While we left for China less than 72 hours ago, it seems like so much longer.  Today we crossed a number of important and encouraging milestones.  Ben was a champ and slept well and deeply through the night, and we slept well also, thanks to a little Ambien to help with the jet lag.  The day started off early, and we had to wake Ben from his sleep to meet our group for our civil affairs appointment.  This appointment is when the adoption is completely finalized in the eyes of the Chinese and US governments.  While the paperwork is largely a formality culminating two years’ worth of paperwork and agreements, the signing of the documents is the line in the sand where Ben legally and permanently becomes ours!

We had breakfast at the hotel and shared Ben’s first meal with us.  We experimented with a number of different foods, including rice, congee (a rice oatmeal), and canned fruits.  Ben is a great eater, but definitely lets us know what he does and doesn’t want.  Yes to the rice and fruit, no to the congee…got it.  Julie had picked up a piece of toast, and Ben reached for it.  He seemed more interested in holding it than eating it, but he became very attached to it and we were happy to let him have it as long as he wanted it.  He carried the toast around all morning until nap time and only relinquished it when he fell asleep.  He did the same thing the first day, carrying a cracker in his hand, never really eating it, but holding on as some measure of safety.

At 0800, we met with our guide and a Chinese banker at the hotel to exchange $6200 to Chinese RMB to pay the final adoption expenses.  It felt a little shady carrying the huge stack of Chinese cash in our backpack, but is, as we say, “all part of the adventure.”

The civil affair appointment went relatively smoothly.  We met with a government official and signed a ton of paperwork, all in Chinese.  We were interviewed and asked a number of questions including why we wanted to adopt Ben and then we were asked to make a promise never to abandon him.  Following the civil affairs’ appointment, we met with the notary to make the paperwork official.  Notaries in China are very prestigious, comparable to that of a state supreme court judge, and the notary fee was one of the largest ones we had to pay.

During the appointment, we were required to provide official notification of Ben’s full name.  Many of you may be familiar with the story of his first name.  As we considered name options, we were drawn to the idea of “Benjamin”as he would become our youngest son, just as Benjamin was the youngest of the 12 from Jacob and Rachel.  This name was sovereignly affirmed as we spoke with a missionary, Jean Marie, who had spent time at the orphanage and provided us details about  our little boy during the referral process.  Jean Marie had given several of the orphan boys American names to help distinguish them from one another, and she named “Ben” after her brother-in-law for his deep, kind eyes.  For Ben’s middle name, we were drawn to the story of Caleb in Numbers 14:24 where God says, “But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me whole-heartedly…”  It is our prayer that our youngest son would follow the Lord “whole-heartedly” and courageously alongside his older brother and fellow warrior, Joshua.

After the Civil Affairs appointment, we went back to the hotel for rest time.  This was our first opportunity to have meaningful, one-on-one playtime with Ben.  We soon discovered that Ben absolutely loves puzzles!  Ben organized each puzzle piece very neatly and had a natural inclination towards solving the problem.  We gave him some stacking cups, and before proceeding with stacking, he organized the cups neatly in rows and quickly figured out how to stack them in order with very little help/direction. This is a little man after his mother’s heart!  During this play time, we had some our first meaningful interactions, with moments of steady eye contact, a quick smile, and Ben reaching out for us to pick him up.  Afterwards,  he took a long nap, seeming to welcome the solitude and quietness of his crib.

After the encouraging progress in the afternoon, we made an afternoon trip to the police station where Ben took his passport photo and we paid passport fees.  Here, we received the “red book” which contains the official adoption decree and the “Hague Convention” statement acknowledging that the adoption was conducted in accordance with internationally agreed upon standards.  While waiting at the police station, Ben got down on the floor for the first time and wanted to play with the other children in the waiting area.  He seemed especially fond of Katie Joy, the little girl in our group being adopted by Mary Elizabeth, and she was more than happy to step into a “big sister” role, letting him know where he needed to look for photos.  Shortly thereafter, Ben suddenly became quite upset and seemingly overwhelmed.  We noted that his response was similar to his behavior on day 1 (perhaps in response to someone he saw and thought he recognized) and was not a physical need that we could meet, but a deeper emotional one of grieving all things past and likely confusion about what lies ahead.   It was heartbreaking not knowing how to express these things to him and feeling helpless to soothe him, but we just held him and rocked him until it passed.  It was a potent reminder that Ben’s journey to healing has a long road ahead, despite the encouraging progress thus far.

We returned to the hotel and enjoyed some more play time with Ben.  Aside from puzzles, he responded well to us reading children’s books to him and we continued to have visible progress towards bonding (longer eye contact and lots of focused engagement).  We met the rest of our provincial group in the hotel restaurant and enjoyed a meal and lots of laughter together.  We then took Ben through his first bath time and tooth brushing time with us.  He hated both and cried the whole time making us wonder what his bath time and oral hygiene habits were previously.  He went to sleep quickly and we followed along soon thereafter.

Overall, our first full day with Ben was a great success, with lots of positive progress and small victories that made us fall asleep with smiles on our faces.