We have Rylie! She is doing great so far. We are in the harmonization period where we decide if we want to adopt her. Tomorrow morning, we will go meet with the important officials to sign all the paperwork and submit the paperwork for her passport. We are so excited and happy to finally have her. We had a great afternoon and evening playing with her.
We haven't been able to get on blogger or facebook, so here is an update of our trip so far. The flights went really good. We left Herculaneum at 5 a.m. our time on Friday and arrived in Fuzhou to our hotel about 1 a.m. last night. The good news is we were so exhausted that we slept great and woke up rested and ready for the day. We have a wonderful guide named Penny. She is very sweet and thoughtful. The weather here is beautiful and it is a very nice province. There is a beautiful park behind our hotel- it is actually attached to our hotel- and we went outside and walked all around the lake. There were lots of Chinese families out enjoying the day. There are carvinal rides and a marine world.
We went down to the third floor of our hotel to meet Rylie. As we were walking in the room, I saw her sitting in a chair and we knew that was her. She was eating a pastry and drinking a yogurt drink and seemed pretty content. There was another baby whose new mother was already holding her and she cried the entire time. There was a family waiting for a little boy and they had their biolological son with them. There was also a family who was already talking to the girl they are adopting. She is in a wheelchair and completely paralyzed. I'm not sure if she talks. Our guide had told us that she lives in the same orphanage as Rylie and her adoptive mother has worked in the orphanage and that is how she knew the girl and got special permission to adopt her. We didn't have a chance to really talk to any of the other parents since Rylie was already there and our guide was not! We went over and began talking to Rylie a little and to the caretakers. She had an older woman and a young couple with her and seemed to love all of them. She would laugh and smile for them and pose for the camera. She smiled at us and acted like she knew who we were. They showed her our photo album and said where is bab? and she pointed at Ryan and did the same for me. We held her a little but she wasn't too sure of that. We had to hold her to get a picture for the adoption decree and at least she wasn't screaming her head off in the photo. That came later.
We signed some paperwork and then left to take her to our room. She will see the orphanage staff again tomorrow so they were okay with just letting her go without too much fuss. They did take a lot of pictures and we can tell she was very well-loved. They also gave us a huge photo album with pictures of Rylie and the orphanage and other kids. They gave us a whole backpack filled with snacks she likes and sent her favorite toy, a teddy bear, with her.
Of course, as soon as we left the staff behind and headed to the elevator, the tears started. She cried for a little while in the room but finally stoppped and started to look at things. For quite a while, she would let us give her things but she kept a distance. If we moved too close, she would pick up all her stuff and move over. We asked her to share her goldfish crackers and started a game that lasted all evening. After a while, she was actually bringing the crackers over and putting them in Ryan's mouth. She thinks Ryan is very funny. She sat on my lap when I let her watch the videos of Nick and Alex. She loves looking at them and realizes they are her brothers. We didn't get her to eat much and bathtime was a little rough. Also, she had a ton of thick layers of clothing on so she looked pretty big. When we took the clothes off, she is very skinny but seems healthy. She is tall but the 18 month sleeper fit great. And I think the size 5 shoes I brought her are going to fit.
We took a bunch of pictures of her. She was laughing and smiling at us and enjoyed the attention. After her bath, she layed on my lap and I sang to her while we watched awful t.v. and she fell asleep. We moved her to her crib and she has been sleeping ever since. Unfortunately, Nick and Alex won't get to skype with her tonight but hopefully we can do it in the morning. We are thankful that she is sleeping good and seems to be right on target developmentally. She is even cuter than the pictures and has changed and grown since our latest pictures. Her hair has grown out a little too but she wants nothing to do with the hairbows.
It looks like we will have to rely on Aunt Jackie to update our blog (thank you) and you can send us e-mails at ryryjuju at juno dot com. We most likely won't see any comments you post on this blog and we can't access facebook. Thanks for your prayers! Everything has gone so smoothly on this trip so far and we know God is taking care of us every step of the way.
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