It's Official...

She's ours. We officially completed the adoption paperwork today. Now we are just being held hostage here for 16 more days to receive her passport and exit visa. We went back down to the civil affairs office that we were at yesterday. We had 2 short interviews where they asked us questions like " Do you like/want this baby?" and "do you promise never to abuse or abandon this child?" Two easy questions! The official actually asked us why we wanted this baby if we already had 2 biological children, a boy and a girl... We were both stuttering to give him a quick answer as it was too complicated to explain and there was a definite language barrier. He basically accepted our answer and told us the adoption was final. They took our picture and we were done.
Once again, today was a big reminder of what this culture has done/is doing to females. There were swarms of people from all over the world crammed in these rooms getting interviewed by Chinese Officials so that they can take home a baby girl. The process has become so mundane to the people that work there. You can tell that they are just detached from the "issue". They see dozens of baby girls come in and out of there every day of the week.
We had a surprise visit from the two women that took care of Bliss in the orphanage. We did not know that they traveled to Guangzhou with the babies as we did not get to meet them yesterday. They came in to talk to us and Bliss. They did not speak any English at all. Although we could not communicate with them , it was clear that Bliss was loved and well taken care of. They were hugging and kissing her and speaking to her in Chinese. She was responding to them and smiling and reaching for them. It was heartbreaking for me to see. I had a huge lump in my throat. I told Pete I need to go in the bathroom and cry now. It was like we were taking her away from her family. Both women were teary-eyed and they hugged us. A translator came and told us they were concerned about her because she had a fever a few days ago.
A few minutes later the director of the orphanage came in. I had given him a letter yesterday from a family that I have been corresponding with via yahoo groups. They adopted their daughter from this orphanage about a year ago. They had a few questions to ask him. I gave him the letter and the guide asked him to respond. He left with the letter and I assumed that he did not understand the request. I didn't think that we were going to see him again. He brought me a 2 page response, handwritten in Chinese. He did not speak any English but I could tell how warm and kind he was. He told us that we could write him any time and ask him anything we wanted about Bliss. He also said he is working on getting his papers so that he can come to the USA next year. He said he would like to visit some of us. Yesterday he told us (through the Guide)that Bliss was extremely active, crawls everywhere, and is very naughty! He also said she cries a lot. Haven't seen that yet, but she is wild and fits right in with our other 2. We are glad she was well taken care of and loved. She was very clean and in great condition when we got her. All the other babies in our group except the one from our orphanage had scabies. She is quite plump too. She is much bigger than I expected. We finally got her to eat tonight and she had some formula too. That was a relief. I'll attach some pictures of that.