Thanks so much for visiting us during our journey, Steve, Patty, Caleb, Danae (daughter-in-law), Logan, Drew and Annika!
For this child I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him.
So I have also dedicated her to the Lord; as long as she liveth she is dedicated to the Lord. I Samuel 1:27 - 28
Go ahead and scroll down and look at our daughters pictures. WOW!!! After 2 years of waiting we finally received our daughter Annika Grace Mears today. We flew out of Beijing at 7:10 a.m. to a 3 hour flight to her City of Guangzhou. I was absolutely exhausted. I was having a terrible time with the food in Beijing and last night it all came to a halt and I was throwing up all night long.
Fortunately we have 4 Medical Drs. in our group and the one had prescription for nausea, unfortunately it was in there checked in luggage and I had to wait the 3 hrs. til we got to Guangzhou. I am doing great now, it kicked in right away and he's going to give me more to keep me going. The first place we had lunch at after checking into our hotel was McDonalds. YES!!!!
It was a very emotional day today and after only having 1 1/2 hours of sleep last night, we are definitely ready for bed.
Annika and one other girl came from the same orphanage and their personalities are so much alike. They are not criers, at least not yet, they just whimper. They just look at you and their strange surroundings out of the corner of their eyes. We finally got a bottle down her and she is alot happier and she is just amazing.
We finally have a daughter. I love how that sounds.
We really do not know what she can do, as she just sits and looks around, but she's is just starting little by little to open up. She does have 8 teeth now.
We had alot of older children and special needs in our group, so they are really having a difficult time adjusting.
When we got Annika, I couldn't even remember who handed her to me. But this young Chinese lady kept coming over to me and telling me to turn her to face out and not toward me. Well....sorry, I wanted her to see me and smell me and know my voice. Seeing the confusion in the room and all the crying babies was over stimulation and you could tell right away. When we would look at her or kiss her forehead, she would just shut her eyes, like she was thinking that we'd just go away if she couldn't see us. It was so sad to see how she was coping with shutting out all this.
We still have alot of paperwork coming up in the next few weeks. The schedule is more relaxed now that we have the babies.
As I am typing this she has her little pink pj's on and we laid her in her crib in the hotel and she's quietly playing with her toys. We definitely have a keeper and I am thanking God today for the blessing this little girl has brought to our life in just a few hours.
