Gotcha Day: September 13

As Angie had written, this is the day we got Qin Qin.   In international adoptions, this is considered Gotcha Day.  It is sort of like a birthday, a day to celebrate the child who has come into our lives.

We left our room at our appointed time to wait in the lobby. Once there, Veronica got a call to come out and meet the car. They had more children then people to assist with them. We walked out to the little car. I saw Qin Qin.

 As we got closer, I wondered if she would recognize us from our pictures. Veronica walks her up to us and asks if she knows who we are. She says Mommy and Daddy in english. The she proceeds to pull out her picture book and point out her sisters and us.

 We walked back into the hotel to have a meeting with the person who runs the orphange. She answered the questions she could answer. As they did this, Qin Qin started pulling out markers to draw. Michelle and her started stamping each others arms. We were asked to bring a water for our new daughter. Angie also had a water with kool aid. Of course, Qin Qin bypassed the water and went for the kool aid. 

After the meeting, we went up the the room and waited for a pizza from Pizza Hut. Once in the room, Qin Qin grabbed the remote turned on the TV and changed it to a Chinese Cartoon.  I found that interesting.  I did not think they had TVs in the orphanages.  Later she told us that she watched lots of TV.  She knew when things were coming on and what channel.

Pizza arrived and we sent someone to claim it.  In the room, we sat down to our meal.  Qin Qin ate it, but she later said it was too greasy. I think we would all agree with that.

Updates to follow

Today is the day after the trip home. After we get some rest, I plan to enter each day as I remember them. Wish we could have done so in China, but it was too complicated and we had lots of jealousy issues to deal with. The kids did manage to survive the trip. Qin Qin is adapting to her new surroundings. It will probably take time. When we return to Florida, she has some doctors to visit. We also took over 1000 pictures. Most turned out okay. We tried to send them to Snapfish, but it crashed.