Gotcha Day!!

WOW! I have been working on this post for THREE days now. I am guessing that blogging is not going to be as frequent now that my days are filled to the max with five children. I know you all understand and I will blog as often as I can!

We arrived at our hotel (The Union Hotel) at 9p Sunday night. I was exhausted. Our first plane on Saturday morning was a puddle jumper from Indianapolis to DC. We flew into a thunder storm. Needless to say it was the worst turbulence I have EVER been in and I thought for sure we were going to die. Crazy I know, but because of that incident I wasn't able to sleep on the plane at all. If I felt just a little jolt I was wide awake. I have never prayed so hard in all my life!

Monday morning we got up, got ready and was downstairs at 7:30a. We were able to meet some of the other families in our travel group. There were six families in our travel group. All of them have other children and three out of the six were getting siblings. We sat down and ate breakfast. I basically picked at my food. My stomach was in knots and I had heartburn. I just couldn't wait to get my girls. Our orphanage director, Almaz, came to the hotel at 9:20a. She was suppose to be there at 9:00a, it was a very long 20 minutes. She goes over our paperwork for the US embassy appointment that afternoon. I am so thankful Monte was there because I couldn't focus.

Here we are going over our paperwork. Well I guess we are poising, but should be going over our paperwork.

Right around 10:30a we were ready to go. I couldn't believe I was actually on my way to get my girls. It didn't seem real. After 11 months of waiting and praying, the day was actually here. The orphanage is near the hotel. This is the cobblestone walkway that leads to the orphanage. It is up this hill and to the right.

Here is the gate to the orphanage! Our girls were just behind those doors...

We all walked in at the same time. Monte spotted Desalech first. She was on the potty! Hanna was getting up from the potty and washing her hands. We waited for them to be done. Desalech resisted us at first, but it only took a minute for her to go to Monte. Hanna was another story. This is the first picture we have of her.

She wanted nothing to do with us. She wouldn't even let us touch her. I figured that one of them would probably react this way, so it didn't hurt my feeling. I brought suckers and sunglasses to hopefully break the ice, but nothing worked with her. I tried to hold her, but she just cried. So I gave her back. I didn't want to traumatize her. Her special mother took her into the classroom and Almaz told us to spend one on one time with Desalech. Here is Monte with Desalech.

After about 10 minutes we took Desalech into the classroom to see Hanna. She was coloring and had her sunglasses on. We started taking pictures of her (they call it photo) and she slowly started to warm up.

Then she finally let us pick her up. As you can tell from this picture she still wasn't thrilled, but we felt like it was a HUGE success.

We had to leave them at the orphanage to get ready for the US embassy appointment. Monte and I were both concerned that neither girl would want to come to us when we returned. We were only gone 1/2 hour, but that is a long time for a toddler. When we got back to the orphanage to pick them up they both ran into our arms. Praise the LORD!!

The US embassy appointment was uneventful. We were the first family to go. The guy behind the window asked us a couple of questions, but was really nice. I wasn't expecting nice, so it was a great surprise!

We ate dinner at the hotel and then had some bonding time in our room. We were able to show the girls some of their clothes. They were SO excited. They absolutely LOVE clothes. It is so cute. I love having girls!!! They played very well that night and went to sleep easy. They slept almost 12 hours. Can you believe that? I was so excited. This Mama likes her sleep, so I was so happy!

Our honeymoon period only lasted till Wednesday, but that is a post for another time!