September 6th, It's Official

Today it's official. In the eyes of the Chinese government, Megan is ours. It was a long, exhausting day. Thankfully Megan had a good night last night. She went to sleep at 10pm, woke up at 3:30am, had a bottle, and went back to sleep. Brian and I had to get up at 6am and she woke up too. If we had stayed asleep, I think she would have too. The beds are quite comfortable, but since we have to keep the thermostat up, it was hard to me (Richel) to sleep. Brian did OK.

We had to meet in the lobby at 8am to go to the registration office. There were many families besides the ones from our adoption agency that were also there. At the registration office we had a family picture taken, Megan's picture taken, and had to answer several questions such as: what is your occupation, why do you want to adopt a baby from China, how will you educate her, do you promise to never abandon or abuse her? Of course, these were easy questions. We received a Chinese decorative pot from the registration person. We also paid all the fees for the paperwork here. We were probably there a couple hrs. waiting for everyone to finish.

Back home we had been emailing back and forth with a couple from northern MN who were also adopting from China. Our babies are both from the Jiangxi province, but not the same orphanage. We found out that we would be in China at the same time. When we were at the registration office today, we met them and their baby Willa! We had to go all the way to China to meet someone who lives 5 hrs. from us! Pretty neat.

After the registration office, we went to the notary office. That only took 15 min. When we left there, we received the adoption registration degree. It is a fancier piece of paper that is in a red folder that says that the adoption is official.

It was noon when we got back to the hotel. CCAI does not arrange every single meal for us, so we had to figure out where to eat. They gave us a rough map of the area with KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut marked. So we decided to try to eat at McDonalds. We headed out on our adventure. After walking ½ mile, we still hadn't crossed any of the roads on the map. So we decided to turn around. I'm not sure how hot it is here, but I would say at least 95 degrees. It's hard to tell if it's humid when it's that hot. At some point it's all relative. Finally at about 2pm, we came back to the hotel and ate at the restaurant there. By that time I was overly hungry and a little dehydrated. Not a good thing. I was absolutely exhausted. We got Megan down for a nap and finally I could rest. Unfortunately, the group was going to Walmart at 3:30pm. I really didn't want to go because I was so tired, but we needed to get some diapers and water.

Walmart in Nanchang is large and very noisy. Lots of people were shopping there. There are 2 floors. We went down an escalator that you can take a cart on.

After we came back, we met the Tonggu orphanage director and 2 of the nannies. We received a wooden comb with some Chinese writing on it and the director's business card. We were able to find out more about the area where Megan lived. The most interesting thing was that Megan and another baby in our group, Phoebe, were in the same foster home. The foster parents actually cared for 3 babies. This is quite unusual. The orphanage sends out a staff member each Tuesday and Friday to give them food and supplies and to check on the babies. The foster family can't have any of their own children of the same age as the foster babies. The foster families bring the babies into the orphanage every 1-2 weeks to be examined.

The Tonggu orphanage was originally built in 1984 and was rebuilt in 2005. Along with the orphanage, there is a nursing home and rehabilitation center. The building is about 10,000 sq. meters in size. There are about 40 babies in the orphanage that are special needs and 30 health babies in foster homes. The special needs babies don't go to foster homes.

Jiangxi province is famous for a revolution that started Aug.1, 1927. I'm not sure what kind of revolution. In Nanchang, there is an Aug. 1 park and an Aug. 1 street. Apparently, Tonggu Co. was the birthplace for the revolution. Its population is 150,000 and the region is mountainous and has lots of lakes. They are famous for producing mushrooms, wood (for furniture and wooden floors), Chinese herbal medicine and computer mouses. It takes about 3 ½ hrs. to get to Tonggu, but they are going to build a new road and then it will only take 2 hrs. It is about 3 degrees Celsius cooler in Tonggu than in Nanchang. It is known as a summer resort. Jiangxi is also known for spicy food and spicy girls.

Our CCAI rep. told us a few reasons why the adoption timeline has slowed down so much: there aren't as many babies available to adopt, more babies are adopted domestically and more families are keeping their girls. Our rep. said that more and more people want girls instead of boys for an interesting reason. In China, when a boy gets married, it is his families' responsibility to pay for all of the wedding and they still pay a dowry to the bride's parents. I had not heard that before.

We also learned some more about Megan. All 4 babies that came from Tonggu have very similar names. Everyone's last name is Tong (Tonggu Co.) and middle name is Min (people). To get the 1st name, they just went to the dictionary and went down the line. Megan's name is the 3rd in the order of the dictionary. Her name is pronounced "min she-in". Megan is the youngest of all the babies in our group, but only by 13 days. We have also learned more about Megan's personality. She is very much a people person and is quite content to people watch. She's also quite the little flirt. At supper, she was laughing and smiling at everyone. Sometimes when we get back to our room, she isn't happy because it's just the 3 of us. She continues to be a daddy's girl. Thankfully she will go to me if she has to and she will let me carry her in the baby sling, but if Brian is around she is all about daddy. Megan is also very strong. Many Chinese babies are spoiled by their foster families and they do everything for them or they are weak from not enough stimulation in the orphanage. It was probably a good thing that Megan's foster family took care of 3 babies. The mom must have been very good with them. Megan can sit up, roll over both ways and army crawl. It's very cute. We will try to post a video of it.

For supper, we and 4 other families ate at one of the restaurants at the hotel. Our CCAI rep. Sissi ordered for us. Traditional Chinese meals in a restaurant are served on a large lazy susan in the center of the table. Each person has a small plate about the size of a saucer. You only take small amts. of each thing that you want and then get more. I think we had about 10 different dishes. All of them were pretty good.

I'm sorry that we didn't get this posted earlier. One of the families didn't have access to a computer or a way to call home and Monday was their son's birthday. We let them use our computer. Plus, we were exhausted from the busy day. However, you should be able to see 2 posts fairly close together since Tuesday isn't as busy.

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