Margaret Day!!

This morning we loaded on a bus and drove 10 minutes to a local government building with 13 other families all waiting to meet their 14 new children (one family is adopting 2).

There is nothing like experiencing a Gotcha Day. It's emotional, exhilarating, nervous, and exhausting all rolled into one. All these families are in one small room and meeting their newest family members. Emotions run high. Parents are excited to meet their children, nannies are often sad, and the children are often confused and tired from their journey and nervous because of the new faces and surroundings.

After an hour wait at the government building, Margaret arrived! Adoptive children have different ways of dealing with the stress of leaving their old environment and being cared for by parents who look different, sound different, and smell different. For Joseph he regressed and didn't walk for three days. For Peter, he stopped eating. For our little Margaret, she cried. And cried. And cried. As you can see from the picture, she isn't at all happy. Her nanny briefly walked into the room and there were many, many tears shed.

Thankfully, she eventually stopped crying and fell asleep for a well-needed nap.

We spent the afternoon and early evening in the hotel signing papers. Margaret spent her time going back and forth between sleeping and crying. It wasn't until we headed out for dinner that we saw her first smiles for us. Then when walking at the mall we found she loves music and lights. She played and enjoyed looking around at all the stores.

At bedtime, she pointed to the crib and took David's hand and asked to be put in the bed. I'd heard of this from other parents, but after 9 children didn't believe there would be a child who wanted to sleep in their own crib without any hassle, but that's exactly what she wanted.