All About Eve

I finally have a minute to sit down and write some of my feelings. I will begin with how I feel about Eve.

I have to say that as we embarked on this journey to China I felt such strong feelings of love and attachment to her but all I had was a picture so I did wonder how I was going to feel when she was finally put in my arms. It didn’t worry me too much because I know that love is not a feeling, it is a choice and I knew my choice. Yet I wondered what it would all feel like and how my emotions would be. The night before we were to get her I had very strong dreams and impressions that were significant to me. So I awoke that morning feeling tender with tears close to the surface. The babies were being brought to the hotel at 11:00am so we started the day and went to breakfast. When we got to the hotel restaurant I walked in and there eating breakfast were 5 or 6 families who had gotten their children the day before. As I watched each of these new mothers and fathers I could hardly eat, I was transfixed watching them knowing that in only a few hours I would be like them. I kept getting teary eyed, trying to hold it all back.

At 10:00 am we were to meet our guide in the hotel lobby to go over paper work and a few final details. Some things needed to be photocopied so Chris headed to the front desk to get them copied. Our guide was asking us if, when the time came, we wanted to go to our rooms and have them bring the babies up to us or just wait and meet them in the lobby. All of a sudden we looked up and waking in the front door I saw two women carrying babies. I panicked……no!! it was only 10:25 and Chris wasn’t here, he was still off making copies. It was like going into labor and realizing your husband wasn’t going to make it in time.

My eyes were frantically scanning the lobby for him when suddenly he casually came around the corner and I did everything I could to communicate to him to get over here fast!! It was a whirlwind moment as he just barely arrived in time, but he made it!

The women didn’t give us the babies right away; they held them and just let us talk and interact for a few minutes. Eve seemed bewildered and a little upset. After a few minutes I took Eve from her and Eve began to cry, oh no! I could feel immediately that her diaper was full. Then the lady who had been holding her said, through the translator, that Eve was very hungry and hadn’t eaten for 3-4 hours. They had nothing with them, no bottle or anything so I just said a quick good by and headed straight up to the room to take care of her. As we got on the elevator Eve urinated again and her diaper was so full at this point that it all came out on me!! It went down my shirt and pants and made a nice big puddle on the elevator floor. We got up to the room and got her quickly changed and got a bottle to feed her. So as you can see this introduction was a little chaotic. . I will say this that Eve was nicely clothed in a new outfit (still had a sticker on it) she smelled very good and had obviously been bathed that morning, she was well taken care of as she was chubby, no diaper rash, and looked very healthy.

That first feeding was hard because I didn’t have the bottle she had been used to and the only thing that I had was American formula, again something so new. We had been told that they usually bring some of the formula that the babies had been using so that we could wean them slowly onto the new formula but they didn’t. My heart went out to Eve trying to absorb all these new things at once. She didn’t want to take the bottle at first but was so hungry she finally acquiesced.

Within 30 minutes everything had calmed down, she was in fresh new pajamas, fed and being loved and she seemed so happy. We then got on skype and shared the moment with our two oldest daughters, my sister and my niece. Eve was absolutely happy and would rest her head on my shoulder. She was frightened for sure but seemed to be taking to all the love and physical attention.

Now to how I feel; there is absolutely no difference in how I feel for her than I did with each of my four daughters. I really didn’t expect it to be this strong. She is mine, my spirit knows it and I know her spirit knows it. She just melts into us and looks intently into our eyes. I watched my husband closely because he was a VERY doting father with each of our babies, more than I imagine most husbands would be. With our other 4 girls he would get mad if I held them too much and tell me I was hogging them, he was deeply concerned about being there for every milestone, bath time, and wanted to be the one to feed and care for them. He is not one whit different with her. He is possessive and attentive and full of so much love for her. I know that there is absolutely no difference for us in our feelings for Eve than our others. I honestly didn’t know this would happen.

He and I talked about it last night and Chris said to me. I really thought that I would feel different, I was prepared to grow in love with her but it was instantaneous. What a blessing. Now that we have had her for almost 3 days we can see that she is also in heaven with all this attention and kissing. Every time we kiss her (which is all the time) she smiles from ear to ear. She seems so at peace and happy with us. It has not been a hard transition at all, it has been just the opposite….complete love and joy!

I think she feels the same way that we do.