Journey with Julia

Zhuzhou SWI

We visited Julia's orphange this morning. It's taken me all day to be able to write about it, one because it was hard, and also because even before we left today Julia was very clingy to Mama all day. And even when I thought she was asleep for the night she woke as soon as I started to type, but Daddy finally got her to settle for him tonight and now they are both passed out on the bed. Too sweet. He'll kill me for posting this picture but I just have to, even more so because she was so clingy to me all day. Not that she doesn't love Daddy too, he is the only other person she will willingly go to besides me, she just prefers to have me in sight the whole time if she can. She fell asleep on the bus on the way to Zhuzhou, so she woke happy and refreshed by the time we got there. Isn't she beautiful when she's sleeping?? of course, we think she's beautiful all of the time, she's just extra sweet when she's asleep:)

We debated back and forth a lot before taking her back to the orphanage today and I know it was hard, but I am very glad we went. Her caregivers very obviously loved her and it was so good to see that. We saw the bed she slept in and found out that one of the other babies in our group slept next to her! We could tell she recognized her nannies, but she did not want to go to any of them at first. She'd smile for them and laugh with them, and put her head back on Mama's shoulder so I would venture to say that the bonding process is going well. She did eventually go to a couple of her nannies and give some hugs and kisses, she loves to cuddle by the way! We saw some of the play rooms and like I said where she slept.

The SWI (social welfare institute) was very large and we only saw a small piece of it. They also have a little store set up where they sell items made by the special needs children, we bought several items for Julia to have later on. These are probably the most special things we have gotten on our trip so far. The money goes back into the special needs program at her SWI. I am grateful for the way the CCAA referral program works. We never would have been able to walk in there and pick out a child to take home . They were all beautiful and it was a very emotional day.

Our initial letter from the director of the SWI said that Julia was found on the steps of the orphanage, we are not sure if this is accurate or not as it didn't seem like they would have been able to get past the gate. But either way we have pictures of the steps and the gate area.

*Edited to say that Mama must have been extremely tired at this point, our letter from Zhuzhou actually says that Julia was left by the gate, so it's good that we took pictures of it, as it really was her finding spot! Just goes to show how easy it is to get the details confused. :)