It's a boy!

Considering that a number of official papers have listed Micah as Zhong Ji, female, born 03/02/02006, I really wanted to check under the hood. At the provincial adoption office, the opportunity didn't present itself - that whole experience went by as a blur. The Cash Family and our family walked in, there were two babies there and several people from the JingZhou CWI and the provincial adoption office. We put down our bags and two minutes later I picked up Micah. He's very quiet, has the very serious expression that everyone has seen in his photos, but he's not horrified by the strange twist his life took today.

We signed off on a 24-hour custody agreement and will go back tomorrow for official paperwork and an opportunity to talk to the CWI staff about Micah. I already have four pages written out. We gave our additional gift bag with cloth diapers, vitamins and Mylicon drops - and a small photo album with Micah on the cover and pictures of family on the inside. Even with no language in common, we want the orphanage to know a little bit about where he'll be living and the family members he'll be meeting.

The CWI gave us an absolutely stunning gift (in addition to Micah himself). The director presented both families with a photo album with pictures of JingZhou and pictures of Micah. There is a photo of Micah as a newborn, wrapped in a red blanket, on the day of his abandonment. Seeing that was when I really started to cry.

We came back to the hotel, where Micah, whose orphanage diet seemed to be milk, rice cereal, steamed egg and a bit of table food diced into congee (rice gruel), promptly hoovered down a container of bananas and blueberries and half of a sweet potato apple container. He's also eating Cheerios and the Gerber stars. So far nothing we've offered has been rejected. His Great-grandmother May would be proud.

After feeding came the diaper change, and he is most definitely a boy.

More later, we're on borrowed computer battery time. Many thanks to the Cash family for the loan of their computer.