***This blog has been a blessing to myself, I hope our daughter, and I have been told has been a strength to others.  am seriously considering stopping posting (or cutting way back) here, however I will leave the blog up for others to read as time goes on. Up until now this story has been MY side of a story on a journey to get to our daughter. Now that she is in our life, my side of the story is very much HER story and I don’t feel it is fair to have her life publicly exposed without her knowing or being at an age to consent. I will continue to privately blog for her, a way to diary her life for her. There is a possibility that I could change my mind and continue to post here but for now I am going to write with the mindset that this is it.

Wow, a long chapter of my life has been closed and a brand new chapter, maybe a whole new book, has begun. What an amazing experience it has been and will continue to be.

This chapter has been filled with lots of hard times, frustrating times, times that really tried my faith, and really tested a lot of who I was. Since the beginning I have been very emotionally wrapped up in this adoption and wanted our daughter more then anything. This was suppose to be a process of 8-10 months and it turned to be a few days short of 3 years. To those still waiting, please know that the wait is worth it and the pain does get less quickly although it does not go completely away. There is the pain that our daughter had to sit in a orphanage for 22 months while we were waiting for her and that pain will hurt for a very long time. I do not want to be cliché but I do want to encourage you to know that even though the wait is hard, maybe the hardest time you have ever faced, when that sweet child is placed in your arms the pain does fade.

I don’t even know where to begin this post. Let’s start at the most recent and go backwards. Mikayla is simply amazing and our first days home have been nothing short of joy and happiness. It is such an exciting time to wake up and see her smile as we pick her up, or play with her, or feed her. I am exhausted by nap time and have to take a nap myself to recharge, and then start over again for the afternoon. I will say by the end of the day I am looking forward to bed time, but I am forward even more to her waking up the next morning. I can’t believe that I will be any less excited as time goes on but I know it will happen as we get into our routines. You know the old saying, “the worst day fishing is better then the best day working”? I hope that I continue to feel that “the worst day parenting is better then the best day not having a child around”, I can’t imagine that part will ever go away. Not that I was unhappy before Mikayla, but I don’t think I could ever be less happy. I hope that makes sense, what I am trying to say is that Mikayla has brought so much joy to my life that even as time goes on and things aren’t so “new”, times are tough, and the days are dark, I believe I will still be a very happy man.

Mikayla gets up about 7 or 8 in the morning and first thing you see from her is the biggest smile. We carry her to our bed and she wants to start playing right away, of course we still are trying to wake up so we try to lay her down with us- yeah right! That is one thing she really does not like is to be laid down, even if you stay right with her or hold her she does not like it. After a little while of messing around in bed and watching some cartoons we get up for some breakfast (***I have to be fair and make a side note here, the second day I made it to the watching cartoons step but never made it out of bed until 11am- oops guess I needed my rest ) Her eating has gotten a little less and more picky now but she seems to like fruit an awful lot and bread like biscuits, rolls, french toast and she LOVES apple juice. She gets the cutest look on her face when she takes a drink of juice, it is sort of like a lip smack with a big refreshing smile. We then turn on TV and watch some of the kids shows like Elmo, or the more educational young children shows like Baby Einstein or Sesame Street. She loves to be entertained and held through the day. She does seem to becoming more of a daddy’s girl  since we have been home, so while I do cherish that, we are trying to encourage her to spend more time with MA. After some TV it is about lunch time so she will usually eat more fruit (a great friend left us a bunch of  food and fruit while we were gone) and maybe some chicken salad (we had some good chicken salad to given to us too), and after lunch it is a few more minutes of TV and then nap time (this has become a good part of the day as sometimes I take a nap too, I’ll have to check with the boss and see if I can keep doing that when I get back to work). The last couple days after nap time we have gone to the park, which she seems to really enjoy getting out and I think it quickly wears her out. She enjoys walking around and today we put her on the swings, slides, and spinny things- she had a blast. Then the rest is pretty routine- dinner, bath, and then bed.

Bedtime is a pretty special time for me. It usually doesn’t last long until she is asleep but I will take her into her bedroom and turn the lights real low while I feed her a bottle. Mikayla is my only child and will likely be my only child so I am cherishing the time that the Lord has given me to bond and experience the joy of having a little child in my arms falling asleep. It really warms my heart to spend this time with her and I know it will not last long. Every second of this time is as precious as a bar of gold and I would not trade it for anything.

Here are a couple pictures from our first few days at home, my next post will be about our experience in China.