Comforting Words...

Oh, I got such good news today!!!! I just wish I could reach through this computer screen and squeeze the fellow adoptive mama that confirmed without a doubt that Elliana is in the transition home.  Elliana shares a room with her little girl.  She just returned last week from her trip and sent me a photo of the room.  I saw the exact color and shape of the crib, the color of the wall, AND the pillow case pattern (which was floral--not easily mistaken) as in Elliana's referral photo.
I sent her the picture we have and her name and this is what she said:

"Yep! That's her! What a cutie. She is tiny. She is doing well. Saw her get her diaper changed and take a bottle. Seemed to be doing good!"


Ahhhhh!!!! Those words are just music to my ears.  I was in touch with a mama that is going over for court on the 22nd and is going to get some pictures for me!!! :)  Can't wait to get those!

Isn't this beautiful? Andrea, my sister, surprised me with it! I LOVE it!

In other news,  Brent and I have decided to leave Declan here.  We were planning to take him because he is exclusively nursing, but you can't take babies into court. It's even looked down on to take babies in public.  And a $2,500 plane ticket is an expensive baby sitter (which is what we would have had to do!)  So after much prayer, we can say (ok, I can say--Brent was fine and supportive either way) that we feel comfortable and at peace with leaving him here.  We'll start him on solids sooner than planned so he will be nursing less.  I will take LOTS of batteries and my lovely medela and be super obsessive about pumping! (Sorry if that is TMI for some of you!) 
For our faithful praying friends, please pray that God would give me peace and enable me to trust in Him completely.  I don't want added stress while I am on the trip, which could affect my supply.  And "stress" is just a word for sin in this case.  That sin is worry and lack of trusting.  So I would greatly appreciate your prayers.  One dear friend of mine who I sought council from said the greatest encouragement to me: "God knew the timing when He chose your little girl for you, His hand is on all the logistics, too."  My prayer is that Declan will pick up where he left off and I will continue to produce milk to pump and freeze for Elliana.

Right now the plan is that Mimi (Allison's mom) will come stay at the house with Raelynn.  Declan will go to Grandma and Tank's house (Brent's parents).  They live about 10 minutes from our house and we will have them get together during the week so that will help both of the kids with the adjustment of us being gone.  We don't know how well the internet will work in Ethiopia so just in case we aren't able to facetime with them, we will record some videos to be played while we are away.  Hopefully Raelynn's best buddies Jackson and Josiah will be available for a play date that week too, so she can see familiar faces! :)  This was a hard decision, but will make our trip much easier and we can totally focus on Elliana. 

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Now that we have made that decision, next on our list is figuring out immunizations!  Some take several weeks to become effective, so we need to figure out which ones we are taking.  We have learned that none are required, but we will most likely take some.