Day 3 - GOTCHA DAY!

Gotcha Day was finally upon us. The day we had waited years for! The day we would meet our first child face to face. The day we had spent the last 13 months waiting for! It was so hard to wait and keep the faith that the day would come that our son would actually be in our arms. For all you battling through the adoption process - the day does come. There is a light at the end of the tunnel even if it is years away - if you continue to plug along through the continuous difficult days and keep the faith and listen to God, the day finally arrives where you are united forever with your child! It is incredible!!!

Gotcha Day:


We woke up at about 2:30 in the morning. It was really annoying but we just could not get back to sleep. Especially considering we had several more hours before Almaz would arrive to take us to our kids. We tried to go back to sleep around 4:40 but didn’t have any luck with that. So we got up around 6:00 and headed downstairs for breakfast. Peter was supposed to go with Johannes at 8:00 to get our luggage. I haven’t been feeling that great so I was going to stay back and get some rest before our appointment with Almaz at 1:30.

At about 8:20 we got a call from Johannes and he said our luggage didn’t arrive and that we would have to check again the next night. This was very frustrating as we were still waiting on out toiletries and were not looking that great. I gave in and called a family in our travel group. They had all been offering to loan us some stuff. I asked if we could borrow some toothpaste and shampoo. They came through for us and before I knew it I was off for the showers. The only thing I was still missing was deodorant. I was extremely frustrated to have to wait another day to have my stuff but nothing could ruin this day!

Around this time Johannes called and said that our luggage actually had arrived and that they were going to come over and get Peter and take him to get the luggage. So while I showered, Peter went back to the airport with Wass. Peter said he had a great time with Wass. Wass speaks good English. An interesting tidbit about the airport is that they require you to pay 3 birr (about 21 cents) in order to enter the airport. Peter asked Wass why that was, and he explained that if they didn’t charge, the homeless would just hang out there. On the way back, Peter said Wass took him around the city and showed him some stuff. Peter said he is extremely impressed with the beauty of the scenery around here. During the trip, Peter asked Wass if he knew who Segni was and Wass said “Oh yes, I know him very well, he got fat!” I got a huge kick out of this when Peter told me that. I was very excited to see just how chubby my baby really was!

When Peter got back we unpacked the tubs. I was so pleased to see that my deodorant had in fact been packed, just not in my carry on. I finally felt human again and all cleaned up! I was relieved to finally have all of Malachi’s stuff here and ready for him. While we were willing to borrow stuff from our friends,(and our friends were more than willing) it is much easier to have our stuff here.

By the time we got unpacked we had about 1 ½ hours left before Almaz was coming to the hotel. We just sat around and got things all ready for Malachi’s arrival back at the hotel. We also packed up the camera’s and made sure all the documents we would be going over were properly filled out. By this time we were both feeling pretty tired as we had been up since 2:30 in the morning. We knew the adrenaline would kick in soon.

Finally 1:30 came and it was time to head down to the lobby to meet Almaz. We were both excited and very nervous. It was time to meet our son! When Almaz arrived it was seriously like meeting the biggest celebrity in the world :) You hear so many amazing stories about this woman and she lives up to all of them. She is very beautiful, she works so incredibly hard for all the kids, she is very businesslike and yet has a great sense of humor. There is something special about her and she is like a magnet - you just want to be close to her and spend time with her. First she took us down into the conference room of the hotel. It was very clear from the beginning that she is an amazing woman! She runs a tight ship, but loves and works so hard for every child that comes through the doors of Hannah’s Hope. First we went through all of our paperwork for the Embassy appointment and she told us what we could expect to take place at the Embassy. Afterwards we gave her all the money to exchange for birr for the shopping trip and ordered our coffee. We then talked a little about the week ahead and what every day would look like. We were very anxious to get to Hannah’s Hope, but families kept asking her questions. We tried our hardest to wait patiently and finally it was time!

But first Almaz bought us all bottled water. We thought we were doing good to get 1.5 liter jugs for 2 US dollars. Almaz brought each of us huge cases (enough water for us to drink the entire rest of the week and make bottles with) for about 8 US dollars so I guess we weren’t getting such a good deal. We took the water back to our room and brought down the donation tubs. We then headed off to Hannah’s Hope. I really didn’t know what to think, but the horses standing in the middle of the freeway distracted me. Finally we turned onto a very bumpy dirt road between some houses and I knew were close. It still just didn't seem real. Malachi had no clue that he was moments away from his life changing forever. How would he react? Hannah’s Hope really is only about 5 minutes from the hotel. We arrived at the gates and it was surreal to know that my son was just inside those doors.

We pulled in and Almaz asked us all to step back and wait and give the family that was adopting the 5 and 7 year old girls time to meet their little ones. We all stood back and gave them time. It was wonderful to observe their Gotcha moment.




Soon after that, Almaz called for Segni’s parents to follow a special mother into the house. I was surprised that we were the first for the babies! We quickly followed the special mother. We took our shoes off at the door and she led us upstairs to the first door which to my surprise was a pink girl’s room. The special mother pointed to a Bumbo sitting on the floor and I noticed my son's hair right away! He was facing away from us watching the going on's of his special mother's. I walked right up to him and held his hand and he was looking at me. There were several other babies in the room and there were 2 other special mom’s in there. I picked him up and talked to him. There was a special mother over in the corner that was changing a baby’s diaper and she was talking to Segni.





Shortly after that, Almaz sent the next family up to meet their baby. He was in a crib right by the door sleeping. She instantly picked him up. Almaz told us to go back downstairs. There is a big baby playroom downstairs that was empty. I believe Almaz wanted all of us to kind of separate in different rooms so that our babies had to get to know us. We spent time down there walking with him. He was very talkative and kept humming to us and smiling. He did so good! I know he was a little apprehensive, but he was so brave. We noticed he was a pretty content little guy. He never really cried while we were there, when he didn’t like something, he would just moan a little bit.


After about 20 minutes the other families made their way downstairs. We all spent some time with our kids in that main room. We noticed all our babies have really raspy chests and coughs. It is winter here and it is a home with 50 children so it makes sense that they are all sick. The nanny’s brought in bottles for the babies and we noticed that they were only about 2 ounces and none of the babies were really complaining about being hungry. It seems like they feed the babies about 2 ounces every 2 hours. Segni didn’t want his at first, but he did eventually drink it all and fell asleep. Soon after that it was time to go.




They don’t want us to stay at Hannah’s Hope for too long. Just long enough for the babies to start getting comfortable with us and then they wanted us to go someplace unfamiliar with them (the hotel) so that we became the only familiar thing. I hope that makes sense. So off we went for the first night with our new little one's.

It was pouring outside and Malachi did not like the rain. It woke him up. That was okay though, because if the rain didn’t wake him up, the bumpy road for sure would have.

Once we got back to the hotel, we skyped with our families. He was in a good mood but was definitely starting to get tired. I got to change my first poopy diaper and then we gave him his first bath. He loved it! He was so happy and I kept telling him that I loved him and that kept making him smile and giggle. After the bath we put some organic infant chest rub on him to try to do something to help with his cough. We gave him a bottle, but we think his cold is making it hard for him to breathe which makes it hard for him to eat. He didn’t eat very much, but he finally fell asleep in Daddy’s arms. Now I am finishing up this blog post and will be off to bed. Peter and Malachi are already sound asleep in the bed. It is only a little after 7 but we are all tired and we have no idea what tonight has in store for us, so I think it is time for me to call it a night too.



Today has been the most incredible day! It is the start of life with our son and we are just overflowing with joy right now! This has been a long time coming, but it is done – our son is with his forever family and we feel very very blessed that we were chosen to be his parents.