Amazing Grace...

This month marks the one year anniversary of our Dossier arriving to China. While China counts our wait from this date, we really have now waited about 21 months since making the decision to adopt. 21 months has seen Dakota evolve from a toddler into a very headstrong little girl-every bit like her mother:) 21 months have passed with us counting one day at a time....waiting for a child we did not know. We have now had 16 days of looking at the pictures of Shiloh HongMei Turner......I still cannot comprehend that my new daughter is over 7000 miles away...it feels like it might as well be the moon. She is 2. I have missed all her firsts...smile, words, steps and 2 birthdays.....did someone sing to her on her birthdays....she has been through 2 surgeries with no mommy to hold her and make it better.....she has lost a birth mother and a family and when we bring her home a country and culture....she has lost a past we may never be able to know about.......how do I ever make up for all she has lost and all I have missed? I do have to take a step back and look at how this all happened. It was such an easy decision when we decided to adopt. I think to that first month that we knew we were heading to China. It felt like then it was so far away, like maybe it might or might not ever happen. You go through so many emotions....are we doing the right thing for our family....will we love her....will she love us....and you wait and wait. People are interested and supportive, but after 21 months some stop asking or are afraid to......"nothing"....."no news"...it is quiet this side of China. But the months pass and you hang onto hope somehow. I can say that my pregnancy with Dakota was very hard, but International adoption???? I have built a Dossier...7.5 months (I am woman, hear me roar!), I have battled downtown to have paperwork authenticated, together as a family we have prayed daily for over 21 months about this child we did not know, we have laughed, we have cried, we have been happy for the little news and progress and angry at the system, we have explained over and over to a big sister about an unknown wait and a possible little sister-A big sister who didn't understand the concept of 21 months or an unknown wait, we have lost sleep, we have danced in the living room at receiving 1 piece of approved paperwork that does not signify much but one more step in government process here or in China,.......I could go on and on. And then we found her...or she found us, and in 16 days....I cannot even count the things that let us know that this is our daughter and God has a plan. Things fell into place so easily in spite of the paperwork and proving and mailing and calling and emailing.....and even changing agencies.

• Shiloh shared my Grandfathers Birthday 11-11-07
• She was found on a street in China on my Mom and Sister's birthday 11-14-07
• A group of waiting adoptive moms (The Renegades) like me have formed our own support group
• I have been in contact with families who have video of the orphanage where Shiloh is and it does look nice for an orphanage in China
• I have made contact with a family right here in Fayetteville that is waiting for their daughter in the same orphanage as Shiloh....we hope to allow them to grow up here together so they have a connection-How amazing is that?
• I prayed that we would find our child in one of the farthest unusual places in China...and very few kids from Inner Mongolia have been adopted..although I think the programs there are growing.
• I had a dream when I was pregnant with Dakota. I dreamed Chuck and I went to the NICU to see Dakota, but when we got there, a little 2 year old girl with black hair was waiting on us and knew I was her mom...isn't that weird, as at that time China was not in my mind.
• Of course Dakota's first response was "that is not a baby" when she saw Shiloh's picture-we had to explain that China sometimes give you older babies and she has warmed up to the idea of Shiloh already being big enough to play
  

While all of this is simply coincidence, I can't help but believe that this is all part of what God planned in the beginning. Yes, I have been taught a lesson in patience with giving birth and now adopting. Chuck has always said that we would know who Shiloh was in 2009, I just didn't want another Christmas to pass without at least a picture on our tree. I cried the night Chuck put Shiloh's picture right next to Dakota's on our tree. I do not have to be sad about it this Christmas. Grace is Amazing...(I first knew that the day Dakota was born and now I get to live it again:)