We decided at the last minute to go with Ben and Ranyda to Walmart to pick up a thermos.

Hopped in the Taxi and headed off to Walmart.  The first thing we noticed about the streets was that the lines on the road are mere suggestions. You don’t really have to drive on the right side of the yellow line. You can turn when ever you want no blinker necessary. If you are a pedestrian, you have no rights; Get the heck out of the way!

Walmart looked like Walmart, same smiley guy and same friendly greeters. Though this one was 3 stories!!!

Hopped back in another amazing taxi ride and headed back to the hotel.

We all gathered at the Hotel at 10:30am to go to the Civil Affairs office. Lots of anxious people…   Chris came and gathered us up and we all shuffled into a bus.

Well the bus driver followed the same rules as the taxi, open season on the pedestrians. For as many close calls as we had with people and other cars, there was no one getting upset at each other. Something you would never see in the US if you almost ran someone off the road or cut in front of them.

After a 10 minute drive we arrived at what we all though was either some other hotel or hi-rise apartment complex, thought we might be picking up another couple… as we did at our hotel. There was another couple from Europe that was adopting and was also using Chris as their facilitator.

We were all told to get out of the bus and were directed to one of the several hi-rise buildings. This was the Jiangxi Province Center for adoption Services (civil affairs office). As we opened the door to the building, it was all too familiar. We noticed the Stairway leading to the second floor. We’ve seen it a few times before, On the China’s Lost Girls National Geographic special and on the GwenBlog.  We knew from that point it was the same civil affairs office.

We were all led into the 103 waiting room. We were told the children would be there any time. We waited and waited. Finally we saw a glimpse of a child. It was the European couple’s child… She was from a Different orphanage then the other 6 Children.  So we waited some more, and more and more and more….

Then there was same commotion and three of the babies arrived…

Where oh where is Maleah and her two friends???  Apparently the first three traveled by bus or some motor transport from the SWI. Maleah and her two friends decided to take the finer route, and hopped a train at some point from Yichun to Nanchang.

So the European couple met their baby at about 11:15am and the first three babies from our group arrived at about 11:30am.  So after over an hour of ogling over the babies Maleah and her friends showed up at about 12:40pm… The wait was so hard. Seemed like after every corner of our journey there was yet another wait…  

When Maleah was brought into the room, we knew it was her instantly!!!  She was looking at us and didn’t turn away…  We could not rush up to her yet. We still had to wait our turn.  It seemed like at least 5 minutes we had to wait if not more… Though the time stamp on the pictures says it was only about 90 seconds…

They handed us Maleah and the feelings and emotions… words cannot describe…  our eyes started to water. We were so happy!!! We were finally holding our baby girl!!

Since we had the extended wait, we also had the speedy exit… It seemed like we just received Maleah and we were asked to leave. It was hard as we knew we had to come back in a few hours. We just wanted to finish up the paperwork and take her back to the hotel…

Well we made it back to the hotel just after 1pm. We went to our room to admire our new baby girl. We tried a bottle and she didn’t seem too interested. Not sure if it was the flow or the formula or the temperature. She did like the cheerio type Gerber snacks we had though.

At about 2pm we decided to hit the buffet for lunch to only find out they just closed! Needing some water and help to keep up with the pace of things, we walked to the marked near the hotel and bought some water and a can of Coke. (remember when cans had the pull tabs!)

We went back to the room and slammed some Cliff bars, tried to see if she would take another bottle, though this time a bit warmer. We hear they like the bottles pretty warm. Jen was not into eating that many cliff bars, so she made some instant oatmeal. I think she got maybe 2 or three bites of it… Maleah saw her with it and gazed into her eyes… How could we resist… Maleah pretty much polished off the bowl of oatmeal and didn’t leave much for Jen. Having to get back in the bus by 3pm, Jen worked on another Cliff bar.

Assembled again in the lobby to sign, or should I say thumb stamp, a bunch of documents.  Then off again in the bus to the Civil Affairs office…  We finished some paperwork and were out of there in no time flat.  Off to the Notary…

Across town we went to the Notary to get documents for Maleah’s passport. She’ll need that before we can leave Jiangxi Province.  This was pretty quick and we returned to the Hotel.

Stayed in the room for a bit to rest before we went to Dinner. Maleah ate quite a bit at dinner. Loved the broccoli and smashed potatoes.

We were able to put Maleah down about 8:30pm.  She didn’t want to close her eyes. We laid in bed with her for quite some time before she fell asleep and we were able to put her in her crib.

Then spend most of the night filling you all in on the days Events.  (-;