Grateful

It is 10:00 a.m. in Ethiopia.  A special mother may be rocking our daughter to sleep for her mid-morning nap.

It is after midnight here and all I can think of is how grateful I am for the love, kindness, and generosity of family, friends, and even strangers.  This week, I have been needy, and you have each been giving, supporting, and forgiving.  Thank you.

The past three days have been a whirlwind.  Thursday we received our referral call - was it really only three days ago?  I feel like we have loved our daughter much longer than that!  As soon as we finished The Call, I cancelled everything on my calendar and drove 2 hours (road construction detour!) to Portland to pick up the referral packet. 

Friday, I completed the materials to accept the referral, met Jon to sign/notarize, and then drove the entire packet back to our case manager.  Matthew had been asking to help with the paperwork for his baby sister, so we told him that he could have the important job of delivering the paperwork.  He was so excited and proud to carry the packet in and hand it to Julie!

Saturday, my sister, brother-in-law, and their girls drove three hours to spend the week helping Grandma with house repairs and painting.  I have been running in three different directions, trying to spend time with family and help with the work, co-host a Welcome Home shower for our friends, and complete the Transition Plan for our adoption.  I have done nothing well this weekend except demonstrate again and again my shortcomings; I am humbled by all of you who love me anyways!

THANK YOU to everyone who shared in the joy of our referral, from close family and friends, to new friends and even strangers:  your support, encouragement, and excitement has been a blessing. 

THANK YOU to my sister, my brother, and their spouses, for kindly letting me skip out and leave them to do the real work. 

THANK YOU to my friends who did an amazing job with the shower and were so forgiving of my tardiness and absenteeism. 

THANK YOU to our agency's staff, who will have to interpret my scratchings to understand what our Transition Plan is.  Just between us, our Transition Plan boils down to three words:  sensitivity, flexibility, and help.  Fortunately, I am verbose by nature, so turning three words into several hundred, enough to fill the allotted 9 pages, was not a problem.      

THANK YOU to the staff at HH who are caring for our daughter in our absence.  Our hearts are in your hands. 

The highlight of our weekend was hearing from a family who just returned home from Ethiopia.  They saw our daughter at HH last week and wrote "she is a tiny little thing but seemed to be a happy baby!"  Those few words made my heart smile. 

We have also received generous offers from families who are traveling next week, to love her and take photos of her while they are at HH.  These families will be tired, stressed, and overwhelmed by their own journeys to bring home their own children, yet they are taking time to reach out to us and our daughter, even though we have never met.  Their kindness means so much to us.   Our daughter is a world away, yet through them we will hold her for a moment.