A Precious Gem

We had our Department of Adoption appointment at 10:00 this morning.

As usual, the meeting was carried on by agents and translators in a flurry of foreign words, few of which we understood. Ditto the paperwork-- a confusion of Cyrillic characters that mean plenty to them, nothing to us.

We had eyes for only one thing: the beautiful photo attached to her file, a new image we'd never seen before.

Fortunately, we had prior access to this counter-intuitive bit of adoption wisdom: that if you give the DAP a photo of the child you hope to adopt, then they will give you one in return. We produced a crisp copy of one of our other Harper photos, and received in trade this precious gem:

Fortunately, while Julia focused on the picture, Rob had the presence of mind to ask a few questions about Harper. The dark answers we received gave us just the tiniest glimpse into the kind of life our poor child may have led. These are the sorts of things we can't share on this blog, and probably never will. Suffice it to say that at best, adoption is a happy ending to a story that begins in heartbreak.

Please pray for Harper and us in the days ahead, as all of our worlds are rocked.