Our Journey to the Middle Country

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Tuesday 21 March 2000: Nanning

I'm not certain, but I think that Delainie's first bath this morning. I don't think we put her in the tub the first night.

During this day, we shot the rest of the roll of 12 exposures that we brought. We wanted to do this to have photos of Delainie with us to give to the foster mother. It turned out that there were 13 frames on the roll. The front desk sent someone up so that we could have the film sent out to be developed.

David had a joke of sorts for us in the morning. He said that while we thought that the babies were ours with all of the paperwork, we still had more to do. Last night we were really just babysitting.

I don't think that we met Joy, our guide in Nanning until today. If we met her last night, I don't remember.

It was also near this point where David said he was going to just start counting the babies to make certain we were all present, say on the bus. It was quicker to count to 12 than to 40.

Breakfast

Mary Lou took a picture of us at breakfast in the hotel. It was one of eight that she sent us later on in 2000.

Delainie was also eating Cherrios with only two teeth, much to my surpise.

Civil Affairs Office

When we went to the office for registration, there were just too many people. Some of us waited outside in the hallway and eventually went back out on the bus. It was decided to break the group up into the 6 with daughters from Nanning Welfare Home and Mother's Love and send some of us to the Notary first.

Notary Office

We went to the with Kim, Paul and Isabelle for notarization paperwork. There was an office on the left and the right, with a waiting area in the middle. One of the documents was stamped with Delainie's foot print. The notary fee was $350.00 in USD. When we payed the fee, we gave a gift to the notary.

Civil Affairs Office

Back at the office, we completed the paperwork for the Chinese side of our adoption. The Registration fee was $200.00 in USD. When this was done, she was truly ours in the eyes of the Chinese government. We gave a gift to the Civil Affairs Officer and were surprised that a red box with a pearl necklace was given for each of the girls.

We also paid the Passport Fee of $100.00 in USD.

Mary Lou sent us a picture of Tammy and Delainie in the Civil Affairs Office.

Nanning Grocery Store and the Clothes Police

We had Delainie in sort sleeves and a sort of demin bib-overall dress. Her legs and arms were bare. We should have known better. While we weren't actually confronted by anyone from the clothes police, there was one older woman who was certainly giving us the evil eye several times in the store.

• two packages of Three Deers infant formula
• cloth diapers as spit up cloths
• multi-cup
• other bottles, the ones with the blue ring and covers
• crackers with butter spread - not what we thought we had bought in Beijing
• little jumbyo coconut milks
• apple juice
• lots of bottled water!

Mingyuan Xindu Hotel

We went to David's room to take the family photo for adoption certificate. We took the little bunny toy we brought for Delainie with us for the photo.