Officially Becoming a Family of Five!

Thursday Feb 10, 2011

I woke up a bit on the grumpy side this morning (the lack of sleep is catching up with me ;).  But it was our court date—and that’s a pretty big deal!

Right before breakfast we scrambled to get our questions ready for Little Girl’s family.  Then we went down to the restaurant (more yummy donuts) before heading off to court.

The court is maybe 30 minutes or so away and it is a crazy city-drive.  There is the most amazing interplay between vehicles, people and animals on the streets.  Cars and people everywhere!  But very little honking and for some reason, while we seem to almost bump into cars in every direction and it looks like we’re going to get crashed into every second, no one is stressed and in fact no one bangs into anyone!  I don’t know how it works, but it’s amazing to behold.

The court house is just an ordinary building among many other buildings in a city area.  We climbed 4 flights of stairs (very good exercise on a normal day, extremely good exercise when we’re at 8,000 feet above sea level) and then gathered into a small class-room sized room with chairs around the perimeter.

This was a big moment.  This is the place where her birthfamily testifies that they are willingly giving her up for adoption because there is no other option, and where we say that we unconditionally accept her as a forever child into our family.  That is huge.  And deep.  Something that if I really try to wrap my mind around that makes me want to just sob at the depth of the mix of emotions involved. 

But I didn’t want to cry (too much).  And so I tried to not think too deeply, while remaining very focused on the significance of the morning.

So, the chairs around the room were completely filled with birthfamilies, adoptive parents and interpreters.  Somewhere in that room was Little Girls birthfamily.  After surreptitiously glancing at the faces around the room, I spotted Little Girl’s eyes, and her skin color…it was her family…

They went in first and when they came out we went in.  The judge asked us just a handful of questions and then told us that once she made her ruling, Little Girl would forever be a part of our family.  We would hear later if we had passed.

We all went back outside to the van—the adoptive families and birthfamilies.  Her family pulled us aside and gave us a big, warm hug.  We rode back to HH together.

In those first minutes in the van, I felt so unworthy of the gift we were being given.  I felt my inadequacy of being the perfect parent.  I felt like there was no way that I would be able to walk this journey well if I rely only on my own strength and wisdom.  And just as I was thinking that the driver turned on “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord” (in English).  It so beautifully fit…

When we arrived back at HH, we immediately had the privilege of meeting with her family—to share photos of her, to give them the letter we had written with our hopes and dreams for Little Girl and to ask any questions that might help us tell Little Girl more about her family.  It was very emotional, very holy, very blessed.  With great confidence we will be able to share how dearly and deeply loved Little Girl is. 

It is very hard to describe the powerfulness, gratitude and humility from that precious meeting.

Just before coming back to the hotel from lunch, we found out that we had passed court.  Little Girl is officially a part of the Miller Family!  Wow…

….

We spent the afternoon with Little Girl in her room.  Her personality shined!  We can not wait to be able to bring her home—hopefully within the next month or two.  (We’ll be waiting for an Embassy date.)

Tomorrow night J and I leave—and we leave with a piece of us here.  But we will go to our house to get a place prepared just for her, a special place at HOME.

(Fun little detail from the day.  Our video camera has been giving us troubles for some time.  We wanted to record the meeting with her family so that she can see them talking and sharing about their hopes and dreams for her someday.  On the way back to HH for that meeting our video camera WOULD NOT work.  Ugh!  We literally prayed that it would work for the meeting because we know how special that recording will be for her.  Don’t you know, it worked for that meeting time only and hasn’t worked again since.  So thankful! :)