Audrey's here....

Our beautiful Audrey is here...as I type this, she is sleeping right next to her big sister, and our hearts are simply full.

The day began with a 4:30am wake up call in Beijing so we could leave the hotel by 6:15am to head to the airport. Well, apparently the South China Sea did not realize that it was "Petunia Day" as Madeleine so sweetly called it, and it brought in a typhoon which delayed our flight for 5 hours. This pretty much threw us off for the entire day- we spent about 7 hours in the Beijing airport (which is so large, they process 10,000 people/hour) sitting on the floor. It was awful- I don't know if my words can fully describe it.

When we finally got on board the plane, we were soon told that we would be landing at approx. 4:20pm- which was precisely 1h 20min. past our scheduled time to meet the babies. Oh dear!! I knew the guide would have called ahead and made arrangements, but we were so anxious, tired and plain stinky that collectively the group was a mess. We rushed off the plane, the guys were like machines collecting carts and all the luggage while we ran out to meet our guide Judy. Judy told us that we had no time to check into the hotel- we were heading straight from the airport to the Office of Civil Affairs where our babies were waiting for us! AGHH!! It was a mad scramble to quickly find diapers, cameras and whatever else we needed to go meet our daughters. After an hour bus ride to the office, we were rushed upstairs and literally with in a minute of reaching the office, the next thing I know they were calling our name and in walks a nanny with Audrey- the first baby to come out!! Memere made a mad dash for the video camera and a second later I was holding Audrey for the first time. Madeleine could not contain her excitement "I want to hold my Petunia!!!" she said while jumping up and down- well, that was it- she scooted right over to a couch and demanded that she hold "her baby". So, let it be known, Madeleine got dibs on "her baby" before Daddy even had a chance to hold her. Although, Christian being the guy that he is, and having been through this before, as soon as Audrey was safe in my arms, he immediately jumped to help the rest of the group with their transitions and capture it on film for each of them.

A little about Audrey:
She is so incredibly sweet, and simply a happy baby. She is eager to get going as she has already shown us she can climb, crawl and even walked with her fingers wrapped around her Daddy's for support. She is trying to talk, and is so very observant. She is equally smitten with her big sister, and thankfully she has taken to all of us including her Memere with ease.

I must sign off, as tomorrow is another big day filled with paperwork and I'm just hoping everyone sleeps through the night. I will write more tomorrow, but I knew many of you would be anxious to know about "Petunia Day".

To have a child is a blessing...to now have two children, it's beyond my expectations- it feels so right and so perfect. They are our greatest gifts, how fortunate we are that our red threads have all connected- it is so clear now to me why we waited for Audrey for so long...we needed her to be a part of our family, and today it feels like she always has been. Our girls make my heart melt...