"Once our eyes are opened we cannot pretend we do not know what to do. God, who weighs our hearts and keeps our souls knows we know and holds us responsible to act." Proverbs 24:12

WHAT A DAY!!!  I don't even know where to begin.  First, I was so, so nervous to go on a 1.5 hour train ride and then a 1 hour car ride with a 14 month old, and then make the whole trek back, but it went pretty darn good!!!

We had to leave the hotel at 6:50 a.m. It was not easy to get us all out of the hotel room and down for breakfast by then, and we were a little frazzled.  Vivian, our guide, was taking this trip with us.  We took a cab to the train station- we were taking a "bullet train"- this was why it was 1.5 hours, not the 3 hours we had been thinking, because this train is new. Vivian was not completely familiar with the station and the trains, and there was a moment we were RUNNING through the train station to meet the train, baby and bags in hand.  The train was REALLY nice and modern, reminding us more of an airplane.  We pulled every trick in the world out of our hats to occupy Ben, then we arrived in Xinyang, the largest city in Ben's hometown area.  We were here to apply for Ben's passport. We stepped off the train and I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen, when all of the sudden the orphanage director, Mr. Chen was in front of us and a women was grabbing Ben from my arms, cooing and singing to him.  Next to her was his nanny, the same woman who gave him to me on Monday.  I saw her eyes well up and mine did too, and off they walked with Ben, ohhing and ahhing.  He looked completely blase, and I knew he knew exactly who these ladies were.  I walked behind them with tears continuing to flow.  These were his people.  

We all got in an van, with Ben in the FRONT SEAT with the woman who I learned was the second in command, much to Tom's mortification. When in Rome, let your child ride on someone's lap in the front seat of a van!  

They took us to the government office where we applied for the passport- it was pretty empty and went very quickly.  The assistant director gave Ben this marshmallow candy which he SHOVED in his mouth, much to my shock, I waited patiently watching until he swallowed it all without choking. No problem! Looks like he can handle much bigger things than I have been giving him!

Then we we out front, and Mr. Chen asked that we all take a picture together:  

Nanny is next to me, then assistant director, Mr. Chen is in the back.

After Mr. Chen offered Tom a cigarette which he accepted (I was glad we had read up on current customs in China and how to be polite) we were off to the orphanage!  We stopped along the way to pick up a man from the local civil affairs office, he was going to video tape and photograph the event!

During the one hour ride, I had a chance to talk with his nanny via Vivian to translate. She said that she and I were the same age.  I realized she must have thought how different our lives were, two 31 year olds across the world from each other.  She had loved Ben for 1 year, and I would love him for the rest of his life.  I showed her photos of his play room at home and she gave me a thumbs up sign.  We talked more about Ben, and I found out she and 1 other nanny had watched him and his friend for 7 days and 7 nights following their cleft surgery.  She asked if we would e-mail pictures once home, to which we said YES, and we took the orphanage's e-mail address with us. 

When we arrived, I recognized the outside from our pictures on this blog post.   As we climbed out of the van, I immediately heard shouting above.  I looked up and saw 5 nannies in blue coats, calling down happily to their Min Yong. They were waving and smiling and shouting in Mandarin, and all at once I started to cry again.

We went upstairs and the nannies grabbed him from the other woman, and passed him around like a hot potato, all begging him to reach out his arms to them.  There were 6 smaller babies in the first room, all in cribs, and the remainder of the kids, the 5 bigger kids, were hanging out in the room either been held or in a walker,  I can't even remember how many nannies there were for all these kids-six? There was a lot of love there!  I asked if we could see where Ben slept, and they took us over to the adjoining room where there were 6 empty cribs.  The cribs looked much different than U.S. cribs.  I started to take a picture when, much to his dismay, they plunked Ben down in his old bed for the picture. We also had told everyone in advance that we knew the parents coming to adopt the only only toddler boy there.  He was presented to us almost immediately when we arrived but he was very shy and started to cry when we looked at him.  We did get some pictures and video for our friends, so that was one mission accomplished. 

 Ben's bed

We were then ushered outside and into a nearby room (all the doors of all the rooms were wide open to the outside) Here was a playroom, as well as giant framed pictures of many of the children.  This was Ben's:

 With is guy friend

 Kissing his friends goodbye.

A few minutes later, we were told it was time for lunch and were ushered out.  We were taken to a building a few minutes away and were told we would have local Chinese.  I wish I could even begin to to describe this building, but in the end, we were ushered into a room in the back with the typically round table and lazy susan.  By this time someone had finally given me Ben back, but I was so at a loss.  He was hungry, I usually feed him by ripping things up and putting them on the highchair tray, and offering him items with my fingers (yes, I know, pretty bad, but we have limited means to wash spoons which he always pulls out of our hands, so you do what you can in China).

Luckily, the assistant director again took him from me and had him the entire meal.  I was somewhat pleased to see him thrashing around when she held him and didn't fed him fast enough, or he just was bored and being a typical 1 year old, much like he has been with us. 

Now to the meal! I did not go vegetarian here out of politeness, and oh my, everything was so delicious, flavorful but not greasy, as much of the food here has been (I am pretty sure my clothes will no longer fit when we ;eave, they are already pretty tight as I have probably gained more weight in a week as I have in all of 2012- looks like I got some baby weight!)  I laughed to myself as the director continuously filled Tom's bowl full of food making him try everything. 

Then lunch was over and it was time to go to the train station.  At first everyone was in the van, then we dropped off people quickly along the way, so my planned speech of gratitude became less important.  When Mr. Chen dropped us off at the train we thanks him profusely and then we were at the train station.  It had literally been a 4 hour whirlwind of events.  We had to wait 20 minutes in the station.  While waiting, two women kept staring and smiling at us- finally they said something to Vivian and she spoke back to them.  After a bit of a conversation, she said,  "These women tell you that you have a warm heart, to adopt this child and bring him to the U.S."  I asked her to tell them that we feel so lucky to have him.  They smiled and nodded at this. Then Vivian told us that most people in China have no idea about China-U.S. adoption.  I told her everyone in the U.S. knew about China-U.S. adoption, and this shocked her.  Once on the train, I told her about domestic adoption in the U.S., where birth moms pick out the parents for their children. She was shocked.  Two countries, so many differences. 

The train ride went OK, but by the time it arrived in the station, Ben started to wail.  He was just exhausted.  We had to wait in a taxi line that was similar to a cattle heard of smoking men. Ben was not interested in being smooshed by men either, so he began to wail.  No one in line offered to move us forward.  I poked my head out of the "line" to the man getting the cabs for everyone, and he called us and our wailing boy forward for the next cab.  Finally!!  Once back, Ben was pretty cranky.  We finally laid him down at 6:30pm and he was out in a second, and just woke up at 6 a.m. today.  

Overall, the visit was more than we could have wished for.  We even have some video from visiting with the nannies. I don't even know how to end this with right words, we are just so grateful for every minute of this awesome gift God has given us.