Gotcha Day!

First things first, I have to give a shout out to my baby brother... Happy Birthday Uncle Steve!

Now for the goods...

We left Beijing early this morning and flew on a very bumpy ride to Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. We got to our hotel about 2 PM and were told that we had 2 hours to unpack and then we needed to be in a conference room at 4 where we would meet the babies. I kicked in the turbo and started unpacking. I was in the middle of unpacking when Doug, who was standing by the window said, "Come here. You're gonna want to see this." Eight stories below us we got our first glimpse of Maddie. He just happended to be looking out the window to take a picture of the view from our room and saw a van full of babies pull in. Sure enough, Maddie was among them. She is the one in blue below - the one furthest to the right. Even from the 8th floor I thought that outfit looked amazingly familiar and I was right - it is the frog snowsuit she was wearing in her most recent photos we had received.

Less than 15 minutes later, at 3:15, Kathryn, our guide called and said, "Come to the conference room now. Your baby is here. Thankfully I had packed the diaper bag so off we went. When we walked into the room, there were 6-8 babies (can't remember exactly). Some of the nannies were standing and others sitting, holding beautiful babies. We walked by Kya and recognized her immediately. However, Maddie looks a LOT like two other babies that are here so we had to check the names on three babies before we found her. She is positively gorgeous.

When the nanny first handed her over to me, she was just very curious - checking us out very closely. It all happened so fast and it was completely unceremonious - a far cry from every scenario I have played out in my head for the past four years. However, I wouldn't trade it for the world. The moment she was placed in my arms, my world felt complete.

She inspected both Doug and me, then reached for Doug so he took her.

She was content with Doug for a minute or two, and he was just beaming with pride. All was going very well then things took a turn, and it was NOT a quiet turn!

The second Madeline started whimpering, Doug handed her back to me with a deer in headlights look. And then the shrieking started. This child has a set of lungs on her that won't quit. (Mom says she sounds like a Graber baby.)

Madeline's diaper was wet so we changed that, thinking that might quiet her down, but nothing seemed to console her. She was just so terrified - her little heart was just pounding and the shrieking and crying did not cease. So we went back to our room to try to console her.

The first thing we did was to peel off the layers to see the baby underneath. She was wearing 4 layers - two of them were thick snowsuit typeoutfits. The top layer was the snow suit she wore in her most recently updated photo. Notice the band of elastic on top of the pile. This is a binding cord - used to hold up her diaper! I have no idea why. And yes, this whole stack of clothes was on one teeny 8 month old child.

Shawn, Kris, Kya, and Kaycee - Kya is also very beautiful. Poor baby, she is very congested and sick. Please pray for good health for both Kya and Maddie.

After we returned to the room, Madeline kept crying, shrieking, and was just so very distraught and terrified. We did everything we could think of to make her happy but absolutely nothing worked.

At one point, there were 4 of us in the room in tears and feeling helpless beyond all imagination. Thank God my Mom came on the trip with us. Today, she was such a HUGE help -running bath water, fixing bottles, running for this, and reaching for that while Doug finished up our day's paperwork and I continued to try to console our terrified daughter.

Finally, after about 2 1/2 hours of pure shrieking, she wore herself out and fell asleep on my chest. She slept for about 25 minutes and when she awoke, while she was still scared, it was more of a whimper and that eventually led to being OK for short periods of time. Those OK moments started to happen more often and last longer.

She loves playing "get your piggies" with Daddy. You probably can't tell from this picture, but Doug is one proud Daddy. I fell in love with him all over again - more than ever, just watching him play with our daughter and coax the first smile and giggle out of her.

The more she warmed up, the more she jabbered "baba, baba" which means daddy in Chinese. For the life of me, I cannot get the little bugger to say mama! But, that's OK... all in good time.

Maddie's dexterity is not nearly as developed as most 8-month olds. The many months of being incapacitated in her Michelan Man costume have hampered her coordination. She does this really crazy thing with her fingers - crosses them.

After taking a bottle, she settled down for a short nap. This feeling - the feeling that washed over me while holding our daughter while she was falling asleep - the love, the undescribable feeling of completeness and harmony - I want to hold onto it forever. Simply amazing. Thank you God for answering our every prayer and for keeping her safe and sound until we could get here.

As I write this, our little angel is fast asleep. She is so very precious. We know that the next few days, and maybe even weeks, are going to be extremely difficult as we all deal with grieving Madelines many losses in her young life. Before Doug went to bed, we were talking about her first smile - the first glimpse of what is to come - that one smile made the rest of the day pale in comparison and made all the tough times so beyond "worth it".

Please continue to pray for us as we deal with this transition. Much love, Doug &Beth, and Baby Maddie