Gotcha Day

Gotcha Day was an experience that we will never forget. I am so grateful to God for such a wonderful day meeting our daughter. I had prepared myself for a rough transition full of crying for all three of us, but I was mistaken. Amelia seemed to know that she belonged with us. There were three families including us that received children today. We were the only Americans. The other two families were from Spain. We walked into the office of adoption affairs and Amelia was sitting in the lap of her nanny. There were two other children toddling around. David and I were the first family to arrive. The nanny saw us, stood up, and handed Amelia to me. Amelia and I stared into each other's eyes. She watched the other babies and looked at David with interest, but she never made a sound. David took pictures and video while I held Amelia. We spoke with the nannies and had questions answered. The other two families arrived and their new children began screaming. They did not want to leave the nannies to join their new parents. Amelia sat in my lap and just stared at them. She watched me and patted on David. The nannies remarked that she would be a daddy's girl. The nannies gave me back the flash drive, disposable camera, and photo book. They also gave me a memory book, which is really a pack of papers stapled together. It had pictures from when she was young and hand and foot prints. There is a lot of writing in Chinese that we will have someone translate for us later. It was a special bonus to receive these items. When it was time to leave, Amelia waved goodbye to the nannies and was ready to go. She loved exploring the hotel room.

Amelia is exactly how Karla, our case manager at Lifeline, described her - content. She laughs and smiles, but is overall very quiet. She is curious and independent. She likes to clean up after herself. While eating rice tonight for dinner, some dropped on her bib. She picked it up and put it back in her bowl. She LOVES Puffs from Gerber. The sweet potato is her favorite. I only brought two cans, and she ate half of one today. She does not like goldfish. She ate well at dinner and hopefully nothing will upset her tummy. She LOVED bath time. She splashed and played in the water and didn't want to get out. We are in love!

I was very worried about clothing sized and the twelve month pajamas are a bit big. The 12 month Robies I brought are too big, so I will need to buy her shoes. She does not walk independently, but she will cruise around the room or hold your hand to walk. She is a very fast crawler. Her fine motor skills and self help skills seem to be pretty good, but her gross motor needs work. She needs to build up her core to be better at sitting up without rolling over and to roll over faster than she does. Her communication skills weak. She says a few words, but we are not sure if they mean something in Chinese or if she is making noises. She is saying mama and dada, but not in reference to us all the time.

She cried twice tonight. Once when she fell backwards and hit the back of her head and when she was hungry. I'm not sure what tomorrow will hold, but I am thankful to God for such a wonderful first day with my daughter.

Today is considered the harmonious night. A sort of trial run to see if we want to keep her. Tomorrow afternoon, we will sign permanent adoption papers to mark Amelia officially ours.

Thank you all for praying for us. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! Here are some pictures of my beautiful girl. I will post more tomorrow. Some are on the other camera and have not been imported onto the iPad.