....the continutation....
After a few hours at the hotel for lunch and freshening up we were off to the Civil Affairs office, it was about a 30 minute ride. One of the officials from the office was on the bus with us, I had to tell the boys to be on their best behavior otherwise she may tell us"no baby for you".
We had thrown all of our gifts together in a big bag before we left. Our guide told us she would just let them pick what they wanted, no wrapping or fuss was involved. It seemed a little gauche to us to just rifle through the bag, but at least they got what they wanted. This lady got first picks since she was very important. She took some Wockenfuss candy, I was a little envious of her.
We drove up to the building, which was not very official looking at all. We were sent in to a room with a conference table and some couches. You could just feel the anxiety in the room, we were getting teary-eyed as we waited and there was just a nervous energy all around us. Susan said the children would be there in about 5 minutes, so we waited and waited and waited some more. The doorbell rang and we all said "they are here", Josh being Josh said, "who's here?". I love that kid, we all had a good laugh and relaxed a minute.
We drove up to the building, which was not very official looking at all. We were sent in to a room with a conference table and some couches. You could just feel the anxiety in the room, we were getting teary-eyed as we waited and there was just a nervous energy all around us. Susan said the children would be there in about 5 minutes, so we waited and waited and waited some more. The doorbell rang and we all said "they are here", Josh being Josh said, "who's here?". I love that kid, we all had a good laugh and relaxed a minute.
Before we knew it they were coming through the door, Weifeng led the way. 
He was holding the picture album we had sent him and carrying his backpack. You could tell he was so scared. He just had this solemn stare the whole time. We got down on our knees and hugged and kissed him, he probably thought we were crazy as we tried out our best Mandarin through a bunch of sniffly tears. We learned how to say "I love you", it is "Wo ai ne", but I keep saying "Wo ai nar", which means "I love there". Oh well, I never claimed to be an expert! As we introduced his "dede" and "guhguhs" they each came and hugged him. We put him on our laps and treated him as if he was a baby as we held him. This is a very different experience from getting a baby. You could tell that he was uncomfortable with our touch, but we didn't let that deter us. He is ours and we want him to know that with all of his heart. As he sat there, tears started to roll down his face. Josh was faithful to deliver him tissues from my purse. I was glad to see the tears because we knew that he was sad to leave his foster family and he wasn't keeping it inside.
He was holding the picture album we had sent him and carrying his backpack. You could tell he was so scared. He just had this solemn stare the whole time. We got down on our knees and hugged and kissed him, he probably thought we were crazy as we tried out our best Mandarin through a bunch of sniffly tears. We learned how to say "I love you", it is "Wo ai ne", but I keep saying "Wo ai nar", which means "I love there". Oh well, I never claimed to be an expert! As we introduced his "dede" and "guhguhs" they each came and hugged him. We put him on our laps and treated him as if he was a baby as we held him. This is a very different experience from getting a baby. You could tell that he was uncomfortable with our touch, but we didn't let that deter us. He is ours and we want him to know that with all of his heart. As he sat there, tears started to roll down his face. Josh was faithful to deliver him tissues from my purse. I was glad to see the tears because we knew that he was sad to leave his foster family and he wasn't keeping it inside.We are so grateful to Chris' mom and dad. They have been such a big help. Chris' mom did the filming for our gotcha moment, so we were free to focus on Weifeng. A very touching moment came when Chris's dad got down on his knees and gave this scared little boy a hug and a sweet kiss on the cheeks.
Finally, Chris' mom pulled out a coloring set for all of the boys and he allowed himself to get involved in coloring. He even got off of the couch and picked out a color for himself. Wow! Progress so quickly!
After mounds and mounds of paperwork that Chris filled out, 
and signing our names over and over again, we sealed our commitment to him with a red fingerprint over our signatures. It was official, we are now a family of 6!
and signing our names over and over again, we sealed our commitment to him with a red fingerprint over our signatures. It was official, we are now a family of 6!They rushed us out of the building and told us we were off to the passport office. We had his picture taken for the passport and followed Susan from place to place as she told us the next step. We really didn't have to think at all, she took care of it all for us. Good thing, I don't think we would have been very coherent. As we came down the steps to pay the bill they were turning off all of the lights, boy, when they say 5pm is closing, they mean it. They kept telling us to hurry, hurry, hurry. In America if you were still transacting business they would lock the doors and just let you out when you finished. It was an odd feeling.
Back on the bus, and back to the hotel. Once we were here we asked Susan to come to the room and tell Weifeng for us that we loved him very much, we would take good care of him and we knew that he missed his family very much. We wanted him to know that we understood his feelings for them and that it was okay to cry and be sad. My sense was that those few words really lifted a burden for him, Maybe he felt relieved to know that he didn't have to put on a fake happy face to make us happy, we were okay with his sadness.
That is our story of Gotcha Day! Stay tuned for the dinner trek coming in the next segment!
Anybody who is tech savvy - Kevin Krack are you out there? - email us and tell us how to resize an mpeg to a lower file size. Blogspot will only let a maximum of a 100mb file, our two gotcha videos are 150ish and 320ish. (2 mins / 4mins respectively)
-Susanne
1 comment:
CRYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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