My India Journal part 7 of 8

Bruce escorted us back to the restaurant where the ladies were waiting. Sherry is Bruce’s wife, and Ashley is a teenager that was in our youth group in Texas. She, through a series of miracles, ended up in Nepal with Bruce and Sherry for a 10 month assignment, helping with other American couples’ children and working in a school for deaf children, teaching them Nepali sign language. It was AMAZING getting to see her again! It had been 5 months since we had seen her and we had both missed her terribly! She had mentioned in one of her emails that she missed Twizzlers and Reese’s Pieces, so Byron had brought her 2 huge containers of each! She was thrilled! We enjoyed a great leisurely breakfast (not too crazy about the bacon – looked raw) and fellowship with them. Then they came with us back to the hotel to get the donations packed up and ready to go to the orphanage. We called to make sure that our appointment was still at 11:00, but it was changed to 12:00, so we chilled and just enjoyed not being at an airport for a while! J We hadn’t really discussed it, mainly because we thought we wouldn’t be seeing our friends until Friday, but we ended up deciding to invite all three of them along with us to our Gotcha appointment. I’m SO glad that we did! Looking back, I can’t imagine how in the world we would have done that with only 2 of us! Anyway, we get all loaded up – 2 suitcases and 5 people plus the taxi driver – and headed to the orphanage. We had to get the directions before we left the hotel from someone at Matri Sneha to avoid having to stop on the side of the road! J After a while, we eventually pulled up to the corner where the office/nursery stands. I clicked a quick picture and then we were off. We climbed the stairs, passing a black dog curled up in a chair which reminded me of all of the conversation about dogs on the forum lately, and into an office area. They pulled up enough seats for all of us and then a nice lady, whose name I don’t know, talked with us about the paperwork we had, what she was giving us, and had me fill out a registry type thing for “Delivery.” I thought that was amusing, too. This was the strangest “delivery” I’d ever experienced! She also presented us with a baby book about Elizabeth (Tanuja) that someone there had put together for us. It was PRICELESS! The first page had her day old picture on it! How amazing is that! Most of the folks going through this process ahead of us had talked about not having those early photos and how each photo we get is so precious because we don’t get that many. Here in my hands I held the day old picture! I was overwhelmed and teared up. After that, though, I just enjoyed reading what they had to say about our daughter. Then she asked if we were ready. I told her we also needed to get pictures and video of some of the other kids, and she said OK and ushered us into the nursery area. I’d been hearing babies and ayahs chatting in the background, but it didn’t really click with me that SHE would be in that room, right behind me! I thought we were being taken to the room to video the other kids! We had to take off our shoes, and then we walked into the room. There was an ayah standing right at the door, on my right, but that’s not where I looked first. I scanned the babies’ faces left to right around the room and immediately recognized one (Jansen) whose story I’ve been following and who will be coming home soon, but I kept scanning. Finally, my eyes rested on the baby being held by the ayah at the door, and it hit me. I recognize this one, too! This is HER!