Monday March 21st was Gotcha day! (The day that we got our little girl, explanation probably not necessary, but still...).
(on the way to her orphanage!!)
We killed time in the morning by walking to Starbucks, and then pacing back and forth in our room. Well Jake tried to nap. I paced and packed and repacked our backpack multiple times. We got to the orphanage at around 1:30, and were brought into a small office off the courtyard. They offered us tea, so Jake and I both figured we'd be talking first, and perhaps going over paperwork, so we were surprised when a nannie walked into the room and placed her onto Jake's lap. So much for videotaping our first meeting haha!.
Within minutes of meeting her! Proud daddy
Most definitely love at first sight, for me...
I cannot even describe to you the feeling we felt, it was incredibly surreal. After studying every detail of the photos and videos we had of her, she definitely looked familiar to us, but there was also so much we didn't know about her. I can't even imagine how she was feeling! Definitely uncomfortable, she was very stiff, and didn't want to face us, we looked and sounded different, and she had just woken up from her nap, so she was confused. Everyone at the orphanage seemed to disappear to give us some space to get to know her. We were able to see her room, the crib she slept in, the baby that she shared it with, and where her bottles were made.
Her room
She was very obviously loved, her main nannie seemed like a lovely woman, she didn't speak any english, and our translator/social worker wanted to give us space to be with our new baby, so we weren't able to chat with her much, but she was what we had hoped for when thinking about our girls first caregiver!
Two hours later her nannie took her back for one last time to hold her on the way to the government offices (it must be so hard for her to say goodbye to the babies that she has invested so much into!), and we all got into our social workers car to head over for the official giving and receiving ceremony. On the way we had to stop so our social worker could develop a passport photo he had taken of her. The giving and receiving ceremony wasn't overly ceremonious, on the way I had given the nannie a family photo so she could see who we all were, and she couldn't stop laughing (we understood it as a happy laugh, but perhaps a little at how white (and long) Donny's hair was). So while we were waiting for paperwork to be prepared she showed the photo to everyone. I got our baby back, fed her a bottle and she dozed off for the rest of the time there. We signed some papers, got back into the vehicle, and were brought back to our hotel. And just like that she was our baby! AHHHH!!
On our way back to our hotel
