We have Lei, who is very sweet. We started the day by eating breakfast at the hotel. This is not a great hotel and the breakfast was really very okay. We did get to meet the third family at breakfast. A man and his thirteen year old son were there to get their seven year old boy. We all met downstairs in the lobby at 8:30 am. Ray and I were excited, but mainly we were worried for Zhao Lei. I kept going over what she must be going through all morning. The drive from the orphanage is an hour, so we knew she would be getting up early to travel to meet us. We drove to the building we would be meeting the children. We arrived there at 9:15. There was another couple there from Spain who were adopting a two year old girl. I am not sure how long we waited, not really knowing whether the children were there already or not. We all sat down around a huge table and waited. Suddenly a man and woman walked in with a little girl. Now, I knew that the other couples were waiting for two year old girls or a seven year old boy. And I had seen several pictures of Zhao Lei, but for some reason it didn't look like her. I just sat there looking at her before I realized it was her and went to her. Looking back, I think she just looked really young and little in person. And actually seeing the person you have been thinking about for months and looking at in pictures is very different than seeing them in person. So I walked over and gave her a hug. She had two bags and a small purse with her, the messenger bag we had sent her in a care package as well as a large plastic bag. She and I sat down and she showed me each thing that she had inside of them. Inside the messenger bag was the journal we sent her that she had made several entries into, a book her classmates had given her with their addresses and email addresses, the photo album we had sent in the care package with photos of us, a photo album with pictures of her (in a few of them she was about three or four), a few books in Mandarin, a framed picture of her, and one of the two disposable cameras we had sent. The big plastic bag held a big, soft pink bear that her classmates had given her. There were also some clothes wrapped in plastic wrap. I asked who had given her the purse and was told that a twenty three year old girl who worked at the orphanage (or used to live there) gave it to her. She didn't seem upset while she showed them to me and it was a good way to start talking with eachother. It was pretty much just her showing thngs to me since our guide was busy with other things. I asked him to translate every now and then. The director from her orphanage and the woman who came with him did not speak English. I gave her the jewelry making kit and drawing kit I had brought for her. After what seemed like a long time, I saw them bringing in another child. At this point, only Zhao Lei had been brought in. And then they brought in a cute little boy. And then later another cute little girl. Suddenly the room was full of people. It was a big room, so we all had plenty of space. It was great to see each family getting their child. Our guide had each of us fill out paperwork and sign a lot of forms. They asked us what we wanted to name Zhao Lei. We had thought that they were going to ask us that at the end of next week at the consulate appointment (I don't know why I thought that), so we hadn't made our final decision. We had kind of thought of having her have some say in it. We were told that if we did it in the US it would be a major ordeal. So we made the decision. We named her Jordyn Brianne Zhao Lei and our last name. Jordyn after my cousin Joey (we want Joey to be her nickname), Brianne after my brother, who's middle name was Brian, and Zhao Lei because we didn't want to take any part of her name from her.
About an hour and a half after we got there, the two people from her orphanage started to get ready to leave. She looked up and waved at them and they waved at her. I gestured to her to go up to them because it kind of looked like that would be their goodbyes and I wanted her to have more than that. So she went up to them and the woman hugged her goodbye. She started crying a little so I went up and put my arm around her. She wasn't thrilled with that, but she didn't move away. She was okay after a couple of minutes and started playing with the ipad again. We left the building a little while after that and she seemed fine.
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