6 months ago

6 months ago yesterday our lives changed. We landed at the airport in Henan and met our guide Lee. We met our driver, got in our van and drove to the Hotel Sofitel in Zhengzhou. Our flight was late about 45 minutes and our son was early about 18 hours! Hey, Leah was early 4 weeks. There is no way to plan every detain of your child's arrival. When we got out of the van, there he was. Being carried by his caretaker. She brought him toward us. I could hardly believe my eyes. Here he was. After 5 months of taking his photo everywhere I went, he was here. Right in front of us. It took everything in me not to snatch him away from his nanny. He was so much tinier than we had imagined.

He was definitelt frightened. When I look back at these photos, I can see the fear. He was loving the lobby of the hotel and wanted to take us to see the flowers "hua" and Christmas decorations.
It was such a blur. Our guide was trying to check us into the hotel and needed passports. Every thing we brought with us to "break the ice" was packed in our bags. This was not how we had planned it. But it was perfect. We finally had our son!

Once we got up to the room and the caretakers left, Daniel was a little upset. He ran after them crying. He cried for a few minutes and then stopped. Then he never looked back. He had his Mama and Baba and all was well.

Here he is his first night with us. It took a little while for him to fall asleep. We left him in the last layer of clothing that he had on.

Here is the link to the blog entry on that day:
http://thelinksredthread.blogspot.com/2007/11/surprise-forever-family-day.html

And our Gotcha video:
http://thelinksredthread.blogspot.com/2007/11/gotcha-video.html

Fast forward 6 months and here's our little man. He's a handsome dude! Keeps us on our toes. I cannot imagine life without him. 6 months have flown by, yet it seems like he's been with us always.