Registration Day

On Tuesday, we woke early and met in the lobby at 8 am so that we could file the paperwork that the Chinese government required. We traveled by bus (eyes closed so that we couldn’t see the traffic) and stopped at a tall government building that housed the office we needed. The building appeared to be unheated. We traveled by elevator to the 26th floor, and I never detected any heat.

We stopped, first, in a room where a photographer instructed us (through a translator) to sit on a bench. He photographed us as a family, and then photographed Carly by herself. The family photograph was used to create the “Red Book”, which is the official document stating that Carly was now a member of our family. The photograph of Carly by herself was sent to another heatless floor to produce Carly’s passport to the U.S.

Then, we filed into a meeting room and waited to be called family-by-family into the interview office. When our turn came, we picked up the red gift bag we had brought (every family had a red gift bag with some sort of gift inside for the official that would interview us) and entered the official’s office. A young woman sat behind the desk. She was very pleasant and asked us a few simple questions: Why did we want a Chinese daughter? How do we plan to educate her? Do we promise to never abandon her?

We were told this was just a formality since we had already been matched with Carly by the China Center for Adoption Affairs, but, still, it made us nervous. Who likes to be interviewed?

However, the official seemed satisfied with our answers. At least, she didn’t suddenly jump up and summon someone to wrestle Carly away from us. We thanked her, gave her our gift, and were surprised when she had a gift for us. It was a vase covered with Chinese writing.

We stopped by another heatless office to pay some fees, and then we boarded the bus to take our documents to another office building to be notarized. At this office, Carly’s orphanage director dropped in and asked if we had any questions for him. Naturally, we couldn’t think of any real questions, so after talking to him for a few minutes (always through a translator), we thanked him for taking care of Carly. He asked us to send photos to him as she grows. So, we promised and had our picture made with him. We had brought a red gift bag for him, also, so we gave it to him at this time.

By the way, in the Chinese culture, you are expected to give a gift to someone that has done a service or favor for you. Red is a lucky color to the Chinese, so giving a gift in a red bag makes it special.
We boarded the bus for the return trip to the hotel, and were well on our way when it suddenly hit us that the Chinese had just officially given Carly to us. All that was left was to get her passport, visa, and the U. S. approval for her citizenship. We’ll pick up her passport at the end of the week, and will get the visa and citizenship documents in Guangzhou next week.

China had just completely given us one of her daughters.