No way I was going to miss it.
I traveled half way around the world last year to celebrate this day. And there was no way I would miss the party this year.
This time around the journey was much, much shorter: just a few miles down the road. It was just the first few hundred feet that posed the challenge. But when I woke up at 5 a.m. on Aug. 2, I knew two things: I was getting out of that hospital, and I was going home to celebrate our Gotcha Day with our daughter Jade.
First step: get out of the depressing hospital gown. Then get a shower. I paged the nurse on duty to wrap up the IV jack still stuck in my arm so I could get in the shower. Of course, even the simplest movements (getting out of bed, laying out the towel for the shower) reminded me of how much fun my body had experienced in the past few days. (Major surgery, lots of tubes and, yes, plenty of “ow.”)
I couldn’t help but notice the large new scar, not to mention the reworked landscape on my body as I showered. Great. But no time to think about that – time to dry off and get dressed in normal clothes again. For the first time in a week.
I refused to get back into that bed once I was dressed. I had spent far too long there, so I planted myself in a chair. That’s where the doctor found me when he came in to say what I wanted to hear: “Go home.”
Soon Kim and I were cruising down I-95, but not for home just yet. My unexpected adventure had delayed an important shopping stop at the toy store, and now we were going to make up for that. We knew what we were looking for, and quickly grabbed some new additions for Jade’s toy chest.
And then, the best part, was stepping through the door, back into home, and having Jade run up to welcome her baba home. Exactly one year earlier, Kim and I met Jade at an orphanage in China and we started our lives together. Then, one year later — after a week’s hiatus at the hospital — we were all together again.
Nothing beats Gotcha Day. Though we could stand for something a little less eventful in the days leading up to next year’s celebration.
