Today is a VERY special day for our family. One year ago today, we met our Sarah for the first time. We got to hug and squeeze that girl and endure all her tears! I remember reaching out for her from the caregiver in China that had been holding her. I remember her screaming her little head off-wondering who in the heck we were and why were we holding her! Where were the people she'd come to know over the past year while in Foster Care? She had probably never seen a caucasian before. Not to mention she was grieving the loss of her Foster Mother. She had been in her care from the time Sarah was 4 weeks old until the day she met us last year. It was a rough few days with our baby girl. She would only want me and cried like crazy when Troy would just look at her for the first day or 2. Then something amazing happened...he was trying to play with her on the bed the second night we had her and she smiled!! even smiled more than once. It took her a week before she'd smile for me but she would smile for her Baba after 2 days...it was emotion with him...crying or laughing, but Troy was the one who could get her to show emotion. Me? well...she just wanted me to hold her and comfort her, she wasn't really interested in showing emotion with me, just wanted me to give her comfort and all the love a mother could have for her baby in all the world. I suppose it was all part of the grieving process and starting to attach with us. I know that it took her some time in order to learn to trust us. Attachment is a process and we were thankful that she had an attached relationship with her foster mother because we knew in time she'd be able to transfer attachment to us and we'd be able to develop that kind of relationship with her.
Troy took this photo just after they handed her to me. You can see she wasn't nearly as happy about it as we were!
She slowed down here for a second...only to continue the screaming all evening long. Poor little thing. The amazing thing was-I didn't shed a tear! For those of you who know me, it's like the water works over here usually. I guess I was more worried about her and put all my energy into trying to calm her down. It wasn't until I crawled into bed that night that I started to cry tears of joy.
Of course, now things are much different. It's amazing the difference a year makes. With both of us every day, she laughs and smiles and plays. There is nothing in the world that can compare with the feeling of love coming to you from YOUR child. What a feeling!
Her first smile at her Baba!
Words just cannot express how we're feeling today. Our lives are so different than they were a year ago...what an amazing responsibility and blessing it is to have been chosen by God to be the parents of this little girl who was conceived and born half way across this planet. Thank You Lord for the gift of our daughter...and what a gift she is!
Here is our little angel today just after we gave her the first Gotcha day present...we bought it in China for her last year and got gifts for her every year until she's 21. It was nice how inexpensive things were in China that we were able to do this special thing for our baby.
