The Horst Family is Growing by 4 Feet: Day 8

Monday, March 20^th – Lanzhou, Gansu (Carter’s Family Day)

We planned to meet Carter in our room around 2 pm. First Jeff and the kids went on a little adventure to exchange money. Banks in China operate a little differently than in America. Actually, they operate more like the DMV. When you enter, you are greeted and you are given a number in line. Depending on how busy the bank is you may have a 10-30 minute wait. Then you are shown to a teller window where you sit down to discuss your business. Foreign transactions in province tend to be a novelty and a simple money exchange can take 20 minutes or more. Counterfeit money is a problem in China and all bills are screened and re-screened and then checked by another person.

After our banking business was complete, we went back to the hotel room. This is where we will meet our new son. Just like with Wen, we will meet in a hotel room as it is the most private place to meet. We have planned for the worse, but hoped for the best.

Five minutes before he arrives all three of our kids (Zach, Madeline, and Wen) were goofing around and managed to lock themselves in the bathroom. In their defense, it was a hard lock to manage, but here we are trying to break them out of the bathroom wondering how we will explain to everyone what is going on when they show up with Carter. Luckily, we broke them a few minutes before Carter arrived.

A knock on the door and he is with us. He is very shy and hesitates to leave his nanny. We fight the urge to hold and hug him, knowing that this type of affection will take time. After all, we are complete strangers to him; and he has already been through so much trauma in his little life. He is smaller than Jeff thought, but about as big as Jodi thought he would be. He warms to Jodi first; not wanting Jeff to come too close. That is ok; we have time. We did WeChat with Wen three times before we traveled, so we had already heard her voice, interacted with her, and felt like we knew a little about her before we even got to China. We did not do any of this with Carter. We only received photos and a few videos of him. This is our first time truly interacting with him and it is hard to believe that we can touch him and see him. After looking at his picture for the last 5 months, we can hardly believe he is right in front of us. He is even cuter in person. We feel so blessed to have been chosen to be his adoptive parents. We prepared a list of questions for his nanny and Jeff starts to work through them with our guide translating. Jodi continues to bond with our new son. We are told that in his orphanage there are 11 children with 5 nannies – an amazing ratio for an orphanage. If that has been the case his whole life, then that would be incredible for the care that he would have received. The director of the orphanage had some paperwork for us to sign. This is notable because we often joke about the fact that with each previous adoption, we were given a child and told to bring them back in 24 hours to sign papers. This is the first time in 4 adoptions that we have ever even been asked for ID before we accepted our child. Every province, much like a US state, is different and we are told procedures vary. After the paperwork was completed with our guide and the director, we knew it was time for the nanny and director to try and slip away quietly so that the child doesn’t fuss. This nanny did not want to let him go. She stayed with us as we packed things up to go for his photographs, walked with us and rode the elevator downstairs, and then walked outside – all while holding Carter. We were worried because now he would have to say goodbye to her and the director in the lobby and we expected to have a crying/emotional scene in front of the busy hotel vs. in the room. This was one of the specific nannies that took care of him during the 2 + years he lived at his orphanage and you could tell he loved her and she loved him – very much. Well, to our pleasant surprise, things went very smoothly. Jodi took him from the nanny and we instantly started to walk in a different direction so that he could not see her. He looked toward the nanny’s direction, reached for her a bit, and fussed just a little. Once she was out of sight, we placed him on the ground so he could walk and all was well. He walked or was held by Jodi all the way to the photo shop which was about a 15-minute walk away. During that walk, we came across a stray dog just lying on a set of steps in front of a business. Carter was very interested in the dog and we let him look at the dog from a distance for a few minutes and then proceeded to the photo shop. Photos were taken of Carter individually and then Carter with Jeff and Jodi for his adoption paperwork. Despite some technical difficulties with the camera, all went well with photos – no screaming child in the photos! Carter did great. Now it was time to walk back to our hotel. We stopped at two stores looking for some items we were hoping to buy – bubbles, snacks, and more toothpaste. Got everything we needed except for bubbles. The clerk told our guide that they do not sell bubbles this time of year. It was almost 70 degrees outside, but this is warmer than usual for this province. It is normally in the 50s. So bubble blowing will have to wait until we get to Guangzhou (which is at about the same latitude as Havana, Cuba – so much warmer and humid all year round). On our walk back to the hotel, we couldn’t believe it – as we approached the area where the dog was lying earlier, Carter reached up to Jodi as if he wanted to her to pick him up so he could see higher. She did and he began to look for the dog. He was perplexed when he didn’t see the dog where he was earlier. We couldn’t believe he remembered exactly where that dog was lying. He is so tiny that it is easy to forget that he is 2 ½ years old.

While reviewing the next day's details with our guide in the hotel lobby, Jodi and Carter walk around the lobby. One staff member asks Jodi how long we have had him. She explained that we just met him a few hours ago. The staff member is totally surprised and tells us that he looks so comfortable with us and that he seems like we have always had him. Carter still feels very new to us, but if he looks like he has been with us longer than 2 hours, that is fantastic! While in the lobby, we also offered Carter a lollipop - which he really seemed to enjoy. Then, at some point, Wen looked and Carter and said "Oh no!". We looked and the entire lollipop was gone; he was just holding a stick. All of us, including the guide, are concerned and Jodi yells, "Jeff, he is choking!" [As an aside - Jodi is constantly conscious of people looking at us and complains that we stick out too much. So now we are yelling in the lobby of the hotel that our son of only a few hours is choking. First, Jodi put her finger in his mouth, then Jeff put his finger in his mouth and did a full finger sweep searching for this pop as we were contemplating the next step. We soon realize he is not choking. Another check and it turns out that the lollipop was turned around in his hand (he had the round lollipop part in his hand the whole time and we could not see it - all we saw a stick with no lollipop on top)! We were so relieved that it was in his hand and not lodged in his throat. Somehow, Carter remained ridiculously calm during the entire ordeal. We kept thinking, well if he wasn't sure about Jeff before this incident, how will he feel now? First scare (luckily a false one) only hours after having him!

We said goodbye to our guide and we were finally alone with our new son to bond and play in the hotel room. We played with the toys we brought and with water bottles we had in our room. He and Zach had fun stacking the bottles or setting them up and then knocking them down. Madeline bonded with him by offering and giving him food. Wen kind of sat back and watched and then later came over to him while he was on our lap to get to know him better. Jeff and Jodi did lots of playing, hugging, and holding of Carter. Dinner time came quickly and we headed up to the executive lounge. The first meal with a child you have never met can often be very interesting. You have very little information about what they like to eat. The food that they ate in the orphanage often consists of congee and steamed buns. So, we put a variety of foods on the plate and waited to see what he went for. He tried a few foods on his own and for other foods, he needed to see us eat them first and then he would try them. He ate a good meal with us and then it was time to head back to the room and get ready for bed. We got him into his pajamas and Jodi rocked him to sleep. He slept well the entire night in his crib for us. Yeah!