It's Official!

 The Tuesday after Gotcha is always a big day! Vivi slept until 7am on her first morning with us.  I was up at 3am for the day, which has been typical since we've been in China. After breakfast, we tested out bathtime.  At first she cried and was a little mad at sitting in the water.

Then after some splashing and kicking for a minute or two...

she realized this could be quite fun!

After bathtime, we got our things together and headed back to the Civil Affairs office to finalize the adoption of Miss Vivi. 

We stood in front of a very sweet judge and answered some questions. We promised to never abandon or harm her. She also asked if we were satisfied with her. Uh...Yeah!!! We took our official photo, and the adoption was complete!

Vivi Cate is officially ours! Now we wait for her passport to be processed. We will pick it up on Friday and head to the airport from there! We will fly to our last city, Guangzhou (pronounced Gwan-Jo) where we will work on completing her immigration paperwork because girlfriend needs a US visa before we can head home. This will take six days total, and then we can be on our way back to the states.

Miss Vivi was still not feeling well after the Civil Affairs appointment, so we arranged an appointment with an International doctor located in a Hilton hotel office building.

I may be too jet lagged to properly describe the visit, but at the time, I was thinking it would be great material for an SNL skit. The doctor was South American (?) and was very animated! Thankfully, he spoke great English, so communication was easy for the first time since we arrived in Chongqing.

He checked Vivi over, and her spicy side came out. She was raging mad at him and screamed for the next ten minutes. It wasn't a sad cry as much as a 'How dare you!' cry. I finally calmed her down, and she fell asleep in my arms. He then could easily check her ears, nose, and lungs. He then let me listen to her lungs, and I heard the raspy-ness myself. Her lungs and her nose are congested, and our sweet girl is having some trouble breathing. To make things worse, the smog is extreme right now and its making her lungs worse. We got an antibiotic and some medicine to help break up what's in her lungs. He requested that we stay in the hotel room for the next few days to keep her out of the smog. It's important we get her better before we leave for Guangzhou on Friday. Today we are taking a very quick ride to a place in the city our guide wants us to see, and Aaron can hop out and take a picture. We are still planning on going to visit her orphanage on Thursday. It's a quick trip and not too far from our hotel. The great news is that she has slept through the night both nights.

On the way back to the hotel, our guide pulled over to let us see where Vivi was abandoned. Aaron got out and took pictures, while I stayed in the car with Vivi.  I have debated about posting the pictures, but I just can't do it yet.  I still need to process my thoughts on what we saw and what the situation was with her birthparents.  She was obviously abandoned because of the nevus on her face.  In their culture, she is considered bad luck.  We knew this when we requested to adopt her.  What I did not know was how much seeing where she was abandoned would affect me. Maybe I will feel better about sharing the pictures with you all when my emotions aren't so raw?  We'll see.    

That night (I think this was last night?  I feel like like I'm in a time warp...) we put her in her crib for bedtime, and she began crying. I crawled in her packnplay (obvious act of desperation after a VERY long day) and she fell asleep quickly. It was wonderful!  I'm just thrilled that someone is sleeping around here!