Pink Has Entered the House!

We aren't really huge about pink around here. Well, not up until now, that is. Being surrounded by men in our home, including my husband, two sons and my dog, we're more about earth tones, dirt, sports, zoo animals, cars, trains and the like. So, when I went shopping to send a care package to Ellie, I was pretty excited to look for girl things. Little girl pajamas, dresses, shoes, hair bows...so fun! I don't know how to raise a girl...in fact I've been researching things like tights and tutus, of all things. Call it preparation, whatever. I'm so looking forward to this new member of our family!

I think perhaps a few people were surprised when we announced that we were adopting Ellie. There is a story behind it, which includes me, at one time, saying that we were done. We had been home with Asher for a few months, I had only been home as a full-time mom for a few months longer and we just weren't in that place. One day, I was working on a writing project related to adoption and was looking for some information about special needs, so I went to the Rainbow Kids website, which has some great articles, some of which are written by adoptive parents. Of course, I started thinking about it all again--I still love China adoption and truly believe in it, but we were in no way ready to go down that road again. I did mentionit to Russ, who basically laughed at me. Fast forward a few months and I couldn't get the idea out of my mind. I was thinking of a girl....a daughter...but how could we do that? One day, we heard a sermon at church about Hesed, faithfulness to that which the Lord calls us. I couldn't get this out of my mind, but was God really looking for faithfulness from us through adoption? Again? We came home and Russ told me the same things I had been thinking....what are we being faithful to? Ourselves? Should we go back? Is there a girl?

So, we decided to start again, although we weren't really forthcoming by telling others about it. The wait is so very long at times, and it really hadn't been terribly long since we were home with Asher. So, we completed our homestudy, had our background checks, did our physicals, and basically set everything in motion. We really thought it would be a long time, too. With the boys, we waited a total of 13 months from beginning to end, each time. Actually, that isn't too long overall when compared with the times of some other families. Usually, though, if you decide that you are open to either a boy or a girl, you may get a boy referral first. For some reason, there are more of those sweet, special needs boys in China who need families, I don't know why. So, we have experience adopting boys. We have never waited for a girl, though, and we really just didn't know what to expect.

We were fingerprinted and processed and certifying and authenticating all while we were trying to sell our house. I have mentioned that our house sale was a true gift--because at one time we weren't sure if we should even sell or not. And, we were thinking of renting or just moving to an even smaller place temporarily, all because we still didn't know how much longer we would have to wait before we could go to China again. Honestly, it was a dark time, those months of trying to sell our house. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it is something of a roller coaster of hoping that someone will buy, but feeling sad about leaving a house that we loved, and also wondering where to move to and how to cover everything. It was a hard process. I have said that I even got to the point where I had accepted the fact that we were probably staying in our house for another year.....maybe it didn't even matter because we didn't have a referral, right? But then, we did sell, and it went fast! Suddenly, we knew we were moving and we needed a place! I was glad to be at the end of our roller coaster and we started trying to decide where we should move.

Three days after we signed our papers, the phone rang and it was our adoption agency. The gal calling introduced herself and asked if I had a few minutes to talk? Even if I didn't I would have made the time, I had a pretty good idea of why she was calling. She wanted to talk to us about a little girl in China and ask us if we would be interested in looking at her pictures and her file. We said yes and so she emailed us the information so we could think about it.

It really did not take much thinking, although Russ and I tried to do the responsible thing and peruse all of the lab results, check out her pictures, read her history and try to look up as much information as we could. We said yes, of course, because I knew when I saw her picture, that sweet little face, she's the one.

We named her Ellie, although her full, English name will be Mary Ellen Yu. The "Yu" comes from a name of the province where she is currently living. She is now 15 months old, lives in foster care and has hearing loss, so we have been making some preparations for testing when she gets here. We have been praying that she will make a smooth transition, although who isn't at least a little traumatized by leaving the foster family/orphanage you've lived in for your entire life to go with some family who looks nothing like you, doesn't speak your language and eats weird food? It can be difficult, as we've seen with both boys. So, we aren't expecting everything to be sunshine and roses, in fact, we're expecting a lot of tears and some difficult adjustments. Maybe we'll be happily surprised if it isn't as bad as we pictured.

But anyway, this baby girl is now waiting to join our family and we are waiting for her. I sent her the care package in hopes that she will have a few things of her own and to share with her current family. Additionally, sending this package gives them a heads up that she has a family. We were told that foster families aren't always notified until travel approval is issued for the adopting family, roughly a month before leaving. So, we wanted to give them time to prepare their hearts for her to say good-bye, and we wanted her to have some pictures so she will know a little bit of what to expect. Maybe it will give her some comfort to see that she will have Chinese brothers!