This morning, our last day here in Lainey's birth city of Hangzhou, we were eating breakfast when Lainey started to squirm in such a way that I knew that for the first time she was asking to get out of my lap and onto the ground. I put her down and let her stand on her own for a bit, and was so thrilled to see her looking for a little independence. Every day she is getting more and more comfortable with us and we are getting to see more and more of her adorable little personality. :) Back upstairs in our room, we used goldfish crackers to entice her into walking for us. She has been able to walk for a couple of months, but she has had absolutely no interest in walking or crawling with us so far. It was so fun to have her walk to us (she is still very wobbly), and soon she was exploring the room with confidence.
(Later this afternoon, I was able to teach her how to use the sign for 'more' in about 15 minutes. Baby girl loves her food! :) She's such a smart baby! :) And watching her do the sign for 'more' is pretty stinkin' adorable!)
At 9am, met down in the lobby to first go to the notary's office, and then to the orphanage to see where our baby girl has been living since she was just days old. Our guide from Holt told us, "Your baby very lucky. Most babies not live in a place like this". And she was very right. We know that so so many babies here live in very poor conditions, or in a large baby-to-child ratio (in some cases 40 babies to one caregiver). But our baby girls has been in one of the nicer orphanages in China, and has been so well cared for while she's waited for a family. The compound of the orphanage was broken into many buildings, one for the younger babies like Lainey, one for the older children, one for the children with more severe special needs, etc. Because she stayed in the same building from day one, her nannies were close to her and she knew them well.
After arriving, we were given a lifebook for Lainey, a record of Lainey's life that had been kept by the orphanage. Because of this, we now know so much more about our baby girl - when she got her first tooth, the month she started to crawl, etc. It is so amazing to be able to record these milestones for her, as most orphaned children would never have anything like this.
As we finished looking through Lainey's lifebook, I told the orphanage staff worker, "sher sher" (thank you in Chinese), and Lainey clearly said the words, "sher sher" repeating me. Everyone oohed and laughed and clapped for her. :) She has been babbling a lot for us, but we really didn't know if she was talking baby talk or if she knew a bit of Chinese that we just didn't understand! :) We asked and were told that until that 'sher sher', she had just said 'mama' and 'yee' (aunt).
We started our tour and visited Laney's baby room first. There were thirty cribs, and we were told that there about twenty babies there currently, and 400 children total in the orphanage. We were able to see the crib where Lainey slept every naptime, and every night for the last 16 months. There was one little boy in his crib with a repaired cleft lip. I'm not sure why he was there when all the other babies were out of their cribs, but he greeted us with a sweet sweet smile and we waved "Ni How bow bow" (hello baby). One of Lainey's nannies was there (we learned that the children call the nannies 'Mama'), and another also came in to kiss Lainey and tell her goodbye. It was so evident how much they cared for her and it was so sweet to see them be so happy for her to have a family.
We toured a bit more, visiting the playground and the preschool, and BJ found a beautiful flower from the grounds to press and save for Lainey. As we were heading back to the main office building, we saw a line of adorable preschool children walking to their classroom. They were so excited to see us and waved excitedly from their line shouting out, 'hello!" in English.
We learned that if we hadn't been matched with her and if our post-match process hadn't moved as quickly as it did, she would have been placed in foster care for a couple of months until we could get there for her. I'm so thankful that this didn't happen. Even though foster care is usually the best case, it would have been so tough on Lainey to be in the orphanage, then with a foster family, and then back to the orphanage (which is the standard practice to do once a family gets travel approval), then to us. That would have added two more transitions, two more difficult separations for her, and would have likely made it much more difficult for us to bond with her now.
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