Gotcha Day!

It's Tuesday about 1pm here and we have taken care of all of our official business for the day and Journey is now officially ours.  Our Gotcha Day was on Monday and we met her for the first time at about 4pm.  Picture this:  A small room with little air conditioning and very hot, 2 or 3 other families also receiving their children, none of which are very happy, me soaking wet from sweating, Doug getting the camera ready.  They bring in Journey and she looks exactly like her picture.  She decides she's not as happy to see us as we are to see her and starts wailing.  I finally take her and she and I walk around the room for a bit and she moves from wailing to whimpering and occasionally wailing.  She's not too sure about Doug and decides I'm the lesser of two evils.  We are only at this location for about 30 minutes (it seemed longer), then we head back to our hotel for the "Harmonious period."  I say that with tongue- in- cheek as it is anything but harmonious, but it is supposed to be the time we get to know each other and decide if we want to adopt her.  We will have to give an answer to the officials on Tuesday morning.  She does quit crying pretty quickly and does well as long as we are holding her, but only if we're standing up.  We go to dinner at the hotel restaurant and she won't eat and doesn't want us to eat either.  We pass her back and forth trying to give each other an opportunity to shovel some food down so we can leave.  I'm sure the other restaurant customers were happy to see us go.

When we returned to our room, we all had a shower and got ready for bed and it was only about 8pm.  I fixed Journey a bottle and she did take it and was fast asleep by 8:30.  We were prepared for a sleepless night but she was so exhausted that she slept until about 5:30 this morning.  I actually woke up before she did as I was asleep about 2 minutes after she was the night before.  On top of all the trauma of being with people she doesn't know, I think she is also teething as she has a slight fever.

We were able to talk to the director of the children's center at the orphanage and she gave us information about Journey's personality.  She said Journey is "spoiled", which I think means she likes to be held and won't take no for an answer; she climbs all over things and likes to climb high; she's emotional and very intelligent; she's shy and will not go to anyone she doesn't know well.  I think we're in for the ride of our life.  After returning from the Registration office today, she has actually been playing on the floor and talking to herself, both of which she had not done yet.  It's like she knows there is no hope of her going back to her old life so she might as well make the most of the situation.  She has actually fallen asleep on the floor which is why I'm writing this now.  This evening we are going to go to the Walmart shopping center to shop and then have pizza at the Pizza Hut there.  This will be the first western food we've had since arriving in China last Thursday.  I'm really looking forward to it!