Gotcha Day!

What an absolutely incredible experience…we now have Caroline! We just got up to our room and she is sleeping peacefully in her crib. The “Gotcha” process was so surreal. All 17 families (46 people total) gathered in the hotel banquet room and the babies were brought in one at a time. When they called our last name, we simply walked over and they handed Caroline to us and took an official picture. We filled out a form which will be notarized tomorrow when our adoption becomes official.

Caroline is so tiny…probably the smallest baby of the bunch. The orphanage caretaker said she is quiet and sweet. While other babies were screaming their heads off, Caroline just sat with Amy and stared at everything going on. We were very surprised when the caretakers gave each family a photo album that shows life at the orphanage.

Our day has been really exhausting. We had to take a 2 hour bus ride across the border to get to Shenzhen (this included several stops for customs and immigration). Our flight from Shenzhen was delayed several hours due to bad weather (we changed gates three times), and so we arrived in Nanchang only 1 ½ hours before the babies were brought in. We didn’t have time to get settled in our room because CCAI needed to give their orientation and distribute baby formula and other essentials. Needless to say, everyone was nervous and tired, but then experienced overwhelming emotion as the babies were brought in. We will write more tomorrow as we need to get a little sleep!