Tuesday in Zhengzhou

Tuesday morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then met Teresa for our appointment at Civil Affairs to finalize our paperwork. It was much less chaotic there that day, though we could tell Brendan was not happy to be back there. We did get to see the family adopting Brendan’s friend from the orphanage again that day. We hope to see them in Guangzhou too. The official didn’t really interview us as much as we expected, and overall the meet was very easy. We got our forms from them and left.

Afterwards we went to the notary office to sign some paperwork. The notary was very kind, and we got to take a photo of our family with her. She is like a Supreme Court Justice in the US. Our guide will pick up our remaining paperwork on Thursday and bring it to us.

When we were done with the meetings, we asked our guide to go with us to a grocery store to get some things we needed. She helped us get bottled water, pop, and food for Brendan to eat for lunches in the hotel room. We were SO thankful and felt a lot better about getting through the rest of the week. The grocery store was right near McDonald’s, so we stopped in and picked up some lunch for us to go. It was nice to have something similar to home, even though it was not exactly the same. (The western food in the hotel is not made the way we would make those same dishes in the states as well.)

We got back to the hotel and just had a much better outlook about our week. We got along much more with Teresa, we had food and water, and we knew we only had a few days left there.

After Brendan’s nap he seemed a little off. We did play in the room and also took a little walk outside and played in the hotel lobby. After dinner, we realized he was running a low fever, and he had been having diarrhea. We have him some Tylenol and a bath, and his fever broke not long after he went to sleep. We decided to call our guide in the morning and get him to a doctor. If he has a fever for our embassy medical exam on Saturday, they will not allow him to travel until he is better, which would mean a delay in our embassy appointment as well. We are praying he gets better soon.