A Clear Sign

What a day! We got up at 4 am to catch our plane to Nanchang. Lineker travelled with us from Beijing and we met our local guide Mary when we arrived. They were so nice to give each family a bag of Hero formula, which is the brand our babies have been drinking since birth and which is manufactured right here in Jiangxi Province. Thankfully, we had time to settle into our rooms at the Galactic Peace International Hotel (best hotel name EVER!) before we went to get our babies. Elijah took a two hour nap, but the rest of us, although exhausted, were too anxious with anticipation to try to sleep.

The adoption center is located across the street from our hotel, so once we met up with the other families and our guides, it was just a few minutes before we were at the building where Sinclair was waiting for us. When we got off the elevator, we were asked to wait in the hallway. We could hear babies crying and fussing and Anita starting tearing up. We all took pictures in front of the "Welcome" sign while trying not to look into the adoption room just around the corner. When we got the cue to come in, we walked into a large room with the babies all around, some sitting in laps, some being held by various nannies and helpers. We were looking around trying to see if we could recognize our own Bo baby, but we must admit we either did not see her or did not recognize her. It was very loud in the smoke-filled room and so many babies were already crying. We're not sure if we didn't recognize Sinclair because she was crying or because we've never seen her profile before. Our local guide, Mary, asked us to bring our passports and travel approvals to her. As we did she called out the Chinese baby names to the nannies who would then bring the babies to the families. It was all happening at once, so it was very chaotic. Someone called out a Chinese name that is so similar to "Bo Zheng" that Anita thought they'd handed Sinclair to someone else! Then we heard the name "Bo Zheng". Madison and Brevin were poised and ready with the cameras (see previous post for video). Sinclair's nose was running from crying, and Matt's eyes were welled up with tears.

Each baby had a name tag on a lanyard around their necks and Sinclair's picture did not look anything like her referral picture. Anita made Matt double check her Chinese name with our documents, because honestly she was still not sure it was the right baby. We were all so overwhelmed! Then several nannies came over to us. Anita asked how to say "Bo Zheng" the way they pronounce it, because it sounded different than the way our Mandarin-speaking friend had told us. To us, it sounded somewhere between "Bo Chen" and "Bo Jen" when they said it. Perhaps it's a different dialect? There was a young man there who spoke some English and wanted to take a picture with Sinclair and Anita and a couple other nannies.
He told Anita that Bo Zheng was very beautiful (I guess he wanted her to know what they consider a beautiful baby). Anita asked him who took care of her at the orphanage and he said it was him. We didn't know there were male nannies. One of the female nannies walked up to us and pointed to our four kids from oldest to youngest, saying, "Do-Ray-Me-Fa". We all just laughed. Sinclair had stopped crying by now, and we had wiped her nose, so she was beginning to look more and more like her referral photos. When Anita tried to pass her to Matt, she turned back and hugged Anita's shoulders. So we decided to let her stay with Anita for a while until things calmed down. We asked our guide to find out if Sinclair had received the package that we'd sent her. They said yes, but they didn't bring it because they didn't know we wanted it back. This was odd, since we'd sent a letter written in both English and Chinese characters which explained we did want it back. We were very disappointed, because we really wanted to keep the teddy bear forever, and we never did get an answer on whether we could get it sent to us later or what. By then, it was time to go.

As we walked back to our hotel, Brevin was able to get Sinclair to coo at him and smack her lips like he was doing and Madison got Sinclair to smile. We were just amazed. Back at the room, we only had a short time before we had to meet back in the conference room to preview some paperwork. During that time, we had some wonderful moments. Anita passed Sinclair to Matt and although she fussed, it was only for a few seconds. When he tried to pass her back later, she fussed again. So we realized that whoever she was with was who she wanted to stay with. Each of the kids got a chance to hold her, too, and Elijah got the first laugh out of her.

When we met back with the group to fill out our paperwork and check the rough draft of our adoption papers, we were each given a small photo book of our baby and the newspaper with the baby's finding ad which is placed whenever a baby is abandoned to try to locate the family. It is part of Sinclair's life before we had her, and so although it is a sad part of her past, we are so glad to have it. After the paperwork, we just had time to eat dinner and go to bed. Everyone was so fried with such an emotional day, we were all asleep by 8 o'clock!