Blessed Beyond Belief

Wow... we feel so blessed by everyone's joy over our adoption. Friends and family have cheered, laughed, cried and rejoiced with us. We have so much to be grateful for this week with the surgery going so well AND becoming parents. On top of all the well wishes some have been asking if they can get us something for the boys. Advice from other adoptee parents is to keep life simple. We don't really need any clothes or toys. We are registered at Amazon and at Babies-R-Us for the items we do need or want. Also Target Gift Certificates would be helpful to go gather last minute things we need, or to use to buy donations to the orphanage. Thank you everyone for your prayers, your joy and your friendship. We feel so incredibly loved by all of you.

Here are just a few of the wonders of this week:).
First and most importantly our boys - Yared and Nathaniel.... the most recent pictures of them.



The night we became parents, Ben arrived home with some beautiful flowers and a dinner from Chili's to celebrate. It was so special to share this night with Mom.



On Thursday nights we have a Bible Study group that meets at our house. Our friend Kimberly made us a special dessert:).


Mom has been such a blessing in this time of healing from surgery and preparing for parenthood. This week we went out and she bought the boys matching outfits and their first Bible.

We would like to introduce our SONS!! Yared and Nathaniel

Today Ben and I passed court - which means we are now the proud parents of two handsome boys. Thank you for all your prayers. We are so thankful to God for all that He did while we waited to become parents. Yared is 4 and as you can tell is very proud of his little brother. Nathaniel is 18 months and is harder to get pictures of as they say he doesn't like the camera. We hope to go pick them up next month. We can't wait to get to know them in person.

Court Date Countdown.

Thanks everyone for all your support and prayers with the surgery. The recovery has been going very well. Mom and Ben are doing a great job taking care of me. I am surprised with how well I feel already. I am so glad to have this behind me.

Now on to our court date!! We know many of you have walked this long road with us and we thank you for all your love, prayers and support. Wednesday is our court date. This is done in Ethiopia by power of attorney. We should know sometime Wednesday maybe as late as Thursday if we pass or fail. If we pass the boys are legally our children and we will post pictures of their adorable faces and go pick them up in a month. If we fail, we will have to wait on a new court date. This will probably be a few months from now. We would love to pass court on our first court date but it is not unusual to fail at least once. We are praying for good results!! We will let you know what happens.

Mo's morphine laced recovery room message

Hello to all of Moira's friends and family.

Its Meg (Moira's sister) updating the blog as Moira lies in the hospital in a haze of narcotics. She called my cell phone from the recovery room and left the following message which must be read with all the slurred accents included: "Helllooow Meggie. Itsss Moira. I jthust wanted you to hear m'voish.....I'm high on Morphine." (OK, got that right). "Thinss wendt realllywelll. Hopefully getting rid fthisovray will take care off evthing......I'm not sad....just high on Morphine. Bye!! MO"

She ended the phone call like a she had sent me an email or a letter and sounded very at peace. The essence of Moira...she is not sad, just high. She is so often high on life and love and living. I know that everyone who reads this is so relieved she came through the surgery well and that only an ovary had to be removed. I know that everyone who loves Moira, sends her and Ben prayers and well wishes for a quick recovery and for good news next week on the Court's outcome.

(PS I love you, my sister.)

Pre Surgery Night Mares:)

I haven't really been worried about surgery other than the recovery but my subconscious must have had some fears. Two nights ago, I had a dream/nightmare that Ben took me to hospital. We got there and it was really the crowded New York Subway. We were standing in a huge crowd and the Anesthesiologist came and put my IV in. I asked, "Shouldn't I be lying down?" He said, "No we are too busy to give you a bed so you will do the surgery standing up. Plus we need you awake for this procedure, so this will stop you from feeling pain but not put you to sleep." He then proceeded to viciously poke me with a stick and ask if I could feel it. When I said yes he told me to pump this button and it would make pain meds go into the IV. So we stood there with him poking me with a stick and me pumping my pain meds until I couldn't feel the stabs:). Even in my dream this seemed an inefficient way of doing things. The man next to me had the same thing done to him. All the sudden Ben was gone and the doctor came up and started cutting my head with a saw. I asked why, as I am having a cyst out near my uterus. He said this is the way it is done these days going from the top down. The man next to me had a square cut out of his head and then the doctor left. I have a big gash and the man next to me has an open square. We are standing there pumping our pain meds like crazy in case we start feeling anything. Then the man asks me to see how his wound looks. I look in his head and see that his brain is really a tiny little forrest. I didn't want to tell him that he had no brain so I tell him to keep it covered and then I went looking for Ben dragging my IV with me. Luckily I woke up then, quite relieved to find out it was a dream. Ben says the reason I need more sleep than him is because I have such crazy dreams. He might be right.

In reality I think all will go well. Other than the fact that I have to drink this nasty jug of what I swear is salt water and it is going to do some "cleansing", I think things will be fine. I'll keep you posted.

My heart hurts for our boys

I am a bit addicted to other adoptive parents blogs. I was reading one today written by a lady from my agency that is in Ethiopia right now picking up her son. He is the same age as our older boy, "Y". In fact they have been best buddies for months now. I have been hearing from many parents that go over there that our "Y" is a sweet, sensitive boy who desperately wants attention. I also have been noticing that he is looking sad in pictures. Then today I read the blog of "Y"s best bud leaving. The mom said "Y" was sobbing as the car drove away. I sat here with tears running down my face. There is nothing I can do to help my little man. In fact he is not even "mine" yet but I feel his pain and wish I could be there to take it away for him. I know I keep asking, but please pray that we pass court and go get "Y" and "N" and bring them home for good!!!

One Week

I never thought we would be here. After all the waiting we are down to the last week before our court date.
One week and we might become parents.
One week and our lives could change completely.
One week and two small boys who are already a part of our hearts could become apart of our family.
One week ........ what a difference a week can make.

I am nervous, excited, overwhelmed, and in some ways feel like I am living in a surreal dream.

Two Leppards in The Big Apple

Ben and I had a great three night visit to New York this past week. Everything was perfect except for air travel. They lost our bag and it took us nine hours to get home as we got stuck in DC waiting for a shuttle flight home. The good news in this is we realized there is NO way we want to do that with two new kids. We are going to drive to DC to fly to Ethiopia. The rest of the trip was wonderful. We lucked out on weather. We enjoyed some great food, walked miles and miles, took too many pictures, stayed in a beautiful hotel, saw a show, went to the Statue of Liberty and all the other big sights and got caught up in the flow of NY. Oh yeah and just enjoyed exploring together. This is a just a sampling of the pictures we took. I'll give both of us credit for these shots. Ben even took some of the artistic ones:).

First four - our walk through Central Park




Ellis Island




Subway shot









Grand Central Station


Ben is the one holding the tripod up:)

Ground Zero