One Month Today, How it felt to meet our Daugthers !

One month ago today, we received the refferals of our daugthers !

I thought I would post today about how it felt to meet Marika and Karelle for the first time when I was in Ethiopia. I have gotten a lot of emails about this from friends and families so I thought I would write about it....

Because the feelings you experience when you meet your babies for the first time is SOO hard to explain in words, I had to take some time to think about how I would explain it and after a month, I am still at a lost... So i've decided that its not possible but I will try as best as I can still for all of you....

First of all, our refferal was a little different like you all know but when I saw the girls for the first time, I had not even seen the refferal pictures so I had NO idea what they looked like at all....

Haregewain which is the woman that takes care of our dossier and matching us with our children, told me " Lisa, come with me" I followed her to where my baby was and she told me " This is Tsega (Karelle)", and I just lost my breath... I could not beleive that she was there right in front of me.... I right away hugged Haregewain for the longest 2 minutes of my life and kept saying Thank you...and the neat thing is that we have all this on video as well.. my poor friend was in tears the whole way through as you can imagine but its great to have all that on video... After I let go of Haregewain, I was shaking and in tears but asked if I could pick her up and she said yes.... so I did giving her a kiss on the forehead and it was a great feeling and hard to believe that I had her in my arms finaly.... She was all content and looking around at me, then at the camera, then looking around again...

Haregewain then brought me to meet Mekdelawit(Marika)in another room.... I gave Karelle to another adoptive mom that was with us and took our oldest daugther in my arms... and of course kisses her forehead as well.. she cuddled right into my shoulder as I rubbed her back.... Knowing what a lively and active child she is now looking back at the videos of that first moment, I can tell that she was not sure what was going on... She was sooo precious though and kept looking at me with her BIG brown eyes.....

We took a few pictures and then I went to sit on the couch with BOTH of them and my heart was just SOOO at peace.... I was in my own little world... looking at the video I can't even remember being there as it all felt like a dream.... I couldn't beleive that I had OUR daugthers in my arms and that I could kiss them and everything... hard to explain in words how this feels really.....

You always wonder what it will feel like and well this was 100% better than what I expected... They were just SOOOO real !!! Julie knowing me really well was like wow you were like in shock and just in your own world and that's exactly what it was.... I just remember holding them and wanting to remember THAT feeling forever and not really paying attention to anything that was going on around me... (and on the video I even talk to others and stuff but I can't remember ANY of that)...

I recently bought a painting to hang in our house and it says:

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away"

This day was definetly one of those moments....

I am in tears writting this.....

These little girls are just gifts from heaven, they were really meant to be ours and that moment just sealed it for me that DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE...