30 Long Days

Taking a break from tending to my sick children to say how thankful we are to be past the first hurdle in Naomi's adoption. Up until yesterday her birth mom could change her mind and we would have had to give Naomi back with pieces of our hearts attached to her. Today our day dawned, I inhaled a deep breath and wanted to squeeze her sweet little self harder than is acceptable to do to a 6 week old baby. I didn't realize until last night how I was kind of holding my breath for the past month. The uncertainty during those days had me counting down until yesterday. While we are extremely aware that our joy has come at an unimaginable cost to another woman we feel ok in rejoicing that we are one step closer. If you could only hold her you would understand. I cannot begin to explain how sweet she is. You just need to hold her close and breathe her in to soak in her sweetness!! Our papers have been filed with the courts so now we have to wait until the 6 month mark rolls around to proceed. God apparently has much to teach me still about waiting with peace. Last night was the first night Naomi spent in her crib which is not in our room. I am conflicted about the decision but she is so incredibly restless that we weren't sleeping much. She did amazing in her bed! She had taken to wanting to sleep on my chest which initially I was pleased as punch about. I felt like it was a critical piece in our attachment but after almost 2 week I felt like maybe we were familiar enough. Such a fickle individual, right? I haven't done a ton of research on infant adoption and attachment so any and all advice is welcome. I am making sure I am the primary source of feeding her. Mark has fed her a few times. Like when I was hugging the toilet last week. I was in no shape to feed or care for her so he took over. I snuggle her close as much a possible and her little eyes light up now when I come into view. Yesterday, every time I was near I was given a big smile and a delighted squeal! Pretty sure she is starting to know me as her mama. I said to Mark last night in the midst of my worrying about her not being in our room that I am amazed by how much I love her already. That may seem weird to some but when you are pregnant you have 9 months to prepare and by the time they are born you love them fiercely. With Naomi there was hardly any warning and suddenly we were back in the throes of sleep deprivation. But when I am wracked with worrying about her breathing during the night I know she is mine!

And now back to my sweet, sick children. Last week I had a horrible flu bug, Heidi got it a few day later, we made a trip to Baltimore over the weekend to attend Mark's grandmothers memorial service, came home and thing started up again. So far this week it has hit Mark, Shane, Judah and Tristan. Very sad. Poor Tristan was somewhat traumatized by the whole vomiting experience. Bless his sweet little heart! I am really hoping Eden can avoid this bug so we can go home to see my extended family over Easter. We are really anxious to introduce Naomi to her cousins, aunts and uncles! Kind of fun that there will be 3 new kids at this family get together! Still amazed by how God works.