Day Two - Monday, 7/25/05

July 25th, 2005

Adoption Day in China!! The Chinese side of Marissa’s adoption was completed this morning!! Hooray!! She’s stuck with us now! Sometimes when she studies us, it seems that might be what she is thinking!

This morning we all journeyed back to the Adoption Center to meet with the Chinese Notary and Registrar to legalize the adoption here. They asked us if we wanted to accept this child and if we would always love and protect her and never abandon or abuse her. I think you know what our answer was. Of course we will love her…we already do! She’ll always be loved and protected and well-cared for in our arms. She was born to be our daughter and the newest member of our family. We also received our first family photo that will be used as documentation for passport to leave for her new home in America. It’s cute. We’ll photograph it and post it. Marissa was sleeping and had to be awakened for the photo, but she did a great job, then promptly fell back to sleep!

Although Marissa slept through most of during our necessary outing, she was not fussy at all when we had to awaken her. We noticed she felt very warm, and as soon as we returned to the hotel we took her temperature and it was running 101.4. We had started her on the antibiotic the previous evening, so we gave her baby Tylenol. She finally accepted water while we were at the Adoption Center. She had still been refusing food. She wasn’t accepting food from strangers! Hunger finally won out and she accepted water, but nothing else (we tried formula, cereal, congee, mashed banana, mashed egg, even maple syrup to stimulate her. We tried feeding her, tried placing it beneath her nose to entice her to eat, even placed it on the fingers she keeps putting in her mouth. Nothing worked, not even the various bottles and nipples we brought. She finally accepted water from a Nuk bottle that was given to us as an extra gift at the church baby shower. I threw that bottle in the diaper bag at the last moment in case we wanted to use it for water!

After returning to the hotel, we prepared a bottle with plain formula (without the cereal the orphanage said they added) and used the water bottle she had accepted earlier. It worked! She finally ate a few ounces! She has since taken a short nap and awakened starved. She accepted formula in the “magic bottle” and a little cereal in the Playtex nurser we brought. We had to cut a larger hole in that nipple, so it was hard for her to adjust to sucking this new nipple because it flowed so much faster. Poor baby…she already has enough to adjust to! It felt so good to have her demand to eat!

We kept telling our group coordinators that we were concerned about the upper respiratory infection, but that we were using the antibiotic and the Tylenol had taken the fever away. Elsie came to check on us this afternoon and I showed her the knot on the back of Marissa’s head. When I asked the orphanage director about it on Gotcha Day, she said it was a bug bite. It sure didn’t look like one to us. Elsie said it looks like a boil and is taking us to the clinic at 8:30 tonight. Elsie said they’ll put an herbal pack on it. How I long for Dr. Sullivan (at home) right now!

Marissa had her first bath this morning. It took both of us to do it, since she can’t sit up yet. We made it fast and she tolerated it. You could tell it was something she’ll one day enjoy, though. When we were finished, she smelled so good! She wore the cutest sundress from her Grandma May today. So many people (Chinese people on the street and Americans) talked about how adorable she looked today. Her daddy sure looked proud as he carried her around!