How do you describe the day that your child gives up a life of being an orphan and becomes part of your family?I have loved her from the first moment I saw her picture. She wasn’t smiling and wasn’t making eye contact with the photographer. She looked lost, scared. Today I know this expression of hers. It is her “I am overwhelmed” face. She gets the blank stare and doesn’t make eye contact when she doesn’t know what else to do.. when she is overwhelmed by the situation and doesn’t know how to respond. It is a face that breaks my heart.This overwhelmed face is different from her uncomfortable face. She has lived a life of being alone, caregivers and friends coming and going. When you attempt to show her love and affection she doesn’t know what to do. It is awkward for her. The feelings she has are foreign to her and she doesn’t know how to process that mama and papa want to love her. The simple act of giving her a hug causes her to shriek and squirm. An observer might think she is being 4, but I know that she’s uncomfortable with the contact, with someone else initiating touch. She will run up to us and climb on us and sit on our laps all day long, but in those instances SHE, not US initiates the contact and can leave it when she’s had enough. If you try to hold her she gets uncomfortable and displays behaviors that are meant to get away.Both the overwhelmed and uncomfortable actions are what he and I are trying to help her process. She has to learn that we are safe people, that we will meet all her needs, that we will love her even when she messes up. The first step in that is one of the happiest days of our life and the most terrifying of hers. It is called Gotcha Day in the adoption circles. It’s the day we get her and take her away from her life as an orphan. The day we claim her in front of the world as our daughter. She has been ours since the judge said da on 8/31, but today almost 7 weeks later, we get to prove it.

We started the day at 9:40am and went straight to the orphanage. Vita told me to bring Sweet Girl’s clothes and coat.  Once there, He, Vita and the director went out for some business. I was to stay and play with Sweet Girl and change her into her new clothes. She was very unhappy that I wanted to put new clothes on her, but we managed. She looked absolutely adorable!

While changing her, I noticed the cold hard truth that the numbers only eluded to. Our sweet precious girl is the height of an average 4 year old but weighs only 30#. She is very very skinny and her bones protrude from her back, knees and elbows. It’s not purposeful malnutrition, it’s a sweet orphanage director only having limited resources and lots of children to feed. She does so so much with what she has. She has done a fabulous job advocating for these children and exposing them to many different things, but no matter how fabulous it is, it’s still an orphanage. It’s still a building where little children go to bed hungry because there just isn’t enough to go around.

We sat and played while we waited for the gang to get back from their errands. They returned pretty quickly and said that they were only halfway successful. We had to decide whether we would go to the other part of the region 1.5 hours away to finish some business or not. The business was optional, but I have fought in this region for what it represented. I was afraid to decline the invitation to go, lest it negatively affect the families after me. He and gang went back out to pick up the passport and go to the adoption center and left Sweet Girl and I to play again. They arrived back at about 1:00 and we left Sweet Girl at the orphanage to rest. Our trip was supposed to take about 3 hours. This would put us back and leaving the orphanage around 5 to make it to the capital around 8.

Of course as it always goes in this country, someone at the orphanage saw we had a driver and asked for a ride somewhere first. By the time we got out of town it was 1:30. We are booking it along rally car style (this is the same town he went to on trip 3 that he had to race to and from) and the GPS shows we are 30 minutes away and then it happens. We had slowed down to go through a little “settlement” but still took a bump too fast. We came down and “pop”, the tire blew. Ilya had it changed and us back on the road within 15 minutes. The whole time I’m doing math in my head about what time the subsequent events would happen. We took care of our business and got back on the road. It was 4:00. We hit town at 5:30 and still had to go to the notary, the adoption center, pick up our luggage from the hotel, stop and buy a gift for the orphanage director who had stayed late to wait for us (ironic that we made her stay later by stopping to buy her a gift) and then finally, at 6:30, we got to the orphanage. It was the night crew for sure, but Sweet Girl sat in her clothes and coat and looked very scared waiting for us. We collected her and the director (remember, we had a driver!) and took the orphanage director home. The entire time, Sweet Girl did extremely well. She for sure had her overwhelmed face on, but she was hanging in there. To add to the stops, Ilya decided he wanted to stop and grab another spare tire just in case. Good idea, but by the time we got on the road for the capital it was 7:30. Sweet Girl slept most of the ride thank goodness.

We got to our apartment in the capital about 10:30 and by the time we were up and settled it was close to 11:30. We had one small breakdown when Vita said goodbye and we walked into the apartment alone. I think it was a combination of fear, darkness, tiredness and the emotions of the day all coming together. Since then, Sweet Girl has been doing AMAZING. She just talks and talks and talks to us and acts like this is no big thing.

So.. now, here’s the pics! We are dying for lunch, but I know so many of you are dying for this post, so forgive the lack of captions right now!