Three Months Ago this Night....

...I was packing up the last of our things...thousands of miles away from home in a city that never in my lifetime did I ever think I would visit. But I wasn't there visiting...I was there to pick up my child. A small little girl who was just barely 7 months old that didn't even know who I was. A small little girl that smiled at me, but with question, because she had abruptly been taken from the only world she had ever known and handed over to people that she couldn't remember. As I gently folded the last of her things and packed them in her suitcase I thought about the future....and about the past. It was the eve of a whole new world...not just for her...but for us. For months I had longed to bring her home. Months had gone by where I had cried and longed to hold my daughter and now here I was, folding her clothes, packing them away, knowing that this time, I wasn't leaving her behind. She was coming home. I never did sleep that night. All I could think about was that plane ride that would take us to the United Sates and then, back to Ohio, her new home. I had dreamed about this moment since before we ever laid eyes on her, since before she was ever even born!! And the time was almost here. My thoughts drifted to the arrival we would make at the airport and how our familes would be there waiting for us...waiting for her. It felt like a dream...and to be honest...it still does!

As I write this I can hear her whimpering in her crib through the baby monitor. She does that sometimes a night. She wakes up and grabs her Lovey that her grandma got her. I can hear it jingle since it has a little bell in it. It's her favorite thing in bed and she won't sleep without it. So now I think about how I know those things. When she came home I felt like I knew her instantly. I felt a connection to this child that was amazing and instant. And I think she felt the same way because she has always loved me, since the beginning, and has always found comfort in my arms. She knows my voice and follows it and follows me!

I never thought that this would be a chapter in my life. Although maybe I did know....I just didn't know that THIS was how it would play out. From the time was in high school I had feared I could not have children. It was just a "feeling" that I had, something that no evidence ever suggested, just something that I feared and felt. When Kris and I were married I knew I instantly had to try for a child. I didn't want to wait. For some reason, now which I know, I felt that a clock was slowly ticking and that we needed to have a baby NOW. It took us from the day of our marriage, April 7th, 2001 until Novemeber, 2001 to become pregnant. I was not one that adored pregnany. In fact...I hated it quite a bit. I became huge, swollen, and moody. I was 42 weeks pregnant when they induced me and my labor ended in an emergency c-section. Alec was the picture of beautiful health as a baby. He was adorable in every way that a baby should be. He was wonderful and he created in me a pride that I had never felt before. The instant love that I felt for him was overwhelming. He is my blessing from God...truly. I adore my son more then life itself. He has completed a part of my soul that was empty.

Shortly after Alec turned one that nagging feeling returned that we needed to have another child. We tried for a few years but it was too late. The opportunity for us to have children had passed. And as depressed as I was to know that we would not have anymore children on our own...it was as if I knew this would happen to me and that was part of the ultimate plan in my life. And it was.

I worried that I wouldn't love Mikayla the same way I loved Alec. I often feared that I would feel different somehow about her. But I don't. She came to our family by the grace of God. She was God's plan for us, afterall. I still mourn the time I lost with my daughter. There were many months that passed before she was "ours" and I still think of them often. She is a beautiful child. So full of laughter and life. She has a very easy-going personality. She is a dream. And I feel guilty writing that because I know that not all adoptions are a "dream" at first. But I cannot lie and say otherwise because our was and is....a perfect dream. I guess not a dream...a reality. I am still amazed when I wake up in the morning and see her beautiful face smiling at me. I am still amazed when she falls asleep each night cradled in my arms in the glider. I am still amazed when she reaches her arms towards me and says MAMA. I am still amazed that after all we went through....I have a daughter...and her name is Mikayla Faith. My sweet Mikayla Faith...Happy Three Month Home Anniversary...you are my princess....now and forever.