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Finding Signe (Part 2): Gotcha day

11/9/2004
6:00 AM
Holiday Inn Yangtze Chongqing

Yesterday began with perfect drama—thunder.

I woke at 5:30 to a long deep roll of thunder. The storm, with lightning flashing every couple minutes, continued for 20-30 minutes, but never seemed closer than 5 or 6 miles. And then, shortly before 6:00 AM, a tremendous boom. A single large charge of dynamite somewhere in the construction below.

For the most part, the day was spent trying to pass the time. At last, 2 PM arrived and we all loaded onto the bus and headed into Chongqing proper to stock up on diapers and formula and whatever else we wanted. And by 4:30 we we riding the elevator up the the forth floor of a building in the middle of the city, to the offices of the Chongqing Registry of Sino-Foreign Marriage and Adoption.

The babies hadn’t arrived yet, and we all spent the next 15 or 20 minutes milling around nervously. And then suddenly they were there, carried into the room by nannies from the orphanage. As everyone crowded together, our facilitator, Richard, began to call couples one by one. Jo and I excitedly tried to pick Signe out, not sure at first, where was she… And then we saw her, knew her for sure, held in the right arm of one of the nannies, with what turned out to be one of her crib-mates in the woman’s other arm. Most of the babies were crying at this point, a couple of the older ones quite loudly—screaming, in fact—and all of them looked scared and confused. Picture it—nine babies crying in a totally new and strange environment coming on the heels of a 2-hour bus ride, and close to 25 adults in tears, or nearly. Very slightly organized chaos.

And then Richard called our name, and Signe passed into our care. Jo held her first, and then me. The whole time, tears streamed silently down her face as she cried, her body literally shaking with fear. We held her tightly and talked softly, and she pressed herself into us, not wanting to, but needing the reassurance. She would cry, then stop and look around at the other babies, then cry again and press her face to my shoulder or Jo’s.

In the end, I held her all the way back to the hotel. Once in the room, Jo and Mom and I worked together to get her changed, and into a lighter outfit, and then we sat with her and showed her toys and talked to her. A little before seven I made food for her—a bottle with formula and some rice cereal in a bowl—and Jo and I fed her. She ate very happily.

After dinner, she played, and visibly opened up to us, laughing and smiling. and right on schedule, a little before 9:00 PM, she started to yawn. We turned the lights out and slowly she calmed, then fell asleep.

And then again, from below on the construction site, another tremendous boom. Signe has indeed arrived.

Next: Around Chongqing, and in Liangping

- posted 9 November 2004 in blog Favorites

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