Gotcha Day - Three Years Later! July 26, 2007

To say time flies is so blah but oh how much truth this saying holds. It's hard to believe that three years ago today we got our son Luke from Guatemala. A day we will ALL remember. It was emotional, exhausting, scarey, and incredibly happy. We will never forget him being brought into the hotel to us. I will never forget my first glimpse of him or the smile he had when he was put into his daddys arms. Along with those memories we won't forget how scared he was and how he cried when his foster mom wasn't near his side. Boy did he cry. He had on many layers of clothing. There were five of us waiting for him. His new mom and dad, his Tia Lisa who made the trip with us (AND THANKFULLY SO) and our two attorneys. (Actually our attorney's daughter and son who were young and very nice to have around). He smelled like pancake syrup. His large chocolate eyes were piercing and he had such a serious look on his face. So serious that it was almost like we shouldn't "COO" to him or do any of the baby things. He was 10 months old. We were told he weighed about 18 pounds but he really weighed about 12. We were told that he had eczyma. When we took him to our room I stripped him down to his diaper. He didn't have eczyma he had a severe heat rash. He came to us with : three layers of clothing of which the undershirt was extremely tattered and you could tell the foster mom had clearly used it for many babies. Booties that had Winnie the Pooh on them. Socks that had some blue in them. Blue striped pants and a few other shirt layers. He had no bottle, a toy and a blankie we had sent to him and a nasty ear infection. He was hungry. We had been left with him and had no idea what kind of formula to get or what to try to feed him. We were told to buy the baby food from the area and we did. My sister took a cab to a few different places and with her knowing some Spanish she was able to communicate to the cab driver who then took it as a personal mission to find us this special formula for our new child. He loved the milk. We mixed the antibiotic that our Pediatrician THANKFULLY had sent to us and started trying to make him happy. Meanwhile the new Daddy comes down with the flu and goes into quarantine for 24 hours. Luke screams because all he wants is daddy so Tia and I had to try to calm him down. Meanwhile Tia Lisa is having what we find out later to be a flare up of Multiple Sclerosis (she was diagnosed 90 days later with MS). I paced the room holding him in my arms for about 3 1/2 hours straight. We strolled him up and down the hall. I realize that I had forgotten almost all the nursery rhymes and quickly learn one from Tia Lisa that I still sing to him today --of course my own version that is. He was screaming bloody murder the entire time. We finally get him to sleep and I then can't sleep because I am afraid he will stop breathing. We made it through the first day. It was happy, scarey, tiring and one of the best days ever. Now 1096 days later (add Leap Year Day) we are at it again. As we wait for Maran we relish the memories from our FIRST GOTCHA DAY three years ago.