Team Sanborn

Team Sanborn

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Happy Famiversary #4

Four years ago today we brought Andrew and Annabelle home from Ethiopia. We celebrate our "Gotcha Day" as the day we met them. On this day, we flew home to our friends and family, to our lives. Everything looked different than it did before we left. Our home seemed warmer (metaphorically and literally, it was 115 the day we came home), our friends and family seemed "better", everything was more exciting. It was like walking into a familiar room that has just been painted a little bit brighter of a shade than it was before. Still the same color, just brighter some how. Our baby toys seemed more high tech, the car seats seemed cuter, our nursery seemed more "pottery barnish" because now they had babies in them. I cannot even describe it. We were home. Not panicked and jet lagged (that came later), but calm and ready (as we would ever be) and blissfully happy. Seriously blissful. We waited so long to be parents, this was our dream come true! We watched the video of the day we met them in Ethiopia (I know, we should have been watching the "airport video, but we watched that on Gotcha Day because the Gotcha Day video was getting turned into a DVD from a tape-Confused?). It brought back a rush of tears and sweet memories of my babies before I really even knew them. The last part of the video was of the policeman who found Annabelle taking us to the place he found her. A little ditch carved into the side of the road. Far enough from the road that she was not in danger, but close enough to foot traffic so she would be seen. Something about that still makes me bawl as I am typing. My sweet baby girl wrapped in a blanket on the side of the road in Ethiopia. Next to trash from the street vendors. Her sweet little body lying there waiting to be rescued. I feel like her birthmom must have watched from somewhere to make sure she was okay, that someone came to her. I cannot believe the choice that woman had to be facing to leave her baby. Can you? Andrew was waiting to be rescued as well. Abandoned in an ally covered in blood, umbilical cord still attached. We don't think his birthmom ever got to see his sweet face, she probably died in childbirth. All we know is at that same time a half a world away, we were waiting to be rescued as well. Rescued from the pain and doubt of infertility. Rescued from the waiting and anguish of adoption. We needed desperately to see God work a miracle and make us a family of 4. Thank you Lord for rescuing us- all of us, and moving heaven and earth 4 years ago to make us a family.

3 comments:

Kristen said...

Lord, thank you for knitting this family of four together before you even began time. Thank you for protecting these babies as they waited for their mommy and daddy to find them through you. Bless this sweet family in neat ways, be with their future little ones waiting for them, thank you for having a plan to unite them.

Becky said...

OMG Molly, I am in tears just reading this....such a beautiful and wonderful post! I am soooo happy for your wonderful family! God bless you all!

Unknown said...

Molly ~ you make me cry, I might stop reading your blog! OH MY GOSH, your sweet words about your babies, God has blessed you beyond what you and Bill could probably ever have imagined!! How wonderful and beautiful your story is ~ and how precious that time will be when you can share this story with Andrew & Annabelle.