“The Brazzel Baby is here!” The words sounded so strange to my ears, yet so wonderful! The temperature must have been 98 degrees with humidity of 150%. That morning had been a very emotional one--meeting the birth mother and trying to make this mother understand our pledge to love and cherish her daughter forever and the nervousness of the Giving and Receiving Ceremony. Did we bring the right clothes? Do we have the papers? My head had spun with all the emotions, and now these words were being spoken as we came up the steps of the Vinafood Hotel, May 5, 2000, upon returning from the Giving and Receiving Ceremony. Where was she? My eyes searched the doorway of the hotel! “They went that way. Come on!” someone said! We headed down the corridor looking for the person with our baby! “They went around the building and are back in front!” So we headed back to the entrance and the steps of the hotel. When we arrived at the top of the steps, our daughter’s foster family was headed up toward us. There she was--our little princess! I remember taking her in my arms and her just staring at me and swinging her little foot.
Our journey started by us trying to adopt a child that matched our oldest son’s ethnecity. Everytime we had tried to open this door, it was quickly shut. One night my husband preached at a small church in a small community near ours, and one of the members of the church started talking to me about adoption and about her sister who had just returned home from China with her second daughter. China? International Adoption? I remember reading an article years ago in Reader’s Digest about a single mom who had adopted internationally and thought then that that would be something I would be interested in. We went home and started to research international adoptions. We began to pray and seek wise counsel on an adoption agency. We were given several agencies to look at; and when my husband and I saw Children’s Hope International’s website, we knew that this was right! We agreed to wait two weeks before deciding on a country and not to talk about our feelings to each other but just pray. At the end of two weeks I asked my husband which country he preferred and he said he felt impressed that our daughter was waiting in Vietnam. I started crying because I was feeling the same way! We called CHI and started talking to Nicky Losse concerning the process. On December 28, 1999, we sent our application to CHI and started to collect our paperwork. Little did we realize that our daughter was born while we were praying and we were going to have to HURRY because she was ready to come home. I am here to state for the record that you can get a dossier ready in 4 months if you live paperwork for 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week. It did help that we already had a homestudy and all we had to do was update. CHI and Nicky were wonderful and helped us every way possible to get this done in time. I remember chasing down the Fedx man several times because my papers had to be somewhere the next day and every second counted.
Our referral call came while I was taking a nap with our 2 year old. It was a wake up call I’ll never forget. Nicky said that we had a little girl 4 months old waiting for us in Vung Tau, Vietnam! “Oh, my gosh, 4 months old!” I remember thinking! I was so excited I could hardly write the information down. On April 30, 2000, we boarded a plane for Vietnam!
Fast forward to today and we are preparing to celebrate our 7th Gotcha Day with Kaitlyn Denise Hanh Thi Brazzel. The pledge that we gave her birth mother has been our life. We love Kaitlyn beyond words. She is a sweet, outspoken, creative bundle of energy that brings us so much joy daily. As we celebrate this Gotcha Day, we hope that her birth mother knows how much she has blessed our lives forever!!!!!!!!!
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