It's official with one government!

Today we received the Adoption Decree from the Chinese government.  It's official.  She is ours in the eye's of the Chinese.  Now a US visa and we will head home.  Tomorrow is a free day, so depending on how the night goes we may take a cab to a park with another adoptive family.  Otherwise we will stay close to the hotel and walk over to the dry market.

This is really the first chance we have had to write much.  Vivian is of course wonderful.  It's really amazing that she is starting to relax around us already and it's only been just over 48 hours.  She does like to be held and carried and does not like when we try to sit down, so there has been a lot of standing and dancing.  I think she is realizing that she is stuck with us, that we aren't going anywhere and she might as well let us in.

We are trying to figure each other out.  When we received her, we received no information other than what we got in September.  It seems that someone about a year ago felt that they were not receiving enough information from the orphanage that Vivian is from.  So they called their senator and their agency pestered and now there is no information that comes from the orphanage.  We did get about 20 minutes of questions with the orphanage director and a care taker that brought her to Guangzhou.  The did say that she liked to be held and the director said she was smart.  We are finding that to be the case and she certainly can let us know when she is not happy.

The first night we had her, she was so very tired after a 7 hour trip and being handed to some strangers.  It took about three hours of crying and holding and rocking.  She then slept through the night.

Tuesday we went and got some groceries at a local market.  There's a couple of pages to write about the market, but will save that for another time.  We were then off to the Civil Affairs office for our adoption interview;  Why adopt from China?  How long have you been married?  How much do you make?  Do you promise not to abuse or abandon?  Then back to the hotel.

Tuesday night was a different night.  Vivian slept for an hour, then was up for an hour, then down.  Finally about 1 AM she went down and slept until 6 AM.  The poor girl is just wiped out.

Today was a good day.  We were able to be slow and take it at her pace.  Since we received no information we are guessing at sleep and food.  We got her passport photo taken today and then went to the police station where we were photographed and handed the adoption decree. 

Tonight we stayed in and ordered a pizza.  Go figure.  Last night we tried to go out to eat, but about the time the food arrived, Vivian was ready to go and right now we are on her schedule except when we have appointments.  There were huge strides today.  Right now she is on the floor with Trinda, smiling and laughing and eating.  Up until this evening we could barely sit with her and the floor was definitely not an option.  It's good to see the girl that is behind those eyes come to life.

We will have a bit more time over the next few days before we start the US immigration portion of this journey now that the provincial portion is complete.  We hope that we can have a few more updates on the blog and see more and more of the personality of the girl that is in that body.