Gotcha Day

Gotcha day!!!

We are unable to get on blogspot right now so I have asked my sons at home to post this for me.

I need to recap from Sunday first. We went to the Beijing International Christian Church. We were so amazed to walk in and here the worship music playing. The same songs we sing at our church. We felt at home half way around the world. We also were told by our local guide that most Americans think and are told that you cannot be a Christian in China and that is not true. In China you can choose your religion, however 50% have no religion, and the rest consist of Buddism which has the highest and then there is Christian, Jewish, and one more, I just can't think of right this second. After that we went to a pearl factory, which let me say with the American dollar losing its value we did not get the deals we got last time. We did do some Christmas shopping there though as well as bought Katie her pearls for her wedding day as we bought the boys, Brooke and myself pearls last time. After that we went to lunch and then to jade store. After that it was the Great Wall! Brooke loved climbing all those stairs with another families daughter Marla, who let me say is the sweetest 14 yo girl! She has been so good to Brooke and all the other younger children, she will be a great big sister to her new little sister. Daddy climbed the wall, but mommy stayed behind for the majority, I just was too tired. We(I) slept very little,I am having a difficult time adjusting to the time. We then went for dinner, went back to the hotel room for a quick 15 minute nap, and I'm not kidding, we had 25 minutes from the time we got to the hotel till we had to be back on the bus, so 15 minutes is what we got. Everyone was so tired but the Chinese Acrobat show is amazing, everyone in our group had a hard time staying awake, and some didn't, including Brooke. We got back to the hotel at approx 8:40 and had to have our luggage ready at 10 pm, as it was going ahead of us. We all except a couple of families had to be ready to go to the airport at 5:30 a.m. We were all so excited and nervous, and crying tears of joy! We met and flew with another family from our agency who adopted their precious 3 yo son last week from Beijing and were heading to Guangzhou to finish everything before leaving this coming Saturday. When we arrived we were so excited to be greeted by our guide Amy!! She was our guide last time and is now married to Linaker our national guide. So have a darling 13 month old daughter. Amy filled us in on what was happening and we checked into the hotel, grabbed our paperwork and $ needed and headed to the Civil Affairs office. We were the first ones there. We actually saw the babies come in!! After awhile of waiting which really wasn't that long but seemed like it they started to call us by family name. When we saw Katie we couldn't believe how small she was. She wasn't sure at all about us. Her nannies, 1 in particular you could tell loves her very much. She is older and knew alot about Yin Yin as they call her. She wanted to hold her once again before they left of which Katie was very happy about and not too happy to come back to mama. She was very confused and scared we could tell. When we got onto the elevator she cried so hard. Our hearts broke for her and I just prayed for God to hold her tightly and give her some peace that this really is ok. As soon as we got off the elevator she was fine, but cried all the way back to the hotel. We thought oh no, we had prepared ourselves for the worst and hoped for the best. She took a nap which was great. We thought she then would be hungry, but refused her bottle. I walked the halls of the hotel with her and then she started to change a bit. She drank a bottle and then we saw a couple of smiles. She loves her big sister, and Brooke loves being a big sister. I had a hard time getting her to sleep last night. Daddy and Brooke were sound asleep and never heard a word from her. Once I got her to sleep she slept ALL night, a full 10 hours!! I had left her in her clothes that she was brought to us in, only 1 layer, and this morning she had a bath and is wearing a cute winnie the pooh dress. She is only 14.52lbs. The size 3 diapers I brought are too big. We went to the store today and I bought size 2 which fit great. She is wearing a size 9 months perfectly now. Her feet are so tiny. She is very petite. She has no teeth yet but can crawl and tries to stand but we're not sure yet if she can.She loves her photo album and her favorite picture is Robby. She won't hold anything in her hand so far and is only drinking a bottle with rice cereal in it. We bought some baby food today to see if she will start eating something. We tried yogurt this morning and she would have nothing to do with it. She is so precious. She was going to both Jeff and I, but now is preferring me to him so he has her now while I'm writing this. The adoption is final as of today!! Tomorrow we go to the police station to do her passport paperwork and Thursday we are going to the zoo. The rest of our group joins us on Friday. I'm very excited to meet back up with the other famiies and meet their new children. Please continue to pray for us. We can tell that Katie is grieving which is good, that tells us she was attached to her nannies, and thus she will attach to us, but in the meantime it breaks our hearts seeing her sad and confused. I will try and attach pictures but am not sure if I can.