August 24-Gotcha Day!!--August 25, 2004

It has been such a blur these last few hours!! She is absouloutley
beautiful!! First, let me start with our Gotcha Day story!

Right after I sent my last e-mail to all of you, Claudio met me in
the business center and said we were leaving to go to the Peking
Duck restaraunt. We hadn't gone on the tour earlier because we had
to change our orphanage donation into yuan. So we left the hotel
around 12 and went to Peking Duck. We met up with the other couples
there and the food was great!! I didn't have much duck though
because they gave that to us last and we had already eaten so much!!
We were counting down the minutes in the restaraunt.. it went from
47 minutes.. then 32 minutes.. then 16 minutes and finally we left 8
minutes before 1:00 pm! We boarded the bus (which was wonderful
compared to the one we had ridden in the day before) with the other
4 couples. The other 4 couples in our group went to Kunming (in SW
China) and would recieve their daughters the next day. The busride
to the orphanage was supposed to take 40 minutes.. I don't remember
much because I was freaking out so bad! The orphanage is located in
the HaiDian district and the outskirts were not so nice to be in,
but the orphanage is beautiful! Once we got inside, we were led to
the reception room where we would do some paperwork and then meet
our daughters. The walls of the orphanage were brightly colored and
beautiful. This was such a nice place for Emma to live in. We
completed the required paperwork.. had to sign some things, present
a few things and have our fingerprints done. After we did this, the
orphanage gave us a photo album with a few pictures of Yun Na. There
were 2 from November (which is when our paperwork was sent to
China), one from March (taken on Ian's birthday) and another from
July. (and a few more when she was 6 months old) The picture from
July was just so precious. She was adorable!! Not 10 minutes after
the last couple did their paperwork, we started to hear some people
in the hallway and some squeaks!! Then all of a sudden they were
hear! Emma was the first one to come in and the nanny said "Xi Yun
Na" and I just knew it was her! I snapped a photo of Yun Na with her
nanny and then ran to get her!! Her nanny was holding her and
pointing to me saying "MaMa" and I gave her the doll that Kym and
Emma Li sent us! After a few long seconds, she handed her to me and
she began to scream!! I expected that but it still was hard. I think
she was scared because I was about to pass out from all of this!!
Major hotflashes during the paperwork!! But she was so gorgeous...
it didn't matter! The nanny gave her some candy and she liked that!!
The babies were in excellent condition.. right down to the little
details. They all had diapers on and Emma and her friend Lily had
squeaky shoes on.. all 5 babies had their hair done, and it was
gelled with a little Hello Kitty barette in their hair. Emma had a
pink flowered shirt and some pink pants on. She was still crying, so
we put her on the floor.. I was afraid she would run away from me!!
Sera got near her and just touched her and she cried again! So our
wonderful facilitator Liu picked her up and Emma liked that! She
must have held her for 15 minutes which was okay because Emma had no
clue who the heck I was! All of the girls were adorable. Their names
are Lily (2), Kelly (20 months), Esther (18 months) and Meili (15
months). They are also so tiny!! Kelly is only 2 months older than
Emma, but bigger than 2 year old Lily, who is just 4 months older
than her!! Esther and Emma are about the same size and little Meili
is a tiny gal!! Anyways, we gave our gifts to the orphanage.. I
thought we could hand them out to everyone, but we were told to just
leave them on the table, so thats what we did! We went outside to
the courtyard and Liu handed Emma back to me. She cried for a few
seconds and then was fine. She had candy in each hand! The courtyard
was beautiful. We could hear babies crying in the building next to
us. There was a pond (which was very dirty.. green water!) but it
had fish in it and there was a pathway around it with a bridge, so a
few of us walked our kids around their. We also went to the
playground, which was padded and Emma sat on the horsey. We were
glad to find out that she DID recieve her care package we had sent
to her, and the camera was used! Emma loved the photo album, but
wasn't too impressed with the hippo. We think she was given it since
we gave her the album and she loved it, and the hippo had stains on
it! We got directions from the orphanage about their schedule. She
wakes up around 6 am, takes a bottle, then plays.. eats at 12, goes
down for a nap and has a snack around 2 pm, eats dinner around 6 pm
and goes to bed around 8 pm. She is still on a bottle and likes her
milk warm! (We found that out after we all gave the girls cold stuff
and they didn't like it!) We boarded back on the bus and went to a
store to get some strollers. We payed about $23 (US) dollars for our
stroller and all of the girls have matching strollers.. too cute!
After the store, we went back to the hotel and she began to warm up
to us. She wasn't too sure of Claudio, but had let Sera hold her.
which she was loving!! Sera couldn't (and still can't) leave the
room without her crying! We gave her a bath and checked her out. She
does have eczema on her legs and arms, and also lots of bug bites.
We have been putting hydrocortisone cream on her, so hopefully that
will help. So far she looks great! At dinner later that night she
was laughing and showing her personality. We also discovered that
she LOVES to eat! She will eat anything.. bananas, eggs, french
fries.. anything! She is so wonderful..
Of course that was yesterday and today she has been GREAT!! She went
to bed around 8 pm last night.. when she sleeps, she puts those
fingers in her mouth (no pacifier needed here) and is out like a
light! She woke up around quarter to 6 this morning and Sera brought
her into our room.. she was a bit startled.. I think she forgot that
we were still here, so for awhile she just looked around and didn't
say much.. but then she was fine!! For clothes, we are finding that
she wears 6-9 months okay.. a little short. 12 months are a bit big.
She is so tiny. This morning, Emma with a soggy diaper, sippy cup,
stacking cup and her pajama shirt on weighed 7 1/2- 8 kilograms.. so
about 17-18 pounds. She ate a great breakfats this morning and has
been laughing all day! Today we went to the Civil Affairs Office and
did some paperwork, had our picture taken and were asked why did we
want her.. and all that sort of stuff. It wasn't as hard as I
expected it to be. After the Civil Affairs, we grabbed lunch real
fast and went to the Notary office.. did some more paperwork and
then went to get her passport picture taken. It was a long day but
she did fine. She is laughing so much and is just precious!! All of
the girls are starting to come through more. We were split up today,
so we were with Lily and Kelly and thier parents. Lily got bit by
something so she was starting to run a fever and be sick. Some
tylenol cured that and she was up and smiling again! Kelly is a huge
girl!! But she is so beautiful. She likes her mommy and not her
daddy.. and she loves to walk everywhere. She is much more quieter
and takes everything in. Emma's paperwork stated that she was "shy,
quiet and introverted" well this is totally wrong!! She is so happy
and lovely. She goes to complete strangers and loves her daddy and
our guide Bruce! We are so in love with this little girl and cannot
wait to show her off to you guys. We are having such a difficult
time with photos, so I'll think of something.. photos are on their
way!! Thank you for all of your prayers and encouraging e-mails. I
haven't responded to them, but thank you for sending them. I
expectected the worst with Emma, but we got the best!! Wait till you
see her, she has a smile that will brighten your day. She is so much
like Sera it is scary. When Sera was 18 months old, I already have
Elena, so it's fun being able to relive Sera when she was this age!!




Nancy, Claudio, Sera and Emma