Birthday

2 years to the day after we sealed Anna to our family for eternity in the Columbia, SC temple, our newest little one joined our family, Virginia Lee. The birth was scheduled for the afternoon, but got pushed back to 6:00pm. Sophia let me be in the delivery room with her, I tried my hardest to be supportive in all the ways I could. Finally, the doctor asked me if I would like to see the baby be born, so I stood up next to Sophia and watched them pull Virginia out of Sophia's tummy. Yes, I mean pull, I suppose that they try to keep the scar small.



So, Virginia joined us at 6:06pm, weighing 7 lbs, and being 17 inches long.



She was beautiful, and I cried.

Smiling too big

It all began when Carl and James got to meet Sophia for the first time on August 10, 2009. In our first conversation over the phone with Sophia, she said she was afraid she was "smiling too big". I thought that was such a cute thing to say, and was an indication of Sohpia and her personality. Carl and James had an unexpected chance to meet Sophia for the first time. They were on their first backpacking trip together, after the 10 year old float down the snake river with Poppa. The weather had turned really bad, and so they cut their trip by one day. I first heard about Sophia and this adoption agency while they were up high in the teton mountains. I left a message on Carl's cell phone that there was a birthmom that had seen our profile over the weekend. So, when he unexpectedly had some extra time, we arranged for them to meet Sophia. That first meeting got the ball rolling. The agency told us that Sophia liked Carl and James the minute that they walked through the door. Later in the conversation James said soemthing to the effect that, Wow, Anna sure does piss off Emma. That just really stuck with Sophia, and let her know we are a real, genuine family. Three days later, Sophia chose us to be the family to adopt her darling little girl.