Sunday, April 10th, "Gotcha Day!"

As I type this post our son is fast asleep rolled over on his side with his pacifier in one hand and toy car in the other. What a beautiful little boy, we are all so blessed!

Our day started somewhere around 4:30am when we couldn't pretend to sleep any longer. Officially our day started at 9 am this morning when we met Michael, our guide, in our hotel lobby for "Gotcha" Day. We were headed North to our sons orphanage! We expected the car ride to take one hour of drive time. However, before we knew it our van was pulling up to the orphanage gate. The orphanage was very nice. And, it was tucked away in a neighborhood area with a lot of locals milling about doing their weekend shopping & socializing. We enjoyed watching the sites from our van window.


This is Michael, our guide.

Surprising to us, we were the ONLY family there to pick up its child! We were ushered into a large waiting room/ conference room. We had various paperwork to sign & one document required our finger print, in red ink, over our signatures. Not much longer Yu Jian Dong and his Nanny arrived. She was carrying him facing outwards towards us. And, she immediately knelt on her knees holding Jian between her legs. Julia followed their movements and knelt on her knees facing Jian & his Nanny. Jian & Julia both had tears in their eyes but neither said a word initially to each other. We just stared at each other. The Nanny pointed at Julia and said, "Mommy" and repeated it several times. He was hesitant but not fearful. And, the Nanny said something like "1,2,3 Jump to Mommy" and she picked him up and landed him in front of Julia. Julia held him in her arms, on her knees and stroked his back in a comforting way. Jian began to cry, Julia stood up & rocked him while speaking softly. Matt came over and the two of us comforted, talked to & rocked Jian. At some point the Nanny left the room & we did not see her again. However, there was a representative who answered questions regarding his eating, sleeping, playtime habits. We were back in our van approximately 45 minutes later headed back to our hotel.

First Sight and Nannie



Mommy!



Daddy!

Forever Family





Isn't He Beautiful!

During the van ride Zachary had tears in his eyes, but never truly cried. Eventually he feel asleep in Julia's arms. Back in our hotel room, we undressed Zachary (who was burning up in his 2 layers of long johns & sweats.)and began just quietly talking to him. He pushed out his bottom lip in the form or a pout and THEN it happened- the most heart wrenching cry - a cry of deep confusion & sadness that came from the depths of his soul...before long all three of us were crying. But we did our best to reassure him- rock him, rub his back, sing songs...eventually we gave him a bottle, which started his lunch and his attitude quickly changed to happiness & his personality came out! He ate and ate and ate! His first meal with us was steamed white rice, looong Japanese noodles, fruit, vegetables& yogurt! He seemed to have a bottomless stomach and everything he ate he loved!



After lunch we giggled and played. He has the most beautiful smile and a laugh that warms our hearts. He absolutely loves the little toy truck and the book with all the pictures of our family in it! He has already mimicked his new American Name several times and has said Momma, Daddy & Bop-bop. He is brilliant!! We can't wait to see more of his personality shine through.

We had an appointment to make with our guide Michael at 2PM so the fun had to end. But, we dressed Zachary back into half of the clothes the orphanage gave us, strapped him into the umbrella stroller and headed for a short 5 minute walk to have our family picture taken and passport photos taken. We hope to get a copy of our fist "official" family portrait. We will find that out tomorrow.





Tonight we are eating Papa John's Pizza! Yes!! It tastes just like home!
Tomorrow we are told we will be meeting at 9:30am to have our visa paperwork completed. We will be seeing his Nanny again. We think the meeting should take 3 hours. Then we will be back to our hotel for another nap no doubt. Currently it appears Zachary is already down for the count. He finally fell asleep around 5ish and he is giving no indications of waking up- but, come around 3am that story might change. Mom (Lynda) has already given us instructions on how to prepare the bottle and what to do when and if he wakes up. Mom & Dad (Glen & Lynda) have been so helpful during this trip. We have relied on them for basic help (Like taking lead on solving solutions) to confusing issues (boiling water for sanitizing the baby items, making bottles, lifting dirty bottom out of diapers- you know, the really difficult tasks that we are learning under fire :) We could not have done this trip as easily with out them!!

Time to get some sleep before our possible 3AM Zach-attack wake up call!