(One year ago this month, Pa and I made the trek to China to adopt our sweet Sister Susie. I am going to take the first seventeen days of February 2008 to revisit that trip. Hop in for the ride!)
So early Monday afternoon--we arrived at the Civil Affairs Building, the place we would meet our babes.
I distinctly remember telling the Pa--"Don't take your coat in! I'm leaving mine on the bus. We won't need them! See how warm it is outside? Let's have one less thing to worry about."
Then we walked a bit, and walked a bit more, and once we entered the building my first spoken sentence was, "Wow! It's really cold in here!"
And Pa--who is as sweet as molasses on the outside--must have surely been seething on the inside. That poor man has not one cell of fat on his bones, bless his heart, and here I had sent him off to the Meat Closet with nary a coat.
And TO THIS MOMENT, my first thought of "Gotcha Day" is and always will be: "It was really cold in that room." (And the thought that follows that one is: "I'm an idiot.")
But you didn't come here for a goosebump report, so I'll keep moving along.
We were also the *lucky* group that *got* to fill out scads of paperwork in one day, versus one week. It was a full afternoon, and by the time all our eyes were crossed and our fees were jotted, we had been in that Freezer for four hours.
Here's the beginning of the piles:
And we were each handed a special pen for all this scribbling:
One Representative Adult from each family unit was asked to sit around the table and scratch out the answers to the questions.
Talk about test anxiety.
Who can remember dates and numbers when there are BABES IN THE NEXT ROOM???
You heard me right.
Shortly after we started our little paperwork party, a whole line of caretakers and babies entered the building. Our building. A few of them skittered into Our Room unannounced, but our guide shooed them away until we were all at a stopping point.
"Stopping point" is right. Our bodies had frozen, and then our brains joined right in.
Time for a new set of goosebumps.
