Gotcha Day!!!

Before we knew it, it was 4 o’clock and we were getting on the bus. The government office was about 25 minutes away. What a sight it was to walk through those doors. There were many other families there were other groups who had already received their babies. We were funneled into a room and were told the babies would be arriving shortly, only to be told shortly thereafter that it would be another 20-plus minutes. However, one of the ladies in our group received her baby right when we got there because the baby was from a different orphanage than the rest of the girls which was closer.

We were watching out the front window for the bus to pull up after an 8-hour-plus ride from the orphanage. However, the bus must have parked somewhere else because the babies started arriving. It’s difficult to describe the emotions that were in the room. It was certainly electric, but with lots of love. We knew Hayleigh the instant we saw her. It’s kind of been that way from the start. They called off each family one-by-one to receive their baby (or babies as in the case of one family who got twins). We were one of the last, but we didn’t care. It was awesome.

She has such a fantastic personality. She just melted into Kirsten’s arms without crying or anything. This was very much the exception as a lot of the other babies were crying. After about 15 minutes she was smiling at us and playing with the boys. It’s a good thing we have a big disk in our camera because we took a ton of pictures and video – just wanting to be sure to remember it all.

After a short while of bonding and pictures, we took a family picture which went on some official paperwork. Then we were able to ask questions of the orphanage director and nannies. How many naps does she take? What’s her favorite toy? We asked lots of questions but I’m not sure we remember much of anything.

Finally, we put our thumbprints on some paperwork. Hayleigh did too. It was very sweet to know that all these lives had changed in just the matter of a couple of hours.

When we got back to the hotel, we just looked at her some more. She really is beautiful. Long eyelashes, big black eyes, perfect little lips. She is sure to attract some handsome guys 30 years from now when she starts dating. Kirsten gave her a bottle and then we gave her a bath. She had lots of fun – no crying. Then we put her in a new pair of PJs and she went to sleep about 2.5 seconds later. It was kind of like she new she could relax now that she is with her forever family.

Lance