There was a very important detail that we could not post on our travel journal, and that would be the real gotcha day we had with our Emma Grace. We actually met Emma in her home on Saturday, October 23 and it was wonderful! We got to see her in her comfortable environment. She was happy, content and so, so sweet. We got to see her friends, her house, how she lived. We are so thankful to have seen these sweet details of her life. We are also thankful that we got to see her true personality, because the little girl we had for the first 3 days in Fuzhou was not the real Emma Grace- it was a sad, grieving child. We were confident in the diagnosis of grieving because we had seen how she truly was in a place where she felt safe. Now that she is home, we see that same little girl we met at PHF. The Civil Affairs office in Fuzhou did not want us to pick her up at PHF. Because Emma is originally from Fuzhou, we had to adopt her in Fuzhou through that city's civil affairs office and through that orphanage (the orphanage where she was taken at 1 day old and lived for 8 months). This is where she was registered. The orphanage did not care if we picked her up at PHF and our agency did not care- it was just the darn civil affairs people. So, behind the scenes our agency and the orphanage made arrangements for us to meet her there. The plan was for us to meet her at the orphanage on Saturday and spend the entire day and night there. We did this, and it was wonderful! Then, Sunday morning we were to fly with Sara, a representative from PHF to Fuzhou. Once in Fuzhou, the orphanage people were to meet us. They were going to take Sara and Emma in their car, and Rick and myself were to ride with our guide to the hotel. Once at the hotel, the civil affairs people were supposed to be there. Rick and I were going to walk in first... then the orphanage people with Emma. However, it didn't go down like that. Once we landed in Fuzhou and the orphanage people saw me holding Emma, they told Sara to take the baby. Sara said that they were acting really weird about everything. Sara was holding Emma, and the orphanage people (now strangers to Emma) kept trying to take her from Sara. Sara was telling them no and would not give Emma to them. This is the scene we walked away from. As if this wasn't enough to confuse Emma and cause her to feel like something is up, they took her back to the orphanage for 3 HOURS! We got to our hotel and the guide said... we'll meet at 5:30. I was sick to my stomach! Emma had a bottle on the plane, which was more than enough to hold her over until we met at the hotel. But, this 3 hour delay would cause her to be really hungry. The good news is that Sara held her the entire time they went to the orphanage. The bad news is that Emma was not offered any food by the orphanage people. If I had known this was going to happen, I would've sent a bottle with Sara. She came to us very tired, scared and hungry. It was a pretty traumatic 3 hours for her. If I had to do it all over again, I still would have met her at PHF. I just would've prepared myself for the worse case scenario and sent Sara with food. But, I still think that the orphanage people could have recognized she was hungry and offered her some food, especially since we gave them a $5,200 donation. It is behind us now and we are just thankful we got her! All of the other details on the travel journal are true- we just had to leave the part of picking her up at PHF off. But, this whole scenario coupled with the finding ad mistake is why I was SO MAD at those people!
Emma was wearing 3 layers when we met her- the bottom layer was the UK shirt we sent her in a care package in May :)
Kisses from daddy
a very happy mommy!
She put her hands to her head as if to say "I can't believe they are really here!" Now that I know her, I know that she covers her face/eyes when she sees people she doesn't know.
The first time we saw our daughter
