Today was the hardest day. We started off the day with T not speaking to us for an hour. After he finally talked, I excused myself and had a cry in the bathroom. Adoption is hard work—emotionally and physically. It is good, but hard. The morning left me feeling spent the rest of the day, which was hard to push through.
We spent the rest of the day taking it easy. Our lawyer here in South Africa (Brad) and social worker (Rose) met us at the guest house for lunch. They walked us through what we could expect and logistics of what the rest of our time in South Africa would look like. It was good to finally meet with them. We’ve talked with Rose quite a bit leading up to this and knew Brad was working hard on our case. Their passion to care for children was evident from the beginning. They loved on T and he ate every minute of it up. Brad even taught T how to play rock, paper, scissors.
We finally got T to pet the dog! We had to bribe him R2 (10 cents).
After they left, we headed to a giant mall as we had a big list of things to get for court (a button-down shirt for Brian) and supplies for T’s celebration party tomorrow evening. We ended up eating dinner at the mall and heading home a few hours later.
When we got back, we settled in, watched some Batman, and hit the hay! As I watched T sleeping in the weirdest position ever, I decided I would go through today again, because it meant we were a family. Family is messy, no matter how it is created. Today was hard and there will be other hard days. But even in the midst of those days, there are moments of love and joy that make working through the difficult days worth every minute.
Laying across the bed with his legs off the side, while holding onto his pillow for safety.
It is a big day tomorrow. Court is at 10:00 am and should take around an hour (if all goes well). We hope it goes smoothly and come out as a family of three at the end!