June 25: Gotcha Day

Our day started at 5am. We caught the flight to Jiangxi departing at 8am. Out of the 16 families in Group 115, there are 6 families adopting from Jiangxi province. Due to jetlag Zach and I didn't have any problems getting up at 5am.

The flight was only a little over one hour. As soon as we landed we headed to the hotel and had 15 minutes turn around time to head out the Civil Affairs Office to meet our babies. To add to the drama, Zach and I left our video camera on the plane and noticed it missing as we walked out of the airport towards our bus. Our wonderful China team guide immediately accompanied Zach back to the terminal to retrieve it. That certainly added to the already rushed and dramatic day (true for all 6 families since the bus couldn't leave)!

The orphanage director and her team was at the office waiting for us...and ironically, afer two years of waiting for our babies, we got to the Civil Affairs Office appointment 45 minutes late. Right as the bus pulls up to the Civil Affairs building our guide said, "it's on the 26th floor and there's no elevator." We all said, "What???" Turns out our lovely guide was frazzled and English isn't her first language. She corrected herself, "oh, sorry, I meant no air conditioning in the elevator!" We all let out a roaring laugh as we got up from our seats and headed towards parenthood.

Arriving on the 26th floor, we walked into a room full of different groups of people (others who are adopting through other agencies)...and our "Cermony" began. It was very chaotic and we all handed each other our cameras/camcorders when each of our names were call to recieve our baby (that was chaotic!). It was all a blur it happened so fast. In just less than a few minutes after arriving on floor 26th, we were all holding our babies!

None of the babies cried much at all during the hand off. Our Caelyn was calm and alert. She looks cuter than in the pictures (not sure how that's possible). She looked smaller than I expected but she weighs as much as I thought it would feel like holding a 20+ lbs baby. That didn't stop me from holding her most of the day as Zach was a little nervous about his inexperience with holding a child. Not that I have a lot either but thanks to my lovely neice, I had some practice. But by later in the day he was holding her, feeding her and playing with her.

Generally this was a very sucessful day. We shall see what tomorrow brings.