Thanksgiving in Nanchang

4 years ago yesterday, we were handed our "chubby baby." As anyone can tell you who gives birth or adopts a baby, it was probably the most surreal experience of my life. We were in a travel group with 8 other families and we were receiving 10 babies. We flew to our daughter's city in the morning and had a meeting in a hotel conference with all of the families and our guide at 3:00 in the afternoon. Our guide went around the room asking us to introduce ourselves and tell her our babies Chinese name.

Then she scared the crap out of us. She told us that our babies would scream for hours; they would bond with one parent and strongly resist the other parent; that all of our paperwork said our babies liked baths, but they had never had one - only a sponge bath; the bath will make the babies shriek; their belly buttons are dirty because the Chinese people believe that evil spirits get in through the belly button so it is allowed to get dirty to keep them out; don't undress them until tomorrow, they don't trust you yet; when the baby cries, say "hala hala hala," and "bao bao buku," which means that's okay, that's okay, that's okay, and don't cry baby. At 5:00 we were dismissed to go to our rooms, get a toy and Cheerios and come back down to the conference room. Our heads were all swimming. I remember standing at the elevator waiting to go up with the other parents and saying, "I feel like I'm going to throw up." One of the other parents, said, "Hala hala hala." That broke the nervous tension nicely.

Back down we went with cameras, toys, and Cheerios for the babies. I think we were 3rd to get our baby. As she was brought out of the conference room, our guide called her name and said, "Oooo, chubby baby." I took her from her nanny. Turtle's face is the only thing I remember at that moment. I never gave the nanny a second look. I wish I had. After all, she helped care for my baby for the first 9 months of her life. But I had eyes only for my "chubby baby."

There were no tears. There was no shrieking. We waited for our requisite bag of formula and then headed back to our room. The first thing we did, in spite of our guides advice, was take off her layers and her diaper which on backwards and barely hanging on. Turtle loved it. She kicked her legs and waved her arms around. Babies are heavily bundled in China and she loved the freedom. I put on a fresh diaper and footie pajamas (purple with white polka dots).

Then, to my surprise, our group began congregating in the hallway with their babies. We sat and stood around the hallway, just sort of smiling at each other and admiring everyone's babies. I think that was the moment when our group began to bond with each other. The oldest baby was 17 months old and she ran up and down the hallway chasing a beach ball and laughing uproariously. It was so musical and that night was magical. We ordered room service of fried rice and Tsing Tao. When I went to put Turtle to bed I had no idea what to expect. I could hear crying babies from other rooms and one Mom was walking one of her babies (she got the twins) up and down the hallway. I held Turtle close and began to sing her a lullaby. Within seconds her eyes closed and she was asleep. I laid her in her crib and she slept the entire night. Of course, it took me months to figure out that she slept so well because that was her defense mechanism.

The next day was our trip to WalMart. My husband stayed with Turtle who was napping. WalMart was two stories and filled with things I was not familiar with. Goat heads, pig snouts, entrails from various animals and on and on. I headed for the baby area to get diapers, wipes, baby formula, baby food, etc. I had diapers in my basket and a woman walked up to it, looked inside, grabbed wipes off a shelf and added them to my basket. Since I needed them, I just smiled and kept moving. In the baby food aisle, I had difficulty deciphering what to get. I ended up with some Gerber baby juice. Of course, Turtle wouldn't touch it - formula was the only thing she would consume. I ended up drinking the juice each morning because I kept having sugar crashes. I was rather happy I purchased them.

A few days after we received our babies, it was Thanksgiving Day. On that day, signs appeared in the elevators of the hotel advertising American Thanksgiving Dinner in the hotel restaurant. That was the most welcoming gesture and it was a dinner to remember. All of the families gathered in the restaurant. We filled our plates from the buffet. Roasted turkey, biscuits, cranberry sauce, dumplings, congee, pork & beans, and other very interesting things to eat that I wasn't brave enough to try and best of all was pumpkin pie. But, when we tried our first bites of the pie, we discovered that they didn't use sugar - so it was just squash pie - but it was quite good if you could get past the expectation of a sweet treat. We took up half of the restaurant at least. We sat around getting to know one another, laughing, and enjoying ourselves.

That trip was the best Thanksgiving of our lives and I am so grateful to the Chinese people who were welcoming, always looking out for a new mother and what her needs might be (even if she didn't know she needed it), and I am grateful for and to our travel group, which was filled with amazing people I'm proud to call some of my closest friends.