Day 3 - "Gotcha Day"

Currently it's 1:15 PM and we have to meet at 2 PM for our 20 minute bus trip to the Civil Affairs office to get Isabela. I got up at 5 AM and Leslie was up by 6. Very tough to sleep with the excitement and anticipation. We walked and walked today. Shopped, talked to many, many super friendly Chinese people. They stop you on the street to ask you where you are from and to just talk. They are so nice. They are very happy that American families are here to adopt children.

Gonna drop off the net for now, but the next time I type it will be with our new daughter in our room :-)



The Chinese Legend of the Red Thread

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break."
When the Chinese match parents with children, they have certain individuals who get in a room and use the Red Thread to determine which child should be with which parents.

The Pader Legend of the Orange Wardrobes

When I got up in the morning, I was looking through my wardrobe, and for once in my life, it was clear what I was supposed to wear - Orange. I had a pair of socks with orange stripes, and an orange shirt in my hand and said to Leslie, "Isabela wants me to wear orange today".

We left the hotel on a bus at 2:30 today. After a 30 minute drive, we arrived at the Adoption Center for Quangdong Province. We were in a huge room with maybe 30 other couples from around the world (not all in our group). At one end of the room were elevators, and 1/3 of the way around the room from the elevators was a side room with a curtain over the archway. The nannys would bring in the babies from the elevator, and rush across the side of the room to the curtained off room. We watched as numerous babies were scurried across that trek to that room as almost every parent in the room was watching and wondering, "Is that my baby?".

The curtain parted, and someone forgot to put it back. Both Leslie and I were staring across maybe 50 feet at a little girl sitting in the corner of that room, in an orange outfit. We both thought "Wouldn't it be very interesting that after my orange wardrobe thing this morning if that was Isabela?" It sure looked like her, and we were fairly certain that it was. It would have been quite a coincidence as there were maybe 30 other babies in that room, and what were the chances that she was the only baby in our direct line of site, and that she had orange on.

We were one of the first families to be called, and sure enough, there is baby Isabela, in her orange outfit!!!!

And thus goes the Pader Legend of the Orange Wardrobes.

After maybe 2 hours, we were back on the bus and back to the hotel. We had 15 minutes to regroup in our room and then head out to dinner. Dinner was maybe a half mile walk to a Chinese Family Style Restaurant. Very good, and very interesting as there were so many new family members at the table. Talk about a crash course in everything baby!!!

Isabela was very good and very patient at the Civil Affairs Office. We entertain her by letting her look into the mirror. Then she was clucking because we were chewing gum, likes to imitate us. She also likes to be held. Isabela is always watching everything and listening to everything. When other babies are crying, she is watching them, until a bird goes by, or a waitress walks past. She doesn't like the sound of a chair sliding across the floor, but she loves our music. We weren't quite prepared for the whole food thing, and we were told that the babies were very picky as to what they ate, but she ate almost anything that we gave her. The only times we heard her cry were for 20 seconds, twice when the chairs were slid across the floor making an aweful sound, and the whole time she was sitting in the bathtub getting a quick bath. Very quick!!! ;-)

She fell asleep on my chest in maybe 10 minutes at 7:40 while I hummed to her, and it is 5 AM now and she has slept all night. Although I can't say the same for us. Although she hasn't made a peep all night, aside from the sucking on her finger noises, we were up countless times just to look at her. We are amazed at how much she has taken to both of us in less than half a day. I'm reminded of a quote from the movie "Where the Heart Is" - "How can you love someone so much that you've just met". Well, we don't know the answer to the question, but we now know what it feels like to ponder the question.

So, here are some pictures of our first moments with Isabela.