To Gotcha in a Ferrari

Yep, that was our ride to and from Luke's  gotcha. A Ferrari. I truly can't tell you much about it other than this. It got me to where I desperately wanted to go and brought me away from that place with my precious son. 

On to the important stuff. Luke's family day. Kaila and I spent a good chunk of the morning walking a few miles in the area around our hotel. It was a great distraction and helped us pass the time.

The river. Murky green water. Beautiful buildings.

A market we stumbled upon. Might have been a tad too much culture for Kaila. I loved it! It reminded me of the mercados I went to as a girl and teen in Mexico.

We came back to the hotel quite hot and near drenched in sweat. We got cleaned up, ate lunch, facetimed with everyone back home, packed Luke's diaper bag, etc. We met our guide to exchange our money into Yuen for the orphanage donation, notary fees, and registration costs. 

And then it was finally time to go! Insert the above mentioned Ferrari driven by a kind Mr. Pen. We were one of only two families adopting from Jiangsu province this week which made for a quiet and relaxed environment compared to Daniel's last year in Guangdong.

We filled out some papers and waited no more than ten minutes before the orphanage director and staff member walked in with Luke. (There is a video on my FB account). 

Unlike big brother Daniel's gotcha moment which was filled with so much fear and crying, Luke did not and has not shed a single tear. He has looked scared and had a brief bottom lip quiver, but that's it. The expert adoption literature tells us this likely means we have some attachment work ahead of us. On it, sweet guy! 

His pictures don't do him justice people! He is perfect! He is long and quite skinny. I guessed him to be about 15 pounds (Back at the hotel we weighed and he is 8 kilos so fairly close to my guess). 

We got back to the hotel and immediately facetimed Chad. It took two tries for him to answer, it was 2am in CA after all. We chatted for a few minutes and showed Luke who his Baba is. No joke two minutes after we hung up from facetiming Luke started saying dada over and over again. This little boy is smart!

We have some work ahead of us. Sweet little man is fairly weak and has quite poor muscle tone. He cannot sit up alone (yet!). He army crawls by pulling with his little hand. He cannot get up on his legs to crawl. His legs are so very thin and have little muscle. His right arm is his strongest limb and he loves to grasp on tight to a toy. He is super smart, I can already tell. 

Sweet boy, we gotcha now, we are on our way. Whatever it takes, we are yours! 

Happy Birthday Chad!!