Prayers, Please

First, let me apologize for no pictures today. I will try my best not to let this happen again. :) Also, I’m really sorry for the short update last night. Yesterday was a really long day. We waited for what seemed like forever before we actually left to go to the Civil Affairs Office. This is where we were to all meet our new children. When it was finally time to meet our group, we then had about a 20 minute bus ride. To say that everyone was a bundle of nerves is quite an understatement. However, something magical happens the moment they hand you your child. Having experienced the delivery of a child both through labor and the Gotcha moment¸ I can honestly say the emotions you feel of having YOUR child placed in your arms is exactly the same. Your children are chosen for you by God Himself regardless of how He chooses to deliver them to you. David and I feel so honored and blessed to be chosen to be Sophie’s parents, just as we do of our other 5 children!

There were several people in our group, two of which were adopting older children. They were called first. Immediately following them, we heard “Pinnow family.” The room was very large and there were about 40 other families there with various agencies all getting their children. What a day of rejoicing!! So, we hear our name, walk up, and immediately recognize Sophie. They hand her to me, while David is snapping away with both the camera and the video camera. She is just taking it all in. She seems completely fine. She’s looking at us, looking around, giving no indication that anything is not right, even when her nannies come over to talk to us. It’s evident that she knows them and that they know her and love her, but she still doesn’t make any moves to get away from me or to try to get to them. All seems great. When they handed her to me she had a piece of plastic in her hand that she was tightly gripping, like something that ripped off the top of a snack bag. One of the nannies even commented that she took that from them and had been hanging on to it through the whole trip. Now remember, just the trip itself had to be extremely stressful for her. Even though she was with the people she knew and loved, she had NEVER left the orphanage. Now, she’s on a 3 hour trip and in the middle of complete chaos – nothing like her strict routine orphanage life. So anyway, she holds on to this piece of plastic ALL night last night until she falls asleep. I’ll come back to the plastic.

So, when we left the Civil Affairs office, although she wasn’t crying, it was still a little disturbing. She SHOULD be upset. After all, she was just handed over to complete strangers while she watched the only caregivers she’s ever known walk away, and oh, did she watch them. She never took her eyes off of them as they were walking away. But, once they stepped on the elevator, they were gone. And she still seemed okay.

Then, we got back to the room, and the wailing began – for about 2 hours. She finally fell asleep about 9:30 last night. She was tired, hungry (but refusing to eat), and terrified. She would jump at the slightest movements. She never did eat anything last night. It was evident from her reaction to the many things we tried with her, that she’s never even been offered solid foods, but we couldn’t even get her to drink a bottle.

Today hasn’t been a whole lot better. She must have been starving when she woke up. She did finally take a bottle at this point, but was clearly not happy about it. We offered her food all day – nothing. Finally, at about 6:00 p.m. decided it was time to force feed her. We managed to get a few bites of baby food down with some formula in a medicine dropper. We went shopping to buy the exact formula that she had at the orphanage and a cheap bottle since that’s likely what she had as well. She screamed the entire trip home. She did finally take one more bottle from this, but was still not very happy about it.

When we are out taking care of the appointments, she is unsure of everything around her. She cries a lot of the time. When we are in the room, she cries most of the time. We have tried EVERYTHING you can imagine. It’s just very evident that she’s grieving. She’s just lost EVERYTHING. Her whole world is gone. The ONLY thing she has left is that little piece of plastic. It’s heartbreaking. That little piece of plastic, garbage to anyone else, is her source of comfort. It calms her when nothing else will. But, it’s SO sad to watch her look at that piece of plastic and then start up again. I can only imagine what must be going on in that little mind of hers.

I know I’ve gone on and on, but I tell you all of this to help you get an idea of what’s going on here and with her and to ask you, beg you really, to please pray with us for Sophie’s heart. She’s devastated right now and it’s beyond anything that we know to do for her except pray. We know that God has called us to this little girl and that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. We don’t fully understand all the reasons for her suffering right now, but that’s okay. God doesn’t ask us to understand. He just asks us to be faithful. We are so thankful for the gift of Sophie. We are just ready for her to relax, eat, and hopefully start to show us who she really is. We know that this is just a stumbling block right now, but we are asking for your help. We can’t stand seeing her like this. We know there’s a happy baby in there. We have the pictures to prove it! :)