Gotcha Day Eve

We started the day off by meeting in the lobby of our hotel ready to go to the airport.  Blake and his little friends said goodbye with pictures they had colored for each other.  Elisabeth went to a different province and Ava's family came to Henan also.  We loaded a bus full of all of our luggage and a bus full of our travel group members.  The smog was so bad today.  It was very low and thick.  It made it very hard to breath and you could not see the pretty blue sky.  When we got to the airport the Henan families all boarded a plane together and the other provinces went to their planes.  We actually have the biggest group in Henan they have ever had!  The flight was just over an hour.  They served us some interesting cookie things and drinks on the short flight.  We are staying in Zhengzhou, which is the capital city of Henan.  Henan is the province where Brynn was born.  Each family has to go to their child's province in order to sign the appropriate adoption papers. After we collected our luggage we were met by our next guide for this leg of the journey.  We all got on the bus and it was straight to business.  I quickly realized the touring/sightseeing part of our journey was over and it was all about the adoption business!  Yisha (our guide) had a lot of information to tell us on what to expect in the next days.  We were given new information on our children.  It included what they eat, when they eat, sleeping patterns, what they like to play with etc...  It was so fun to get another little glimpse into our daughter's life and personality.  It was the moments on the bus when Yisha was telling us what she was expecting to happen in the next days that this became very real to me.  It has all seemed so far away, that it hasn't felt real yet.  In these moments on the bus, it became very real.  Shortly after we got to our room the crib was delivered to us.  Yes, the is very real!!  We are going to have a daughter tomorrow!  The men and Yisha walked across the street to the bank to exchange the large amount of money we are going to be using over the next two days into RMB.  While they were gone I got the room and our luggage organized.  We are going to be at this hotel a little longer than we were at the others, so I wanted us to feel at home.  When Robert got back from the bank the women went to W*l-Mart.  Wow.  What an experience!  We walked several blocks to get there.  Scooters and bikes were whizzing by us on the sidewalk.  They don't slow down.  They honk and expect you to move out of their way.  It feels more like we are in China here in Henan.  The city is not as big as Beijing.  I can't even describe the feeling that Beijing has.  On our way to the hotel we passed grass and land, something you don't see in Beijing.  Anyway, back to the W*l-Mart trip... when you walk in you are met with strange, stinky smells.  Everything is so different.  We navigated our way through getting some snack items, diapers, and formula for the babies.  It was an experience trying to figure things out since they are in Chinese.  Some things we recognized just by the packaging (Ritz, Lays, etc...). We were getting major stares as we navigated our way through this Chinese W*l-Mart.   On Brynn's new paperwork it says she likes peach and apple juice, so I got her some to keep in the room.  I saw a baby wearing split pants.  He was about 9 months old and his dad was carrying him.  He had on split pants and his little private was just hanging right out. Very interesting experience.  I had to pay for my two plastic W*l-Mart bags to carry my purchases back to the hotel in.  We walked the several blocks back to the hotel with our groceries in tow.  I was sweating by the time we arrived back.  Which reminds me, the weather is warmer here!!  Yay!  It was miserably cold in Beijing.  It is actually tolerable here, which makes me happy!   Tonight we got Brynn's diaper bag all packed and our paperwork and gifts ready to give to the orphanage director tomorrow.  We are meeting in the lobby of our hotel at 9:30 a.m. on the 29th (7:30 p.m. on the 28th Texas time).  We will all ride to the registration office together to receive our babies!  They will bring them in by orphanage.  We won't know exactly what time Brynn's orphanage will arrive.  We will all sit together waiting and watching as each orphanage arrives and each family receives their babies.  So many emotions tonight!!!  I cannot even describe what we are feeling as we go to sleep for the last time as a family of four.  Tomorrow we will be the parents to three children... we will have five members in our family.  Tomorrow our lives will be changed by the miracle of adoption.  Please pray for us as it will be a very long, emotionally draining day.  Pray for our sweet Brynn as her world will be turned upside down for a time until she learns what her new normal is.  Pictures from our day today will be coming soon.  I will post pics of our Gotcha Day as soon as I can!!!  I didn't edit this post because I am too tired to read back over it, so just ignore errors.  See you tomorrow with pics of our daughter!!