Tessa Day - The Details

We started the day with Starbucks...of course. :)

Mr. Yeh and Alex picked us up at the hotel at 11 am. I was really nervous. We drove for about two hours then stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom and to get some lunch. Mr. Yeh is very sweet and super accommodating...he pays for everything.

On to TWCA where we picked up Samantha and got Tessa's schedule. Then just a quick ride to the foster mom's house. On the way there, Samantha (who is the director of TWCA and speaks perfect English) told us that Typhoon Morakot was the worst storm they've had in 50 years. There's been a lot of devastating flooding and mudslides, so please pray for those involved. We are safe and unaffected in Taipei, but the coasts are suffering.

We pulled up to the foster mom's house and I was very nervous by now. As soon as we parked, I saw the foster mom, Mrs. Chen holding Tessa at the door. Wow. She looked SO cute. We went in and sat on the foster mom's couch. She sat by me and slowly transferred Tessa to my lap. She began to fuss a bit, so the foster mom told us to give her a rice cracker and she loved that. The foster mom told us she's a happy baby and that she sleeps in her own crib, all through the night...yahoo! We stayed and talked for about 20 minutes, then left. The foster mom had tears in her eyes, it was very emotional. It was very hard for me to leave...taking Tessa away from everything she had known for the past four months.

Next we went to the baby store to buy formula and all the necessities for Tessa. The diapers they told us to buy are way too big, so future families, bring your own. :) Tessa wears a Pamper's size 2. Little butt. :)

Then we went back to TWCA, where Samantha led us upstairs to a room to meet with Tessa's birth family. Five members of her birth family where there and it was extremely emotional. It's clear that a lot of people love Tessa. I won't go into the details of the meeting because that's Tessa's story, but I will tell you that we asked who named her and found out the social worker did, not her birthmom. I asked if they would like it if we named her Tessa Mei after her birth grandmother and they nodded their heads yes. So, she will be Tessa Mei. We still call her Yi-Hsiu for now, and will for awhile. And she'll always know her Taiwanese name. :)

We signed one paper, got all the stuff back I had sent, and got back in the van and drove back to Taipei. In the car, she taught us that she knows Peek-A-Boo...we were very impressed! We found out that Yi-Hsiu Lay (they say this too her a lot in the videos we got) means Where is Yi-Hsiu? So, I think her foster mom must have played peek a boo with her.

It was late by the time we got back to the hotel, so we gave her a jar of apple baby food (since she wasn't quite ready to take a bottle from us yet), a bath, and laid her down in the crib with her pacifier and little blankie from her foster mother. Amazingly enough, she babbled for about 5 minutes and fell asleep. She slept from 8 pm to 6 am without so much as a peep! I didn't sleep well because I kept expecting her to cry at least once...but nope! Yay! Let's hope this is a trend that continues.

This morning, she took a bottle...we were so relieved! She played for quite awhile and now she's napping. She's a very, very sweet, content baby and we are definitely blessed to be her parents. I'm not sure why we were chosen to be the parents of the three best kids in the world...but hey, we'll accept our fate. :)


Jake and Sara...THREE more sleeps babies!!! I can't wait to hug and hold you two!! Hugs and kisses...love always.