CCAI Group 23 Yangchun Families

Adopted from Yangchun March 28-29, 1996

On Thursday, March 28, 1996, five of the nine families that made up CCAI's group 23 travelled by chartered bus from Guangzhou to Yangchun for our babies.

We left the White Swan Hotel early in the morning, and travelled with our agency representative and local interpreter via the more scenic northern route through Zhaoqing, arriving at Seven Star Crags park around 10:30. We spent a couple of hours touring the peaceful area. Then we enjoyed a banquet luncheon, complete with several varieties of wild mushrooms, before setting off again towards Yangchun.

The afternoon drive was very scenic, with lots of rice paddies, water buffalo, and steep little hills. But the road was unpaved and very rough, so our progress was slow, and we didn't arrive at the Golden Roc Hotel in Yangchun until 5:30.

After we checked in, we gathered in the 2nd floor dining room to receive instructions about our fees, paperwork, and most importantly, when we would meet our babies. We learned that our babies would arrive later that evening, around 9pm.

After eating, we returned to our rooms to wait. Finally, one by one, the families received a phone call to go to the room for their babies, and then returned to their own rooms. to wait for the notary.

Our agency rep had arranged for the notary to come to the hotel, after hours. He came to each room and asked questions of each family for his forms. The completed paperwork was delivered by our agency rep to each family the next morning. The orphanage nannies also visited with the families and babies in their rooms that evening.

The next morning, the orphanage nannies returned to the hotel and fed each baby her breakfast. Then we were free to visit or explore the neighborhood until noon, when we climbed back in our bus for the two hour drive to Yangjian for the babies' passports. We returned to Yangchun late that afternoon, and returned to Guangzhou early the next morning, via the faster coastal route.

All of the babies were healthy and well adjusted and ranged in age from seven months to not quite one year old. It was clear that the babies had been well looked after and cared for. At the time of adoption they were behind American babies in developmental skills, but caught up quickly.