Gotcha Day!

Gotcha Day was just a whirlwind of emotions for most people. I do not like to express my emotions with crying, but for the parents on Gotcha Day, there was crying, and laughing, and joking. The whole thing was just very exciting.

On Tuesday morning we woke up extremely early. But it didn't matter because no one slept well anyways. We and the other 4 families in our group met in the lobby of our hotel in Beijing. At 5:30am we were picked up by a bus and we drove to the Beijing Airport. We took a flight from Beijing to Gaungxi - the province where Emmett lives. That flight was like none I have ever been on before (and trust me I have been on a lot).

To start off, during the plane ride, we were all extremely anxious and kept thinking about the next few hours. We soon saw that we were the only non-Asian people on the plane and felt quite excited to be in the minority. We were also the only Caucasians in the entire Nanning, Gaungxi airport. As we walked by, people would stare at us and then tap their friends. It was very interesting.

The plane ride was havoc. It was nothing like an American Flight. There were people yelling across the plane to their friends, children screeching, and people were walking when the seat belt sign was on. When we landed half of the plane's occupants were standing up before we had stopped moving at 100 mph. I couldn't help but laugh!

Once we reached Nanning we were met by our guide, Jane. Jane has been working with our adoption agency for 9 years. She is great. She led us to our bus that took us to our hotel in Nanning. By then we were all extremely nervous. We had about two hours of preparation before we would go get our children.

At 2:40 we met in the lobby and got in the bus. My mother was freaking out along with all the other soon-to-be mothers. She was feeling sick and nervous and excited all at once. My dad on the other hand was as calm as could be.

When we reached the building where we would receive our children, we went up to the fourth floor and in the hallway we briefly saw the kids. By then my mother was in tears. We went into a room and we could hear the children outside screaming. We were told that one of them was screaming "I don't want to go in there". That just broke every body's heart.

To begin, we heard a brief intro and then each child was called out and brought into the room. Qi Fu (Emmett) was the third one brought in. He ran in excitedly and we handed him a car. At first he seemed happy, but soon broke into tears. It was dreadful. All the children were crying; it was a mad house. Eventually Qi Fu stopped crying, but he kept on whimpering. On the ride home he just looked out the window and whimpered more.

But when we got back to the hotel and into our room, he was just a big ball of happiness. We colored with him and he just had a blast. He would take out a marker, draw with it, and then carefully place it back where it belonged. We have learned that he loves everything to be in its proper place.

Emmett is the most adorable little boy (I'm not biased). He has a happy personality, but I don't think he has sat still for longer than 10 seconds. He is also very smart. My mom picked up a phone and said "hello", and then 2 seconds later, he picked up the phone and said "hello". He has also learned to say "more" with sign language when he wants more food.

That little boy is just a big ball of energy and we all love him!