Adoption DAY!!

Today is Monday 8:40pm

This morning we actually managed to sleep til a reasonable hour.  We were supposed to meet our guide at 8:50 in the hotel lobby, and we were awake at 6am to get stuff ready.  Of course we were nervous and excited and anxious as we drove the very short ten minutes to the orphanage.  When we got to the orphanage, we were led into a conference room where they brought our daughter.  She was a little shy at first, but warmed right up to me.  Chris is still working on it, but she's coming around.  She was a definite favorite at the orphanage as everyone came to say good bye to her.

We filled out lots of paperwork and then headed to the photo center so that we could take an adoption application photo.  After that, we headed to the government office where we filled out more paperwork and received our adoption certificate.  I guess she is finally ours!

After the government office, we headed back to the hotel for a short break.  We had just enough time to have something to eat, have saiya examined by our traveling physician, and give her a bath (which she stood there and cried for the whole time) and attempt to put her down for a nap, which she wasnt having any part of.

After that, we headed back out to the passport application place and took more pictures for the passport application.  Then it was off to the bank where we conveted our US dollars into Yuan for the adoption expenses.  We headed immediately from one bank to another where we paid the adotion fees and a number of other fees and then we headed to yet another bank where we paid for the adoption registration.

We got back to the hotel just as Saiya was about to zonk out in the car.  We put her down in the room, but she was fighting sleep.  Poor Chris was out before she was.  She has trouble going to sleep in the pack-n-play that we have, but when she fell asleep on the bed, I moved her.  She is really a great girl!  So brave and just kind of goes with the flow of things.  The only time we saw tears of any kind were when I tried to give her a bath.  Maybe that is when it finally hit her that she is going home with us.  Other than that, she is curious about everything and constantly taking in her surroundings.  She is very expressive and definitely has a mind of her own.  A true stubborn streak too!!

Off to bed for me, more to come tomorrow.  My laptop finally has power thanks to the nice hotel people lending us a power converter (ours was a piece of crap that didnt work)!  YAY!