Happy 5th Gotcha!

I don't especially love the term "Gotcha Day". Maybe it just seems too flippant a term to describe something that truly feels like a miracle to our family. It feels like only God could have brought our family of four half way across the world and then to the middle of China to be united with our fifth member - a perfect fit for a father, a mother, and two boisterous boys - Qian Ting - aka Gianna Nora Lake.

Five years ago today, Doug, Jackson, Nathan and I and several other families took an impossibly long trip up an even more impossibly small elevator and walked into a room filled with little black haired babies. Some were in walkers and one, who looked like she had been crying, sat in the lap of a black haired man wearing a black leather coat. She was dressed in pink (her favorite color) and her cheeks were rosy, mostly because they were chapped.

It took me a minute to spot her, but when I did, I knew she was our daughter. I couldn't hold back sobs of joy. But, I quickly quelled my sobs when, in a rush of babies being passed and names being called, I recognized her name being called out. "Qian Ting!" I looked at Doug and said, "That's us!" All four of us rushed over and she was placed in my arms. She cried. I held her and told her, "It's okay. Mommy's got you." Then, "Jesus loves you." With all of the overwhelming love I felt for her at that moment and have felt for her since, I know that even a mother's love isn't as pure and wonderful as the love of our Savior.

To Doug and me, it really does feel like something miraculous took place five years ago today.

So....Happy Gotcha Day, Gianna! We love you!