Olivia is here!

The moment has finally gotten here – we have our precious little girl! How do you go about doing things throughout the day when you know your life will forever change at 4:00 pm?

We went to the food street for lunch, and had some authentic Chinese food. There were so many things to choose from, and everything was definitely authentic. We finished that around 2:00pm, and we needed to meet the bus at 3:30pm to go to the office where the babies had been taken. The wait was excruciating, but we made it through.

We got on the bus for around a 30 minute drive and pulled up to the front of what is called the Lottery Hotel, because that’s where you go to claim your lottery winnings if you buy a lottery ticket. We felt luckier than any of those lottery winners there!

We walked in the door, went on an elevator up to the third floor, and were escorted to a large conference room with several flags. We waited about three minutes, and two officials from the orphanage talked to us about what would happen, and thanked us for adopting a baby girl from China. We still consider ourselves the lucky ones here.

So, they then brought in the babies, one by one, and called the parents name. Christine spotted Olivia the second the brought her in that door. She is everything we expected and more. Now I know how all of you parents feel, and about how special the love is from a parent to a child. There was a time when my great aunt Bessie went to see a presentation of This Is Christmas, the year that she passed away. She was so full of joy, and she took me aside and said, “I just know that I saw angels in this place”. Well, I know that I saw angels in that room today – both with those wonderful orphanage workers who cared for these babies all these months, and in those babies who have no idea what God has in store for them.

I know Christine shed quite a few tears, and I had a bit of difficulty holding that video camera steady at times.

Olivia is beautiful, she has such curious and alert eyes, four cute little teeth, and she just loves to clasp her hands together. She felt a little sick from the long train ride, and she did cry quite a bit at first. While the girls watched the children, the dads went to a HUGE Chinese Walmart for some supplies. We got back to the hotel, and tried to feed Olivia, and our agency director helped us get her formula to where Olivia liked it. She usually eats a bowl of congee, which is sort of like oatmeal, at night, but she wasn’t taking that tonight. Christine finally managed to get her to take most of a bottle, and that calmed her down a little. Bless her heart, we think little Olivia is a smart one, and realizes what’s going on. It’ll take her some time to get used to us, but we pray that she will become attached to both of us soon.

She really enjoyed lying down on the bed on her stomach, and scratching at the sheets with her little index finger. We finally got her to smile a few times, and she would focus on her mom and watch her intently wherever she went.

Tomorrow, we go to the Adoption Affairs office to finalize the court proceedings here, so please pray for us and for Olivia that it will be a good day.

The internet and email over here is sporadic, but please keep reading, and send us an email whenever you can.

There’s no more anticipation now – she’s everything we’ve been praying for and more.

Michael, Christine, and Olivia