She's Here!!

(Originally posted 1-6-2004)

Right after I posted the last message our facilitator, Echo, called and said the babies were on the way, probably about 10 min from the hotel now. So of course all 5 families dashed down to the lobby, video cameras in hand. We had been there for about a minute when Mitch saw a van loaded with people, and then he noticed they also had babies with them! The video tape started rolling (as did the tears).

I was pretty sure the very first baby in the door was Abby, but it was hard to tell, plus we hadn't seen the other girls yet. We taped them getting into the elevator, and then followed them up in a separate elevator car. Once we got to our floor where the girls were spread out on a big playmat that the hotel provided, I was sure that the baby I thought was Abby was indeed Abby ... and sure enough, I was right. It was kind of chaos and everyone taping and trying to figure out who was who, and before I knew it they had put little Guo Kui Yan into Mitch's arms ... and she was NOT happy! HA! She cried on and off for the first hour to hour and a half, but now Mitch has her doing belly laughs at his antics. If you know Mitch, you are probably not surprised!

She's scooting around in her crib now, thinking about taking a nap but not certain she wants to. They said the girls only had short naps today due to the time they left to come here.

We met with the orphanage staff and one of her caretakers and had our pics taken with them. At that time Abby was not very happy with us, so we did not stay long or ask very many questions. She was in 3 layers of clothes ... a snowsuit, a two piece heavy sweater and lightweight shirt and split pants, so I just really wanted to get her back to the room and peel off those layers so she would cool down. We're having some problems with the electrical plug in the room here, so I'm going to post a couple pics quickly before it dies, then we'll solve our outlet problem. But for now, we are very excited and will have lots more pics and things to share!

TJ and Drew ... you have a sister now! :-)