Twists and Turns

This adoption journey is full of ups and downs.

I feel like I have yet another "family" through Reece's Rainbow and the stories of these families all hit home with me right now.

In the past week so much has happened in the Reece's Rainbow family.

The Fillmores are on their way HOME with their little girl Anya after almost a year of waiting!

The Davis family had a shocking twist of events as they were told they were denied the right to bring their son Kirill home. This news was shocking and heartbreaking to all of us, And yet through this tragedy miracles are coming about.....things are looking hopeful and they are appealing......and prayers are being heard. The facebook and blogging world has spread this story like wildfire and in doing so has reached a hollywood star, Patricia Heaton, (Everybody loves Raymond and The Middle) who is now advocating for these kids and donated $10,000 to Reece's Rainbow today!!!! Through her, Sean Hannity is also now a follower of Reece's Rainbow as well!

The Burman family took their new daughter Carrington, out of the orphanage and to their horror, found that she had been literally fighting for her life. This is what they had seen everytime they had visited her...a child who appeared healthy in her layers of clothing. (It is VERY common to layer the children there, even indoors so it didn't appear strange)

and this is what they found when they got her home to their apartment in EE and undressed her.

They immediately rushed her to the ER upon arrival in the U.S. and she is now getting the medical attention and the love from a family that she so DESPERATELY needed!

She is 3 1/2 years old and was 11 pounds when they brought her home! If this family had been even days later in getting to her, she would not have made it!

Masha's family arrived in EE this week to find out that she had been transferred days before to the institution and so they are now scrambling to change the paperwork needed and get to her at the institution. She is barely 4 like Kareen.

Needless to say, this journey is full of unknowns and twists and turns and I find myself getting SO worried about my girl on the other side of the world. I worry about all the unknowns and what ifs and I feel so helpless! Then I have to remind myself that the Lord is in charge and the greatest gift I have through this journey right now is prayer!

I can pray for Kareen!

I can pray for these other children and families!

I can pray for peace and comfort!

Thank goodness for prayer to see me through this emotional rollercoaster and to protect my girl when I can not!

Mama Love

(thanks Julia for this post taken from her blog...)

The video below is Kirill. Last August. The day the Davis family met him for the first time. He was dirty and smelled of urine from his overloaded diaper. His hands were raw and bleeding from being constantly chewed and his ears had infected looking sores in them. He had on a shirt that was ragged and stained. He was tiny, cold and so very thin. He didn't talk but instead grunted and hissed. On the outside he was a wreck of a little guy. Covered with sores, frail, smelly and filthy dirty.

But to Tesney and Greg - He was gorgeous. He was beyond precious. They wanted nothing more than to grab him up, hold him close and run with him out of that orphanage as fast as their legs could carry them. He was their treasure. They delighted in every aspect of him. He was their son. Filthy - dirty - scab-encrusted - wretched. Their son. Handpicked by God to be theirs. They looked at him through the eyes of Love and deemed him perfect.

They were only able to see him for two days last August. Two hours total. In the first moments - when they first met him - they didn't want to frighten him - they wanted to give him space - room - time. So they gently talked - loved him from a distance - letting him make the first move - giving him the chance to choose.

This, my dear friends, is what Kirill chose.

He chose Mama Love.

He chose to be held close. He chose to have his head nestled in its proper place against his Mama's shoulder. He chose Love.

Last week a judge determined in a shocking ruling that this little boy would be better off in an institute instead of in a family.

She didn't see this video.

She didn't watch this little boy melt into his Mama's arms.

She didn't study the look of utter contentment on his face.

For two hours last August Kirill experienced for the only time in his life the wonder of being loved by a Mama.

He got to feel her gentle arms wrapped tightly around his dirty, sore-covered body and he got to hear her gentle voice whispering words of love in his infected little ears.

Mama Love.

A love that is beyond reason. A love that sees beauty in filth. A love that looks past the outward odor and appearance. A love that mirrors God's love.

Kirill is their son. Whether they are ever allowed to cross that ocean and bring him home or not - he is their son.

He needs His Mama.

The Davis blog is HERE.

And PRAY PRAY PRAY for the Hook family. Next Thursday - March 31 - they stand before the same judge - begging for their little girl. Please - Pray!

SOOO bummed!!!!

We thought for sure we would be submitted today (meaning our dossier would be submitted to the SDA, the State Department of Adoptions in Kareen's country, and the legal process would start and you would usually only be a few weeks from receiving a travel date) and we were NOT! OUr dossier got there so fast we thought for sure it would be submitted today, but since it was not it means we have to wait a WHOLE week to hear again! We are PRAYING that we get submitted next week because the first 2 weeks of April the SDA is closing to new dossiers so if we miss next weeks submission than we will be another few weeks out. Being submitted means more than just getting closer to a travel date....it means that your child's file is pulled and put in your file and that they are "legally held" for you and that they are alright. So continuing to wait to hear that good news is hard! I just need to KNOW that she is ours and that she is ok!

I emailed Kris and was very upset about not having good news today and in his usual wisdom he responded "Yeah that sucks, I was hoping to hear good news today. weird. I guess like everything in the process we just have to have faith that things will work out and that the timing of everything is in the Lord's hands, as it has been in everything that has happened so far. "

See why I married this man? On this rainy, gloomy, no good news day, he says the right thing to make me feel a little better.

What better way to celebrate world down syndrome day......

than to see an orphan who happens to have down syndrome, walk out of an orphanage in Russia and into her MOMMY's arms FOR GOOD!!!!!!!! It was GOTCHA DAY for Heather and Anya and the tears were flowing as I read about it!!!! Go HERE to read about it!

If you follow my family blog, than this is a repost, but if not, here is my post from today for world down syndrome day

"If you're lucky enough to be different, don't ever change."

-Taylor Swift-

With lots of girls in our house, we hear a lot of Taylor Swift and when I heard this quote of hers, I fell in love with it!

It is so fitting for today.

Today is March 21 or 3/21....it is World Down Syndrome Day because Down syndrome appears as 3 copies of the 21st chromosome. So today we are celebrating down syndrome.

Since blue is one of the colors for down syndrome awareness and the butterfly is also a symbol....this shirt of Bree's was a perfect choice for today.

Down syndrome has changed our lives. Little did we know in those first moments, hours , and days of this new world, that it would change our lives FOR. THE. BETTER.

Down syndrome is not WHO Bree is but rather something that she has, but because of her extra chromosome, we have had so many opportunities and so many experiences that we never would have had without the down syndrome. We have many friends we would never had met, we have had many opportunities we would never have had, and now we will soon have another daughter who we never would have found had it not been for down syndrome.

I went in Bree's room the other night to kiss her goodnight and as I sat there looking at her sweet face, I got emotional thinking that she is Kareen's guardian angel.

SHE is the reason we were led to Kareen.

SHE is the reason we knew we could say yes to Kareen.

I can only imagine the conversations that must have gone on in heaven between Bree and Kareen as they looked forward to their lives on earth. Bree must have told Kareen that they would go down to earth around the same time but they would not find eachother for 4 years, until mom and dad were ready. Bree must have told Kareen that she would feel lost for a time but that one day all that would change. I am sure Bree promised Kareen that if she would just hold on, that we would come for her and that they would both have a family together.

THEY are both the reason we want others to know that down syndrome is not scary, in fact it is down right wonderful (no pun intended there)!

So on this world down syndrome day we celebrate this extra part of our lives.

We celebrate the joy and happiness that down syndrome has brought us.

We celebrate the friends we have through this down syndrome family.

We celebrate that on the other side of the world we have another daughter who also has down syndrome.

We celebrate the hope that one day the world will not deem children unworthy because of down syndrome.

HAPPY WORLD DOWN SYNDROME DAY!

Leap of Faith

When we jumped into this journey, we took a leap of faith, a BIG one.

We did not know anything about adoption, let alone international adoption.

We did not know how we were going to come up with the money needed.

We did not know how we were going to get all the paperwork done this time of year.With Kris working such insane hours (tax season) it left me to do most of the legwork and paperwork, which was scary to me because Kris is the one that is good at all of that, he is an accountant after all.I can barely keep my head afloat this time of year without the added tasks required for an international adoption.

But we lept with faith anyway...

We do not know much about Kareen.

We do not know what foods she likes, or what she likes to do.

We do not know what her smile looks like.

We do not know if she will be small for her age, or if she walks well, or how well she speaks.

We do not know if she will have health problems.

We do not know if she looks the same as this picture that we now have engrained in our heads.

We do not know the circumstances of her birth family.

We do not know if she is like Bree in her development or interests.

We know very little about her.

But we lept with faith anyway....

At this point in the process the leap of faith is not over. As we hear of all the unknowns and the unexpected things that could come up, it sometimes gets scary. But we will continue to have faith and hold on to the things we DO know!

We DO know she is 4 years old.

We DO know she has brown hair.

We know these few sentences from her bio on Reeces Rainbow

"This pretty muffin is waiting for her family! She is healthy, with no heart condition noted in her records. She has brown hair and hazel eyes, and is already up and learning to walk! Her records indicate "meiotic nondisjunction", but this is just a fancy word for what happens to create "Down syndrome" genetically. She is considered higher functioning and is really doing well. She is an orphanage favorite, and the dircetor has asked for a family to save her from the institution."

We DO know she was given up at birth because she was born with down syndrome.

We DO know she would be transferred to an institution soon if we don't save her.

We DO know she has much more to offer than her little bio and profile picture.

We DO know that she is worthy of love and that she will blossom and grow.

We DO know that she and Bree will have eachother....always.

Like these two sisters....

(one born into their family by birth, one by adoption to Lisa's family)

or these two sisters.......

( one born into the family through birth, one through adoption to Bethany's family)

We DO know that she is worth the risk and the unknowns of this journey, because Bree has shown us what a child with DS has to offer.

We DO know that she will be loved......by many.....when she comes home.

We DO know that her sisters adore her already and fervently pray for her.

We DO know that we love her and that she is meant to be part of our family.

Once again, I am pulling from the wise words of Lisa, "Having a child is always a leap of faith. We never really know what the future holds for any of our children, whether they are our biological children or adopted children. We can't plan for future diagnoses, illnesses, accidents, surgeries, and so on. We also can't plan for the untold joys and rewards of knowing, loving or raising any child.Granted, there are some things we can do to reduce our risk of heartache, but the reality is that we either live in constant fear and uncertainty of the unknown and unwanted, or we can choose to live in peace, understanding that there is good in every person and every circumstance--even when we might not first see it there."

When I was emailing back and forth with Lisa during our soul searching and trying to decide if this path was really what our family should be doing, Lisa often gave me strength and comfort. She said,"Not getting her might be easier, but she will be worth the effort :). Good things are in store for you! I am so glad you are both willing to take a leap of faith and can't wait to see how your story unfolds....You know what it is like when you see a new mother of a baby with Down syndrome...how you want to tell her it will all be okay...that her baby will be just as important and wonderful as everyone else in the family? That her life is really just beginning.....I would say the same things to you. There are never any guarantees....but I have a strong feeling that adopting Kareen would be one of the best decisions of your life. "

In the few short months we have been on this journey, we have grown and been touched and stretched in ways we could never have imagined and we KNOW this is what we are supposed to be doing, even with all the unknowns and the what ifs. We must go forward with faith, because a little girls life.....OUR little girls life....is at stake!

The good and the Bad

The good......

Anna has a family again!!!!!!

A family who is leaving next week to go to the same orphanage to meet their son Sasha

is now adding Anna to their family and bringing her home as well!!!! AMAZING!!!!

The bad.......

Another family went before a judge in EE and the courts ruled that their child was unadoptable because he has down syndrome....and said he would be better off in an institution. This poor family now has to go home without him

and this poor little boy is wondering what happened to his mom and dad.

MANY prayers go to this family in this heartbreaking trial and many prayers that there will be a miracle and the process can be appealed and the hearts of those officials in this region can be softened. There are a few other families heading to the same region in the next few weeks to adopt and they will face this same situation if hearts are not softened.

Anna

This is Anna

Anna's Reeces Rainbow page says this:

Girl, Born January 4, 2008

Anna has dark hair and dark eyes. She is so pretty! She was born with a minor heart murmur, and should be seen by a cardiologist once home.

From one of our adopting families who visited with her in April 2010: "I met Anna's mother today….a beautiful young woman….she LOVES Anna and visits her often…brings diapers and soap…takes her for walks, kisses her, and picks flowers for her. They are BEAUTIFUL together. It breaks my heart. She wants her child but can't care for her. We need to find Anna a home so this mother can know her daughter will be ok…she would probably love to stay in contact too…oh how complicated she must feel. Anna is ADORABLE!"

$5896.00 is available towards the cost of my adoption!

Anna did have a family coming for her and as of today she doesn't anymore. Her adoption fell through. For one reason or another her family is not able to follow through and bring her home. I do not know details but it is all just heartbreaking.

I first saw Anna on Jennifer's blog. Jennifer adopted Sophia last year from Anna's orphanage and was able to meet Anna. Anna's story has always stuck with me because it is so unique.

This is Anna and her mom (taken last year sometime at the orphanage while Jennifer was visiting Sophia)

This is Anna's story (taken from Jennifer's blog)

"

On the second visit we saw this mom that comes to visit her daughter on Sundays. It is the most heartbreaking thing to see, she loves her daughter so much but can't take her home because she won't have a future in this country. She visits every Sunday and bring her daughter Anna diapers and other necessities, treats for the children and the staff. She spends several hours with Anna taking her on walks, picking flowers for her, talking to her and loving her. We don't know the complete story but we know from Marina (our facilitator) that she wants her baby to be adopted so that her daughter can have a better life than she would here. She is currently on Reece's Rainbow as waiting for a family. Jen and I can't image what it must be like to have to make the most difficult decision of giving your child for adoption when you love them so dearly. But at this date and time in her country, she has no other option."

From what I have heard, not only would Anna not have a future in her country, but her mom would be shunned. She could lose her house, her job, her family, all because she had a child with down syndrome. So she did what she thought was best for her daughter and she gave her up. Now she waits....again....for a family to rescue her child and give her the future that she can only dream of giving her.

Tracking it

I am obsessed with tracking the dossier on its journey to Eastern Europe. At 3:13 am March 16, 2011 it has currently departed Paris France!!!

Dossier en route!!!!!!!

6:40 am- wake up and head to the capital to get the last apostille. It is still dark outside and feels like 5:40 because of daylight savings.

7:00 am- heading up the hill to the capital. Coming over the top of the hill in the dark morning, seeing the capital lit up gave me this rush of energy and excitement as I realized this was my last step in the dossier

7:05 am - walk into Lt. Governor's office, planning on paying the expedited same day fee and coming back in a few hours, but instead the lady did it for me right then!!! (still had to pay the higher fee but didn't have to make another trip)

7:20 am- walk out the doors of the capital as the sky is getting light holding the final documents in hand for our dossier!!!!!!

These documents are now in route to Kareen's country!!!!!!!

Documents that have been our top priority over the last few months

Documents that have taken all sorts of running around, appointments, notaries, signatures, stress and worry

Documents that our children have prayed for "please bless that mom and dad can get the fliers done quickly so we can get Kareen"

Documents that will allow Kareen's file to be pulled from the system and officially start the legal process in EE

Documents that say to her country that KAREEN IS WORTHY OF A FAMILY

Documents that say KAREEN, YOUR FAMILY IS COMING FOR YOU

Documents that will change one little girls life FOREVER!!!!!

Now's when my life begins

I LOVE the movie Tangled! My girls and I listen to the soundtrack all the time and lately I get so emotional as I listen to the song where Rapunzel FINALLY gets out of her tower! I can't help but imagine my little girl feeling these same things one day soon when she gets to touch the grass, and feel the summer breeze......

Look at the world -- so close, and I'm halfway to it!
Look at it all -- so big -- do I even dare?
Look at me -- there at last! -- I just have to do it
Should I?
No.
Here I go...
Just smell the grass! The dirt! Just like I dreamed they'd be!
Just feel that summer breeze -- the way it's calling me
For like the first time ever, I'm completely free!
I could go running
And racing
And dancing
And chasing
And leaping
And bounding
Hair flying
Heart pounding
And splashing
And reeling
And finally feeling
Now's when my life begins!

Kareen-soon you will feel this freedom and for the first time ever you WILL be completely free!! Soon we will come to get you and that's when your life really begins!!!!

Threads

We don’t accomplish anything in the world alone and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that create something."
— Sandra Day O'Connor

It is amazing to watch how the common threads of our lives weave together to create miraculous events in ways we could never have imagined.

Last year around this time, I started a new thread in my life with an incredible woman named Lisa. She was a fellow blogger, mom to a beautiful girl with Down syndrome, and was on her journey to another beautiful girl with Down Syndrome on the other side of the world. I was so captivated by her journey and would often talk about it with my husband and friends.

I vividly remember the day I saw this picture on her blog. I remember sitting at my computer and I wept, and wept, and then wept some more. Then I told others about it and wept some more!

Here was this innocent little girl cast out of society for having an extra chromosome. This little angel had been dreaming about what it would be like to have a family and after 3 long years of waiting, SHE had one. Falling asleep with her family in her arms.....a dream come true!

Little did I know that this journey of Alina's to her family, was going to one day help another little girl, find hers. It was through Lisa's blog that I found Patti. Patti quickly became another thread weaving through our lives leading to Kareen. Yes, I had already felt impressed that maybe we were supposed to adopt, and that maybe it was supposed to be through Reece's Rainbow, but I had not had the strong confirmation of who, until I found Kareen's sweet face on Patti's blog.

As I scrolled down the page and Kareens picture came up I sat there with tears rolling down my face as I looked into those big beautiful, captivating eyes, and the song playing on the playlist was "Ordinary Miracle", and I knew she was meant to be mine. I knew those eyes were staring into my soul saying "Mom, I need you to come and find me"

Then a a few days later I came upon a post on Lisa's blog titled "Just say Yes"

Again, there was my girl reaching out to me and these were the words under her picture

"Don't wait any longer. Please, if you are considering adoption, choose today to commit. Say yes today."

Once again, the threads had weaved in a way that gave me yet ANOTHER answer to my prayers.

One week after this we committed to our girl!

Patti had been brewing up something fabulous on her blog a month or more before we found Kareen there. This amazing woman, the mother of 10 children, the youngest of which has down syndrome, felt inspired to help a little girl named Olga from Reece's Rainbow.

(Olga's forever family is now coming for her too)

So she started advocating for Olga and started raising money for this sweet girl. She was so successful (she raised $12,000) that the director of Reece's Rainbow asked if Patti would add another angel to her list to help. One who was in danger of being transferred soon. That one, was Kareen. By the time I found Kareen, Patti had already raised over $3,000 for our little angel. This was just the beginning of a great connection with a fabulous lady!

As we went through the commitment process, I often talked to Patti, via email and we were both so excited to finally be able to "announce" that we were Kareen's family. You see Kareen had accumulated quite the following of fans, through Patti's fundraising and she had even more "prayer warriors" out there. The prayers of these people, came straight to our hearts and opened our eyes to what the Lord needed us to do.

Patti and her children were all connected to Kareen so when she told them Kareen had a family they all cheered with excitement, and cried. As Patti and I talked she said "wouldn't it be great if we could meet Kareen someday" thinking this was probably a far fetched dream. As we talked we realized that Patti lives in Oregon and my family has traveled to the Oregon coast every summer, or at least every other summer, since I was in high school. So we cried together as we dreamt about what that day will be like, when Kareen gets to meet her prayer warrior and advocate who helped save her. We cried thinking "of all the people in the world, what are the chances that we would really have our paths be able to cross someday?" So we are already planning our trip to the coast next year and Patti (and any of her friends there) will be a stop on that trip, and what a sweet meeting that will be.

When we announced that we were Kareen's family, we were flooded with love and support and words of encouragement and congratulations from SO many of Patti's and Lisa's friends and family who also held a little place in their hearts for this darling girl. We are grateful to each and every one of them!

Not only did Lisa's journey help me prepare for what was going to come, she has also helped me in SO many ways through this process! She has become a confidant as I emailed her in the early stages of this decision, and I think she knew even before I did, that we were going to commit to Kareen. She gave me support, love, has answered MANY questions, I have gone over her adoption journey many times as Alina was from the same country as Kareen, and I could not have made it to this point without her.

You HAVE to go HERE to see today's post by Lisa celebrating Alina's birthday ! I could not stop crying reading this today! It touched me a little too close to home right now as I picture my little girl so alone right now, but very soon will know what a family is all about. She will know that she is loved and that she is worthy of love and she will blossom, just like Alina! Love it!

The paths that are lives take and the threads that they weave are amazing to see. Sometimes we see how these threads and paths are forming and why, and sometimes we may never know. As we have been on this adoption journey we have been blessed to feel the love and support from many threads of our lives coming together to help weave a new path and a new tapestry for a special little girl. Some threads started long ago like this, some are more recent, some since birth, and all of them (along with SOO many others) have weaved together and have become a part of Kareen's miracle and a part of our tapestry and we are forever grateful!

WE HAVE BEEN APPROVED!!!!

NO...we don't actually have our "golden ticket" in hand but I called the USCIS office today and they said we have been approved and they will be mailing it out probably tomorrow!!!!! I was crying....I am SOO EXCITED!!!! Now, the only hold up is praying that our document that we had to send to Texas to get apostilled, gets here soon. I sent it last tuesday and they said they haven't got it yet, let alone processed it. So needless to say I will be calling them every day to check and get them to get it done!!

Some paperwork updates

I LOVE seeing our status on Reece's Rainbow moving up! We have now moved into the "Dossier complete, awaiting USCIS approval" category! Come on USCIS just get us that golden ticket so we can get our girl!

Last Tuesday we were able to walk in and get our fingerprints done. We had an appointment for March 14 but decided to see if we could do it early and we were able to. So now the fingerprints, our homestudy, and birth certificates are assigned to an officer at USCIS and then the officer will go over everything and approve us for international adoption.

After the fingerprints I headed straight up to the capital to drop off our dossier documents to be apostilled and then I picked them up yesterday! Each step we check off is more and more exciting because it means we are one step closer!

These beauties cost a pretty penny! At $15 per document, for 33 documents, the grand total was $495 just for a pretty gold seal on each paper.....crazy!
We had to send one of our documents to be apostilled in Texas since it was notarized there so we should get that back this week and then we will just be waiting for our "golden ticket" (which from what I have heard really isn't golden and is actually quite plain, but it is called the golden ticket because it means we are good to send the papers to her country)

We have started to have slight panic attacks about all we will have to do to get ready once our travel date comes...they are exciting panic attacks but still, this is such unknown territory we are encountering traveling to another country and leaving our kids behind for over 2 weeks (and that is just the first trip)!

Many people ask about what all the costs cover. Here is a little breakdown of what we have spent so far:

$775 Homestudy

$710 apostilles

$1275 trust deposit

$ 60 vital records (i.e. birth cert. marriage, etc)

$30 state police clearances

$200 medicals and labs

$150 shipping

Total of $3200

So we have really only scratched the service of costs. Total costs are estimated to total between $25.000-$30,000.

Through this crazy paperwork chase I have been on the last few months, I have learned to be assertive. Usually I am fine to wait until someone gets back to me, but when my little girls life is at stake, I am not about to sit around and let people get to things when they feel like it. I have become comfortable in continually checking up on things to make sure they are not forgotten.

So now we wait again.....we wait for the golden ticket!!

Dear USCIS,

PLEASE send us our golden ticket SOON!!!

With love,

Kareen's mom and dad

Everyone needs a mom when they are sick

As I was sitting up all night last night with Bree, fighting her 105 degree fever, it suddenly hit me that Kareen has never had someone to comfort her when she was sick.

Last night Bree had a mom to hold her and comfort her while trying to cool her body down, and she had a dad at her side who was right next to her holding her hand. She had a mom and dad to hold her hair out of her face as she was throwing up and to cuddle her until she could get comfortable enough to fall asleep for a few minutes. Kareen has never had this.

Even though I am grown and I am now the mom, I still remember those feelings of being taken care of by my mom when I was sick. There is just something about your mom taking care of you when you are sick that makes it all a little more bearable. I sat holding Bree last night looking into her face as she was moaning and trying to get comfortable, and was thinking how sad it would be to be sick as a child and have no one to care for you. Yes, I am sure there are orphanage doctors and staff that try to care for the children when they are sick and they may meet the childs medical needs, but it just isn't the same as a mom and a dad who can provide the love and comfort too. We pray every night that Kareen is safe and healthy, because we have no idea what her current condition is. We pray that somehow in her little 4 year old heart she will know that she has a family who is doing everything they can to get to her soon so that she will know what it is like to have a mom and a dad to hold her and comfort her the next time she is sick.

In honor of Dr. Suess

(Adrie made a cute Dr. Seuss hat at school today and Bree made a crown for her feast)

A fellow adoption mama shared this adorable poem through an email and I love it! A college aged cousin wrote this for her daughter and it is so cute! He had to write it for a college scholarship letter on the lines of "Oh the places you'll go"

"Dearest Marina,
I'm glad to be writing this letter to you. I've waited for years and your parents have, too. You're a smart little girl with two special brown eyes. You can do what you dream, no matter your size. You may have flown from ******* to be here with us now, but we never gave up; not never, no how. And in the same way that we brought you back, just know that you're loved—in love you don't lack. You may think you're different from the kids that you know, but hold your head high—let your confidence show. And one day when you're grown and are ready to fly, we'll watch you flourish—and I'll tell you why. You're kind and so sweet and compassionate too--don't get discouraged we don't look like you. And though other kids may not act the same way, we'll always be with you; in our hearts you'll stay. So don't think of yourself as a child with no home; you have a new family, and a house of your own.

Love Always,

Cousin Mayfield"