"Gotcha" Day

JANUARY 5, 2003, was the day we saw Sydney in person for the first time. This is traditionally called "gotcha" day for obvious reasons. Our group gathered in a meeting room on the third floor of the Lottery Hotel. The state-run hotel apparently houses offices of the Chinese adoption agency, and it has recently become the location for virtually all "gotcha" day ceremonies in Nanning. We saw groups leave just as we arrived, and we would not have been surprised to see groups arrive as we left.

Sixteen families crowded into this meeting room; the room filled with the heat and sounds of excited and nervous parents to be, the whir of camcorders, and, in the distance, the babble and cries of our babies. One at the time, nannies brought the babies into the room and, family by family, we claimed our precious daughters. The Chinese adoption agency official checked our name tags to be sure the right baby went to the right family -- now was not the time for mistakes -- and we became parents.

We had seen a total of five pictures of Sydney up to this point, and we had fallen in love with both the pictures and girl they represented. When we saw her come into the room in the arms of her nannie, we both melted. Sydney, on the other hand, felt no such immediate bond. She had not fallen in love with anyone, pictured or real, except her nannies, and they we leaving her with us.

The result was that Sydney, at first tentatively but soon with full gusto, wailed and wept, pushed away from us, and beat on our chests to get away. We had been warned by several people at CCAI of this possibility, but nothing really prepares you for the rejection of a loved one. Gradually she tired herself out, probably from the combination of sweating and crying. By the end of the evening she had calmed herself down, and by the next morning she was ready for breakfast.

Our orphanage dressed all of the babies in beautiful, red, heavy Chinese suits. They also gave us some of the small toys the children enjoyed in the orphanage, along with a traditional Zhuang "love ball" and embroidered gift sack filled with pictures of the baby and her nannies. We had expected to receive nothing from the orphanage -- we were even prepared to strip Sydney of the orphanage clothing so the nannies could use it again -- and these gifts deeply moved us. Our group asked Michael, our CCAI representative, if we could offer something in return to the orphanage; the result was that, later in the week, we collected enough funds to purchase two clothes dryers for the orphanage, items they said were needed for the damp wet months.

Nothing really prepared us for the wonder of "gotcha" day. The event culminated nearly 18 months of preparing and planning. It also represented the moment we became parents. We were at last joined to the little girl at the other end of our red thread.