our first day together

Today we were allowed to take our girl out for the day. We arrived to pick her up at 830. Today was a holiday so no one was in the office, which meant we just walked right through the gate and straight into the baby house. When we arrived she was all dressed up in a fancy pink dress ready to start our day together. We stayed and said hi to all the kids then packed our little lady up. She was doing great until we put her in her car seat. She has never left the orphanage before, so this was a big deal for her. We should have been more aware of this being a big deal, but it honestly didn't cross my mind that she has never been in a car seat. She had a couple of tears, but I sat in the back between the kids so she stopped crying. She managed to fall asleep on our car ride to the guesthouse so I transferred her to the bed and we tried to let her nap. We laid beside her and basically bugged her until she woke up! Isaac did this same thing to us when we first brought him home, we were choked he had fallen asleep because we wanted to hang out. After she woke up we spent the day in the compound of our guesthouse, we didn't want to add anything to overwhelm her so we planned to lounge around for the day. Turns out our little girl was quite timid today. She was quiet and withdrawn. We carried her and snuggled her all day, which was a lot for her. She didn't want to play and made it clear she wanted to be held. She is an amazing cuddler, something Isaac is not!! She fell asleep on me in the afternoon so I laid with her on the couch for her nap. She woke up around 3 and by this point was very confused with where she was. I felt so bad for her. She was clinging to us and had a few little cries if one of us left the area she was in. We both held her but we knew she was stressed out. We decided to go back to the orphanage an hour early and play with her there for the hour. The minute we walked into the baby house, her face lit up. She turned into a completely different girl, she was playing with us, laughing and running around. We could not believe it, we had no idea she would be so aware of the change. We only had Isaac to gauge from and he was chill, but he was a little younger and I think he was used to just being left in his bed. Although it was a stressful day for our girl, we are happy that she has an attachment to her home, this means she will hopefully have the knowledge how to attach to her new home. We stayed for an hour playing with her, feeding her and giving her a bath then we kissed her goodbye for the night. It is a terrible feeling to hold your child and then have to say goodbye to them, but we know this will help her transition to us the smoothest. It did remind us of the huge change this is for her and to approach gently. Please pray for our girl as she goes through the biggest transition of her life...a transition many of us will never have to face and one that we do not want to think as easy. We plan to show up to the children's home tomorrow and repeat today, hopefully tomorrow will be a little easier on our sweet girl! Isaac was amazing again and was upset that his sister couldn't stay with for the night. We honestly didn't know he had this in him, he has been the sweetest big brother! We are so proud of him and praise him continually for being such a kind and thoughtful brother.
After we left the children's home, we went to find dinner. We promised the workers KFC tomorrow to thank them for their work so we went out in search of where we would need to go. We ended up at the shell station as they had a pizza place inside. Arnie decided he would go in alone and get food to go, so he locked Isaac and I in the car and went inside. As Isaac and I waited we watched all the people walking by...I was increasingly aware that we stand out and that we weren't really welcomed here. It's hard to say why I was feeling this and feeling afraid as well, but I was on high alert as we sat in the parking lot. I didn't say anything to arnie when he got in the car, the first thing he mentioned was how unwelcome we were here. So we are both on the same page. We have resolved to stay in our compound and go to the children's home and back and that is about it. There is a grocery store close by as well that we have been to, but we will not be venturing out further than that while we are here. Like I said in the last post, we have been warned by NUMEROUS people to stay safe, so we are not going to be very adventurous right now...after all we are here to get our daughter and focus on here so it all works out.