one month ago today...

...we met Ayla for the first time. We didn't think we would get to meet her the day we arrived in Addis. We were delayed several hours getting out of DC, so instead of arriving in Ethiopia at 8 AM, we didn't arrive until after 1 PM. By the time we got to our guest house, it was nearly 3:00. Because it was a Saturday, we thought for sure we had missed our chance, but were so happy that we didn't. As we pulled up to the guest house, all of the families were getting ready to leave to go see the babies. We literally threw our stuff down in our room, grabbed the cameras (thankfully my incredibly jet-lagged brain remembered to take the camera's) and piled into the car. A few minutes later we pulled through the gates of the orphanage.

We think our first meeting went really well. Ayla seemed comfortable with us from the beginning and didn't really show any signs of fear or hesitation when the nanny handed her to me. After a few minutes, she started to smile at us. By the time we had to hand them back to the nannies (it was a weekend and orphanage procedure dictated that we were not permitted to officially take the children until Monday when the director was there to complete the final paperwork) Ayla was sound asleep on my shoulder. I like to think that meant she was somewhat comfortable.

I cried when I had to hand her back to her nanny. It was hard!

We are really happy with how Ayla is adjusting. I have no doubt that she is still processing and working through all of the changes she has experienced in the last month, but she is handling them like a trooper. My only hope is that she feels all of the love that we have for her.

Xander is having, well, let's say he's having a love/hate relationship with his new big brother status. The jealousy has definitely kicked in and although he clearly adores his sister, I think he's sometimes frustrated by her presence and would like to have his mommy and daddy back to himself! I know that everything he's doing is completely normal, so we're just going to give it time and hope that things settle down soon. It's hard, though. It hurts me to see him hurting and of course he's not quite old enough to understand that we have PLENTY of love for the both of them.

Anyway, I thought I'd post some new pics of the first day we met Ayla, since that was what this post was supposed to be about. I wish our pictures were a little better, but we were both so tired we could barely see straight through the camera!