to my Andjela

"To the sweetest, most beloved one,
Inseparable from my heart,
Always wished for..."
- Despot Stefan Lazarević

Well my little angel, I never dreamed we would wait so long to meet! Maybe sometimes it is best we do not know how things will transpire; I am almost certain we would have decided not to adopt you had we known all we do now. But you have changed me in so many ways, the least of which is this - patience.

The people responsible for the legal part of who you are have not yet completed everything. And now we know there are a few more steps to go. It is most likely we will not be coming for you until March. I admit I see April in my mind, the White City beginning to transform into the Green City, trees blossoming around Kalemegdan, a cool breeze from the rivers ... but we will still hope for March.

I am sorry it has taken so long, it seems love should be much simpler than this - but these are the silly parts of being human and you just have to learn to shrug them off and remember through it all there are also always friends working very hard to help.

Your heart will stay strong. You can tell it for me. And somehow we'll find a way to meet the costs when they start rising in the spring. And if I'm wrong on either of those points, then the time we have had together in spirit was worth it all.

I used to think that adoption was just like pregnancy. Expectation, excitement, worries. And it is a little, but mostly it is like birth. It is like needing to have a cesarean section under general anesthesia and waking up to find your new baby is very sick and has been transferred to the intensive care unit at another hospital, far away. You are not allowed to go visit your baby, not until the doctors say it is okay. The nurses bring you pictures occasionally and tell you the baby is doing okay. And you cry, and you fear, but you also love. Never having touched her soft cheeks or held her tiny hand, trying to determine the exact color of her eyes from a photograph... somehow that doesn't matter, because you just KNOW that this baby is YOURS. So as hard as the waiting is, you cannot give up. And you know there is a possibility your baby will not make it, that one of you will lose your fight before you've even held her in your arms... but still, you cannot give up. Because you love her.

Because we love you.

We will keep hoping for you, our Emerson Andjeline. Please wait just a little longer.

Love,
Mommy