Beautiful Chaos- Part II

We arrived in Ukraine on November 27, 2013. We returned to America on January 15, 2014.

49 days. 7 weeks. That's a really, really long time. We were in Ukraine over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.

When we started the process of adopting from Ukraine, we were told it could take anywhere from 5-8 weeks for the in-country portion of the adoption. I don't think it was possible at the time for me to comprehend what that amount of time would really feel like. Justin spent several years in the military and said this was similar to his 5 trips overseas with all the "hurry up and wait."

What did we do those 7 weeks? The short version: the first and last few days of our trip were busy with paperwork and appointments. The vast majority of our trip consisted of a daily one hour long visit to the orphanage. Each day we went on a walk around our neighborhood- some days these walks were miles and miles long. We tried a lot of the restaurants around our apartment building. And if I am being honest- I spent a lot of time looking at the calendar and counting down the days till we could go home with our girl.

We've now been home 5 weeks. Most days it feels like our time in Ukraine was ages ago. There aren't adequate words to describe how thankful we are for Nadiya and how dearly she is loved by our family.