It's Official... She is ours!

Today we went back to the Guangdong Civil Affairs office to complete the official adoption paperwork.  We arrived at the office around 10:30, and they started by taking our temperatures, which I am assuming that is due to the Swine Flu.  Next, each family had to go into the photo room to get our family photos.  The next stop was the adoption interview room, where we were asked a few questions.  The questions were pretty straight forward and simple, which of course means that I stuttered on the first one, "how old are you?".  Of course I knew, but I was slightly nervous and was expecting something different.  The other questions were things like, are we satisfied with this baby (well duh, who wouldn't be), do we know her Chinese name, do we plan to love her, educate her, and promise to never abandon her.  Each family went in one by one, which took a bit of time.  After that, the last stop was the  notary interview.  We were pretty much asked the same questions as the first interview, with a few additional questions added in, like what is our occupation and who do we work for.  The gentleman conducting the interview seemed excited to hear the Brian worked for Microsoft and asked him if he could fix all of his computer issues.  The interviewer did have a very strong accent, so he was a little more difficult to understand.  I didn't have too much of a problem, but a few of the other parents did.  I think one family may have even said yes when he asked if they would abuse the child.  Of course, they corrected the mistake, but it was a good bit of comic relief.  That also took a bit of time to get all of the families through, but we did eventually finish.  By this time, all of the babies were a little wiped out, including Hana, who took a full bottle and fell sound asleep.  But, the good news is that the Chinese piece of the adoption is complete, and she is officially our daughter.  Tomorrow we go to apply for her passport, which shouldn't take too long.  After that, no more official appointments until next week when we start the US part of the adoption.  I hope that goes well and that we have already encountered all of the bureaucracy before we left.

Now we are off to dinner where we are going to celebrate that we are officially Mommy and Daddy!