About coming home...

As we are about to go get our girl I thought I'd inform others of a few specific things we will be doing to transition our little angel into our family. Here is the letter I've sent to our family and friends. 

Dear friends and family,

As we prepare to welcome home our sweet Sena Jane we would like to share with you some unique, specific things that we will be doing as a family to help make her transition to our home as positive as possible. We ask that you please keep her unique circumstances in mind and try to view the world from her perspective as we transition her into her forever family.

Although we love Sena Jane very much, she does not know us. She is not only experiencing new sights, sounds and tastes, but she will be deeply grieving the loss of her caretakers in Ethiopia. This is a loss that will take time to heal. Based on lots of advice and research, the best way to help her little mind heal will be to create a calm, very predictable environment for her for the first several weeks home. She needs to learn that she can trust us. This unfortunately means we will need to limit visitors and large crowds for a while. We need to make sure she feels as secure and safe as possible in this big new world she is in! 

She also needs to learn that Lance and I are her Mommy and Daddy and this will take time as well. In order to begin bonding with her and eventually solidifying to her that we are always and forever her parents, we will need to parent a bit differently than we would with a biological child. Until we see that she has developed a strong attachment to us we ask a few specific things of you all. 

Lance and I will be the only ones meeting any of her basic needs. We will be the ones to feed her, change her, bathe her etc. In addition, we will be the only ones holding her and we ask that you please not reach your arms out towards her to be held. 

Playing with her on the floor with her mommy and daddy present however is just fine! And I know a couple of two year olds that would probably LOVE some extra attention!! 

We saw such a great, loving connection between her and her caretakers and we are hopeful that this means she will be able to easily transfer this attachment over to us. These "rules" although we don't know the timeline, are temporary and are simply what is best for our daughter. We cannot wait for the day that we put her down and she runs back crying for "mommy" and "daddy", but until then we just have to think about what's best for her!

We are so so so thankful for all the love and support of every single one of you guys! Please be patient with us. We are so excited for her to just dive into our awesome community, playgroups and more loving arms than she can count. And when she is ready I'm sure she will have lots of hugs to give out too!! 

Thanks for walking this journey alongside us!

Love,

Lance & Kayla

"Sissy wants iced tea"

I was browsing photos tonight and came across this little gem that was taken a few months ago! I just love this little relationship they have! I hope it continues to grow and get even sweeter! And I wonder how long it will take them to teach Sena Jane about their passion for beverages! 💗💗

Ethiopia day 1:

We left DC mid morning after a lovely 24 hour vacation of sight seeing and yummy food. We were both pretty much on cloud 9, both so excited to meet our little girl and just really enjoying some toddler free time just the two of us!

After a bit of a mad dash to the gate, we boarded the plane. The flight was pretty uneventful, aside from the unfortunate fact that we didn't sleep at all.

We landed in Ethiopia and after getting some things arranged, set off to meet our girl. Unfortunately, Obama was in town this particular day and almost all the roads out of addis were blocked off for security. So we literally couldn't get out of town! I was really chomping at the bit at this point, and was also really starting to feel the 24 hours of no sleep, mixed with the crazy Ethiopian traffic and more exhaust and crazy driving than you can imagine! Our orphanage is in a rural area pretty far away from the main city of Addis. The car ride was no fun and as much as I just wanted to soak in Ethiopia, I was DYING to meet my little Sena Jane! 

About 5 hours later we were finally dropping our stuff off at our hotel and loading back up, toys in hand, to see our girl! 

After driving for what seemed like days earlier in the day, it felt like it was about 30 seconds and they were saying "we are here!" 

So, we got out and waited in a little front office kind of room. The director welcomed us and told me that I had a "face like Sena's" and motioned for us to sit down. They kept yelled out this little back window for a few minutes, periodically telling our translator things like "she is getting dressed" "she is getting a diaper". Then all of a sudden around the corner comes this tiny little baby girl with tiny little braids in her hair. 

All I could think was "she is so little!!" And what's odd is that she isn't little at all. But to me she looked like such a tiny little angel baby, I could hardly take it! 

Like labor, the events to follow were a blur. She was definitely scared of us and clung to her nanny for dear life. We later learned that this was her very favorite nanny. We talked to her and tried to lure her into our arms with a stuffed animal and sweet words. She wasn't sold on us one bit, however she was a trooper and let me hold her. Having that sweet baby finally in my arms is a feeling I can't explain. It just felt like a 1,000 pound weight was lifted off my shoulders. It wasn't going to be today or tomorrow or the next day, but my heart could finally relax knowing she has found her home.

We weren't able to spend all that much time at the orphanage. We played with several kids and were able to see her room and friends. We got in a few more sweet moments with Sena and could see her little personality starting to shine through! It was a great first meeting day! 

We left the orphanage and headed back to the lodge where we were staying. We were asleep in bed by 7:00pm. It was heavenly. We did wake up around 11:30pm to the sound of what had to be AT LEAST 50 monkeys directly above us, in our room with just screens and no fully closing windows, howling and screaming and making more noise than I've ever heard. I was officially pretty freaked out. But what is there to do other than just crank the sound machine up on your phone and pop a couple Tylenol pm. So that is what I did, and luckily my exhaustion won over my terror of the monkeys! 

Stay tuned for day two with our girl!