And here she is...

So tonight was officially the most amazing night of our lives so far. We arrived in Xi’an at about 10:00am. As soon as Wendy our fantastic CCAI rep picked us up I asked the all important question… when do we get the babies?? She said 5:30. That was actually a bit of a relief. Andrew wanted to unpack and get organized and we both desperately needed a nap. We have been waking up around 3:30 AM since we arrived, yuck!! We checked into the Sheridan which is one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever seen. At 5:30 we loaded up in the van to go the civil affairs office. It took us about 20 minutes to arrive. When we pulled up there were two women standing outside with babies and Barry said, HEY… I think that is Ru Ping (and it was) Scarlett was there too and we walked over. Wendy was talking with the women and then motioned for us to come over. The nanny handed me Scarlett. She looked really sleepy. They had a 5 hour train ride, so I wasn’t sure if she was tired or just coping with the stress. Andrew held her once we were inside she didn’t cry but had a few tears slip down her cheeks. It only took a few minutes for her to fall asleep in Andrew’s arms. Then the nannies answered questions we had.
I took Scarlett in my arms and then was officially indoctrinated into parenthood as she barfed all over me. But didn’t cry though and still was sleeping. It is SOOO apparent that these nannies really loved our daughter. They were crying when they left the office. One of the Ru sisters in our group is very outgoing and popular at the orphanage, she cried and cried and her nanny cried. It was very difficult for everyone, we couldn’t help but tear up watching them. It is a relief to me that Scarlett has been loved and well taken care of. (You can see from our photos that we were sheding many tears, but totally ones of joy!!)
We had to go and get photos taken afterwards for her passport and they had to wake her up then. Once we were back in the van she fussed a bit, but then settled down and watched everything. Once we were back in the room we had to take off her many layers of clothes and change her and get her into something warm and dry. We paraded a bunch of toys in front of her but the one she immediately loved was this little crinkly paper looking toy that Ava found for her at Segals. I remember Ava saying adamantly that Scarlett HAD to have this and she would love it. And she did. She crinkled it and even smiled a little. We played on our bed for a while and then fed her some strawberry banana puff which she also loved. It was fun watching her with them. She was already pushing us away, and trying to do it herself.
We tried some formula with her a couple of times but she wasn’t interested so we turned off the lights and snuggled for a bit and then laid her down. She scooted around her crib for a few minutes and then stood up and checked things out. Then she scooted some more and is now laying sideways with a blanket under her tummy and her butt up in the air. She is sooo beautiful and amazing.
Anyway we have a busy day tomorrow and we are both very tired. But we’ll post more photos later.
Love ya all!!
Maryanne and Andrew