Getting Through A Two-Daughter Gotcha Day

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the long delays but we've had astonishing difficulties even sending a single email, plus keeping enough power in our netbook to get online and try to decipher what's going wrong and how best to get info out to anyone!

Yesterday we flew into Nanchang and stepped off the plane into a swelteringly humid afternoon, 26 degrees that felt like 30 plus ... An hour later we were getting Maeve down for a really really badly needed afternoon nap in our new hotel room in the Gloria Grand.

Maeve knew she was going to meet her mei mei shortly, and had not slept since awakening us at 3 AM. So we knew she HAD to sleep before Elspeth arrived at the hotel. We didn't want to have both our girls melting down at the same time! It took a long time to get Maeve to sleep, even though she was as exhausted as I've ever seen her

At 4:20 PM Kath called up to our rooms from the lobby (she'd gone off with our guide and the other couple who were to receive a child, Paul and Lorna, to exchange cash traveller's cheques at the local bank.) "Wake Maeve, the babies are here!"

Popo Lucilla and I got Maeve roused (3 hours into her nap, she was still deep asleep, and would have slept till nightfall, I'm sure). She was still only half-awake by the time we got her down to the ground floor ...

We all felt a little dreamy, walking quickly round the corner and approaching the corner of the lobby where a set of coaches were crowded with orphanage employees from the city of Fengcheng, where Elspeth is from. This second Gotcha moment seemed to unfold faster than the first---was that even possible? Yes, it was: Kath had our second daughter in her arms, Elspeth crying and uncertain what was going on, before Maeve or Marcus or Lucilla or I had time to take a breath or get our bearings. As before, I took video, and was happy to do so!

Maeve stayed with Popo, almost as uncertain about what was going on as Elspeth, her little sister. As for El, she appeared little, all right. And she burst into tears upon entering her mother`s arms, just as Maeve had. She also calmed down soon enough, and spent the rest of the time in the lobby trying to assess what on earth was happening to her ... Popo crept closer with Maeve, who was also quietly observing and assessing her long-imagined sister suddenly materialized and made a little more real than Maeve could quite believe.

Maeve tentatively reached out to her mei mei at one point, tried to stroke her when she cried ... Then we were all heading back to the elevators, our family of four (well, six with popo Lucilla and gungun Marcus), and Paul and Lorna's new family foursome (their six year old daughter Rae-Lynn, also a Jiangxi girl, was so worn out from travel and anticipation that she was in dire need of a retreat to the hotel room for some rest).

Once back inside our own adjoining suite-retreat, Maeve's pre-existing sisterly side suddenly could be held back no longer. Kath decided El needed a change, and Maeve cried "Let me do it!" and ran to get the diapers, unfold the change pad and position the wipes, all while repeating "It's okay, mei mei, we'll clean you up, it's okay," over and over. Because El had burst into tears once she was confined inside a (relatively small) hotel room with all of us strange Canadians ... Instead of a 3 year old Jie Jie, El discovered she now had two mothers competing to change her, one of them a bundle of energy just dying to take over and nurse-maid her mei mei out of her tears and fears.

We've had El with us for a little more than 24 hours now. She's adjusting reasonably well; Kath and I are certainly discovering a lot more about her; and Maeve, well she`s proven to be the most natural and compassionate Jie Jie who was ever born. Despite the fact that both our girls missed their naps today (El missed both naps that she apparently takes during the day), Maeve spent about an hour entertaining El with a display of hopping, running, spins, whirls, airplane imitations, dances, and so on, while El sat on our hotel room's king sized bed entranced by her Jie Jie.

"You watching, mei mei? What about this! You like that one? Wanna see it again?"

And that was just the late afternoon's performance. All day she's been fetching things for mei mei, giving her every toy for mei mei, who we explained has not learned how to share yet---so if Maeve shares everything, mei mei will learn from her. Maeve has demanded to help give mei mei a bath, wants to sit beside her at every meal, climbs up on the bed to give her things (like Maeve, El is definitely delayed in her physical development; she's nowhere near close to walking, despite being 17 months old; she's a girl frustrated by her own lack of development, which was also true of Maeve in the early months).

Maeve's been utterly patient and understanding with mei mei ... We're still getting used to the new normal, naturally.
But for Maeve, mei mei's the new focus of her life, and even when El's asleep, Maeve walks around with her doll trying to 'rock mei mei to sleep' as she's seen her Mom and Dad try to do.

Will try to post pics of our trip so far (Shanghai and Nanchang, Maeve and El together) tomorrow.

Pat, Kath, Maeve, El, Lucilla, and Marcus
at the Gloria Grand in Nanchang