Meeting Our Babies!!!!

We arrived at the orphanage, and the 4 families were told to wait in a room with a big table and lots of chairs for the babies to arrive. We waited anxiously for quite awhile for them to arrive. Some of us kept wandering about and peeking outside. Then I peeked outside and saw a caregiver carrying a baby towards the entrance where we were... and I was pretty sure it was Kien!!! So I ducked back inside and told everyone....and told Steve that I thought perhaps it was our baby boy!!! Then I got prepped with the camcorder for his entrance. :)

It was him!!!!!! :) :) :) I quickly passed the camcorder off to Steve and took our baby boy from the caregiver's arms!!!! He was soooo tiny!!!! And soooo precious!!!!

If I am remembering correctly (??), the next baby to arrive was Aria!!!! In each case, everyone was standing, watching and waiting... and we approached the caregiver and said their Vietnamese name questioningly. And we were right again. :)

We can't share her photos on the web still. But I made sure to get quite a few pictures of her from behind, so that we could share them. ;)

I wanted to give Steve a chance now to hold Kien and wanted to take Aria. But Kien would have NOTHING to do with that!!!! He had been completely fine coming to me, but he clung to my shirt and started to whimper when I tried to pass him to Steve! ;) Most likely, he's hardly seen men before and just wasn't crazy about the idea of this funny guy. ha. After Steve had Aria for a little bit, I wanted to switch. Kien was still not interested. ;) But I knew I needed to hold my baby girl too!!! So I took them both. ;) We got a great picture of me with one on each hip (with her actually facing forward). :)

We ended up getting to spend over an HOUR there with the babies!!!! It was INCREDIBLE!!! We had an absolutely AMAZING time with both of them!!! People don't normally get to spend this long there, and they may have done this because our agency staff in the US had requested it due to us needing to spend time with Aria. Thank you, God!!!! :)

All the families were in the same room enjoying their new little ones. :) Everyone else was adopting a baby girl (usually around 10 months old). So ours were the oldest, and we were the only family with 2. :) (Although there have been quite a few families with our agency who have adopted 2 babies at once.)

We had to take some "official" pictures of both of us with Aria. If we have to take a second trip, Steve will come back alone, and we will need proof that I have already seen her (this determines the type of visa she can receive to enter the US -- and will result in her becoming a US citizen automatically, if we have both seen her prior to the adoption ceremony). So we took some pictures (with her facing FORWARD ;) ), along with a local newspaper, showing the date.


And we got a family photo -- and did another one with her face covered, so I could blog it. :)

We didn't have anyone around to translate for the majority of the time we were there. But we had a great time with the caregivers, nonetheless!! At one point, I was sitting next to Kien's caregiver while holding Aria. Kien was on her lap, and I asked her if he could walk, while using my fingers like the walking yellow pages. ;) ha. She understood the walking fingers and answered me in Vietnamese, but while nodding her head...and put him down to show me. I got the impression from her answer that perhaps it was a "sort of" type of answer. And he didn't want to perform at the time. ;) But eventually, he did take off crawling at one point!!! :) Soooo cute!!!! And yay!! We have a crawler!!!! ;) That's the stage Kevin was at when we first met him, but he was a full-fledged walker when he came home (and climber too! ha!).

Then the funniest thing happened, but at that point, I was sitting on the floor with Aria across my lap... and I didn't have a camera!!!! Kien took off crawling, so Steve took off crawling with him!!!! HA! The caregivers thought it was hysterical!!!! Kien then went under a table, and Steve went right alongside him too!! ;) The caregiver went to get Kien out, and then they all laughed and laughed at Steve trying to get out from under the table. ;) What a funny Daddy!!

We also asked Aria's caregiver if she could walk. The response seemed similar, but we only were able to see her stand. :)

He did eventually show off his standing skills! :)

At one point, the agency staff came over to have us ask the caregiver questions. I had a prepared list (typed and all, of course), but it was up on the table on the other side of the room, beyond some other families. Steve and I were both sitting on the floor with babies at that point, so it would have been complicated to go get it. I figured I could remember the list -- and that we could memorize the answers between the two of us. Whew! Fortunately, it worked. ;)

He does not take a pacifier. (We asked that of Aria's caregiver too with the same response, but our agency staff was clearly having us ask questions about Kien at this time - so after that, I just focused on him.) He is ONLY eating formula and rice cereal!!! I was really surprised!! So he has a bottle every 3-4 hours, and he has rice cereal around 7am and 4pm. He naps late morning after a bottle and again after noon, after a bottle. I was surprised that he's still taking 2 naps too. (I guess since Kien is approaching the age when Kevin came home, I expected their schedules and what they eat to be a bit more similar than they are.) Then he gets a bottle around 8pm, right before bed. I also asked about what soothes him, and she said noisy toys. I think that's the same answer we got when we asked that question about Kevin too. ;) Oh -- we also talked about the walking question again, and she said that he could walk from where she was sitting to the pole about 6 feet away. (We never saw that happen though.)

Kien was a very busy guy!!! He was trying to get into everything. We kept commenting that he takes after his big brother and that they're going to get along great! ;) ha! While I sat in the chair holding Aria, he was on the floor holding onto my legs for awhile. :)

At one point, Kien crawled off towards someone's plastic bag on the floor to grab it. Steve and I simultaneously said the same thing together, which has been a joke of ours for the past few years. :) We both said, "That's not your bag!!" To explain.... on our first trip to meet Kevin, we were filming him when he crawled across the floor toward a bag that someone had left on the floor, and he tried to grab it. I called out in a silly voice, "That's not your bag!" And after watching that video numerous times while waiting to bring Kevin home a few months later, that line became a little joke of ours. ;) So it was pretty funny when it happened with Kien too. :)

I didn't realize it until Steve told me later, but apparently he never did hold Kien! They spent a lot of time just playing on the floor. And they were having a blast! I also was able to get him to laugh by playing a little kissing game. While he sat on his caregiver's lap, I kissed his hand, and he laughed! So I kept doing it again and again. Then he tried a game of sticking his finger in my mouth. ;) He has the cutest little smile!!! :)

Aria wasn't nearly as active as Kien, and we never did see her smile. But after awhile, she fell asleep in Daddy's arms!!!! :) :)

He held her sleeping for awhile, then I asked to have her passed to me. :) Eventually, I moved to the floor with her. And after awhile, I was nervous that we wouldn't get to interact with her anymore before we would have to leave, so I sat her up....and yes, I woke her up. ;) She was fairly groggy though. I had wanted to check her mouth for teeth, but then I forgot to ever do it. Kien has 2 little teeth on the bottom. :)

At one point, Steve and I sat on the floor together with Aria and prayed for her. I also prayed for her on my own, while holding her. And I sang her "Jesus Loves Me" while she slept.

I don't remember much interaction with her beyond when she woke up, so I think we did leave soon thereafter. We were told it was time to go, and the babies all had to go back to their caregivers until after the adoption ceremony. But of course, we had to say more of a good-bye with Aria. I said good-bye to her, then passed her to Steve. We told her that we love her and that we'll be back. It was a sad moment, but overall, it was just a very special time!!!! We were elated!!!!!! And then we watched the caregivers carry them both out the door.