May 10th and 11th- We Have Karine!‏

We arrived in Xi'an around 10:00 and met by our guide Penny. She told us that we would be getting Karine at 4:00 at the Civil's Affair Office. It gave us time to get ready. I tried to take a nap but couldn't fall to sleep. I hadn't slept one minute the night before. We were the first one to arrive at the civil's office. About 10 minutes later Amanda walked in with Karine in her arms. She seemed fine but as soon as we sat down, she began to cry. There was no consoling her. She was very upset. We left in the van with the guide. She calmed down and would cry a little at times. As soon we walked into the hotel room, she began to cry again. She was holding on tight to me. Martin was able to take her in his arms as well. After about 2 hours, she calmed down. We had brought some toys. She didn't want to play with them but would point to which stacking cup she wanted to stack. Our guide went out to buy us a stroller and sippy cup. She didn't want anything to do with her bottle. During this time, Martin took her for walks in the hallway. He had to carry her as she doesn't want to walk on her own. Which I know is normal at this stage. We all went to bed by 8:30. She slept until 6:15am and didn't wake up once. I got about 5 hours of sleep which felt wonderful!
Today we went back to the civil affair's office to do some paperwork. As soon as we walked in, she looked around and I knew she realized that it was the same place where she had been handed over, she began to cry. She cried on and off while we were there. We left there to go for her passport picture. That was quite the challenge to take a decent picture of a crying baby. When we were done, we went for lunch. She doesn't want to eat or drink much. It worries me as it's hot and I'm afraid she might get dehydrated. She at least took the cheerios today. The miracle of cheerios! :-) We're going for a dinner performance this evening. I'm a bit worried how that is going to go as the morning she didn't want to sit for breakfast. We'll bring the stroller with us as she really likes to sit in it while eating. Tomorrow is a free day so we're still not sure what we're going to do. On Thursday we're going to visit the Terrecota soldiers. We're so excited that we'll get the chance to visit this museum! It's about an hour drive but she should be ok. She loves riding in the car. She's very curious. When we went out for lunch, we got quite a few stares. They looked puzzled seeing these white people with a chinese baby. Our agency gave us a card saying "This is our adopted daughter". One lady stopped and starting waving at her. We showed her the card and she did a thumbs up while saying something in chinese. As it makes me sad to leave her province, we'll be very happy to get back to Beijing and find all the families again. We're finding this time difficult as we're trying to get to know each other and no one to talk to as we're the only family in Xi'an. We're trying to stay positive and know that each day will get better and better.
Please keep us in your prayers so that we can get through this difficult transition.

The pictures are from the day we got Karine.