Kenzie's 15th gotcha day

Another year has flown by and now it's time to celebrate Makenzie's 15th Gotcha Day!  I was laying in bed thinking about how our life has changed so much from 15 years ago.  15 years ago today I woke up in LA just hoping and praying that we would finally have a child of our very own to love.  We'd been through a lot over the previous 8-9 years with 6 miscarriages, 3 failed domestic adoptions and I was full of doubt that we would finally have a child.  As we were preparing to start our day we heard a knock on the hotel room door and surprise it was Kevin's parents and my mom.  They wanted to be there to share our special arrival.  Kevin and I were both anxious and worried that everything would go ok.  We all headed to the Santa Monica pier and had a quick lunch and took some pictures on the pier and then we headed back to the LAX airport.  We must have arrived an hour or 2 early just in case their flight from Korea just happened to come in earlier than expected.  Our lives were about to change forever and we didn't have a clue. 

 We heard that the plane arrived and now we had to just wait and wait while they started their journey through customs.  Our dear friend Beverlee was bringing Makenzie to us from Korea and all of the sudden I see a Korean man carrying Makenzie and I kind of started freaking out inside because why did some stranger have my baby?  Whew, here comes Beverlee and she tells us this is Mr. Chae and Kenzie was his first baby to escort to the USA. He hands her to me and I look in those beautiful almond shaped eyes and that's it.  She's ours!  Kevin is crying and misses seeing her reach her tiny, dimpled fingers out to him and then she smiles at us and it's the most beautiful smile I've ever seen.  The next couple of hours are a blur and guess what?  We find out that she already knows how to roll over, that she likes to pop a pacifier in and out of her mouth and she can suck down a bottle in less than a minute.  That of course is the short version of our special day that we call Gotcha Day.  

We always celebrate this day for both of our children because it's not their birthday which is when most people get to see, hold and touch their baby for the first time and we never want to forget that miraculous day.  This year we made Korean food, we usually do to honor their heritage and because we love bulgogi, chap chae, pot stickers, rice and of course you can't forget the kimchi!  This year we took Kenzie to see a production that her dance studio The Legacy Project put on called "What If".  

Thanks for reading,