Recap of Ariana Day

What a day yesterday was!  Our group left the hotel at 2p.m. local time and drove into the heart of the older part of Guangzhou.  Guangzhou is a city of 13 million people and the sights on the way there were absolutely incredible.  I took a few pictures but wish we had taken video.

We arrived at the government office building which strangely smelled like an auto body shop so I suppose that particular aroma will have a good connotation for me from now on!  We got inside and went to the 8th floor and were taken to a large, modern reception-style room decorated in red, black, and white.  Somebody noticed the babies and nannies from the orphange were in an adjacent room.  We all started to look so they closed the door.  We were asked to check some papers for accuracy and sign them. We got our cameras and gifts for the orphange ready and they started calling the babies' Chinese names.  It all happened very quickly and without much fanfare but of course it was the most unbelievable moment of my life. They had all the babies dressed in matching white with red polka dot outfits with yellow turtlenecks underneath.  Just like that they handed me little Song Hao Jiang.  I honestly don't know if it was the director or one of the nannies that handed her to me...I will need to check the video.  She seems much smaller in person than in pictures.  She didn't cry but seemed pretty sad right away.

The babies had taken a 3 hour bus ride from Yangjiang and they were pretty warm.  Ariana just hung on to me and looked around.  We all needed to get diapers and formula so the whole group headed for Carrefour.  It is kind of like Walmart with several floors and shopping carts that clamp onto the escalators magnetically.  I'm sure it was horrifying for the babies with all the people, noise, bright colors and given what they had been through already in one day.

We got back to the motel and we had to go to the facilitator's room right away to fill out some paperwork for the next day and so we could foster the babies for 24 hours. We stopped in the room and did a quick diaper change.  Rookie that I am, I thought the vinyl changing pad would frighten her unecessarily so I skipped it and she peed the bed. Oops! I wonder how much the White Swan charges for one of those duvet covers.

By the time we got back to the room it was probably 6 o'clock and the rest of the evening was really hard for Ariana.  She was clearly terrified.  She did want us to hold her, but wouldn't take anything to drink and sucked those 2 fingers furiously.  My heart just broke for her.  At some point I realized she was burning up and decided to give her some infant's Advil.  We got her to look at the stacking cups but she wasn't having anything to do with playing. 

After the Advil she fell asleep but not for long.  She was content laying on the bed with me but I was afraid she would roll off or I would roll over her as they beds here are very small.  I finally got her in her crib about 1:30a.m. but she thrashed around much of the night.  A couple times she got up on her knees but I was able to keep her in the crib and rub her back and talk to her.