Wow - yesterday was an emotionally supercharged day! It was my husband's 38th birthday and the day that we received our "hard" LOA (or the official stamped version of our Letter of Approval) in hand.
As soon as I had received the FedEx package containing the LOA I called our agency, as I had been instructed, and they walked me through the additional 4 different USCIS forms that I would need to fill out and send in with a copy of our official LOA and some other important paperwork. It was important that I get these docs together and over-night them so I worked as quickly as I could to get that done before we had to leave to go to my 4th grader's music concert at school. It was a "divide and conquer" night for sure with me taking a couple kids with me to the FedEx office just before heading to the school and my husband taking the others in order to get Maxwell to his concert a bit early. It was a rushed flurry of activity but we got it done! The concert was great and the docs are in route to Texas as we speak - hopefully they are already in the hands of a US official :)
As soon as our approval comes from USCIS we ill be able to assemble the docs needed to mail to China so we can get our Embassy appointment that is needed before we are allowed to travel!! I get so excited just even thinking about the fact that we will very soon be meeting our precious little Liliana :)
I do want to share with you another wonderful thing that add to the emotional overload of the day for me yesterday - in a good way of course! Yesterday early afternoon my husband came home unexpectedly with a gift bag and a rose in hand. Inside the gift bag was a jewelry box with this beautiful necklace that is pictured below inside.
(what these don't show is that on the back of the one Derek got me there is a small heart and when you put the two pieces together it puts the heart together also - above is showing you two pics of the same necklace just front and back.)
Here is what the jewelers website days:
Petra Azar's "No Greater Love" collection symbolizes the limitless, unspoken bond that forever unites mothers with their children. A wearable sculpture depicting a mother lovingly protecting her child throughout their lives, this amulet series was created by the artist to express the most profound relationship shared by all of humanity, a love greater than any other. Each piece is inscribed with the words "No Greater Love" and the artist's signature.
I was overwhelmed to receive this from Derek. He told me that he just wanted me to know how much he thought about and loved me and Lily and hoped that this would remind me of that - tears!!
I was also struck by the description on the website of the meaning behind the artwork. What a perfect piece of jewelry to symbolize so many things regarding my children and the adoption of my two precious girls. To me this serves as a reminder of my love for Lily (and all of my children). Just like every mother, it is a love like no other here on earth. But it also serves to remind me of the love that Lily's other mother must have for her. The love that caused her to seek a better life for Lily even when it cost her so much. It cost her a lifetime of experiences with her daughter. It could have cost her her freedom had she been caught the day she placed her inside the stairwell at the children's hospital to be found. So many babies in China are left under the cloak of darkness at night in much less crowded places so that they person leaving them will not get caught as the punishment for such "abandonment" is severe. Often times this means that they are not found until it is too late and they have succumb to the elements :( Liliana's loved one - which I assume to be her mother - took her inside a children's hospital and left her in a secure and warm place that she was sure to be found very quickly. Lily was over 1 year old when she was found after being left at the children's hospital. That means she was loved and cared for by someone all that time...her mother?
While it seems incomprehensible to me and us mothers in the US, we just simply can not begin to understand the hardships and struggles that would drive a mother to such a desperate act. I can only guess as to why she was left there. Did it have something to do with her health conditions and her mother knowing she had to get treatment or eventually she would die? Did she not have the money to help her daughter and loved her so much that she would do whatever it took to see to it that she received that treatment? Maybe she had another child and under the threat of punishment by the law and fines that could cripple her family she felt this was the only answer? Was she forced to do this by another family member? Maybe it was none of these and looked nothing like these scenarios. I don't think we will ever know, but I am certain that there is no greater love here on earth than a mother has for her child and I pray that somehow some way Lily's birth mother could be comforted in knowing that her precious daughter will be loved and cherished and provided for. That God has a plan for Lily's life and it is to prosper her. Because much like the mother's love for her children is the Father's love for us. His love is the ultimate love. It is the love that all others should be mirrored after. The love our Heavenly Father has for us is the love that I strive desperately to show to my children. The love that easily forgives, loves unconditionally, desires for us to be near and never ever turns it's back on us. I am a work in progress, but it is the desire of my heart. I can agree that there is no greater love.....
"I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born I set you apart..." Jeremiah 1:5
Please continue to pray for our family and that things continue to move so quickly through this process to bring Lily home. I KNOW that there is power in prayer and I am so grateful for all of you that have been praying for us for so long now. We are in the home stretch!!
Blessings,
Jessica
"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." Proverbs 25:25
No comments:
Post a Comment