The big morning has finally arrived......"Gotcha Day"

Up at 4:00 a.m.---we prepared for our flight to Nanning, Guangxi, China. Our plane would leave Beijing at 7:55 a.m.

The hotel lobby was buzzing with excitement. All of the expecting parents and grandparents could hardly contain themselves. We knew later that afternoon that we would be meeting the little person for whom we had made the trip---our little daughter or granddaughter.

We had only seen a picture of her taken at approximately 6 months of age. She would now be 10 months old. What I found to be unbelieveable is how quickly we fell in love with that baby girl in the picture. She even had her name by the time the kids had her picture for a week.

Our daughter was terribly worried that she wouldn't recognize her own baby. Her mother comforted her as much as possible.

We got on the bus for our 45 minute trip to the airport. When we arrived at the airport, we were lead through the maze by our guide. Of course, none of us spoke more than our familiar two words "xie xie" (thank you). So getting around in the airport would have been a chore without our guide. We would have to leave our guide, with whom we had toured for the past week, in Beijing. We felt like we were leaving one of the family behind. She was wonderful.

This was to be the first of several flights to be made on a Chinese airline. It was very comfortable and uneventful. They cater more to the Asian people on these flights, since this is not a route that sees many Westerners, so we ate some local breakfast foods. It was quite tasty.

When we arrived in Nanning, we were met by four new guides who would be with us for the next 9 days. They were also employed by Comfort China Travel. One of them was an expert in making all of the paperwork come together. No, the paperwork doesn't stop with the adoption approval. There were numerous documents remaining to completed.

We were bused to the hotel and told to rest as much as possible. The bus to the CCA would be to pick us up in an hour and one-half. So---we did our best to get some rest..