2 year anniversary of Gotcha Day!

Emma Gotcha Day

It's difficult to believe that it's been 2 years now since Emma was placed into our arms on the other side of the world. All of the families in our travel group had gathered together and ridden into Guanzghou on one of those great big tour buses. We arrived at the Civil Affairs building and had gone inside. Most of the families had gone on up to the conference room but several of us were still waiting on an elevator when the nannies came in with the babies. All of them were dressed alike and had their hair buzzed off. Brian immediately spotted Emma! It was all happening so fast, but people were motioning to the nanny that she was ours and she brought Emma over and handed her to Ryan. He didn't have a clue what to do, he'd never held a baby before! Then just as suddenly, they whisked the babies off to another conference room while we went to ours. Then they started calling family names one by one ... cameras were flashing and tears were flowing as our children were finally united with their forever families. It seemed like we were the very last family, not sure if that's the case or not - but that is certainly how it felt.

It's hard to describe that moment she was handed to us. This child that I had called my daughter for over a year, but I had never held or touched was finally in my arms and we were madly in love! She didn't cry, but she didn't smile either. It was like she was just quietly checking us out. We were given some time to just hold them and then later we were given some time to talk to the nannies. The main things I remember is one of the nannies wiping Emma's nose (she had a cold) and then tears forming in her eyes when we asked her questions about Emma. I may be naive, but I truly do believe the nannies loved her and took as good of care of her as they could. It was truly an amazing day!