And they call her Mei-Mei

Gotcha Day Details-
We departed from the hotel at 8:30am. It was pouring rain and the traffic was very heavy. We had planned to arrive at the Civil Affairs office at 9am to receive Sarah. We were late and actually arrived around 9:30am. We went into the building and went upstairs. We were ushered into a room with tables and chairs, no children or nannies. We sat down and filled out a form saying we will care for YiMei for the next 24 hours. Then we wait and wait and wait. The traffic is so bad the children are running behind schedule also. Our guide tells us that if the children live near the orphanage their foster parents bring them to the orphanage the same day they are given to us. If they live across the river, the foster parents bring them to the orphanage the night before. Off and on people peek into the room we are in and each time my heart leaps to my throat. Soon more families arrive, they are from Iceland and are a large group. We ask Eric if we can go into the hall as the room becomes more and more crowded. He says yes and we make a bee line for the door. As I step into the hall, there she is!! Yi Mei is held by a nanny from her orphanage. She is wearing a turquoise blue and white dress with sandals. Later we discover she is also wearing a winnie-the-pooh swim diaper that is on backwards. She is calm and watches as I walk by. We are motioned away from the children??? We stand and watch as the nannies are directed to keep the children on the other side of staircase from where we are. A few minutes pass and we wave to the children across the open stairway. Finally, they make their way toward us. I am told they call her Mei Mei. I quickly pull out a lollipop and a small flashlight. She loves both of them but sticks close to her nanny. I kneel down and talk to her and she remains completely calm. After a minute or two she lets me pick her up with only a very small protest. Then she continues in her calm manner. We are able to ask the nanny a few questions. We are told not only do the children visit the orphanage on a regular basis after moving into foster care but that a certain nanny also visits the foster home at least twice a week to check on the child also. The orphanage provided us with many of the care package items we had sent and with a wonderful photo album of Mei-Mei's life-priceless! They also filled a bag with her favorite snacks! I now know she slept with her foster mom, she is completely potty trained, and her favorite toy is a teddy bear we sent to her. Also she is more beautiful than any picture could have prepared us for. As her nanny exited the building Mei-Mei pointed toward the door and that was that. No tears or anything. We boarded the bus and Mei-Mei pulled out the photo album we had sent her. She pointed to each person in our family and I told her our names. She was very interested in Andrew, Joshua, and Hannah. She did not want to sit on my lap during the bus ride but she sat next to me. Next we looked at an animal book I had sent. I told her each animal name and she tried to repeat what I said! The words were not clear but her voice inflection was!! Then we played "peek" with the bear behind the book and she filled our 30 passenger bus with laughter. She would yell for Baba (daddy) to look at her and she would mimic his antics too. We arrived at the hotel and came up to our room. So far she has played with stacking cups, a ball, little animal figurines, a tape measure, a tiny slinky, and a mirror. She points to the bathroom when she needs to go and we have completed #1 and #2 buisness today. We went to lunch and she loves watermelon. I pulled the scale out and she weighs in at 27 1/2 lbs. I think she is about 3ft tall. She naps at 1:10pm, I laid her down in a crib that is in our room. She promptly laid down and fell asleep about five minutes later.
I know you all really want pictures but I don't know how to post them so Greg should be posting them VERY SOON. Thank you for all of your prayers for this day.