Labor Pains

The photos just keep rolling in from across the pond. Here are two more shots from The Captain of the first day in London.


While The Captain reports that everyone did well (read: actually slept) on the flight over, the phone call I had told another story.

Before I tell you what happened, know that I am certain everyone is fine and dandy and should not return home in need of a good therapist. It's just me realizing with older children that the labor of adoption is full of joy and pain not confined to a pregnant mother. It is a shared process. Friends, family, even a remote part of the blogosphere reads and feels the pangs--of all kinds--alongside me.

I never expected one of the pains of adoption labor, however, would be the separation from my older two girls. The three little ones sought out playmates in the form of Mom, Grandma and Grandpa. Not their first choices, I'm sure. While speaking to the "big girls" on the phone today, Naomi informed them, "It's a little fun without you, but don't worry...it's not too much." And then for emphasis, looking at me, added, "No. Not. At. All."

Which hopefully provided some comic relief to my darling pre-teen daughters who both dissolved into sniffles and gulpy tears when I spoke to them myself. How joyous they had been before departing. How excited to ride an airplane. To visit England and Africa. To watch Kung-Fu Panda. But somewhere along the way, they realized that their journey to our new baby girl was taking them perhaps farther than they thought possible away from home. Pre-adolescent girl hearts are not something to be trifled with, especially not as a pair. But the journey continues and as my heart overflows with joy to hold my newest daughter, it breaks just a little, to see my oldest ones (who will grow in leaps and bounds from this experience) taking their first tentative steps away from home.