Adoption Day!

It's official! Matthew is ours forever and ever!!! 

Today was adoption day! This morning we went back to the same building we were at yesterday and finalized his adoption. We were all brought back to the same room we met our children in and waited for a bit while the registration office finalized all of the adoption documents. 

Matthew loved this picture on the wall. 

This kid stole my camera again...

He is so small compared to his Baba...

When everyone's adoptions were complete the officials came out and presented each family with their adoption certificate. Then they thanked us for adopting their children. It was a very short but incredibly sweet presentation. We left afterward and drove to the notary office. 

We set Joseph up with the iPad since past notary visit experience shows this is necessity...

Yesterday, Matthew did not nap once. Today, thankfully, he did. Right in my arms! 

After completing our portion of the paperwork we all took a picture with the notary and then headed back to the hotel. 

When we got back to the room we decided we needed a few more necessities so we headed to lunch followed by another trip to Walmart. The trip to Walmart is somewhat of a trek. Not so bad on the way there but definitely more labor intensive on the way home with all of the groceries in hand. There is also the smog to contend with. It is way worse than I ever thought it could be. Even the lobby of our hotel and the hallways are hazy. Lastly, there is some major traffic here. There are at least 4 lanes on every road and then the sidewalks are FULL of motorcycles, scooters and bicyclists. You always have to be watching out around you because pedestrians definitely do not have the right of way here! 

One of my shopping must-haves here is complete with the purchase of a stuffed pleasant goat! We found him at Walmart. Yesterday, Matthew struggled to be out down for a nap and the only thing that broke him of his crying was watching an episode of pleasant goat I had downloaded on the iPad. In most of the pictures of him we had before we met he was playing with a plastic pleasant goat toy. So it was something familiar for him in the chaos of all of this new stuff. 

And who wants to see some cute baby tummy :) 

You would never know it but soon after this picture was taken Matthew had his first real meltdown. He was practically inconsolable for an hour or so. No amount of food or bottles or hugs or kisses could make him feel better. He had his eyes closed so tight and when he would open them he would focus in on us and cry harder. It was such a helpless feeling not being able to console him. Since there was no real obvious cause to his crying we realized he was just grieving hard for all of the things he once knew that he no longer had. I can't even tell you what brought him out of it. I had been holding him the whole time and he just stopped, giving way to more silent sniffs and deep breaths. Since we knew he loved his bath time I put him in the tub and Ronnie took Joseph to get dinner. He sniffled the entire way through the bath. When it was done we got his PJs on him and gave him a bottle. The rest of he night he has seemed fine. He is definitely starting to show a preference to me over Ronnie now though. But he is still allowing me to put him down so that is good. I am praying tomorrow is a better day for him. 

Tomorrow we drive out to his local passport office in Zhoukou City. We thought we were able to go all the way to Taikang, where he is from, but the guides explained to us that it is even a greater distance past Zhoukou city, which is already 2.5 hours away from here. They also told us we cannot get an orphanage tour, which we suspected, but I was still hoping to see some of the city he has lived in his life so far and maybe go by where his finding spot was, or the general vicinity of it since we really don't know the specific spot. Maybe some day in the future we'll get to come back! 

Gotcha Day COMPLETE!

Today was an incredible gift! Things went so smoothly and Matthew has been easing in to this transition without any major problems. He is currently passed out on our bed for the night and even though I can see him with my own eyes, I cannot believe he is finally here! 

This morning we were all up way earlier than even our typical 6am wake up here. We were all just very anxious to get on with the day. It seemed to take forever for 930am to get here but when it finally did we were more than ready. Here we are on our way to the lobby to meet the group and get on the bus! 

This is the building where we met Matthew.

When we pulled up to our entrance there were already 3 children waiting to meet their forever families. Everyone rushed off the bus and started snapping pictures for those families! 

When we got inside Joseph made himself comfortable in the play area. 

Eventually he bored of that and ended up playing spin the chair until he was too dizzy to walk. Meanwhile lots of other children arrived. 

There came a point when there were just 3 of us families left waiting. We spent so much time staring out that doorway for our kids.

Joseph was so sweet. He kept asking when his "little brudder" was gonna get there. He kept watch when the rest of us parents gave up our doorway snooping. 

He looked so sad sitting out there. He wanted Matthew to show up so bad. 

I eventually joined him on the step and took more pictures to pass the time. 

We took one last picture of just the 3 of us on this trip. 

Even though Joseph was keeping a great watch on the front doors, I was inside and recognized Matthew the second he came in in his "Mama's" arms through the side entrance!! I quick ran outside to get Ronnie and Joseph. I could barely speak, trying to explain they had snuck in the other way and that they had to come inside now. This picture shows a bit of the chaos of what is going on in this room at the time you meet your kids. There are all sorts of kids and parents and siblings, all at different parts of the gotcha day process. It is easy to miss someone sneaking in a side entrance!  

Here are some of the first moments meeting him. 

The orphanage director and his wife (Matthew's foster parents) gave us a photo book of Matthew and had developed the pictures from the cameras we had sent in his care packages. His foster mother gave me a beautiful necklace too. I wish there wasn't a language barrier because I would have loved to get to meet them more. They obviously love Matthew very much. 

So they were not kidding when they said Matthew was active! He does not like being held for very long and is a fast mover when set free ;) 

He also came to us in split pants with no diaper. I just love those little tushy butts peaking through! 

Here is Matthew with his "Mama & Baba". As we waited to sign the paperwork our guides explained it would be a while longer. They said Matthew's orphanage hasn't placed a child for adoption in 2-3 years so they didn't know what paperwork was required and were filling out the missing parts now! It really didn't take much longer and having that little bit of extra time with his foster mom was great. She got Matthew to dance and spin and giggle. He is such a happy kid!!

On our way back to the hotel Matthew wasn't showing preference one way or the other to me or Ronnie. He remained happy and even gave us a giggle! When we got back to the hotel room we just let him explore. 

Joseph was having so much fun with him, throwing a football to him and reading him books. 

One thing Matthew couldn't get enough of was the toilet! So we ended up just shutting the door to the bathroom. See here how daddy ruined all the fun ;) 

Unfortunately, because of our flight delay yesterday one parent had to spend most of the day today after getting back with our children running errands to the bank and filling out paperwork. Ronnie chose to go and almost 3 hours later he came back to the room :( The boys and I had fun though. 

Brother bonding time went well.

Some things worth noting on this kid. He is probably just as heavy as they told me, which is only maybe 1-2 pounds different from Lucy! He came with 3 layers of tops and a bib, 2 layers of pants, his socks and his shoes on. He likes to eat. He has the tiniest little hands and the biggest brown eyes!!! 

This was the first time I saw Matthew go up to Joseph and try to get him to play! 

After his first bath with us tonight!

He also needs to be rocked and fed to sleep! 

And this kid needs to stop selling himself out when he sneaks off with my camera...

Ok, it's off to dreamland for me. Everyone else here is already asleep. Praying we all sleep through the night tonight. Going to bed was the most difficult time for Matthew in his transition. He resisted for a long, long time before finally passing out. He refused to nap today too. I'm guessing wake up tomorrow will be rough and tomorrow in general will be harder for him. But he is AMAZING and truly a gift from God!! We are so blessed to be his parents!