Tomorrow Our Journey Begins!!!!

Tomorrow morning we head to Toronto to begin the first leg of our trip to China and in the afternoon we will board the plane for the 13-hour flight to Trinity's homeland. Tonight we are staying in a hotel just outside of the airport and as I sit here typing I can hear the planes taking off every few minutes. It is really surreal to think that in about 7 short hours we will be on one of those planes!!! I am finding it very hard to express how I am feeling and I’m not sure that it has all really set in yet but I do know that we are ready and we are in for the trip of a lifetime!!

Below is a letter that I have seen on a few other blogs and it is great information for family & friends so I thought I would edit it to suit our circumstances and post it here for all of you to read.

Now I am going to try to catch a few zzzzz’s and I will send posts as soon as I can!!

Dear Family and Friends,

As we were preparing for the arrival of Trinity, we have learned that while decorating the nursery and stocking up on baby essentials is important, even more important is the emotional health of my baby. In her short life our daughter will have gone through more changes and life altering experiences than most adults could handle. Imagine how much harder the changes will be for her. While she may not consciously remember the events, she will still experience immense loss, including feelings of grief and trauma. Currently she is very attached to her foster mom and very soon Trinity will deeply feel the loss of her in her life. She's already experienced the loss of her birthmother and will soon experience the loss of familiar and comforting family as well as the sights, smells, and language of her birth country. Her world will turn upside down. She will struggle with feeling safe and secure and she may lack the ability to trust that we will meet her needs.

We are prepared to meet her emotional needs so that she learns that we will always take care of her and we will always keep her safe. I covet your prayers for Trinity, Larry & I as she learns to trust us and pray that her little heart opens up to love me as her Mom and Larry as her Dad.

We also need your support. In order to form a strong and healthy attachment we will allow her to regress so that she has the opportunity to go through all of the emotional stages with us despite her chronological age. Although it may appear that we are spoiling her, we have been advised that it is best that we meet every need quickly and consistently. Until she has learned that we are her parents, we will need to be her primary caretakers at all times. It is essential that Larry or I always hold Trinity, feed her, and do all of the nurturing. You may wonder how long this will take, but the timeline is different for every child. We will follow her lead and trust our instincts as her parents rather than worry about what society expects.

We know many of you are going to want to meet Trinity, especially with it being the Holiday season but we ask that before you come to visit, please call to see if we are accepting company yet. We are not doing this to push any of you away or to be rude. We have all been waiting anxiously for Trinity to arrive but she has not been waiting for us. She may show her grief and confusion in many ways and we are prepared to help her through it and prove that we are a forever family and this truly is her last stop. We trust that as our family and friends you will help us to do what is best for our daughter, and I thank you in advance for your support and understanding.

Thank you all for your corporation & patience…and remember it will not be forever.

Love, Nikki & Larry