Reflections

Reflections

Just over 2 years ago, we brought home our sweet daughter from Ethiopia. I wish I could say it was bliss from the moment we stepped back into Canada, but in reality, they were tough times! It was a big adjustment for all of us, and especially for her of course. Not an easy thing for a toddler to leave all she knows and coming to another country to live with strangers! She did amazingly well though, and has blossomed into a bright and happy child.

Watching baby J grow through infancy has been a continual reminder of so many precious moments I've missed with E. I wish I could know what she weighed at birth, how old she was when she first smiled, and crawled. I wish I could have seen her first steps. It's made me treasure what I've gotten to experience of her childhood all the more.

I did have the painful joy of watching some of her early days through pictures as she grew up in the orphanage. She was brought there at about 7 months of age. This is the first picture I saw of my darling daughter. My first thought when my husband surprised me with the photo was that it was an advertisement for Ethiopian adoption - she was just too adorable!

As the months passed, we received several more pictures (I think if you click on them, you can see them bigger). Here she is wearing a little outfit we sent for her. A couple months later, a friend who went to pick up her son from the same orphanage told me she had started walking! At least I know that she started walking when she was about 12 months old! These occasional photos and tidbits of news were like finding tiny pieces of gold in a murky stream. The eight months we waited to pick her up were brutal!

Another friend who went to pick up her child did something just amazing for us. Along with taking several new pics of E, she also took a video of her walking! What a treasure!

Of course it didn't compare to seeing the real thing, which didn't happen for a couple months after. We finally met our daughter on December 25, 2007. At the orphanage when we met her, it wasn't too difficult to make her smile. She loved to play peekaboo - or as they say in Ethiopia - 'aieeeeee!'

While we were in Ethiopia, we had the amazing privilege of meeting with some of E's birth family, and even seeing her grandma's home where she was born.

So while I grieve the moments I missed with my daughter, we treasure the amazing journey that brought her to us, and celebrate each moment that we have with her now (well, except for those whiny and otherwise unmentionable ones that come with the toddler years that in times of reminscing we tend to blissfully ignore!).

The photo on the right about 2 weeks after she came home, and the one below from about a year ago.

Isn't she sweet!!!