We couldn't imagine today going any better!!!
We started with our interview at the regional adoption center. They asked similar questions to the ones that we were asked yesterday plus a few more that were a little more difficult: Why we didn't want to adopt a typical child and why we wanted to add more "burden" to our family. But we, again, shared our hearts graciously with them and the neat part was that the woman who was asking these questions accompanied us to the orphanage and was able to watch us meet and interact with Amelia! By the end of the meeting, SHE approached Amelia herself to "play," she was smiling, and I could see a shift taking place. What an amazing moment to witness. This was an answer to our specific prayer!
After that first meeting, the regional adoption director, a translator, and our facilitators took us to the orphanage! This particular orphanage is run by nuns although the women who do the care for the children are young women who are employed by the orphanage. We had yet another interview from the orphanage director and then we were able to ask questions about Amelia's routine, health, and family. They told us some more information about her health and warned us that she has a sensory issue and cries whenever she is touched, they told us not to be alarmed if she cried the entire meeting, and to expect her to not want us to touch her at all. They even asked us if Claire cries all the time as well.
Finally, it was time to bring her to us! One of the caretakers brought her into the room and placed her right in my arms. There were eight other people in the room observing us and how this first meeting with her would go as all of this must be described to the judge when we go to court. Initially she did cry, I tried to calm her, Justin tried, nothing seemed to work but we were persistent and calm and within just fifteen minutes or so she was completely relaxed in our arms! They had also told us that she isn't able to hear well but we believe that she can hear some, she loved it when we sang to her and turned her head toward sounds that we would make, more on one side than the other but we do believe that she hears us. They let us stay until dinnertime (about five hours total) and over time, she had relaxed enough to take a long nap in my arms, she let me hold her while she ate her bottle, and by the end, she was reaching out to touch us and even allowing us to tickle and kiss her. We found out that she is buckled in something similar to a bouncer all day (they call it a cot) - for playing, naps, and even sleeping overnight - and after interacting with her for a while and seeing her in the bouncer, we think that she doesn't have any major sensory issues but rather prefers to be in the bouncer because it's what she is most familiar with. We both think that she is going to thrive given the opportunity as the bouncer keeps her movement pretty restricted. She isn't able to hold her head up yet but you can tell that she desires to be able to move around on her own and we are excited to be able to offer her more opportunities to be able to do that! She is in a wonderful orphanage and everyone there truly cares about the children, they were amazing, but with so many children there is only so much that they are able to do.
I have to be very careful about sharing pictures publicly until the adoption is finalized in court but we did take videos and lots of pictures and we can't wait to share them after our final court decision when she is officially ours! They gave us an estimate today of 1-3 months before we will be back to have our court dates and bring her home with us. Because July and August are very popular vacation times, they were hesitant to give us any type of more specific estimate. The nuns seemed to really like us, the director kept remarking that she "couldn't believe we made such a big decision" and another one kept saying that Amelia's interactions with us and ours with her were "super" so we hope that works in our favor to make the time shorter! They all seem to really want her to be in our family and were very, very accommodating of us.
Thank you for supporting and encouraging us. We felt your prayers all day and saw them answered one after the other! It means so more than we can say to know that we have an army going behind us and before us!
Tomorrow and Thursday we get to visit Amelia again from 8:30-11 and 1-3, we also have a meeting scheduled tomorrow to put in our application at the court. This is the final step in the process. They asked us initially to wait until Friday after we had more time with Amelia to do this step but we assured them that we will absolutely not be changing our minds so they agreed to allow us to do it now, it will hopefully save us a couple of days time in being able to come back for our next trip. Once the court has our application, they verify that we have all of our documents and at that time the judge can request any additional documentation that he or she feels is necessary to make the decision for us, send them all to the Ministry for one final approval, and then once the court has our documents back, they will set our bonding period and court dates and invite us back to Poland!
We had the most difficult time saying goodbye to Amelia tonight, I can only imagine how hard it will be to say goodbye on Thursday. Please continue to pray for strength for all of us and for protection for her heart.
Thank you again!!!
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