Together Day!!!

Our Together Day was wonderful! It was very hectic also. We landed in Chongqing (pronounced Chong ching) at 2:30 and met our guide Mei (May). She immediately showed us to a waiting van and said we were in a hurry. It takes several days to get a passport and Nathan’s is due to come back on Monday the same day we leave Chongqing. Mei wanted to get it done early so we can get the passport back on Friday to avoid any delays. So we head to the Office of Foreign Affairs to do the adoption paperwork. She has already filed most of the paperwork for us.

While enroute to the building of Foreign Affairs, Mei tells us that she spoke on the phone with the orphanage and they said Nathan and the orphanage workers should be in Chongqing about 4:00pm. It’s around 3:15 when we get to the office. Mei is rushing us so Ron and I are busily trying to load cameras and gather documents. We go up to the Office of Foreign Affairs and there is total chaos going on. About four couples have just received their daughters and there is much crying and excitement. A couple of other little girls are waiting for their new families. Ron and Mei have started the paperwork and it is too much for me to resist so I start getting video of all the little girls and their families.

As I pan around the room I come to a group of people sitting on the couch. The baby with them is standing on the floor holding onto the coffee table and is hidden behind a large plant. I move so that I can get a better view of the baby and as I look through the camera I recognize him. I say something inane like, “Wait a minute! That’s Nathan!” When I lower the camera and stare at him to be sure the people with him recognize us from our photos. They start nodding and gesturing wildly to us. Ron and Mei turn and see him and I tell him, “That’s Nathan!” Ron says, “Yeah, it is! He was hiding behind a plant!”

Mrs. Wei who is the supervisor of the nannies is the orphanage brings Nathan to me and puts him in my arms. I spring leaks like a sprinkler hose. Nathan immediately grabs a big handful of my hair. He hugs me very tight and hides his face. He is being shy and it’s very sweet. He gnaws on my shoulder and it’s evident he is teething. He also has a ton of hair! I thought he would be bald. Even Mei was surprised by this.

He is avoiding looking at Ron and I which is okay. We were content to let him get used to us. I guess Mrs. Wei and the two men with her were anxious for him to accept us so they get right in his face and start clapping and shouting excitedly “Guang Guang! Guang Guang!” (Guang was his Chinese name.) This makes him turn the other way so they tickle and poke him and keep shouting excitedly to him in Chinese. I am sure Mrs. Wei was telling him that we are his parents. Nathan doesn’t seem to be bothered by this loud, rough, affection and from what I have observed it is a normal interaction between babies and adults here. It was, however, stressing me out so I ask Ron if he wants to hold him.

Ron takes Nathan and within a couple of minutes they are the best of buddies. Nathan gives us a smile. He seems fascinated with Ron’s face. The pictures are a few minutes after they met. He has been a Daddy’s boy since.

We finish the paperwork, and the three of us get thumb printed and have a photo taken together. Then Mei informs us that Nathan is officially ours. That’s it! I thought we would have to go before a judge and do the interviews but she said that was the old way. We had to register his new name and so now even in China he is officially Nathan Kael Weatherly and we are officially parents. Hurray! The Office of Foreign Affairs hands us a Certificate of Adoption in a nice folder with our first family photo in it. They congratulate us and seem very happy. They also gave us a gift which I need to photograph because it is hard to describe.

We leave around 4:30pm and have to go check into our hotel. Nathan is from the country and rarely left the orphanage so he is afraid of the traffic and the honking. He is not at all happy to be back in a van and starts crying but I hold him and he lays his head on my chest. He is asleep by the time we reach the hotel. He wakes up about 45 minutes later when we are trying to get him ready to go meet Mei in the lobby. He cries when he wakes up in the strange room and sees us but settles down when we pick him up.

At dinner he fussed a bit but was pretty quiet. He likes the teething toys we brought for him. After dinner we went back to the room and let him play for a while which he enjoyed. Then we gave him a bath and he did very well. There was minimal crying and he became fascinated by the water and didn’t want to get out. Daddy got soaked!

We then let him play for a while. He crawls very fast and will pull himself up but there is no walking yet. He loves to spin circles on the carpet and laughs like he has invented a great game. He got a little fussy about 9:30 which is his normal bedtime so we put him in his crib and he went right to sleep.

Then an exhausted but happy Mommy and Daddy put themselves to bed about 11:00pm after figuring out how we are going to do his formula in the morning. I woke around 3:00 am and couldn’t go back to sleep again. It’s almost six and I don’t know when he will be waking up. Maybe I should go get a shower now.

Yesterday was one of the best days of my life!