Goodbye Hangzhou and HELLO Guangzhou!!!!!

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We said Goodbye to Hangzhou and the staff at the Children's Welfare Center on Friday. It was such a long day, beginning in the morning with passport and notary paperwork, moving on to the orphanage visit and finally arriving in Guangzhou after a 2 hour flight at 10pm. Ivy was exhausted and overwhelmed. Last night she woke up at 1am FREEZING (mommy didn't realize that removing the room card from the slot would turn off the heat!) I could not warm her up so we ended up taking a hot bath in our hot tub in the Victory Bathroom at 2am. She loved it, pooped in it but loved it! Ya, enough said....

She ate a big bowl of hot cereal and finally settled in to my bed with Brady at 3am. Mommy was done sleeping for the night, the poop in the bath tub did me in!!! Hey, I cold handle it if she pooped in HER bath..... But this was a hot tub, I had my suit on and I WAS IN IT WITH HER!!! Oh the precious bonding going on!!

Anyway, The orphanage visit was great. The building was absolutely freezing anywhere that there were no children so I was so glad I put her big coat on her. She was happy all the way over and seemed to know where she was when we pulled up. 

She didn't seem anxious about it at all. Finally after long visits learning all about our baby girls first year and a half there, we asked for them to send in her nanny so Ivy could say a proper goodbye and we could tell her a proper thank you. Each time someone would walk by the would say LI QIN LI QIN!!!! They were very happy to see her with a family. She would give a quick smirk or smile and hold me tight. Finally Ivy's nanny appeared. She was so happy to see her. I could always see love in her eyes in the photos we have of her and Li Qin, today was no exception. 

She is such a pretty girl and she had such a sweet way greeting Ivy. 

Ivy did give her a sly smile and and she listened to everything the nanny was telling her. She tried to give her a hug and Ivy backed off and when she tried to hold her (We told her we would love for her to give her a goodbye hug or last cuddle) Ivy pushed her away and dove on to my chest. 

She was not crying, she had a sly smile on her face and she was content. They clapped and said Li Qin loves her mama, Li Qin has a mama!!! They were very very sweet and understanding and did not try and push themselves on her. She waved goodbye and smiled big as they said goodbye in Chinese. We will forever love this group of women who clearly love the kids ant Hangzhou CWI. 

If your child is there, Please know they are so loved and so well cared for. It is still an orphanage and very much not a family, but it is a place where your child is being loved until you get there!!!

Today we spent our first day on Shamian Island. It is so good to be here. Our room is fabulous and huge, We were upgraded to and executive suite for no charge due to the fact that our room had accidentally been checked in to by someone else. We have a huge sitting room and a huge huge balcony and Ivy really is loving the space. She crawled all over today, walked a little (totally out of breath in just a minute or two) and made lots of baby messes for me to clean up! So happy to be on the last leg of our journey to bring Ivy home!!!

Our Medical exam was today. 

She did great! They said she was blue, they said she has a bad heart, they said she was beautiful baby with no surgery and made a sad face. That's it!! We were done! It was so crowded!! 
Lots and lots of adoptive families here this week. 7 with BAAS alone. Maybe 30 families there just this morning.

Tomorrow we head to the Safari park so Brady and our friend Emily can have a little fun! They have been so good and so patient all week!!

(Pictures coming later today...! Mary will probably post to Facebook if she can. Her scribe has to be gone all day...)

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