"Gotcha" Day

NOVEMBER 28 was the day we first saw Emily and held her in our arms. Gotcha day is magical and life-changing because all those imaginings, hopes, aspirations, and dreams of the child become real in the form of a cute, often crying, flesh-and-blood little girl. I imagine the experience is similar to holding a newborn child in a parent's arms for the first time.

Here's an excerpt from our blog posting about Gotcha Day:

Yesterday we received Emily - what a joy! We left our hotel at 9:30 AM yesterday (November 28) and traveled about 15 minutes by bus to the local registration office. Unlike our last adoption experience, in which the children were with their nannies in a back room, brought out to us one at a time, this time the children were all with nannies in the foyer of the building! This created a few minutes of chaotic confusion as the mothers realized they just weren't sure which baby was theirs. Eventually the chaos settled to minor confusion and, after the director of local adoptive affairs addressed us for a few moments, the babies were all handed out to their adoptive parents. Emily was one of three babies from the Xiaogan City Social Welfare Institute, all of whom hold the surname of Lin after the surname of the director of the orphanage.

We received Emily as one of the first babies of 14 given to adoptive parents in our group. Along with Emily, we received a photo album of her taken each month she was in foster care. We also received the disposable camera back that we had sent to China for the foster family to record her activities. We have not yet developed those photos, but we'll do so soon. And as you can see from the photo, we received Emily in beautiful, bright clothing that we'll cherish as keepsakes for years to come.

Because we experienced an extremely orderly Gotcha Day when we received Sydney, the general confusion and lack of organization during Emily's Gotcha Day was a little off-putting at first. But then we held Emily in our arms and lost track of everything else that was happening in the room. As anyone can tell you, the sound of children being passed from nannies to their adoptive parents for the first time is anything but quiet! We were surprised that Emily did not cry until well after we had returned to our hotel room to get to know her -- she seemed able and willing to take in all in. We changed her into cooler clothes, played with her as much as we could, and spent the rest of the day in the hotel, both in the corridors and in our room, getting to know our little daughter and letting her get to know us.

One highlight of a day filled with highlights was bath time. Emily took to the bath like a fish to the sea, and she simply lit up, and lit us up, as she splashed and giggled and played in the water. She cared little about getting water in her eyes, on her hair, or anywhere else. We reflected how much more mature we had become as parents since we first bathed Sydney -- then, we didn't know the correct water temperature and bathed her in water that was too cold. We had become old pros at this adoption thing, a thought that came back to us again and again as we worked to help other parents in our group with their first adoptions.