If you haven't headed over to my shutterfly pictures yet, do so today, and please comment or sign the guestbook so I know people can see those pictures! There are tons of pictures of our little girl. Before I even talk about today, I want to say that it is huge to me to be able to say that I don't know how many pictures I took today! Before today, I knew I had exactly 8. That's it, eight pictures of my child total. Today? I think it is somewhere around 60, and we get to take more tomorrow!
How do you put into words meeting your first child for the first time?
Last night Blake and I couldn't sleep, seriously. I think we both got a couple of hours, but it was sporadic at best. We ate breakfast at the hotel, and then started waiting in the lobby for our contact (not the one I thought I had frustrated... but I actually think we are fine now) who was supposed to meet us at 10:00.
At 10:15, the hotel receptionist asked if we had someone meeting us and if we wanted her to call them for us. We declined, but tried to call him. We didn't get through, and just kept waiting. Around 10:20, he called us and said he would be there in 45 minutes (I actually wasn't sure if he said 4 to 5 or 45 at first... but as we waited... it was 45 minutes lol). He arrived right around 11:00.
He drove us to the orphanage, and along the way, our main contact called, asked to talk to me, and told us that our adoption decree was ready and signed (phew, one thing off of my radar).
When we got there, another family from Montana was meeting and bonding with their children (two kids, a boy and a girl). We waited in the car, and then in chairs in the parking lot, but eventually, they brought Grace out to see us.
She is so tiny! Shortly after starting to hold her, I had our contact take a picture of the three of us together, which is now officially my favorite picture!
I honestly don't know how to put into words how it felt to be there with her. Both Blake and my main goal was to try to make her smile. I am not confident we totally succeeded, but we did keep her from crying the whole time she was with us, though she got close.
Whether it is because she is actually younger than her official age, or if she is just behind developmentally, her behaviors are typical of a younger child than one. From what we saw and what we were told when we were with her caretaker, she isn't crawling yet. Standing is out of the question, and even sitting unassisted is not totally mastered.
She can grab small objects though, and spent a lot of time holding the ball we brought to play with her. She enjoyed tapping it on the ground, and on Blake's arms. We both had a chance to have her on our backs Ghanian style (see shutterfly for those pictures), and it was strange, and we both much preferred to have her in our arms.
She liked it when Blake made strange noises with his mouth. She didn't make any vocalizations while we were with her, but she might just not be used to us yet. The caretakers, and our contact and his wife said that as we keep coming, she will smile for us, and interact more with us.
We read her a few books, and she did like looking at the pictures. Tomorrow we plan on bringing crayons, and see if she shows any interest in coloring.
I was torn a lot of the time between interacting with her, and taking pictures/ video so that I can continue to enjoy those moments in the next few months before we get her case finished and get to have her at home.
I want to say that I totally felt like a mom... but I didn't. Honestly. I loved holding her, but it was like holding my friend's kids. Fun to play with, hold and try to make smile, but I don't think those are the moments that make you feel like a mom. I think those moments will come when I get to change her clothes, feed her, give her a bath, and put her to sleep. The hard moments, the nights that we spend trying to get her to fall asleep or having to take her to the doctor.
I love being with her, but until she gets home she still doesn't feel like mine. Sweet, wonderful and precious... but not mine.
In other news, after time with her, we just cruised around, got dinner, and bought some more from friendly salespeople. Actually, one of those encounters was very strange. We were trying hard to say no, only for him to go with another Ghanian technique. He "gave" us the item, and said its a gift, I want you to have it. Take it back to America, tell them its from me. If you want, you can give me a little for it, but take it, it is a gift. Normally, I sell for ___ but for you, I'll give you good deal. Etc. It actually was the second time today that someone got our money with that particular technique, because how do you turn down "a gift" that costs money?
Stranger was that we were talking to him after we bought it, and he introduced us to his daughter, and shared the story about how her mom had left her with him, and he is trying to make a living for her. We shared about Grace, and showed him a picture of her, and then he asked if we wanted to adopt his child too, and even showed us her birth certificate! It broke our hearts to hear that he was so ready to give her up if he could. We, of course, declined, but it was a strange encounter all the same.
The other interesting side note is that since we keep shopping from the same general area, there are a few people there who remember us, by name, as we walk by. Most just say hi, some try to get us to buy from them again, some introduce us to their friends who try to get us to buy something.
As bad tourists as we may be, we think this will be basically how the rest of our days will be here. Breakfast at the hotel, then a trip to the orphanage for our time with Grace, then back to the hotel or local areas for dinner, and then stay in the hotel at night. The tour company we had thought of booking with never got back to us, and that is just as well because I don't know when we would have time to go anyways. This trip was never really about Ghana... it was about being with our daughter and doing what we need to work towards getting her home.
It will be very nice when she is finally home, and we can start getting to do all of the hard parenting stuff. But for now, we will treasure the sweet moments, and try to grow our bond with our little girl.
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