Our Daughter

After referral day computer angst, Super Daddy and I decided to accept the referral of Tsehaynesh. She is a beautiful 2 1/2 year old little girl with caramel skin and huge brown eyes. Her name means "bright like the sun", and my father in law suggested nicknaming her Sunny. Super Daddy and I went out to celebrate and had the thrilling fun of getting to tell everyone the fantastic news.
SJ* will join our family in late April, God willing. We love her already, have her picture up everywhere and are goofy with excitement.
Our son is so excited for SJ to get here. We pray for her every night and he tells me he is lonely without her. What a super big brother he already is!

*This has been edited for security.

NOTE: We are not permitted to post pictures until clearing court. I have gone back and edited this post to add SJ's photo well AFTER clearing court.

We FINALLY got The Call! Referral Day Story

After 6.5 months of waiting, our Social Worker called (Wed, 1/23) with the wonderful news that we had been matched with a little girl. Thankfully Super Daddy was home and we were both able to hear the information. I had decided to stay calm until we were sure we could accept the referral, but calm didn't last long. See, our computer was on the fritz (again) and I couldn't locate a friend who was home AND had an operational computer AND printer AND internet access. I ended up at the local library, and yes, their printers were down too! I then drove to Kinkos and yes, their internet was down. I then proceeded to stand in the middle of the Kinkos and sob. The manager asked me to try the computer in his office and EUREKA, we got through and I could see her face. I got everything printed off and stopped by our pediatrician's office to drop off the medical files. Then, back home to wait for the Dr to call...

Hard Times

I've had a hard time during our waiting period, honestly. I'm conflicted about my joy and our daughter's tragedy, my plenty and Ethiopia's want, my desire to mother a daughter and my daughter losing a mother.
This is hard to admit, but I'm having a hard time being happy for people getting referrals. I'm jealous and want it to be us. And when people say "We've been waiting 2 whole months", I have a difficult time mustering sympathy. I've been wanting to adopt since I was 8 years old, we've been in the process for 2 years, we wasted 16 months on a path that didn't work out.
I'm praying for my little girl during this tragic time in her life and in her birth family's life. I find it hard to wish for her to come to us, when it takes a tragedy to bring her here. It feels quite selfish.
I know in my head that God has a plan and our daughter isn't ready to come to us-blah blah blah, but it still stinks. I'm looking forward to remembering this time and laughing about my sorrows. I'm just not there yet...

Thanksgiving 2007

Happy Thanksgiving! We celebrated today over at my mom and dad's (Mamaw and Papaw) as usual. We had a lovely meal, including TURDUCKEN (thanks Lola)! So yummy and lots of leftovers.
The boys played in the mud outside. Uncle DB had to hose off their shoes.
It was nice enough to go for a walk around the JBC campus and the kids got to play in a cool box fort in the new cafeteria. The new cafeteria furniture boxes had been transformed into a HUUUGE box maze fort thing. They loved it and played for over an hour.