Orphanage Day

Tuesday morning, the day after Gotcha Day, we had to be in the lobby ready to go to Datong at 8:30am. (which wasn't a problem since we had all been awake since 4am). We drove back to the Civil Affairs Office to answer some questions and finalize the adoption. Sadie saw us doing our fingerprints and held out her finger trying to fingerprint all the pages too. The Chinese officials and orhanage workers were all were laughing at this and giving her papers. She seems to pay close attention to things and wants to try to mimic what we are doing a lot. Finally she got to actually hand print a page herself. :)

We answered questions, promised to never abandon or mistreat her, and signed all the papers to finalize. She is officially a Wisehart!

This is the Director of Sadie's orphanage (in the pink)
and we think the other girl is one of the orphanage staff

We then got back in the van for the 4 hour drive to Datong, the city where her orphanage is. It was a looong drive. Sadie slept through a lot of it.

part of the Great Wall we could see from the van 

they dont use car seats in China so this little cutie was in my lap the whole drive.

 We stopped on the way for a bathroom break. If you can avoid ever needing to use a "squatty potty", opt out. I was glad I had a chance to see what they were like but not glad that we were gone long enough to need to use them four times that day. It is a trick figuring out how to use these as a female and not pee on your jeans or yourself but my camping trips prepared me for this. I'll spare you the details of the stall but I will show you a picture and I will say that when you walk out of there you feel the need to disinfect everything possible.

We have seen a lot of these. Wonder if it has to do with the crazy smog everywhere?
All that way to Datong, still no sun!

This is what she does when she gets nervous...wraps her arms so tight around my neck. Here we had just crossed into Datong. I'm not sure if something about that area made her nervous or if it was just coincidence.

We finally made it to the orphanage. It is nice and has a lot of great resources and play areas for the kids. There are a lot of different types of therapy rooms, classes, equipment, etc. Sadie only spent a couple of days here, from what we were told. When babies are found they spend a few days with the nannies while a foster home away from the orphanage is chosen for them, so that the young babies can have nurture in a family environment away from the other children. Before they turn 2, all of them are brought back to the orphanage to live. Sadie was still living with her foster family  from what we were told, but would soon have been moved out of that home into the orphanage had she not been adopted.

This visit would have been hard even if we weren't adopting and meeting Sadie's foster family. Seeing all of the children there who were older or had more severe special needs was so sad. If you have ever thought God may be prompting you to consider adoption, please pray about doing that! There is such a need. There was one little boy in particular who just melted my heart...I can't find the picture I took of him but I just wish they all could be adopted by families who love them.

Our guide and some of the orphanage staff looking at the pictures we brought from a sweet family who adopted from Datong 1-1/2 years ago. This was such a neat thing and I don't believe at all that it was a coincidence...When Carter had his surgery earlier this month up in north Atlanta, a Caucasian couple walked into the waiting area with a Chinese little girl and of course I wanted to go talk with them. John kept telling me not to bother them but I couldn't help myself and I went over to say hello :) We were so glad I did because we found out this family not only adopted from China through our agency, but from the same orphanage and they also live just a few minutes from us! (an hour away from the hospital where our children were having surgeries). This family has been such an encouragement to us and gave information and advice before we traveled, and we were so happy to be able to bring back photos of their sweet girl to the orphanage.
I love the bonds that adoption brings between families! 

We were able to meet Sadie's foster mama and foster sister. We had assumed her foster siblings were young orphans as well but found out they were not. Her sister is 17 years old and brother is 20, and are biological children of her foster mama and baba (Chinese for daddy). They also said she had foster grandparents who lived next to them in their village and that her grandpa fed her lunch every day. They answered most of our questions we had given to the guide ahead of time, and we were able to video her translating the answers for us. The foster mom kept asking Sadie for kisses and feeding her fruit and they gave her a huge (scary looking) american doll they had gotten her as a gift. We had asked if the foster mom would write a note for Sadie to read when she is older so she did that as well. Thankfully Sadie came back to me without a breakdown and the foster mom told the guide to tell us she was going to slip away quietly. She was crying as she left and so was I.

john was wearing a jacket when we left the hotel
so we didn't realize we would be plaid twins.

We went back out to see the spot where Sadie was found at about 3 days old. She was left just outside the front gate of the orphanage.

We then drove over to the passport office in Datong. It was around 5pm at this point and we had pnly had a snack on the way that we picked up at the rest stop. Our guide and the orphanage staff with us could not find who they needed so they were going back and forth and making lots of phone calls. Then they took us to a room with an official and made more phonecalls and were pointing at John & me and talking in Chinese. The other family with us finally asked if things were ok and they told her, "for your family, yes." Apparently there is a problem getting Sadie's passport. From what we could understand it sounded like somehow it was communicated to them late that we were coming and the person who was supposed to prepare/sign our paperwork was on vacation. So our guide is going to do what she can to get it on time for us to fly to Guangzhou on Friday (GZ is where the medical appointment and consulate appointments are). I started to panic a little at the thought of having to stay longer than planned in China but they assured us that they should be able to at least let us fly to GZ Friday and get the passport in time to send it to us there so that we can still come home as planned. Please pray this doesn't delay us!!!

We then drove the 4 hours back to our hotel and arrived around 930pm exhausted. Sadie was sad and tired and sick of being in the van. We were too tired to care that we were hungry so we all went to sleep and slept much better/longer than the night before! Happy for a full night of sleep! And glad that we will have a little more down time and time to get Sadie used to us for a couple of days.

I have to share this video real quick. I thought I had emptied all the photos & videos from my phone before the trip but somehow this was still on it and Sadie has been loving to watch it. I have too and thought I would share :) I wish I had one of Carter on there too now! I am missing those babies SO much.