Only a few days left before we head for home. Yesterday we went shopping, and tomorrow we'll do some more shopping! Today we went to the consulate and applied for Marisa's visa. We saw many adopting families all at the same stage in the journey that we are. (Mike and I were having flashbacks to Africa as it was similar to our experience in Ethiopia when we finalized Kieran's visa.) It's so encouraging to see children being united with families. We learned during our visit today that 67% of the children adopted by Americans in 2010 were special needs. There is one baby in our group of five families that is considered special needs. Her ear is slightly underdeveloped. It's not what I would consider a special need. The wait for a special needs referral is considerably shorter than for a non special needs referral. For those considering international adoption, I would highly recommend looking into this option.
Mike and I are continually blown away by how blessed we are to have Marisa. She's such a happy baby who likes to have fun. We have had plenty of down time lately to just chill out and bond with her. It's been wonderful. Marisa has so many different facial expressions and we're constantly cracking up at her funny faces. She often babbles and says words like: "mama", "dada", and even "bye bye". It's so sweet. Really her only struggle is that she doesn't like baths. Otherwise she's usually a happy camper. We are so grateful that she's our daughter, and we're looking forward to seeing her interact with Kieran.
We need to borrow a cord to connect our camera to the computer. So for now, here's a quick photo from the ipod.
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Happy Momma and happy baby.
Marisa finishes a bottle before bed time. |
