As we get closer and closer...

I think about Katie's foster Mom. She knows by now that Katie is being adopted, and she knows that she has to return her to the Kunming orphanage by this coming weekend. It's a festival time in Kunming, which runs 5th-9th, so I'm not sure when Katie will be brought to the orphanage.

I think about how sad her foster mom probably feels, as I know Katie has bonded with her and loves to be held. From everything we've read in Katie's referral information, it sounds like she is well loved (and a little spoiled). I think of how this foster mom is probably holding Katie and not wanting to put her down. How she's trying to give Katie enough hugs to last a lifetime. How she is dreading the day that I am counting so anxiously toward. I wish I had a way to communicate with her, to tell her that I already love Katie so much. That we will make sure she gets all the medical care she could ever need. That we will encourage her to reach her greatest potential and follow her dreams, whatever they may be. I want to tell her that we will do everything we can to make sure she is happy. I wish we could have a photo to show Katie later of her foster family, or a photo of her home, or anything that will help show her where she was for close to a year of her life.

My heart aches for her foster mom. Just like it aches for the man and woman who welcomed Katie to this world. I think of them, what they must wonder about her. I wish I could tell them that she is going to be okay, that we will love her just as much as they loved her. I hope that they know she is doing good health wise.

Then I think of Katie, how in just 8 short days her entire world will have been turned upside down. She will be removed from her foster parents care 3-5 days prior to our getting to Kunming, in fact, I guess she could already be there. She will grieve for them. Will there be an Ayi there to comfort her? Will she start bonding to that Ayi? Then, when she has gone through some of that terrible grief, she will be brought to the Civil Affairs building and handed over to us. Two strange looking people, who do not speak her language, who smell funny, look funny, eat funny things, and who are not in any way familiar to her. How scared she will be, and I feel so badly that she will go through this. I would do anything in my power to take that fear, that hurt, that loneliness away from her. All we will be able to do is hold her and love her.

This time of excitement, of anxiousness, is a time of great loss in Katie's life. Everything I feel is tempered by these thoughts.