Home to the First Babe

Babes and Court

Five hours. Five hours is all that I have spent with my youngest babes and already they are anchored so deeply within my heart. It was music to my ears to hear their squeals when we returned today and be smothered with their hugs. My arms have longed to hold them for so long.

Five hours. Five hours passes all too quickly and certainly never felt long enough. When the time came to say goodbye, my heart grew heavy and definitely felt torn. How could I leave these two babes and return to my first babe? How could I be away from my first babe any longer? That moment of attempting to say goodbye was the absolute hardest thing I have ever done. My mind (and heart) will forever hold the memory and pain of having to walk away from my children and leave them crying, knowing that that I have no idea when I will be returning to hold them again.

Five hours is all it took for my heart to be captured and broken.

A nice distraction from those five hours was our court appointment, which lasted less than an hour and upon completion ended with,
"Congratulations, the children are legally yours according to Ethiopia."

I am praying that those five hours will carrying us all through until we are reunited again.

Meeting the Babes

Today I officially met my two youngest Ethiopian babes. I can not even begin to find the right words to describe how wonderful this moment was. There has been many moments when I wondered if I would be able to love these children like I loved M. - is it possible for my heart to grow anymore? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The minute I laid eyes on them and heard G. calling for his daddy and saw M. with her sweet smile, I knew without a doubt that these were my children.

We were only able to spend a few short hours with the babes today, but we are hoping that we will be able to go back tomorrow. Until then, I will savor these first moments with my youngest babes.

Leaving for Ethiopia!

Micah and I are beginning our unexpected journey to Ethiopia this morning - My heart is all over the place as I leave my first baby behind and prepare to finally meet my two youngest babes. 

Oh My Goodness!!!

Today after the little man had finished up soccer practice, we were riding our bikes home and my phone rang. I waited until we were home to pull the phone out of my bag and listened to the message from our agency. They were asking that we call them back because they had some news about our birth parent case. I will admit that my heart tightened up a bit as I hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. There are so many unpredictable situations in adoption and I had to remind myself that ultimately God is still in control.

Upon calling our agency I found out that not only did our birth parent case clear the courts, but that the Ethiopia staff had also been able to schedule our court case for the afternoon of August 14th - the very last day courts were open until October.

Needless to say, I was shocked and immediately overwhelmed. We said goodbye to Micah on the 1st of August as he headed into the mountains for a week long climbing trip. I still had a few days for him to come home. So here I am trying to take it minute by minute and remember to breath.

I can't believe this is happening!!!!

Case Review

Today is when our birth parent case will be reviewed by the courts. Please pray that all goes well and we are able to move forward...