International Adoption Stories

The China Adoption of Sabrina Rose.

Our Trip to China!

August 16 - Gotcha Day!!
We've got Sabrina!! She is sleeping now. Poor little thing is tuckered out. She screamed hysterically for the first half an hour, but then warmed up to me, and a little later warmed up to Brian. She seems to be a pistol. She kept throwing toys when Brian would try to warm to her before she was ready. It was funny. She iv> is just beautiful, but she does have some scabs on her nose and under her eye. Apparently, she fell yesterday when playing. Figures, doesn't it? Well, she is just beautiful anyway. She walks a little bit, but unsteadily. Hence, the cuts. I am running out of photo space, so I don't think I will be posting all of my pictures like the last few days. Instead, I think I'll just post a few. You can get to the pictures from today by going HERE. I'm beat from the day, so this is it for now. I will post more about the actual 'gotcha' moment when I recover! ~Jenna

Gotcha Day Addendum
Well everyone. It's now several days after gotcha and I am coming back to write a little more about the actual gotcha day and moment. On the morning of August 16th, we all ate breakfast in the hotel and all felt like we were going to throw up! We left the hotel at 9:30 AM to drive to the civil affairs office which was where we were to meet our babies. The drive was about a 15 minute drive. It was the longest 15 minutes of my life. When we got to the Civil Affairs Office, we went up to the 5th floor. As we were led to the room where we would meet the babies, we walked by another room that had two little girls playing in it. We wondered if those girls belonged to anyone in our group. We sat in the room for a few minutes and then a lady came in and told us we had to fill out some paperwork. Were they kidding? How on Earth were we to fill out paperwork NOW? Well, we managed to sign whatever they put in front of us without even reading it. By that time, we could hear the babies crying in the other room. As we were waiting, one of the girls that was in the room we first passed came in and looked in the door. One family recognized her as their daughter. They were adopting a girl who was almost 4 years old. They recognized the socks that she was wearing! They got to smile and play peek a boo with her before being formally introduced. The first ones to meet their babies were the ones from the other orphanage, and there were only two families. I taped them getting their girls and then the next thing I knew, I heard "Qi Chun, Jia Ling"? And it was our turn! I dropped my video camera, but thankfully my friend Lisa was thinking clearer and captured the moment for us. They handed me Sabrina, and the first thing I thought was "who the heck is this?" She didn't look like her pictures immediately at least. Now, after having her for a few days, I am wondering how I missed it. But at the time, I thought this was the wrong kid! It didn't help that she was screaming hysterically, arching her back, and had 2 scabs on her nose and one on her eye. A little later I found out that she had fallen a few days before and had scraped her nose and eye. Later, her knee was also found to be pretty scraped up. About 10 minutes after they handed her to us, I had her somewhat calmed by cheerios. She didn't even want to look at Brian...she seemed frightened by him. (Boy, that's changed!). All of the babies were handed out within 2 minutes.....it was VERY fast, and then it was VERY loud with all the babies screaming. It was quite chaotic. I'm glad we have it on tape, because I'm not sure I remember it all as it happened. All told, about 45 minutes after our first meeting she was calm and not crying. She slept A LOT that first day, and was fairly depressed the next several days, as you can read in my subsequent posts. But as of this writing (I've gone back a few days, it's now August 20) she is doing great and we are getting to see more of her personality every day. It's just an amazing experience. (more...)

 

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