Last night, not so much.
She was up every hour and fought for me to hold her yet did not want me to put her down. To be honest, it was completly exhausting. I know that she was grieving and I began to grieve too. I felt helpless that I could not console her and really started to question will my love be enough. I know that we were only 24 hours in to being her parents but it is hard. We were tired and emotions are always multiplied when lack of sleep creeps in.
Everyone says that adoption is not for the faint of heart.......so why was my heart so faint last night?
It is moments like this that get me so mad because I know that satan is just pacing about in joy for the doubt that is placed in my heart. This is why people choose not to adopt, for the scary moments. For the outside of your comfort zone moments. For the what if moments. When you allow for those bad thoughts to take over what you do is leave very little room for the good stuff. You see the bad can be so much bigger than the good if you let it. It can becomre all consuming. But what if you could push that doubt out.....just imagine what God can do when you make room for him in your heart.
I just kept saying over and over in my head that LOVE is a choice and we choose to LOVE her. Sometimes it may not be enough and that is hard to wrap my had around. But I do know this, we are her parents now and we choose LOVE. She is ours and we choose LOVE. Before she was formed in the womb of her birth mother, God had a plan for her to be in our family and we choose LOVE.
We choose LOVE.
The past day has been hard for all of us but today is a new day. And there have been plenty of great moments that far exceed the tough ones. Her personality is coming out more and more. She is still a mama's girl but has certainly been up to interacting with Brett, especially if there is food involved.
We have been skyping with the boys which has been great but makes my heart hurt. Gosh, I miss them......one week down and one to go!
Since I did not blog last night, I'll rewind back to Tuesday....
We were up early for breakfast. Like I said before, Landry has slept 9 hours the night before so we were feeling pretty good. Brett and I are still waking up around 4 am every morning for a bit. I am guessing due to jet lag still. We had a great breakfast. It has been fun having Landry try new foods and she has certainly enjoyed them. After we ate, we got our bags packed for the day and headed out with the rest of our group to have the adoption finalized.
At the notary office having all of our paperwork notarized before heading back to civil affairs. She has SUPER stranger danger so thankful to Noah Abell for getting her to smile for us!
Signing our final papers.
Landry signed hers with her foot:)
This is a director at Landry's orphanage. She was there for the finalization. Landry went right to her and melted into her arms. It broke my heart....in a good and bad way.
Our Beihai babies, loved and spoken for.
We then came back to our hotel for a bit before lunch. She is loving her daddy.
And is really starting to show her spunk!
We had lunch at the same restaurant as the day before and tried a few new things. How cute are these panda buns????? ( Don't worry Mookie, no pandas were harmed during the making of these delicious buns.)
This morning (Wednesday), we headed out to a park in Nanning.
How can we take a serious picture by these crazy things!
You may not be able to tell by this picture but I was SOOOOOO HOT!!! I mean this has been one sweaty trip!
All of our Lifeline families including another family from New York that we have met as well at our hotel.
Our sweet girl, too tired to enjoy the park! That's what happens when you are up every hour the night before.
And the crazy fish feeding area! I'll have to post the video one day.....these guys were outta control!
The Pagota tower that Brett climbed.
When we returned our awesome guide, David, took us to another fantastic place for lunch. It was called Pure Green and was Hot Pot Style. So fun! Very similar to a Melting Pot just SO much spicier.
The spread was amazing!!
And this picture that I found in the restaurant window truly describes how hot it was. CRAZY hot! We were dying laughing about how bad everyone was sweating from the spices and the hot "green beans" that we all had. (yeah....they were actually peppers) At one point some of it splashed on my nose and within minutes the edge of my nose went numb!
Tomorrow will be an emotional day as we will travel about 3 hours to Beihai where Landry is from. We will visit her orphanage and this is where she will say goodbye to her nanny. I am crying as I type this because I just can't imagine how difficult this will be tomorrow, for her and the nanny. She loves our girl oh so very much.
You might ask, why go?
For the short term this might be very difficult for Landry and we might see some regression from her over the next few days. For the long term, this is best for many reasons. One is for closure. For her to have the image of leaving there with us, her family. The other is for memories. To be able to show her years from now pictures and videos of where she was from and where she was found. It can be quite healing for the hard moments that are to come months/years down the road.
So please keep us in your prayers tomorrow as we go on this difficult journey.
Pray for Landry's heart and for our strength.
Please also pray that we have a better night of sleep. This mama surely needs it!
xo- Kelli
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