Gotcha Day

The whole day was an absolute dream. We woke up at 2:30 AM or so which is kind of the tradition here since that first night in Beijing, that now feels like a different lifetime ago. My Mom was in the room next door taking a bath, I was journal writing and all of us wide awake. Luckily we all fell back asleep around 4 and slept til 7:00. Breakfast was wonderful, not just for the amazing western bacon, eggs and local fruit piled high everywhere, but for the fact that every 5 minutes or so another family arrived with their precious newly adopted, beautiful boy or girl. It was hard to focus on eating. After breakfast mom and I went to the steam room for 20 minutes or so to sweat out all we've been stewing in with the smog here. It was amazing!! We got out and almost immediately when I arrived back to the room it was time to leave for the bank. Andy and I were both relieved to exchange our giant wad of hundreds for a wad about 6 times thicker in local RMB and be one step closer to having it not be our responsibility very soon. The bank trip for the exchange of money took quite a lot longer than expected. We came back to the room to straighten up and shower. I packed up Effie's backpack, all the camera capable devices, snacks, diapers, etc. and it was time to go. The drive over was surreal. Almost instantly without my knowledge, we were in an elevator, I heard a few babies crying as the doors opened, and there it was, the scenery of nearly every clip of adoption porn I'd ever laid eyes on. The red sectional couches with black and white polka dot pillows. The little multicolored frog curtain dividing up the play room and the room. I knew right away where she was. Andy peered thru the curtain and motioned to me to have a look. There, right behind the curtain perched on a RED sofa was our little dolly. She looked right at us, smiled, gave a little wave as if on cue. I bawled. And then, I turned it off. I'm not sure how, but the rest of that perfect day is lost in the emotion of finding that which once was lost! She is with us now. God has blessed us and changed our lives.