Posted in Adoption
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Today we celebrated the 9th anniversary of Marissa's adoption. She loves her special day, that she prefers to call Gotcha Day--"because we're so glad we've gotcha!" We celebrated with her yearly request of homemade ice cream sandwiches--toll house cookies with vanilla ice cream between two. We also spent time as a family looking at her scrapbook of our trip to get her, and telling her stories again of things that happened on the trip, what we did that day, and where we were at "this" time. Tonight, at her request, we are having the always healthy Papa John's pizza for supper.
Marissa was born on May 13, 1997, and weighed 5 lb. 4 oz. They told us it was a 90% chance that we would have a boy, because most Guatemalan adoptions are boys. What a surprise when they finally called us late in June to tell us of our referral, and they said we had a little girl. Of course, we were so excited, and a girl was just fine with us. We already had two, ages 10 and 7 at the time, so we knew what to do with them!
It was such a long wait until we were finally able to go get her. Everything with her adoption went smoothly, but we were new at this, were not getting enough information, didn't know anyone else who had gone through this, and if there were online groups at the time, we sure didn't know about them. At one point they told us to tentatively plan on going the end of October. The last week of Oct. came, and we had heard nothing. We called, and were told, "Oh, no. You aren't going yet. We had to get her birth certificate authenticated at the hospital where she was born. We put it on a "Chicken Bus", and will just have to wait until they send it back." Oh, my. Have you ever seen a Chicken Bus? Plus, they were sending it up into the highlands, several hours away. We didn't know if we'd ever see that birth certificate! As Thanksgiving approached, and we had gotten the birth certificate, we knew the call should be coming soon. We were just waiting on her passport and final approval by the American Embassy. The call finally came on Monday, Dec. 1. We were told we needed to be in Guatemala by Wed. night. You should have seen the travel agent's mouth drop open when James told her we needed 4 tickets to Guatemala, leaving in less than 2 days. We got up the next morning, drove to Atlanta, and spent the night. Wednesday morning, we flew out of Atlanta to Houston, had a 4 hour layover, plus an onboard delay, and arrived in Guatemala City close to 9:00 pm. We were in the air 6 hours. I should mention that this was the first time I'd ever been on a plane. I prayed a whole lot! On top of that, I arrived (very abruptly--Guatemala City has a VERY short runway) in a country where I didn't speak their language, and was scared to death. Our foster mother's grown son met us at the airport, and we took a wild, fast ride through the streets of Guatmala City. Have you ever seen Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? He took us to the foster home to get Marissa, we filled out paperwork, then he took us to the hotel, dropped us off, and said, "See you in 2 days." That was it. We were totally on our own, with a new baby that we knew nothing about, a hotel where no one spoke English, and we were the only guests.
But, we had our baby girl.
Meeting Marissa for the first time.
Marissa was 6 months, 3 weeks old. She was very tiny, and wore 3 months size clothes. It was about 10:00 pm, but she was wide awake and playing. We gave her a soft bear rattle, that somehow became affectionately known as "Bobby". She loved playing with him, and watching the ceiling fan turn. She wouldn't settle down for us, but by about 11:00, she finally fussed herself to sleep. She was up at 4:15 crying. I sat on the toilet and fed her a bottle, trying to let Ashley and Briana sleep! We stayed up after that, and had to be at the American Embassy at 7:00. That was another adventure. After a few hours there, we walked back to the hotel and rested for a while.
Then we looked for McDonald's. That was the next adventure. It was a very easy, fairly short walk from the hotel, we had a map that the lady at the Consulate's office had drawn for us, and we couldn't find that place to save our lives. We walked for an hour in dress shoes, on streets we probably shouldn't have been on, in traffic that would run over you in a heartbeat, and tried desperately to ask people for directions before we found it, and went, "Oh, duh, there it is."
After lunch, and resting from being hot and "famished", we did some shopping across the street. James had to go back in the afternoon to pick up her visa, and the next morning we were back at the airport at 6:30. Marissa did great on the flight home, and went to sleep as soon as we got in the car.
Marissa had a lot of physical catching up to do. At 7 months, she couldn't sit alone, could not support any weight at all with her legs (as soon as you tried to stand her up, her legs just folded under her), and could not lift her head when she was lying on her stomach. She spent the next week, catching up quickly. Within a few days she could sit up. My in-laws bought her a bouncy seat that you hang in the doorway, and after teaching her how to push with her feet, within a couple of days she was a bouncing maniac!
Marissa is a fun, adventurous, mischievious, cutie pie. She is smart, is good at solving problems, and loves to explore new things and places. She loves horses, pink, her cat, sparkles, mud, playing and reading outside, her sisters, the computer, and history. We are so happy God brought her into our family. We are all blessed.
We Love You, Marissa
Addition: Tonight after we got the little ones all tucked in, Marissa called me back up. With tears in her eyes, she hugged me super tight, and said, "I'm so glad you adopted me. You are the best mother I could have." Wow. Very humbling. I know that I am the mother God gave her, I know it was his perfect match, but I know I am not the best mother I could be. For some reason, her statement has a whole other significance with her being adopted. Help me, Lord, to be worthy of her title. Help me to be the mother she needs me to be. Thank you for the precious gift of Marissa. .
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