Adopting a Child from China: Meeting Your New Child on 'Gotcha' Day

In a previous post, I discussed what to expect on your trip to and inside China for the purpose of adopting a child. In this post, I will relay what we experienced on the day we met our child.

‘Gotcha’ Day 

The morning of our third day in China was a Monday. It was known as “gotcha” day…the day we would meet our new child. It was the day that her life, and ours, would change forever. This was also the day we would meet our guide, Lucia.    

We met Lucia in the morning and she briefed us on the itinerary for the day, and what to expect for the following days. Lucia’s proficiency in English was of great help and she became our primary resource during our stay in China. You should know that your assigned guide is with you only during the hours dedicated to the adoption process and any special tours you may have pre-selected. Your guide will also be working with other adoptive parents who have arrived to pick up their child. So you will likely be travelling to the various government agencies in a van as a group. This was actually a pleasant experience for us because we were able to meet and talk with other adoptive parents who were involved in the same adventure. 

Our first order of business on ‘gotcha’ day was to go to a bank with our guide to exchange our US Dollars to Chinese currency. We would need Chinese currency to pay the required fees at the various government agencies involved in the adoption process, and we would need a good amount of Chinese Yuan for daily living expenses during our two-week stay. After the trip to the bank, we went back to our hotel and had lunch. We would get to meet our child in the early afternoon. 

The trip to the place where we would meet our child was rather surreal. We had been through a lot over the three-year period of process work and selection of the right child. Now, we were on our way to meet our child for the first time.  A lot of questions ran through our minds. 

How would she react to us? 

How would we react to her? 

Will she happily embrace us or will she try to run the other way? 

How will we communicate with her? 

Will she understand us and will we understand her? 

It was a time of great anticipation…and fear. 

We arrived at a nondescript multi-story office building and the driver pulled down a wide alleyway to the entrance of the building. We took an elevator up to the floor where the meeting would occur. Upon exiting the elevator, we walked several steps into a rather large open room with a few couches along the walls and a large table on one side of the room. There were other adopting parents in the room. Some were already holding and getting to know their adopted child and some were still waiting to meet their child.  

The process was orderly. One child at a time would be brought into the room to meet the new parents.  The parents would meet the child in the middle of the room and then would walk over to a section of couch and spend some time together. It seemed the staff was very attentive to not bringing children into the room in rapid sequence as each meeting was filled with drama for the adoptive parents, the child and the other parents watching. This allowed the new parents to spend some calm and quiet time with their child before another child was brought into the room for the next set of parents. 

We had the opportunity to see several parent/child meetings take place. It was very evident that the younger children did not fully understand what was about to happen. They did not understand the importance of the moment and how it would impact their lives. Some of the younger children were afraid and cried. Some were happy. 

Our moment finally arrived. We walked to the middle of the room as our child was brought into the room by a caregiver. We had seen her in a couple of videos sent to us by the agency and she was indeed the same little girl. They had cut her hair so short that she looked like a boy. But we didn’t care…we were extremely grateful. This was the beginning of our life-long journey together. 

She held a stuffed baby doll under her right arm, a wrapped cookie in her left hand and balanced a baby bottle in her mouth using her left forearm. She studied us for a moment as we stooped down to her level to greet her. The caregiver said something to her in Chinese but it didn’t elicit a response. There wasn’t much for us to say because she didn’t understand English and we didn’t understand Chinese. We just said hello in Chinese and smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. Instead, she looked around at the room full of other adoptive parents with their children. It was obvious she didn’t understand what was happening. She appeared very apprehensive and scared. It was as if she was wondering, who is this guy with light colored hair and strange blue eyes, and who is this pretty dark-haired lady with a big smile on her face? 

After a few moments, we stood up and walked with her to one of the couches along the wall. My wife sat down on the couch and brought the child next to her. I cranked up the video camera. The child immediately started crying and the crying quickly evolved into screaming at an ear shattering pitch that seemed to go on forever. After a few moments, I stopped recording, as it was not an event I wanted to capture. 

She cried for what seemed like an eternity and kept rebuffing my wife’s attempts to hold her. I was getting concerned that she was rejecting us. But eventually one of the caregivers offered her another wrapped cookie and she calmed down…but only for a moment. She started crying again! This time someone filled her baby bottle with warm water, which she immediately stuck into her mouth and drank. Now she had her stuffed baby doll under one arm, a wrapped cookie in each hand, and drank from a baby bottle balanced with a forearm. It was what finally calmed her.  

Her limited possessions included the clothes she was wearing and a paper shopping bag that contained a number of items such as a few stuffed animals, a jacket, and a small photo album with pictures of her at the orphanage. 

Our journey together had finally begun. 

My next post will explore what happened on our first day together and what we experienced with our child for the remaining days in China.

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