Happy Gotcha Day! 8/24/2009

She's tiny...she's darling....and she's ours! To say today went better than expected is the understatement of the year! FuJiao greeted us by running into our arms and giving us both kisses (she was coached a little by her nanny of course) but talk about melting your heart!
There are 2 other families from Texas here at our hotel that are adopting. They brought in their children first. A nine year old girl who is deaf and she seemed pretty happy about it all. Then a 3 year old boy who is missing one leg from the knee down. He cried and cried starting when they entered the room, the poor little guy. Then in comes our girl all smiles, hugs and sweet as a bug. I think the other families were envious of our easy transition. We were amazed! Her favorite nanny came with and she (the nanny) was a little emotional knowing what is happening. It's great to know someone has loved FuJiao that much. We get to meet again tomorrow and talk with the orphanage director, finance director from the orphanage and the nanny. They brought the things we sent in the package and also a cd with pictures of FuJiao over the years. The room we were all in had to be the hottest room in all of China, but we weren't there long. We came back to our hotel and signed some papers and visited a little with our guide Hannah.

We were going to wait a day, but Hannah ask FuJiao if we could give her another name. Her response was "why?" Hannah told her it was because we spoke English and another name would be easier for us to say. She say "Alright." So as easy as that, we have a Sadie Jiao. We still call her FuJiao and hope to transition with her name slowly.

We went and ate and needless to say FuJiao is a little better than her parents with chopsticks. We walked to the park and and now are back playing in our room. Her nanny told us that FuJiao has been asking for over a year for parents and has been nothing but excited when she found out she was going to have a family. Her 2 good friends were adopted--one a year ago and one just last month. She talks to us some (I swear she knows some sign language as well), but the words she has said a million times today is Mama and Baba (mom and dad). There is no way everything will go as smoothly as it did today, but we are grateful for an amazing day we will always remember.