Tuesday, May 15, Civil Affairs Office…Again

Okay so I’m a day behind and there is so much to catch up on. I haven’t even put down Gotcha Day stuff…perhaps I’m blocking. Sorta want to do that with today as well…but I digress. Tuesday, yesterday, we had to go back to the Civil Affairs office. I was pretty much dreading going back to the place we just got her from where she clearly was miserable. That morning she woke up quietly in her bed. When we went to pick her up she cried a bit, so we finally got her diaper changed and then we fed her a bottle. She was very tentative the first half of the morning. She liked us to amuse her but not to really touch her. She laid down on her back most of the time. She wouldn’t sit up or crawl anywhere. But I’ve said most of this already in a previous post. However, just as we were about to leave for the civil affairs office Noah was able to get her to stand up and take some steps with assistance. The nanny’s reported her beginning to walk if you hold her hands. So we did this for about 5 minutes and that made us slightly late to meet Michael, but it was okay. She seemed to perk up a bit. We put her in the “Hip Hammock” for the first time and she didn’t cry or resist.

We headed to the Civil Affairs office and she seemed on edge as we walked in the main room. When they took us to get our family photo and I sat down, she went crazy. So I stood up and she quieted down. They made me take her out of the Hip Hammock and tried to have us sit down again…she went crazy again (arching, screaming, pushing away). They said, “Oh we will try again later.” I said, “No we won’t. This won’t get any better the more we wait, it is the sitting down, can you shoot it with us standing up?” They of course could and did, to my relief. We then proceeded to wait for about 45 minutes for a police officer to show up to look at Hope’s passport photo they had taken at some previous time, and then to look at Hope in the flesh to make sure they were one and the same. Then we were informed of a new rule that started this week in China where they take up to two weeks to produce a passport…hmmmm….not gonna be in this city, or country for that matter, for two more weeks. Michael assures me (somewhat) that they will have it for us this Friday even though the new law is in effect. All families adopting this week are under this same problem. If we don’t get it by Friday we can still travel to Guangzhou with other documents we were given. They would overnight the passport to us in GZ…so we won’t be detained on our departure from China. Or so the story goes. God is sovereign so I’m not really that concerned but it is interesting.

She actually did fairly well the entire time we were at the office, except when she had to fingerprint her document…can you say nuclear and she is so freakin’ strong. We had to wrestle her down twice to get any good prints. Eric and I had to fingerprint over our signatures on their documents you will see us doing that below. After promising not to abuse or abandon or in anyway hurt Hope, we were granted full custody of Hope and she is officially a Williamson! Yay!

This last shot is us leaving the Civil Affairs office with the newest Williamson! What followed that afternoon was nothing sort of God’s divine hand opening up to pour out a miracle. Noah and I were in the room with Hope while Eric ran to the grocery store. I had been reading a cloth book to Hope where things move on the page. I was moving a bug…uuuuuuppp and dooooowwwnnn. Imagine that in a singsong fashion. She loved that page. If I turned from that page too long she would mimic my voice saying uuuuuppppp. Meaning go back to the bug page. It was amazing! Then I picked her up and let her down saying the same things. She loved it! She turned to Noah and held out her arms for him to take her. So I gave her to Noah and said Buh-buh. Then she promptly held her arms out to me and I said Mama. She was beside herself. Huge mouth open, laughing out loud. It was so cool! Later when she warmed up to Eric he lifted her up and down and she loved it! Hence the video I posted. She also continued the mimicking…Itsy Bitsy Spider video. She is also very much about her big brother.

The face of joy!!

I really like my buh-buh!

Another face of total joy!

That afternoon my goal was to get her out of her orphanage shirt. I was able to do so and when I did she was just in a diaper. She stretched out her hands and sort of twisted around and smiled huge, she would not let me put a new shirt back on! She loved being what we call in our family…”half nakie”. She was just roaming the hotel room in a diaper and she was elated. She laughed and smiled constantly. We spent the rest of the evening walking with her back and forth in the hotel room. I mean we did it for like over an hour. She can now walk holding only one hand (and she thinks she is big stuff). She was so engaging and interactive. She was having so much fun in fact she did not want to go to bed. She cried a bit and Eric sat down beside her and began to sing to her. He put his hand through he crib bars and on her belly when he tried to remove it she grabbed his finger and held his hand to her chest; if he tried to move she would hold it tighter. It was the first instance of her wanting someone for comfort. Eric didn’t get his finger back until she was fast asleep…he didn’t mind. She was experiencing such joy and she was a joy to watch. It was such a blessing. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day, likely, as we visit her orphanage. So even if she regresses back into emotional distress, we have seen the joy possible in her and we know we will see it again.