Eva Day!

Woke up at 4:00am with labor pains...just like being pregnant although you have planned for the event 9 months, in our case 4 years, the minute those contractions hit reality sets in and all the excitement you've been experiencing up until now is replaced with nervousness, anxiety and a fear of the unknown. It isn't until the baby is born and you have counted all the fingers and toes that the excitement returns. Of course, now you scrutinize every move they make and wonder if it's normal or not...well, such is the same on Gotcha Day!

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We met our guide and driver after breakfast in the foyer of the hotel at 9:20am. It was a short 20 minute drive to the Civil Affairs office. It was another 40 minutes before Eva arrived. I was a ball of nerves and so anxious, the boys kept asking when was she going to get there, David and Dawn kept filming and taking pictures of every car that drove up just in case it was her. There were two other families there each adopting a boy from different orphanages. We were able to watch when the first boy arrived, met by his parents & 4 sisters all adopted from China. As we were watching, Fred comes up to us and says here they come. We all run to look out of the window and see a lady carrying a very small child with her under the umbrella walking into the building. We knew it is Eva.

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The caregiver hands her to me and Eva never cries. She sat on my lap looking around, following Noah & Nicholas as they moved around her. It's hard to explain this part of the process. You want to just sit and soak in your new child, but around you are the guide and 2 caregivers all talking Chinese loudly and trying to provide you with 2 years of her life in a matter of minutes. The just of what I got is that she likes to eat! Fortunately Dawn had made a book that included questions we wanted to ask and almost every answer included food.

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As I'm sitting holding her, I notice one of the ladies pull out a tote bag and she starts pulling things out of it. She hands me a photo album that takes me a minute to recognize as the one we sent her in the 1st care package back in March. I had always wondered if she had received it and it was so great to know that she had. They brought it all back including the toy phone that they said she loves to play with. Then, as if that wasn't enough, they pull out a journal that includes entries and photos of Eva's life since Oct. 30, 2009! What an amazing gift! This is truly a treasured item!!

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After completeing some paperwork and photos, we left the office and returned to the hotel. Eva fell asleep on my lap in the car, but quickly awoke when we arrived back at the hotel. The boys quickly surrounded her with toys on the bed and Noah was eager to read to her. She loves playing with the stacking cups and the magna-doodle. She is extremely quiet (a novelty in our household) and can entertain herself. She does interact with us by passing cups back and forth, but take one away and she can scream with the best of them!

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She is very small, we weighed her and she's only about 16 pounds. She is 29 inches long. The outfit we changed her into for lunch, a gift from "Aunt" Dawn, is a 12-18 month and is a little big. Twelve month fits her perfectly and 18 month leaves room to grow. The shoes she wore were a 2 but she'll soon need a 3.

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We went down to the restaurant in the hotel, it's still raining out, and she proved her love of food there! She ate fried rice, corn, carrots, watermelon, cantelope and orange juice. On our way back to the room, I put her down and she walked, holding our fingers, all the way back. She looks like a little weeble-wooble, too cute!

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With all the food in her tummy and the long trip this morning she was ready for a nap! We woke her up after 3 hours. At first when she woke she was as stiff as a board and would not do anything for Dawn and I, but the minute David and the boys walked back in the room she became very animated. She spent the rest of the evening playing. She loves music and liked for us to sing while she tapped the cups with the pen of the magna-doodle. After a bowl of noodles for dinner she was off to bed.

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It has truly been a day filled with God's blessings. It is amazing to walk through a day fully aware that everything happening was at exactly the time God had planned. We are truly blessed and our family is complete! God is so Good!!