Changsha Update

It's Wednesday morning in Changsha and my intentions to keep this blog updated have not gone as planned. Besides the technical issues, I am worn out by the end of the day when Maggie Rose or Qing Qing, her nickname, goes to bed. I lay in one of our hard beds and put my hand through her crib to let her know that I am not far away .

We met our girls on Monday. That was an amazing emotional experience. We walked into a room that smelled old where a couple of families where already waiting and saw three members of Maggie's orphanage staff. One of them was holding our precious girl. We were besides ourselves - was that her? She looked so tiny, much tinier than in her updated pictures. We were taking pictures and video from afar. Then the rest of our group's precious girls arrived. Paperwork was checked which took a while, passports examined. Then, we were the first to receive our baby girl. We asked the orphanage staff questions about our little girl and took pictures with them. It was hot in the reception room and Maggie was wearing a strawberry sweatshirt. She was sweating profusely. After we left, we went to a store to buy formula, crackers and water.

Later at the hotel, our guide showed us Maggie's finding announcement which is a black and white copy of the original. You can't even see her face but our guide was able to translate it for us. It is another piece of the puzzle to Maggie's identity. At 3 in the conferenc room of our hotel we filled out paperwork in preparation for our appointment at the CAB the next day.

On Tuesday, we met in the hotel lobby around 9 and arrived at the CAB around 9:30. We were there to fulfill the paperwork of Maggie's adoption. We promised to give her a good education and never abandon her. Were we happy with our referral - OF COURSE! Maggie had her right foot stamped, we paid the necessary fees and then we were done. Maggie is our's!!

Now we can rest a little easier until we leave for Guangzhou later this week. We will receive Maggie's passport this week. Mike has been out with members of our group to explore areas around the hotel. Today (Wednesday), we are going to a local Walmart which should be a very interesting experience.

We love our precious baby girl. I can't say enough just how tiny she is. She is also delayed which is to be expected. She is 7 months old but acts more like a 3 to 6 month old baby. Her paperwork stated that Maggie could crawl but she has little neck muscle. I wonder about their definition of the word crawl. She wears 3 to 6 month old clothing.

On Thursday, we hope to go to Martyr's Park. I'm sorry that I have not been able to post pictures. Mike has been tagging me on pictures in Facebook so hopefully some of you have seen Maggie's precious face.

 Thank you for all of your prayers. They go with us everywhere we go.