Civil Affairs Office - Part 2

Okay, remember how I told you yesterday was so nice and quiet at the Civil Affairs Office...think the exact opposite...and you have an idea of what today was like! There were only 6 families in total (our 3 families and 3 families from another agency) but that still makes for a lot of people in one very hot room!

Our official adoption application photo.

The place where it all happens.

We first met with the Orphanage Director and the nanny again. They were very happy to see Jia Yin (Lily) again and gave Mommy a stern talking to about having too much of Lily's skin showing! I had been warned by other adoptive parents about "the clothes police" and had dressed Lily in long pink pants but they kept riding up her legs. Oops...strike one for Mommy! The director and nanny took lots of pictures of Lily with Tony and I to bring back to the orphanage and Lily's foster family. It really warmed our hearts to see how much they love Lily...and honestly how could they not?!?

We spoke with the two of them briefly and had the opportunity to ask a few questions. We talked to them about Lily not drinking her formula and told them the ratio of milk powder to rice powder we were using. They then asked us how much sugar were we adding. Sugar??? Um....none. Well, that's the problem. They have always added sugar to Lily's formula. Hmm, a diet of potato chips and sugar...I don't think Dr. Spock would approve! It goes against my better judgement to put sugar in Lily's bottle but that is not a battle we are going to fight right now. Lily is going through enough changes and what's important is that Lily trust us to keep her tummy full...so sugar it is. When we got back to the hotel I added a little sugar to Lily's bottle and wha..la...one bottle down in a flash.

After we met with the Orphanage Director and the nanny we went in and met with a representative from the Civil Affairs Office who asked us a few questions. The questions were very basic. For example, What do we do for a living? Did we have college educations? Why did we want to adopt from China? Would we provide for Lily's education? (I had to laugh thinking about all of Tony's spreadsheets on how we will fund our retirement and Lily's college education simultaneously!) We had already answered these questions on the application forms we completed. I think they just wanted to verify that our answers matched what was on the application. It was really funny when they asked Tony about where he worked. For some reason the translator had a difficult time translating Gegorek & Vardavas!

After we answered the questions we signed several documents and then placed our index fingers on a red stamp pad and stamped our fingerprints over our signatures. They also put Lily's foot on the red ink pad and stamped the documents with her little piggy toes.

Once all the families were finished we waited about another 30 minutes while they did some administrative "stuff" and then we headed back to the hotel. Lily was rather unimpressed with the whole affair and slept through most of it.

As you can see Lily was riveted by the proceedings!

Daddy gets to sign first!

Mommy asks, "Where do I sign!"

Lily adds her stamp of approval!

Back at the hotel we realized the red ink was still on Lily's little Fred Flintstone feet!

On Friday, we will head back to the Civil Affairs Office to receive our final documents and Lily's Chinese Passport. After that we will be free to leave Hubei and we will fly to Guangzhou on Saturday and begin proceedings to finalize Lily's adoption with the US Consulate.

I have never been a believer in the philosophy "That everything happens for a reason". That works well in positive situations but what about life's more tragic events? If it is true, than the awful massacre at Virginia Tech, 9/11, and The Holocaust (among other unexplainable human suffering) happen "for a reason". Beyond the existence of pure evil I can't imagine what that reason could be. My heart breaks when I think of Lily's First family and the choices that they made that are "the reason" we are blessed that she is our daughter. Today when we were at the Civil Affairs Office the translator told Tony and I that when she saw Lily with us yesterday and again today she believed "It had been written by God". Now, that I believe!