Our other anniversary

Today is the anniversary of our officially becoming a family. Yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of the day we first held our precious little girl in our arms. It was the happiest day of our lives but the adoption wasn't official until the following day. They call it the "harmonious period." I have to laugh every time I hear that term because those first 24 hours are anything but harmonious. I think they just want to give families a little bonding time and have the parents make sure they really understand what they're doing and really want the adoption to proceed. We started our morning taking all of our completed paperwork to the notary. She asked us a few questions and looked at our paperwork. Then we went back to the hotel/govt office where we were united with Michelle the day before. There was another official who asked us some more questions. Finally, they took all the families back into the room from the day before and announced that we were all officially parents. They called us up one by one to give us our adoption certificates. The director of Desheng gave each little girl a silk ball and purse. I don't know the exact significance of each item but I know that these come from the region where Michelle is from so they mean a lot to us. We'll treasure these items forever. Right now we have them put away for safekeeping and someday we'll give them to Michelle. We're so grateful to everyone at Desheng. It was very obvious that the girls were very well cared for and loved. When Michelle came to us, she was dressed in 3 layers. The bottom 2 layers were sweat pants and sweatshirts and the top layer was a beautiful red coat and black pants. We could tell the staff really worked hard to make sure the girls all looked their best to meet their new families. I think a lot about the nannies and wonder if it's hard for them to say goodbye to the children they've spent months/years taking care of. I think it must be. The nannies came back in and we got to spend a few minutes talking to them. Of course it was difficult since they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Mandarin but we managed through our guides and a lot of sign language. When we were saying goodbye to Michelle's nanny, I wanted to tell her how grateful I was to her for taking such good care of Michelle. All I could say was "xie xie." I was starting to tear up (I'm getting teary again right now thinking about that day) and she patted my arm and said "bu xie." That basically means no thanks is necessary. I was feeling very emotional walking out of that room for the last time.

Once everything was completed there, our guides took us shopping at Wal-Mart to buy supplies. It was fun to walk around and see what things were the same and what were different. Then we went to lunch and had the best meal of our whole trip.

Back at the hotel that afternoon, Roman got Michelle to smile for the first time. It took me another day or two to get my first smile but it was so beautiful when I saw it. She has a smile that lights up the room.

All of the formalities were over and Michelle was officially our daughter!
When we went up to get our adoption certificate, the director of Desheng came up and gave Michelle a silk ball and hand-embroidered purse. These have special significance to the area where Michelle is from. We were very moved.
Shopping at Wal-Mart
Enjoying our first lunch with Michelle.