It's a Small World...

The world we live in can be so small sometimes!  The week after we received our referral of Makenna, I joined a Yahoo group for families that have adopted from the orphanage where Makenna resides.  The group has been a great resources to see pictures where she lives and connect with other families that have adopted children from the same orphanage.  Within the first week of joining this group, I connected with a woman who adopted a daughter from the same orphanage about ten years ago.  Her family just returned to China during the first week of January this year, and they were able to visit the orphanage.  After a few emails back and forth, I received several emails with pictures from their tour of the orphanage - she sent them to me because maybe there would be pictures of Makenna.

I'm sure you can imagine the shock and surprise as I looked through the pictures and began to see her sweet little face - again, and again, and again! I quickly emailed her back to let her know that I was pretty sure that the little girl in the red sweater was our daughter!  I think she was in as much shock as I was, but she was so thrilled to be able to provide us with some pictures.  When I told her which little girl was ours, she told me that she had video of her - pictures are wonderful, but to actually see your child move or speak is truly amazing!  Unfortunately, the video file was quite large, so she was not able to email it me.  She was so sweet to put the video on a flash drive and dropped it in the mail to us the same day.  We couldn't wait to receive video of our daughter.

As we looked through the pictures over and over again - we were pretty sure that she was Makenna, but there was still a "what if" in the back of our minds - her hair was not pulled back tight as in the other pictures we received and these were candid natural pictures so she was more relaxed.  We really thought it was her - the mom and dad in us said - yes, it's her!

The flash drive arrived on a Saturday and I think I ran up the drive way after getting the mail to put it in our computer.  In the video, Makenna is in a group of children singing a song with hand motions.  Everything is in Chinese so we really can't understand any of it.  However, about the third time we listened to it - we realized at one point, Makenna was playing with a toy and was not singing - the nanny that was leading the group called out her name "Zhen Zhen!" - it's the only thing on the video we can understand, but it was just what we needed to confirm that it was Makenna!

Some of my favorite pictures of Makenna are from that batch of photos - we all love her in the color red and we love seeing her just being herself and playing with friends!  We hope you enjoy...

And my FAVORITE!!!!

We are hoping for some new pictures any day - her care package should be delivered to her shortly.  Then she will know that she has a family - she will know that she has been chosen - she will know that she is loved - she will know that soon she will be a daughter, sister, granddaughter...  Soon, baby girl, very soon!

As we prepare to celebrate Easter this weekend, we wish all of you a Blessed Easter Holiday.  We rejoice that this will be the last holiday Makenna will spend in an orphanage!

Easter Blessings,
Jessica