Today was a wonderful day. It was crazy and hectic but wonderful. The morning seemed to go by slow. 9:30 was the magic time to meet our daughter, but the morning dragged on. Finally, 9:30 arrived. We went into the room with the other 10 expecting families. There was some crying but not much. Excitement hit the room as we could hear babies crying near by. I tried to walk down the hall to sneak a peak, but they were in a room with a closed door. Finally, the time came to get our babies. They started with the two babies from the Hefei SWI. The first child was 6 years old. One by one the babies came out. Some of the babies were crying and some were not. Finally, they called our child's name. The caretaker was very attached to our child. She cried, and then my wife cried too. We got a couple pictures, and then the caretaker left. Julianna wasn't a happy baby at first. She was crying. As first time parents, we didn't know how to make her stop. We tried toys, that didn't work. Someone told us to hold her close to us so she could hear our heart beating and walk with her. We did that, and she was happy. The caretakers came back in and held Julianna again. Her personality started coming out. She started smiling and dancing. We could tell that she was very attached to her caretaker.
Paperwork was next. That took a while. We did it by tag team. One would do paperwork, and the other would hold Julianna. Finally, at about 1:30 PM, paperwork was over. It was on to the next adventure - feeding.
We had the impression that the caregivers would give us some formula. They didn't. We contacted one of the other couples and they gave some to us. We started out with some Cheerios and she liked it. Later, we tried formula. First, the bottle and no luck. Next, sippy cup and no luck. We thought she didn't like the formula. We tried water. No luck with water either. She was congested, so we gave her medicine to drink. She drank it. At about 5:00 PM, my wife decided to feed her formula from a cup. She gulped it down. My wife now wants a bib for her that says "nipples suck". Afterward, we played stacking cups with her. She loves to bang them together. At about 7:00, she got tired and went to bed.
Today was one of the two most special days of my life. Aug. 15, 1992 I married my wonderful wife and became a husband. October 27, 2003 I became a father. I have truly been blessed with a wonderful wife and daughter.
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