This Time Last Year

Waiting to meet Emeline

Emeline in my arms for the first time

Counting fingers and toes

This time last year we had just met our baby girl for the first time. We were in Antigua, Guatemala spending time with Emeline…and she was only 11 weeks old. In honor of that special time I am going to share about the day we met Emeline and a few memories.

We awoke our first morning in Antigua to cannon fire—I am not kidding--and roosters and chickens making noise in the wee hours of the morning. We had just traveled from Germany to the US and then on to Guatemala. I believe it was around 18 hours of travel. We had gotten in to our hotel very late the night before. We were so excited and thought we would be getting Emeline late afternoon some time the day after our arrival. However, we got a call asking if she could be brought at 11:00 instead. We were thrilled and began hurriedly getting ready. We were waiting outside before the appointed time on the street in front of our hotel. I was truly surreal. Outside the gates of our hotel folks were honking at me as they went by in cars or even converted golf carts. There were dogs running around everywhere. The buildings were painted bright colors and the streets were cobble stones. We waited for what seemed like and eternity and eventually figured out it was only 10:00 am, and that we had our times confused. By that time the lady who works with our adoption agency called and said they were sitting in traffic. Finally, they arrived and Karina, Emeline’s foster mom, came walking up with Emeline and placed her in my arms. She was fast asleep and had a yellow long sleeved with pants onesie on and a matching yellow hat. I said to her as I kissed her, “Hello, Emeline, I’m your mommy.” Chris was right there beside me. We noticed right away that she had her ears pierced and big gold stud earrings. In Guatemala all baby girls have their ears pierced, and we can’t imagine Emeline without her sweet little earrings now. We proceeded to get information about how to care for her for about 30 minutes. We took tons of pictures, but she slept through every bit of it.

After her foster family left we walked back to our room. Chris had always said when we got our hands on her we were going to bring her back to our hotel room and just put her in the middle of the bed to admire her. We just took her in…she was so beautiful. We had already removed her hat when we were with her foster mother. Emeline had a head full of black hair…I said her hair looked like black feathers as it was so fine and soft. When she opened her big brown eyes she looked right at us and gave us a big smile. She was not in the slightest bit afraid. As we began to talk to her, her eyes got very big (she had probably never heard English before), and she cooed right back at us. I took her socks off and we counted her fingers and little toes. Then, we fed her a bottle. She was a happy girl the whole time. It was like something in a movie. I really could not have asked for a better experience for our first meeting.

We had just over a week with Emeline. We got to experience feeding a baby around the clock. She also spit up all the time. We were exhausted, but in heaven. We also got to bring her around Antigua. We ate local restaurants and saw the sights. That time in Guatemala is like a wonderful dream. We were determined to soak it all in and experience all we could with Emeline. It beyond difficult to give her back at the end of the trip, but I left Guatemala with a bond in my heart that I knew would never be broken. I knew no matter what happened I would love her for the rest of my life.

I have included a few pictures from our trip as well as a link below to the visit trip slide show I sent out last year. Last year I spent my first Mother’s Day oceans and continents apart from my baby girl. I am so thankful that this year she is here right by my side. I really could not ask for more than that. I am so very blessed to be Emeline’s mommy.



Here is the link to the vist trip video montage set to music (this pictures are from late April-early May 2007:

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/cV8aE5yt