Getting Lilah

Today was a very hectic and busy day; but in the end very worthwhile. We had to get up at 4:15 in order catch a flight to Nanchang in the Jiangxi province, south of Beijing. The flight was delayed on the tarmac a bit due to air traffic at Beijing. Once in the air, we only had just over two hours flying time to Nanchang. The weather in Nanchang is warmer and more humid than it was in Beijing, but the air quality is much better than Beijing's smog.
We took a bus from the Nanchang airport to the hotel in the downtown area. During the ride, our adoption coordinator gave us an agenda for the next two days and gave an overview of the adoption process. We learned that the babies were traveling to the hotel in Nanchang by bus from the orphanage in Shangrao. Their ride would be about three hours using the expressway and they should arrive at the hotel around 4:00 in the afternoon. Prior to their arrival, we would have a short time to go to the market to pick up anything we might need as well as time to prepare the documentation we needed.
We arrived at the conference room in the hotel about 3:30 to go over final paperwork and wait for the babies. It turned out they were delayed a bit as one of the baby's passport photos was missing. They had to go take a new photo prior to arriving at the hotel. This delay allowed for a bit of tense waiting on everyone's part with some of the expectant mom's crying. Every time the coordinator's phone rang, someone would shout out "They must be here!". This happened three or four times and then, unexpectedly, without any phone warning we saw the first of the orphanage nannies walking in with a baby wearing a green dress. Erin spotted her right away and said "Oh my God! That's Lilah walking in!" And it was her. She was very recognizeable from the pictures we had and she was walking, just holding the nannie's hand. Right behind her came the other 8 babies for the group. Lilah is the oldest at 17 months and was the only one walking and wearing shoes.
The coordinator had told me earlier that we would be the first family to get their baby. When the time came for the nannie to bring her to us, Lilah had a very confused look on her face and did not want to let go of the nanny. After a few seconds though, she let Erin take her and hold her. Lilah had been holding a rice cookie still in the wrapper, so I unwrapped it for her and let her have it back. At this point it was time for another family to get their baby and so on for the rest. Many of tyhe babies were crying.
It was bedlam for a while with so many people; parents, nannies, adoption officials, coordinator, and babies in various states of distress. Lilah only cried for a very short time, less than a minute and then became very interested in us and especially Quinn. He had brought an O-Ball from the room that we had recieved as a baby gift from our neighbors Chuck and Carrie. Quinn let her hold the ball and she threw it. He picked it up and gave it back and she threw it again, this time with a little smile on her face. They kept playing this way, and after a few minutes she was laughing and smiling and having a great time. She didn't seem to be concerned with the other crying babies. She started to eat her rice cookie and was even feeding some to me. She really has a lot of personality.
We still had more paperwork to do at this point, though since all the documents were in Chinese I may have signed up for a time-share in Outer Mongolia for all I know. We also had to put thumbprints on all of the signatures which was interesting.
When all this was done, we were able to take Lilah back to our room. We ordered room service, had an early dinner and put Lilah down for the night. Just as we were doing that, we saw and heard some fireworks going off just a few blocks away. Since we're on the 16th floor, we had a great view and Lilah loved watching them. It was a great end to a busy day.
We have Lilah now, though tomorrow the adoption becomes officially official after some more paperwork in the morning.
Erin, Quinn and Lilah are in bed at the moment, so I am posting this from the hotel lobby drinking a Scotch on the rocks without the ice ;-)
More tomorrow...