one year into it

I’d have to say that the whole adoption thing is pretty much to our liking!  This day last year I was posting from a hotel room in China, with Kim getting Annabelle ready for her first ever tucking-in by mom and dad.

here’s that post

Even now it’s hard to capture all the emotion with words.  I’ve been floored by the enormity of the whole thing more times than I can count.

We’d waited for 5 years for that moment, and as it arrived, we were hit with some unexpected fears: what if she doesn’t like us?  What if she’s scared of us?  What if…

Turns out all our fears were nothing more than scary noises in the dark; when the light shone on them they turned out to be nothing after all.  I can’t say that every day has been peaches and cream, or that there haven’t been hurdles and bumps in the road.  But I can tell you without hesitation that this has been the best year of our lives.  All of the Subletts would say the same thing.

We’ve all grown, had our perspectives changed, and our character shaped by this adoption.  In fact, God used our Annabelle adoption to get us ready for Josie!  How great is our God!?

Those in the adoption world refer to the day parents finally meet and pick up their adoptive child as Gotcha Day.  Those parents who adopted babies bought lots of gifts while we were in China to celebrate their anniversary of Gotcha Day for years to come.  I know that Kim bought gifts for Annabelle while we were in China, but I’m pretty sure that Kim couldn’t wait to give them to her, so I don’t know that we’ll have any gift for her from China.  And to be honest, I don’t think she’d want a gift from China.

Gotcha Day…I don’t know what it means to Annabelle, if the words hold any significance or not.  But they mean something to me.  It marks the day that I first laid eyes on my Annabelle, and the day that she Got my heart.

Gotcha.