Gotcha Day 2005. The day we get to see and hold our daughter

Gotcha Day is the special day where the parents are united with the child they have been waiting for. It is sort of like a birthday.  Some families celebrate it.  It gives a solid date to go by.  Birthdays are not always accurate.  When children are abandoned, the orphanages have to estimate the day of birth.  That is unless the parent leaves a note stating that information.

Once we flew into Jaingxi, we were brought to our hotel to check in.  Then we were advised to meet in the lobby to be brought to the office of the Social Welfare building.  This is where the children were being brought to.  The trip for the children was 2 hours away in a more rural part of Jaingxi.  We were in the city.

Before going to China, we looked up other Gotcha Days on the Internet.  It was a festive day where parents were brought into a room.  One by one workers would bring in each child as they called the parents name and they were joyfully united.  It warmed the heart with the upcoming anticipation of what we were preparing for.

In the lobby, the nervous parents gathered.  We got on our bus ready to take the trek to the office.  Everyone was nervous.  I know we were wondering how our daughter would accept us.  Outside the bus, it was foggy with a chill in the air.

At our destination, we shuffled out of the bus into the building.  Our guide went ahead to see where we were to go.  Coming back from the office, she corralled us towards a big meeting room.  The room was similar to the one's we saw on the Internet.  Inside the building was another group.  This was strange.  Were we going to be doing a joint Gotcha Day?  I don't think anyone cared.

Our guide saw the other group and went back to the main office.  Next thing we know, the children were coming out of the room and we were shuffled into a small hallway.  A man passed by holding a baby that looked similar to our child.  We smiled at the man and asked, "is this Wen Hua?"  He looked at us and smiled, but did not say a word as he went to the other end of the hall.

Next thing you know, they start calling out parents names.  At this point, we were all crowded in a small hallway.  The babies were scared and crying.  Our names were called.  I grabbed the camera and Angie went up to receive our daughter.  Then, the crying began.  We walked off to the side to look at our daughter.

As we started to remove some of her clothes, we discovered that her diaper was not really on her.  She had gone to the bathroom.  The smell of urine was strong.  We changed her diaper and got her situated.  She was still whimpering.  Then they informed us that the children had not eaten.  My wife mixed up the formula and gave it to our daughter.  She took one sip, pushed it away and started crying.

We got our guides attention.  She felt the bottle and said that it was not hot enough.  We had felt it was warm and did not want to burn her mouth.  She liked her formula near scalding.  After warming it up, she drank it quickly.  Then, she was content.