September 14, 2015 we gained another little pair of shoes at our door. Gotcha Day was a success. We said goodbye to 4 and excitedly embraced 5. We traveled via a van about 30 minutes from the hotel to the Adoption Center of Chongqing where we waited with 2 other families by the door until lunch ended. Lunch here for government workers is 2 hours. While waiting in the hallway, Avery and her Nannies came off the elevator in a huge hurry. We got to see our first glimpse of her as she was rushed by. We followed them into this empty courthouse like room. It was nothing like I imagined, I thought the room would be full of families waiting on little ones as I had heard in the past, but it was just our 3 families. As soon as we rounded the corner, Michael called out McDonald. I didn't even have time to put down the bag of gifts I was carrying nor did Keith have time to get the camera ready before the nanny had her in my arms. She immediately begin crying and crying out for her Mama. It was so hot in the building as it is in all the buildings in China, so her cries only brought more heat. As a mother, you want to be able to soothe your baby, but I had nothing that would work. We played the distraction game, while Daddy asked the nanny the list of questions we had written. Daddy did great and wrote down all this answers which helped Mommy a lot later. Matt and Eli were snapping pictures with our phone and did a great job bringing toys from her bag to try to help settle her. Meanwhile, the other families and children were super excited about their new families. We heard them calling them Mama and Papa and giving hugs and kisses. That was extremely hard, but I just kept holding onto the fact that Avery had been loved well which meant that she was going to grieve hard and that was a great thing for us in the long term. One day she will love us with that deep love we have longed for and it will be a testimony to her nanny, Xahn, who taught her the very sacrificial love of Christ daily without even knowing it. Our new friend, Meredith, also came to support us and brought a bag full of Chinese goodies for Avery. Avery loves the soft, sweet rolls (like King Rolls in the USA) that Meredith brought the best. We were thankful for her being there and for her soothing words to Avery.
Avery brought a bag with her that was filled with a few diapers, a bottle, formula, snacks, candy and a beautiful scrapbook of her life their at the orphanage. It is beautifully written in Chinese characters accented with photos and her hand/foot prints from all ages. It is definitely a treasure to keep. Her nanny had also stuffed one of her little pockets full of candy. We found it on the bus ride back to the hotel and that settled her even more. Our girl loves hard candies!
That first day at the hotel with us, she was unexpressive (as was expected with so much change). She allowed us to play with her and watched us, but with no eye contact hardly at all. She was sad and we could tell it. She fell asleep with me rocking her around 5:30pm while the boys went out to get dinner. I was able to pray over her while she slept and God truly comforted me during that time. While adoption is one of the most wonderful things God has created, it is also one of the hardest emotional things that God has created. As I sit here reliving every detail, I am just weeping at the loss I saw in my daughter's eyes. Avery woke up around 7:00 and we attempted a bath. She did not like it at all, cried for her Mama the entire time. I basically sponged her off and washed her hair quickly. We got her dressed for bed and gave her a bottle then she slept on my chest the entire night. I would try to put her down and she would whimper and eventually climbed back up each time by herself. She woke up 7 to 10 times not being able to settle herself. Thankfully, she likes to be rocked so I would rock her until she fell asleep again. That was sweet bonding time for us as mother and daughter.
Our first picture of all 3 of our monkey's!
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