Sky's First Story

  In the archives of Our Charmed Life, you can find why D and I chose adoption to grow our familySky's adoption timeline, the story of Sky's first days with us, and then her diagnosis, and our time in America for treatment.  You can find our reasons for wanting more childrenFire's story, and Water's story.  The one thing you can't find is the story that started it all.  The story that I tell when I want to share how magical adoption is and how I know that we were meant to be a family.

  It was Christmas, 2009.  D and I were living on Roi and had just decided that we were going to stay here in the Marshalls for a while.  We'd been apart for over 19 months and had just reunited in October.  It felt good to be settling in someplace.  We were making friends, picking up new hobbies, and were both really happy with our lives.  That day, Christmas day, we'd been invited to go over to a nearby island to watch the "beat" dances they do here to celebrate so we got dressed up, put on sunscreen and big hats, and caught the ferry over to 3rd Island.  After an island tour, some playtime with the kids, and a fried-chicken lunch, we were ushered into the Protestant church.  Being visitors (and ribelle), we were given seats in the front and following the tradition, D sat with the men and I sat with the women.  We saw the Elders dance, then a group of women, and then, just before we had to leave, the children's group got up to dance.  They were all in elementary school (the junior high and high school are on other islands), all in matching shirts and dresses, and they had some of the biggest smiles I'd ever seen.  About five minutes into the kids' dance, I hear a voice say "Let's do that.  Let's adopt here." I know it must have been in my head because the music was so loud there's no way I could have heard it with my ears.  A feeling of rightness hit me like a ton of bricks and I turned to look at D, who was sitting behind me.  He gave me a giant smile and nodded his head.  On the way back to the boat a little later, I asked him if he was thinking what I was thinking.  He said "Adoption?  Let's do that."
  Fast forward to mid-December 2010.  D and I had been up all night for work but we were pushing ourselves to be perfect because the ladies from the Central Adoption Authority were here for our home study.  Once the questions were answered and the pictures taken, the ladies asked us again about the age range we'd requested on our form (0-12 months) and asked if we would consider an older child.  While I had no idea what they meant by "older child", I said, "Yes" and they handed us their camera, turned backward so that we could see the picture on the tiny, pixelated screen.  There she was, our daughter, sitting on someones lap and playing with a cell phone.  I started to cry and D said that we would accept the match.  The ladies made some notes and started packing up to go it occurred to me that I should ask some questions about her.  All they'd told us was her age, 11 months, so I asked her name and when they said, "Heaven", my jaw literally dropped.  D and I had chosen our daughter's name months ago, before we even contacted the agency.  The name we chose: Siela *, a feminization of the Spanish word for heaven. 


Our heaven
 
 
 
 
*For our family's privacy and to protect our daughter Internet identity, her name is intentionally miss-spelled here and she is referred to as "Sky" on this blog
 
 
See where I'm linking up here
 

Comments

  1. That is a beautiful story. No doubt you are continually blessed.

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  2. Oh my goodness, I'm bawling.... Talk about being meant to be. Heaven.

    I just love this.

    Thanks for sharing and for linking up to the #SHINEbloghop!

    Wishing you a lovely weekend.
    xoxo

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    Replies
    1. I honestly couldn't believe it when they told us what her name was- we hadn't told anyone else the name we had chosen for her. God had an amazing way of telling us we were meant for each other.

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  3. I totally agree with you about the magic of adoption. Love this first chapter of your adoption story, thanks for sharing!

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  4. Oh my gosh I got chills! Your daughter is absolutely beautiful. Reading this I felt like I was there with you seeing her picture for the first time. Thank you so much for sharing your story! I can't wait to find out more about your family :-)

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    Replies
    1. I still can't believe that it happened that way. And yes, she is so beautiful, inside and out :)
      Thanks for reading!

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  5. Lovely story. You were meant to be mother and daughter #WASO

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