I thought I would be great at blogging while in China. I also thought I would be great at blogging once home. A certain adorable little one year old had other things in mind for me! So, I am going to try to write down the big things from our time in that lovely country before I forget them. Better late than never!
Our flight to Nanning from Beijing was… well… something. Lots of wobbling side to side and up and down, and prayer. LOTS of prayer. We did make it, however, and were met by our guide, David. While the rest of us had pretty much recovered from jet lag at this point, poor Grant was just now getting hit by the worst of it. He literally walked through the Nanning airport, pulling his suitcase with his eyes closed. I had to keep one eye on him and guide him by my voice if he started wandering off the wrong direction!
We had one night to settle into our hotel (Nanning Marriott, which I highly recommend!) before meeting our little one the next day. Luckily, we were exhausted enough to sleep through our nerves. As you can imagine, the next morning was a tense one. We had breakfast and prepared to meet Lily at 9 a.m.
We went via van with the other family who was in Nanning with us and David to the Local Civil Affairs office. To say nerves were high on that van would be an understatement! When we arrived, our ears were met by the “peep peep peep” of someone’s squeaky shoes. As soon as we rounded the corner, I saw a little black head bobbing up and down as this tiny girl proudly squeaked her new shoes. She walked into the doorway and turned around, and I saw Lily Belle’s face in person for the first time. It was so tiny… She was so tiny! I didn’t want to scare her or break any rules, so I just kind of stalked her for a minute rather than swoop in and pick her up. When she noticed I was following her around, she squeaked even more proudly and kept casting glances at me over her shoulder. Once I knew it was okay for me to grab her, I couldn’t wait any more.
I was very prepared for this moment. We were going to hear screaming; she would push me away; she would be terrified. Except she didn’t, and she wasn’t. She calmly looked at me and was very interested in our family. She wasn’t the least bit scared. She didn’t push at us, she kind of just wanted to know what we were about. That’s what was happening on the outside. Inside, I was struggling to understand that this was real. This foreign feeling tiny person in my arms was actually the Lily Belle we had been working toward. She was light as a feather and felt like a baby doll. Her hair felt course under my hands, and she smelled Chinese. It was surreal, yet so very real at the same time. I truly thought I would cry at this moment. I was fighting tears all morning long, yet when the moment finally came, it was so fast and so strange and so wonderful that there was no time for huge emotions.
Even as we left Civil Affairs, Lily was as calm as could be. It really wasn’t until the afternoon when nap time rolled around that she cried at all. She took a short nap on my lap while Jeff and Grayson ventured to the mall next door to grab food for us. They went to Burger King (American food, pictures on the menu, should be easy, right?). When they got back, Grayson had a great time reliving the antics of trying to pantomime Ketchup and Coke for the employees to understand! Ordering food in China without a translator really deserves a blog post all on its own!
The night of Gotcha Day was hard. Poor Lily was so sad and so obviously confused. She cried for “Mama” and would try to pull me to the door. She has this way of crying that is like her whole being is infused with despair… and there was just nothing we could do to help her. I had downloaded a Bubble app on my phone, which I gave her to play with as she sat on top of me in the bed. It sort of mesmerized her, and she stopped crying and played with it until she literally fell over sideways asleep.
She slept like a rock through the night, and we all survived the most anticipated and emotional day of our lives up to this point! More to come later… I have a baby to snuggle.