Gotcha Day

Well the day finally came. It was the most emotional day that I could ever imagined. We had dad’s crying, mom’s crying and LOTS OF BABIES crying!!!
The day started out that all the families met in a meeting room to fill out paperwork and give our babies their official American name. Our baby was named Alexis Aishi (Ai shay) Elliott. We are going to call her Ali for short. Michael kept calling me all morning for Jay’s and my social security number. This bothered me and I finally asked him what was going on. I guess they have lost our fingerprints. The only good thing is that I did bring all the paperwork from home as back up and I do have a paper that says our fingerprints are valid until December 2007. They had better give me my baby!
After the meeting we had about two hours to kill. Jay and I ran to the area of town that you can shop in just to kill time. Mom, JoAnn, Amanda and Mallory were on their way back from the market and we passed in the street. We told them that we would be back in an hour.
Jay and I actually went into a mall. It was six stories high. Very strange shopping. I wanted to buy something (I can’t write what as it is a gift for Sami!) so the lady standing in that area took it from my hands and ushered me towards what looked like a fitting room. This was not an article of clothes so I don’t know what I was suppose to do in the fitting room but I just kept telling her I wanted to pay for the item. She finally took a receipt and wrote down the amount. Then you take the receipt to a cashier somewhere else in the store and pay; then return to the sales associate to get your purchase. It is really strange. Jay was in the toy department and just barely picked up a toy and the lady was there taking it out of his hand to write it up,
But back to the babies because that is what this is all about!!
We all met back at one of the rooms of one of the new parents and had a quick prayer, we thanked God for letting us be the lucky families to take these babies to a better life and each family could say something nice. It was very nice and calm until one of the single moms had to talk. She broke out in tears and the rest of the group broke out in tears! We all knew mascara was not something we should be wearing!
Then we boarded the bus. I don’t think a ride could ever have taken longer. I think it was about fifteen minutes but seemed like an hour. My stomach was in knots and my hands were shaking! We went up to fourteenth floor and got out in the hallway. There were other families from Spain leaving with their new daughters and we knew we were close! As soon as all the families were up the elevators we headed into this room. There were a bunch of men in sports jackets and two ladies standing around this group of babies. Some were standing, some were being held, some were walking around that is when we all figured out these were OUR babies! It was such a cluster from that point on. Michael kept saying we would be called one at a time to be handed the babies but the crowed was on top of the kids to the point it was a hectic commotion! They did call the names of each family and the director of the orphanage handed the babies to us one at a time. We got it all on video!
She is so small! I don’t think she has gained a pound since they did her medical back in August 2006. And the hair! She has so much hair! We are so in love! I have to brag- all the babies cried and cried when the moms took them; Ali didn’t do anything but smile and laugh! She is so wonderful! We were able to pass her around and around to all our family and she would look in the mirror and make faces at herself! We were all laughing at her.
Then we went into a room to get a “family” photo taken. This was to go on our legal documents so that they had Jay, Ali and I all on one photo so we can take her out of the country. Then we went and put our thumb prints on the document for which they gave us along with a gift of thanks to remember Chongqing. It was great!
Then we all got to talk to the nannies and ask questions about our daughters, we met the director of the orphanage and the assistant director. It was GREAT! They gave us an email address so that we can always send photos of Ali back to them while she grows!
After all this we headed out to the bus. We got the babies on the bus and then one family member went over to the McDonalds to get us some food. It tasted WONDERFUL!
We got back to the hotel and I stripped her naked and made Jay jump into the tub so that I could give her a bath and put her into clean clothes. She HATED the water, at first, but Jay was using her feet to make the water splash and all of a sudden this was a lot of fun! Then the hands, she kept trying to grab the water.
We fed her goldfish and Pepsi for her first official meal! She loves us!
She did cry around bedtime. She was tired and scared but she finally fell asleep. And yep she slept right between Jay and I –at first…then I ended on the other bed as she wanted to put her head on daddy and kick mommy…. But she was as happy as could be.
We woke up around 4 AM and started to play. She loves Cheerios, water from a cup, bananas and attention. She hates her bottle and that gross formula!
And she is SOOOO tiny!