What an amazing month this has been for our adoption!! Let me begin by saying, that I'm writing this with a grateful heart because of the ups and downs we've been able to rely on God and see how much Rosi really means to us.
Rewind to right around Halloween, we were so excited to get potential travel dates to fly to Bulgaria for the first visit with our daughter. We had priced the flights, everything was looking reasonable and worked within our timeline. We were starting to make all the arrangements and each day was growing with anticipation and excitement to finally meet Rosi. Before we booked, we found out from our agency that Rosi's outlook on adoption was not positive at the time and they needed to work with her before she would feel comfortable meeting us. The travel was postponed indefinitely at that time and devastation and confusion replaced the anticipation we were filled with.
Suddenly, the light of our adoption had changed. What if the life we could provide for Rosi was not the best life for her? What if we had gone through this process feeling so sure that she was meant to be our daughter only to find out we were mistaken in the 11th hour? This was the lowest of the low either of us have felt in a year of the rollercoaster ride of adoption. We wanted to reassure her, we wanted to reach out to her, we wanted to go to her. But after the worst of the feelings had dissipated, we realized the old adage - if you love something you will let them go. Could God have used our love and loss of Rosi to propel us in a different direction?
Then some light started to shine that gave us hope. She had not yet found out about us, she just wasn't sure about leaving her Bulgarian foster home to start a new life. We made videos, we wrote letters, we bought gifts, we started to acknowledge and appreciate that Rosi could say no to us, but we were going to love her just as we'd been called to do. We couldn't give up on our daughter. Social workers and a psychologist met with her to discuss her options, and to introduce us to her through our videos and letters. Rosi's fear started to turn to curiosity. Who were these Americans who wanted to adopt her? It was decided that the best thing to do would be to Skype with Rosi and the professionals who had been working with her to make her more comfortable before we visited.
Scott and I were thrilled with the prospect of getting to see our daughter, and again our sails were filled with hope and counting the days until we would meet. Thanksgiving Day we had our call. A lot of prayers must have been said for us that day because other than a few butterflies we weren't too nervous. And Rosi....she was so excited to meet us!! I had prayed that she'd show some interest, that we'd be able to talk for a few minutes and we'd probably have to hold our breath for another week or so to hear back from the case worker.
What a relief and joy it was to see her smiling face. To experience her excitement at meeting us and to have the preconceived notions of each party fall to the wayside as we got to know eachother. The translator was fantastic and had built a great repoire with Rosi already, and soon the basic questions turned into laughter, joking, and showing her her little brothers playing with their new toys. She saw what would be her room and asked if we could go shopping. She told us that Sully was so adorable and confirmed Emerson's biggest concern - yes, she likes science too. She met the pets, and heard her Dad play guitar. She and I decided that there should always be at least a little chocolate in the house. We found out how brave our girl is. She said she is not afraid to get on an airplane for the first time, she wants to try to ride rollercoaster, she wants to go out on the boat, she wants to try pineapple on pizza :) We reassured her that we love her, we think she's so special, so beautiful, so important to us. We promised that if she wanted us to, we'd come to Bulgaria to visit her. By the end of the call we were both holding back tears of joy as we heard Rosi say that she loves us too. To say that the call went well would be a huge understatement!!!!!! Yesterday we welcomed Rosi into our home, and we saw her begin to get comfortable, to connect with each of us, and to surprise us with love in return.
We are feeling so incredibly blessed and thankful for each of the prayers that were said for us and our daughter. There is more big news on the horizon about our Both Hands project, but I will save that for another blog. For now, we're working with our agency to try to get to Bulgaria as quickly as possible, our daughter is waiting on us :)
