Look Who is Two

Happy Birthday Miah!

Two years in one little life and yet she has been through more change and drama than most will see in a life time. As I sit and type this I am filled with mixed emotions and scattered thoughts. I am thrilled to celebrate Miah turning two if not a little sad that the baby stage is quickly making an exit. There are so many exciting things going on with her right now and she is just blooming in a whole new way. Lets just say a parrot has got nothing on Miah and if you do not want something repeated then do not say it in front of her LOL! She is loving and giving so much more lately and it is a joy to see. My thoughts turn to China and a mother who made a choice that brought my daughter and I together and I wonder if she knows. Is there any chance at all that she may have a clue that this beautiful child is half a world away being loved and cherished every moment. In my heart I hope that she has peace and if nothing else a mothers intuition that the baby she left wrapped in nothing but a quilt and placed in a cardboard box on a busy sidewalk is in fact a healthy thriving little girl who is loved. Then I think of the foster family who loved her for several months and then gave her back days before her first birthday. Do they know what a gift they gave her. She came to us with the ability to attach and I know that she was well taken care of, you could just see it in her eyes. I will forever be grateful to them for making a choice to open their home for my child. I wonder about the person who found her that cold morning and I am grateful to them and to the orphanage who took her in. So many hands placed on a little life that held a place in her destiny if you will. I am so very grateful.

One year ago today we walked through the doors of the Dianjiang SWI and were greeted by the staff with smiles and open hearts. We toured the facility and saw other little ones waiting for their forever families and the nannies who were dedicated to them. I took pictures and video and I stood in awe that this was my daughters home for most of her little life. In fact as I stood there is weighed heavily on me that a year to the day had passed since she was brought here. How strangely wonderful that we would have the privilege of visiting this very place on her first birthday. They surprised us with a beautiful cake for Miah and had Randy do the honors of cutting the cake and seeing that every one had some as is their tradition in China. When we left I was overwhelmed with emotion and yet so very very glad to know that my daughter would not haft to spend the rest of her youth in a SWI. On the way back we were given one more wonderful yet sad gift. Our guide took us to Miah's finding spot. I can not tell you how it feels to stand where you know your child was placed venerable and with no way to help them selves, the questions flood your mind and to the why, who, and hows of that moment, that choice that was made. I knew even more so that the woman who left my daughter was very probably thinking of her this day, the day she was born, and I was standing in the spot she had placed Miah. I remember looking around wondering if just maybe Miah's birth mother was somewhere near by. Did she come to this very spot today to feel close to that infant she chose to leave? This like so many other things in Miah's first year of life I will never know. I am grateful to her, this woman who brought Miah into the world, so very very grateful.