A Little Better...

Today has been a little better . Hadley slept all night and finally drank a bottle this morning. We all woke up this morning at 4:30 again. We just can’t seem to get on the right schedule.

Hadley’s temperament is improving although still pretty fussy. She seems to do better when we are out an about than when in the hotel room. It is evident that she is spoiled rotten. She wants to be held all the time. Which is okay most of the time, except we have 2 other kids that want our attention too. Both the boys are really enjoying Hadley. Aiden is a great big brother and so helpful. Liam is warming up to her and starting to be affectionate. Hadley took a bath today with Liam and she seemed to enjoy playing in the water.

After breakfast we went to Lotus Lake and visited the Tiger and Dragon pagodas and a temple. We all really liked it, except it was so hot. Today was the first day that hasn’t been cloudy. The sun was beating down on all of us. It was over 90 degrees with 100% humidity. We lasted just over an hour and headed back to the hotel for naps. However, on the way all three kids fell asleep. When we arrived at the hotel we realized that having 3 kids was not going to be easy. How do 2 people carry 3 sleeping kids and all our bags. UGH! Fortunately the doorman helped carry Aiden in.

At 2:00pm we headed to our agency to meet the foster mother again and give her our gift. As soon as we got there, she latched on to Hadley. Hadley was immediately smiling. We told her that she wasn’t taking her bottle or eating much. Her foster had brought her some food and just shoveled it in. She wouldn’t take a bottle for her either though. She told us that she was very sad and that she didn’t sleep last night because she missed Hadley so bad. She held her and cared for her for about 45 minutes. We gave her our gift and then she left.
At about 3:00pm the birth mother arrived. She looks very young (even younger than 17). She is petite and very pretty. She brought gifts for Hadley. One was from her, one from Hadley’s father, and one from Hadley’s great uncle. It is very special to be able to have those for Hadley. She also brought a letter for us and two for Hadley (one from her and one from her birth father). The agency made copies of them and is translating them for us. We sat and talked for about 45 minutes. We had a list of questions for her that we thought might help Hadley know about her when she is older. She gladly answered all of them. At the end we asked her if she had any questions for us. She told us that she wanted us to raise Hadley as our own daughter and she wants her to learn to speak Chinese and learn about her culture when she is older.

We then let her hold Hadley and took several pictures of her as well as one of her with our whole family. After that we gave her our gifts. She first looked at the St. Louis photo book and asked about the arch. Next she looked at the photo album that we made for her with pictures of Hadley, our family, and our home. She burst into tears as she looked through each photo and asked about them. At that point tears welled up in all of our eyes (even the agency representatives). Finally she opened the necklace and we explained the meaning behind it and she sobbed even more and then hugged Chaunta. We let her hold Hadley one more time to say her final good byes. As she got up to leave, Aiden ran up and gave her a hug. She bent down and gave him a big hug back. She thanked us and then left to go to work.
It was the most amazing experience to meet her birth mother. We feel so blessed for the opportunity. We agreed to send regular updates and photos to the agency for her. The agency also copied the photos from our camera for her. When they did that, I noticed that they had some baby pictures of her that we hadn’t received so they gave those photos to us. It is great to have more photos of her as a tiny baby. Included in them were photos of her birth mother feeding her a bottle at about 1 month old.

After leaving the agency, we went straight to dinner (TGI Fridays). We were starved since we hadn’t had lunch. It was a nice break from McDonalds and Subway. She was great the entire time. However as soon as we got back to the hotel, the waterworks started again. We are having trouble getting her calmed down and settled in for the night. It looks like it will be a long night!

If the weather is nice tomorrow, we plan to go to the beach.