Guatemala Day Two

I'm sitting here with a cup of hot tea and honey. You guessed it. I've got a nasty cold. I believe I picked it up on the airplane from Guatemala to Dallas. There was a woman on the plane who's child was sick and as they circulate the air, I'm sure that's how I caught it. I just hope that however it happened, Alaina didn't catch anything. OK. On to day 2.

We got up at 0700. Took showers, got dressed and went to breakfast all to be ready for Alaina who was scheduled to arrive at 0900. We went down to the lobby and saw Jorge our interpreter. We spoke with him a few minutes and then I saw a lady with a baby and just knew it was mine. "Is that her?" I asked. It was. The pictures you see here are of our first meeting. You see Jorge, us, Alaina, and the foster mother. We all went up to our room, where the foster mother (through Jorge) began to tell us every detail of how to take care of her as if we'd never seen a baby before. At first this was cute, but then it got annoying as she demanded we turn off the air conditioner and the fan etc. She brought all new clothes and new diapers and bottles. Still in their original packaging. Since we had brought everything we would be needing (except for formula) we put it all away and sent it back exactly as it had been sent to us. I thought it was funny that the foster mother proceeded to show me how to change her diaper and used one of the ones she had brought. She had the wrong size. The size she brought was for 12 - 20 pound babies. Alaina wasn't quite 8 pounds. That diaper went all the way up to her armpits! Needless to say when I changed her diaper next I used the Pampers Swaddlers Newborn that we had brought. lol You should have seen her swimming in that big ole thing. Anyway, soon enough they left and we turned the AC back on and dug her out of all 3 of her blankets. Guatemala is a warm and humid place. I think it is their culture to wrap babies up like that, but she was too warm and had some heat rash, so I kept her cooler. Mostly the first day we just spent time taking pictures and holding her, feeding her, loving her. We did go to a late lunch around 2pm. I held her while DH ate and then he held her while I ate. lol She didn't come with a carrier. We did get to visit with our attorney later in the afternoon. They had been concerned that we would reject her because she has a birth mark on her bottom. I have heard that there are some superstitions surrounding birth marks but we don't have any and assured them that it makes no difference to us. The type she has will fade with age anyway. By the time she gets married it should hardly be noticeable if it is at all. Alaina didn't sleep well the first night. She had new surroundings and new things and new smells and people. Also she is a noisy baby. She grunts and squeals and makes sounds. That may be normal but for us as new parents it was stressful. We'd be trying to sleep and I of course would wake up at every sound. Then she'd be completely quite for a while and I'd be sure she'd died of SIDS. Needless to say there was very little sleeping the first night. We were both up with her the whole time and since we'd had no supper we ended up ordering room service of a hamburger and fries and split it. Alan ordered a pot of coffee as well. He needed it. Somewhere around 0800, she finally went to sleep better and we were able to get a little too.