Two years ago! Sylvia's Adoption Day!

Two years ago today I woke up in South Africa with enormous peace in my heart, looking forward to what the day would hold. Esther was 2.5 at the time, and very excited about meeting her little sister. She was in a fabulous mood all morning and both Niklas and I still remember that so proudly, how great she handled all of that first day.

Only 10 weeks prior to May 31st, 2010, I had received a phone call from the adoption agency, totally out of the blue and completely unexpected. There was a baby girl in South Africa who needed a family, and they wondered if we would be able to adopt her. What a telephone call! And what a crazy and hectic next two months as we did everything we could to speed along the process and make her ours. We had an enormous number of setbacks and challenges. So many you would probably think I was making it all up! But I won't go into that right now because who wants to dwell on the tough times when the result of all of it is a sweet baby girl who captures your heart from the very first photograph?!

 First photo we received of Sylvia!

So anyway, back to The Day. Esther got to go meet Sylvia first, in a different room from where we were waiting. Then Esther came bouncing back to the waiting room and seconds later Auntie Stephanie walked in holding her precious little "starfish." And Sylvia's eyes were glued to Esther from the very first second and she never looked away from her!

I remember saying, "Hi, pretty girl!" when I got to hold her first (Niklas was the one who got to hold Esther first two years before - it was my turn!). She hardly weighed a thing, and the color of her skin was just so lovely. I remember she clapped her hands a few times for us but that otherwise she was rather distant. Those first few days she zoned out quite frequently, going into her own little world, sucking on her middle two fingers, staring off into the distance, and tugging on her shirt. But every time she did, we scooped her up and held her close so that our nearness would replace her self-comforting techniques.

So yeah, that was a special day! Sylvia's Adoption Day!