Grateful

in the past 6 weeks I have looked at the 10 pictures we have of Sophia a million times. I have studied every last inch of each picture looking for clues to her life. What is her personality like? what is it like where she is living? How is she being cared for? I study her face and wonder what her birth parents look like, a question we will never know the answer to. I wonder if her birth mother has those same dark knowing eyes or if her birth father has that same square chin. I think about her birth parents everyday and wonder what they are like, what they are thinking about their baby girl and what happened to her. I have many images in my minds eye about what her birth was like and what her birth parents are like. I of course don't know and wont know if any of those things are a reality. However, I do know this, that Sophia's birth mother made a choice to give birth to her and take her to a place where she would be well cared for, a place where she would be given a chance at a life that she, for whatever reason was unable to give to her. I wonder about Sophia's beginnings and know that she will too one day. I hope that Riz and I will be able to help her understand that she was valued from the beginning by her birth mother and by us. Riz and I will forever be grateful to Sophia's birth parents for making this choice for her and giving us our greatest blessing, the opportunity to become her parents. We will love her and accept her as our daughter always. We knew from the moment we saw her little face that this was our daughter and that we were her parents. We will forever be grateful to China for allowing us to become parents to this beautiful little girl. We will forever be grateful to those who have cared for her during the first 15 months of her life.

We are just grateful beyond words.....

1 more sleep before we leave for China... 5 more sleeps before we have Sophia in our arms....