Gotcha, Gotcha, Gotcha...

Ni Hao Everyone! We know this is the post that everyone has been waiting for!  We would be too if the shoe was on the other foot.  Sorry it has taken a few days.  Reason being, we now have a 2 year old to take care of! ;o)  And we are happily exhausted adjusting to our girl and her schedule.  She is a bundle of energy as most 2 year olds are and she is keeping us busy for sure! Also we were having probs downloading the pics so sorry about the delay.

There is really so much to say.  You can imagine the flood of emotions that we have going on right now, but I will try and keep it as brief as possible.

First we want to thank all our friends and family who have been praying for us and supporting us during this time.  We truly could not have done this without you.  We received many texts, emails and messages on Gotcha day letting us know that you were thinking about us and praying for us.  I am pretty sure we did not respond to any of them, but we did receive them and we really appreciated all the good vibes being sent our way.  It meant A LOT to know that so many people were thinking about us on our special day.

Well, let's get to the good stuff! ;o)  We got our girl!  She is with us and she is doing GREAT!  We both went into Gotcha Day with a lot of nerves....much more than we expected.  But really as soon as we saw her and she called us Mama and Baba....our nerves melted away.  Yes! She is already call us Mama and Baba...obviously what that means to her in her 2 year old mind we are not sure.  But we are thankful to Alenah's house because they really worked with her to get her in the mindset of calling us that.  We had sent a book of pictures ahead of time with us, Coco and Baozi and they went over the book with her every night. They would say ni de mama, ni de baba, etc...which mean your mama, your baba, so the first thing she did when she saw us was call us mama and baba!  It was an AMAZING feeling.  She did not cry...she is so strong!  The strongest person we know!  She likes to carry the book around and look at it.  She "reads" it too us and says, "wo de mama, wo de baba" and points to us, meaning MY mama, MY baba and hugs the book!  Cutest thing ever, brings me to tears!

The day started with us going to the Civil affairs office and doing paper work and that is where we picked up Chu Chu.  We spent a couple hours there just hanging out while all of the other families that are in our group got their kids too.  Luckily Chu Chu was waiting there with Teddy, the worker from Alenah's house, who brought her to us.  So we did not have to wait!  The kids all come at different times depending on how far away their orphanage is and other things.  So we got to spend a good couple hours just playing with her and giving her treats and loving on her.

At this point in the process we were just "legal guardians."  We signed paperwork stating such, and families then get 24 hours minimum and more if requested to spend time with their child and see how the relationship is working out I guess.  And also some kids "special needs" end up being not what was described to them  in their file and maybe they have a lot more "issues" than the family thinks they can handle, so this gives them time to evaluate all of that before making the final decision to adopt.  I think I will write another post about this later.

So once we did that, we went back to the hotel and just spent the rest of the day bonding and doing more paperwork to get ready for the next day.  After the 24 hours is up, you go back to the civil affairs office and make it official!  You get your adoption decree and as they tell us there is no turning back after that point.  And we would not want to!  Our girl is an ANGEL!  She is truly amazing.  We had many many prayers for our daughter, knowing that children who come from institutionalized settings can have really any issue you can think of.  We prayed daily that God would giver her an inner peace that could only come from Him.  We prayed that He would comfort her during this transition in only a way that He can.  And that she would have an inner joy and happiness that can only come from Him.  Because you can only communicate so much with a 2 year old.  We can really only reassure her by our actions not by our words that we love her and that we are not going anywhere.  We are here to stay!  

There is so much to share!  So I will continue to make more posts...telling you more about our girl and her personality and everything that we love about her!  But for now here are more pics from Gotcha Day!  Sorry we don't have a lot because we were so distracted just trying to bond with our girl.  I will post more from our time together as we go through these next 2 weeks.

First family selfie!

This is the picture book we sent her with our pics so she could get familiar with our faces...she loves to carry it around still and hug it and say MY mama, MY baba and points to the pictures, then to us!  ADORABLE!

Official first family pic that will be on our adoption decree

Our sweet Angel!  So full of joy she is, even though she has been through more in her short 2 years that some people go through in a lifetime.  She is so brave and strong!  She is our hero.  So full of strength and happiness and love already!