Gotcha Day #1

April 13, 2008- Gotcha Day– what an amazing experience we had today – Although we woke up very early to catch our flight to Chongqing, the morning went by rather quickly with much excitement and anticipation for this, finally, was GOTCHA DAY. We met some another couple on the flight over, Phil and Leslie, from Jacksonville. They have two sons, Jeremiah 9 and Alex 11 traveling with them. Both of the boys have already ‘adopted’ some of the younger children traveling with their parents and have been awesome with them. They’re little sister doesn’t have a clue as to how fortunate she is. So now, three families are from Florida. What a great thing for us and Emma.

Our hopes to relax a little at the hotel before the arrival of Emma were quickly diminished as Marie, our new CCAI representative, went over our schedule for the day. Between paperwork, grabbing lunch, showering, getting ourselves ready and getting Emma’s diaper bag packed, our rest and relaxation quickly became a race against time.

The hotel, The Golden Resource , is quite extravagant. It’s a 32 story, five star hotel with multiple restaurants and underground shopping adventure complete with more restaurants, lounges, stores and nightclubs. We checked in, showered, got Emma’s things ready, and then met downstairs to fill out some paperwork. Afterwards we found out the babies from our orphanage arrived early. This particular news really hit me quite hard. As my already crazy emotions went wild. My stomach was all in knots and I felt as if I was in labor. Actually this was somewhat harder. I didn’t have a real job, just had to stand there, watching and waiting.

We were the fifth family called, the last from our orphanage. When they placed her in our arms, the tears of happiness began to flow from both Andy and me. Finally all that we had been dreaming came true. Having Joshua next to us to meet his little sister was the only thing that could have made that moment more complete. Emma is cuter than her pictures and I think a little smaller than I thought. We can’t wait for her to meet Joshua and all our friends and family when we get home.