Hello!!! I thought we would
start out today's journal with a little BEFORE GOTCHA DAY
info. It has been an exciting day so far!!! We woke up
early, had our breakfast, checked out of the hotel and
boarded our "coach" for the HK airport. It seemed like it
took FOREVER to get there and it did as the driver was
driving so slowly!!! The excitement and buzz on the bus
was intoxicating!!! 11 families all anxious to meet their
babies today!!! We all had a great time hanging out until
the flight and took several wonderful group pictures. The
flight was uneventful. We ended up sitting next to an old
Chinese lady. She was already in her seat when we boarded
and she didn't want to get up so we had to do some
acrobatics to get over her. She had beads in her hand and
once I sat down I noticed that she was methodically
rubbing them. They were jade beads and she was rubbing
them for good luck and safety on the flight. Flying is
not my favorite activity so whenever I get on a place I
start praying. I was happy to see her rubbing and
murmuring with her eyes closed. I figured she was praying
to HER God and I was praying to MY God so with both of us
we had all the bases covered!!! She continued to do that
throughout the flight!!! Brandon and I didn't talk about
it but we were hoping she didn't know something that we
didn't know!!! We landed in Nanchang and boarded another
bus bound for the Jiangxi Hotel. I gotta say how much we
absolutely LOVE our CCAI Rep James Jin. I should actually
go back a bit and say how wonderful EVERY CCAI Rep has
been since we stepped into Hong Kong and China!!! CCAI IS
AWESOME and I would absolutely recommend them to ANYONE
wanting to adopt from China.
Here we are now at the Jiangxi
Hotel in downtown Nanchang. It is an immaculate 5 star
hotel. We are absolutely impressed and awed. James told
all of us that we will have a meeting at 3:30pm and the
babies are scheduled to COME HERE at 6:30pm!!! We
originally thought that we would be going to the Civil
Affairs Office to get the babies however they have decided
to bring them here!!! The excitement is overwhelming!!!
It is 2:45pm China Time now so we are trying to relax a
bit. It was such a moment to walk into our hotel room and
see a stroller AND crib already in here!!! THIS IS REAL
NOW!!! So, I will close this part now. We have been
thinking all day of the trip that Kiah must be taking
right now to get to us. We have thought of her for over a
year and she does not have any idea what is going on. At
6:30pm she will finally be placed in our arms. She will
be ours and we will be hers forever. I'm tearing up on
myself now!!!
Please pray for her and for
us!!! Talk with you all AFTER 6:30pm!!!
GOTCHA DAY!!!
Well, Gotcha Day was
wonderful!!! We are so exhausted and just got back to the
room at around 9:30pm!!! It was wonderful watching 11
families receive their babies today. God was definitely
in the room today!!! The 4 Yingtan babies were the late
comers arriving at 6:45pm. Once all of the babies
arrived, our CCAI Rep James Jin had all the babies line up
in the hallway. One by one he called all of the family's
names. We were the last one to receive our baby however
we saw Kiah in the hallway the whole time. She was
happily playing in her caretakers arms. When they called
our names we went up and I took Kiah out of the
caregiver's arms. She didn't like that and started to
whimper a little bit. She then saw Brandon and was like
GLUE to him. I was so happy about that. I was so afraid
that she was going to reject him because she hadn't seen
any males before. She didn't!!! Right now she definitely
favors him over me however it has only been a couple of
hours. We had her back in our room for about 1 hour and
then we had to do some adoption paperwork. We were busy
doing that from 8 - 9:30pm. This included an interview
and signing our name and giving our fingerprints to
multiple documents. We are finally back in our room and
we are WIPED out. We have given Kiah a bottle and Brandon
is rocking her to sleep as I am writing this. It was a
wonderful emotional overwhelming day. Check out our
pictures!!! We will post more tomorrow!!!
Jacob and Katelyn, we miss you
very much and we can't wait for you to meet baby sister.
LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND
BACK!!!
Love from Nanchang,
-Nicole, Brandon and Kiah
Faith Mackenzie!!!
