She is officially ours!

We are realizing it is a lot of work being parents, not that we expected anything different I suppose. After our meetings yesterday and today, the adoption is now finalized and N is finally ours. Yesterday, we had more appointments at the Civil Affairs office (the same office where we picked up the babies on Tuesday). First we met with the registrar, and promised that we wouldn't abuse, neglect or abandon N, and paid our fee of course. Then we met with the registrar who I guess registrared something or other in Chinese. Then it was official.

The change in N when she woke up on Wed was pretty amazing. She sat on the bed and played with us - smiling and laughing quite a bid. Considering she wasn't even smiling on Tues, this was significant. Her eye contact with us increased quite a bit, too. She was more comfortable looking at us for longer periods, especially when she was taking her bottle.

Speaking of bottles, she is sure a good little eater, which is obvious by looking at her. Before we got her "direction" papers, which told us what her normal routine was, we were told that all of the babies were used to eating solid table food already. We were somewhat concerned, because she didn't seem to know how to eat solids, and she would spit most of it out. Later we learned that she wasn't used to eating solids and was fed primarily a bottle, which made us feel better. We also learned we weren't feeding her enough.

Dinner after our Civil Affairs outing was a challenge. She is definitely a squirmer, and if she is tired, hungry, or wet, she sure lets us know! We in to the tag-team eating period now. I don't know how single parents are able to do it!

When we finally got back to the hotel it was obvious she was pretty tired. Her clothing and diaper changes are very traumatic for her, and she is very emotional about the whole process. But after calming her down, we were able to put her in the crib and after a bunch of tossing and turning she fell asleep until about 5:30 this morning when I got up and gave her a bottle. Luckily for us she is a great sleeper!