Sweet Ya Ya

The moment we've been waiting over 3 years has arrived! We were united with Luo Yi Ya (Ya Ya is what they call her) this morning at 9:30 a.m. I am so overjoyed I don't know where to begin! We left the hotel at 8:50 for the Civil Registration office. We were all so excited! We arrived before the orphanage staff and babies. Aina took us to the 'Waiting Room' to wait. Beth was looking out the window to call us over - they have arrived with the babies! We could only see the tops of their heads, but there were three. The pictures below are of Natalie with a care giver, then of all the babies - notice Lily is the one with the 'touch down' arms! She's so cute - she does this a lot.

Natalie, Lily, and Tova with their care givers.

Then they came in the room. We recognized Natalie pretty quickly! She had the same look on her face from the photos we had from November. One of the care givers was holding her and kept her on her lap until we showed the appropriate paperwork/passports/etc. She was in a puffy yellow fleece jacket and brown fleece pants, with a couple of layers of pants underneath! It took about 15 minutes before we could actually hold them, but we were all just taking them in from across the room. It was obvious Natalie has a cold and did NOT like to have her nose wiped.

When they handed her to us she first went to Andy. She began to cry and continued to cry off and on the entire time we were there. I found she liked to sit in the seats on her own - it was calming for her. I think partly because she was running a temp and was really hot in all the bundling. We took off her jacket to help cool her down a bit and that helped some.

Bus ride back to the hotel...Natalie snoozed a bit. The emotional morning wiped her out!

When we got back to the hotel Andy changed her diaper while I mixed a bottle for her. Then we got on Skype to introduce her to Amanda and Kelsey. They were both so sweet and excited! We took Natalie's temp and she's running a fever of 101.3. We gave her some Motrin, a bottle, and she's now taking a nap - isn't she the sweetest? Well, that's all for now. I'll continue to upload photos and keep you posted. Please pray that her fever will fall and she'll feel better quickly.