paperwork. I ended up taking Noelle with me because I knew she wouldn’t be a happy camper once I walked out the door. She did great during the meeting. At one point she started talking and that was the first and only time since then that I’ve heard her voice. She also smiled for me once. It was so precious, it just melted my heart. I hope we get more smiles out of her soon. Toward at the end of the meeting I realized that my lap felt awfully warm and sure enough, Noelle had a leaky diaper! Even though she’s been so sad she did sleep really well last night and she’s been eating well too. We found out she’s a thumb sucker so that’s how she got herself to sleep. We went back to the Civil Affairs office today to sign all the official adoption documents and be interviewed. We must have passed because Noelle is officially a Zderad now! Tomorrow we go to the police station to apply for her passport and Thursday we visit her orphanage. Yesterday we found out that Noelle had been part of a program run by a group called Half The Sky. They go into orphanages and help in various ways with the children. We were given a binder of information about Noelle’s time in the program that included quite a few pictures. This is a real treasure, because we now have pictures of her from the time she was very little until the time we got her. There appears to be a lot of information in the book too, but we will have to find someone to translate it. We would love to have your prayers for Noelle. Please pray that she will learn to trust us and feel safe with us. We want her to be secure in knowing we will always be there for her. We are so grateful that God has given us this opportunity to adopt our precious daughter. A lot of people tell us that Noelle is lucky to have us, but we feel so incredibly blessed to be her parents. She is blessed to be adopted into a family that loves her, but this blessing has only happened because of a tremendous loss. My heart breaks for all she has lost and all the transitions she has gone through in her short life. She was taken to the orphanage when she was just a day or two old, then after spending about a year and a half in the orphanage she was put in foster care for 3 months. About a week ago she was then brought back to the orphanage so they could get her ready for her adoption. No wonder she is so sad! I just pray that she realizes quickly that we are her forever family! I know it will be a long process, but I also know that God will help her through her pain and I pray that she will come to know him as her savior. I will try to post pictures separately because my access to Blogger is spotty.