We Have Sara!!!!

 What a day it was!  There are truly no words to describe being in a government office and someone hands over the child that you have praying for and waiting for, for almost a year.  Our morning started as we met in the lobby with our travel group at 9:30am.  35+ adults and children got on the bus for a 15 minute ride to the Civil Affairs office.  The children would all be arriving between 10am-11am since they are all coming for different orphanages.  When we arrived, 2 children were already there!  They continued to arrive, but Sara and Elias, that were coming from Puyang, did not come until last, around 10:45.  When She came in, I noticed she looked just like her referral picture, just older.  She was a little groggy because when had just woke up from a nap.  She seemed very big to me, but that is because of all the layers she had on.

 This is when I first held her.  she did not cry, but I do not think she realized what was going on.  She just stared at us.

 She has very short hair, but at least she has some!  Her hands and face are very tan.  I suspect she was outside a lot and I am sure that she always had long sleeves on.  Today she had on a long sleeve heavy shirt, 2 pairs of split pants, shoes and socks.  Her shoes were tied very tightly around her ankles, so we untied them and took her shoes and socks off...she was very warm, but that is the way they dress them here.  Today it is about 80 degrees.

 Here we are for our first picture.  All the families were so great; everyone just was going around taking video and pictures of each other.

 Sara and daddy's first picture.

 She has the same glazed look that Ava had when we met her.  She also has quite a few bug bites on her face and head area.  She was not clean the way Ava was when we met her. Sara's clothes were old, worn and dirty.  The shoes appear to be new, but her socks were very dirty.  Her fingernails and toe nails were very long with A LOT of dirt under them.  Makes us so sad.

 This is our official family registration photo...isn't it special!  Before this picture was taken she had been crying about 15 minutes.  It was very hard because the nanny that brought her, would not leave and kept coming and taking pictures of her and us...at least 20 or more!  So it was hard to get her to calm down.  Serious grieving going on for her.

 Here we are back at the room.  Still no bath, but at least clean clothes.  She loves the stacking cups and we were able to get a smile out of her.  Even though she is smiling in this picture, she still has moments when she cries.  She can talk, not a lot, but she can tell us what she wants, we just don't know what it is.  She wants to go out because she is pointing at the door often. She can not crawl, but she can walk if we hold onto to her. She has strong legs, she has just not had anyone working with her.  I think we will be walking the halls often with her.

 She has very big eyes and a beautiful smile!

 All the clothes that she had on!

 Here we are signing the registration papers.  Basically they are 24 hour guardianship papers for us to decide  if we want to keep her...kind of odd concept.  But we will return tomorrow to finalize the adoption.

The Angry  Bird shoes she was wearing.  Notice the ties on them.  They were tied VERY tightly around her ankles.  So, that it is for now.  Please continue to pray that her grieving stops and that she starts to bond to us.  We will post more later!!