Gotcha again- day 4

So normally a family would receive their child directly from the orphanage (usually on a Monday) at a Civil Affairs office in their province. Charlotte's province is Guangdong province and the adoptions happen in Guangzhou. We were able to meet and "get" Charlotte early because of the foster home that she was in and their relationship with Holt. Early on, we were told that we had the option to fly to Beijing and get to meet her there on a Saturday, get her on Sunday and fly with her to Guangzhou and they asked us if we would like to do this. Um, yeah! But we still had to go through the motions in for some odd reason of pretending we hadn't met her and having our "gotcha" moment at Civil Affairs.  Today, we drove to the Civil Affairs office, met with the director of the orphanage (not the foster home) and handed her to her, they went up the elevator, we waited, then we went up the elevator. We went into a room where families meet their new children and sat there for a little while, then they came into the room with Charlotte, and they handed her over. Strange but whatever, I'll go through the motions. We even took pictures like this was something special but it was pretty silly. It was neat, however, watching other families meeting their children for the first time. Since we weren't stressed about meeting our child for the first time, I could really watch others have their moment and it was beautiful. So many nervous and excited parents. Many children cried, some didn't, but it was such a wonderful sight. I was a little nervous that Charlotte would actually cry when they handed her back to us but she was already crying when they came out.  I think the director said she hurt her foot? Not sure, she doesn't speak very much English and I don't speak a word of Cantonese. Anyways, she came to me crying but I was able to comfort her quickly and that was that. Tomorrow is actually a big day because it is the day we finalize the adoption. They give you 24 hours with your child to make the decision that you really do want to adopt them.  It's sad but sometimes families do back out after that 24 hours. Anyways, tomorrow will be a big and wonderful day!

After our "gotcha", we went to the store for a few things. I have never in my life seen a store that insanely busy. And I'm a Black Friday kinda gal. It was nuts! Luckily our guide was with us to help us find our way through the maze to get the things we needed. While we were in line to check out, a woman was smiling as she watched Ethan goofing off with Charlotte, doing anything for a smile. She gave me two thumbs up. Then, she pointed at all four of our kids to ask if they were all ours and I nodded and she gave me two thumbs up and a big smile again. Then she petted Ella's hair and said, "beautiful". I love the culture here. It is strange and things happen that you would find rude in America, like people shoving in front of you, but it's just the way it is here. They don't mean it to be rude, it's just how things are so I'm not bothered by it like I would be in the U.S. I've had so many lovely experiences with people in China who don't speak the same language as me but find a way to get their point across. I love China and I'm so happy that I do because I'm raising two daughters who I want to be proud of their heritage and it makes it easy to tell them wonderful things about China when we've had such wonderful interactions and experiences here.

As for Charlotte today, she has had moments of being very happy and smiling or laughing at silly things and moments of being frozen like a little scared statue. When I attempted to put her down for a nap she sobbed and I grabbed her out of the crib and walked her around until she cried herself to sleep and slept cuddled up with me. She gave poor Ella a hard time and cried several times when Ella picked her up. No idea why as Ella had picked her up earlier and carried her all the way from our hotel room to our shuttle and held her the entire way to the Civil Affairs office. Poor Ella was in tears, feeling rejected but I got them coloring together at the end of the evening and they ended up playing a silly game that made no sense but was led by a 1 year old and Ella was pretty happy with that. I think Charlotte is starting to realize this whole thing may be a permanent change and starting to grieve the life and people that she has always known.  It's such a huge change, I can only imagine how she's feeling. She went to bed well tonight and I'm praying that she will sleep well and have a better day with her biggest sis tomorrow.

I had a sad mishap with my phone when I was taking a bath with Charlotte last night and it took a swim. I thought it was fine but it started acting weird so it is now sitting in a bowl of rice. The point of all of this is, we got very few pictures today. :-(  We'll get more tomorrow, I promise! Here are the few we got...