December 29th...the day that would change our lives
forever. It was 9:45 on a Monday morning
when I received a call from our social worker about our openness & age
range with our adoption. She was double
checking that we were open to an older child and also certain needs that the
child might potentially have. She wanted
me to call and talk to Sean to confirm that we were positive about these
things. I knew in my heart that there
must be a child they were wanting to match us with, but they hadn't said
anything to us yet. I called Sean and he
also felt like there was a child for us so he wanted me to try and get
information so we could make a decision. I called back and they did confirm that
there was a 6 year old girl that they felt like we would be a good match
with. I knew in my heart already that
this was our daughter because we had prayed specifically for a child between
5-6 years old. We truly feel that the
Lord gives us the desires of our heart and He certainly did. It was not until January 5th that we were
actually able to see her picture and information for the first time. I always dreamed about the day we would
receive a referral and what my response would be like. As I read through her file, I felt the Lord
give me an overwhelming amount of peace that she was our daughter. As we scrolled through her pictures, I
couldn't believe what a big, beautiful smile she had in the last one. A smile that fills our hearts with joy, a
smile that brings happiness to everyone around her and a smile that's going to
make a difference in the world. On
January 8th we officially accepted the referral. The past 2 years, I had been trying to wait
patiently to be a mom, and the day was finally here. We have a beautiful daughter
named Lebene. We were both so excited, but also in shock that our time had
finally come. All we could think about
was preparing to meet her and what would happen next. It was on Thursday February 5th that we
received a call to travel for the first time.
We needed to leave Wednesday February 11th so we could get to Ghana in
time for our court hearing. Things went
so fast in those few days that I can hardly remember all of the details. I left work on the 5th to rush home to book
our trip and start packing. We could
hardly sleep during our 25 hours of flying because we were so anxious to be in
Ghana and meet Lebene for the first time.
We arrived in Ghana on Thursday around 10 pm. We checked in to the hotel to get some sleep
because we were meeting Lebene the next morning. For the remainder of this post, I am going to
break down the blog into sections by each day so you can know what all we did
while we were there.
Day 1:
We both woke up early Friday morning full of butterflies. We had dreamed about this day for 2 years and
couldn't wait to see our daughters face for the first time. We were nervous and didn't have a clue about
what to expect. We wondered how she
would react to us. They told us on the
front end that she might not open up to us, but that she would with time. Would she hug us? Would she smile at us?
Would she want to be around us while we are here? These were all things that we talked about
and thought about the whole car ride to her home. It felt like the longest car ride ever
because we had been waiting for this day for so long. As we stopped in front of her house, we both
took a deep breath before getting out of the car. As we started walking towards the front
steps, a beautiful girl in a bright yellow dress came running out the
door. Our eyes started filling with
tears, it was our beautiful daughter, Lebene.
I was walking in front and she came straight to me with a big hug. A hug that I will never forget, a hug that
changed my life forever, a hug that I never wanted to let go of. As she let go of me, she ran down to Sean and
gave him the biggest hug ever. I could
see a sigh of relief on his face. He was
fearful that she wouldn't attach to him, but she not only gave him a huge hug,
she greeted him with the biggest smile I have ever seen. She grabbed our hands and took us inside to
see where she lived. She gave us a
beautiful purple rose and then took out her blocks and started playing on the
floor. She was building something big,
but we couldn't figure out what. She
finally told us she was building a hospital because she wanted to be a
doctor. We were amazed that she had only
been taking English for a short time, but she was able to communicate pretty
well. We could tell that she was
extremely smart and a very fast learner.
As I started taking pictures of her with my phone, she decided that she
wanted to do that as well. She had never
seen one before, but she was able to figure everything out on her own in a
matter of minutes. She kept taking
pictures of everything with my phone and laughing hysterically. After we interacted for an hour, we took her
out to lunch at the mall. We decided to
order us a pizza, but it was there that we discovered she only likes chicken
and rice. We asked her what she wanted
to drink and in a precious voice she whispered "fanta" which is very
popular there. As we dropped her back
off at her home that afternoon, we felt complete joy and happiness from such a
wonderful day. The day we dreamed of was
truly a dream come true. We felt the
prayers being answered from everyone around us because the Lord had truly
prepared Lebene for us. Everything we
imagined this day would be, it was 1000000 times better! Here are some pictures
of the first time we met & the first day we had together:
Day 2:
Today was Valentine's Day! We were so excited to pick Lebene
up and spend the day with her at the beach.
We were driving to the beach when Lebene looked at me and said
"mommy my tummy hurts." It was in that moment that I completely lost
it. I started crying and couldn't
stop. I am not sure if I was crying more
because she called me mommy for the first time or because she was so feeling
sick. We took her into a doctor's office
to try and get her some medicine. The
medical care was a bit different than here so it didn't go quite as
expected. She really hadn't been in a
car before so we discovered that she gets very car sick. She wanted to curl up in my lap for the
remainder of the car ride and just fall asleep which was perfectly fine with
me. When we arrived at the beach, we
took a boat ride across to the private beach area. Lebene had never owned a swimsuit and we had
brought her one so I went and put it on her. She was so excited about her
swimsuit, sunglasses & pink hairbow!
The beach was absolutely breathtaking and this was Lebene's first time
to ever see it. She was very unsure of
the sand and water at first. She
wouldn't get near it, but once we did just a few steps at a time, she ended up
falling in love. She had never been
swimming so she was having the time of her life. We literally couldn't let go of her hand
otherwise she would take off far into the water. We were scared because she is FEARLESS and
didn't realize that she didn't know how to swim. Her and Sean played in the ocean and sand all
day long. She never wanted to get out of
the water and she kept wanting him to take her out even further so her whole
body could get soaked. She would lay
down in the sand and let the waves go right over her. This is the first time we truly started
seeing her personality come out and we realized how happy she is. She was laughing hysterically every time Sean
swung her around or dipped her in the water.
She kept wanting him to do it again and again and again AND AGAIN. She had never been held like that so she was
taking in every bit of it and loving every single moment. I stood on the shore and videoed the two of
them forever. Sean and I kept watching
the videos that night at the hotel because we couldn't get enough of her
precious personality. We couldn't
believe how the Lord had matched us perfectly with our daughter. She has a lot of my personality and we were
learning that more every single day. To
end our day, we gave her a teddy bear that says "I love you" when you
press its hand as her Valentine's Day present.
She was literally on cloud 9 and pressed it's hand 1000000 times that
night. Here are some pictures from our
Valentine's Day at the beach:
Day 3:
Today (Sunday) we spent the day at the hotel hanging out and
relaxing. We started by coloring her Doc
McStuffins coloring book. By the way,
she has a million things of Doc Mcstuffins in her room at home and we had no
idea that she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. I was glad that I brought a few Doc things with
me because she was in love with them.
She wanted to color every page in her coloring book and not stop! She
absolutely loves to color and draw. She
told me what to draw (apple, pineapple, fish, house, chair, star, boy &
girl & some flowers) then she wanted to copy everything I did. We also went over colors and numbers while we
were drawing. I didn't expect her to be able
to write her name or numbers, but we she could do all of that. She continued to blow us away every single
day! We were in awe of how quickly she
picks up on things. While we were
coloring, Sean went and bought us some coke and fanta. All she wanted was a big ole orange fanta
everyday!! She discovered today that she could blow bubbles in her fanta and
make it explode. I looked over and all
of the sudden it all exploded out and she was laughing hysterically. She was literally having the time of her life
just hanging around the hotel coloring and blowing bubbles in her fanta
lol. We decided that afternoon to go
swimming in the hotel pool. At first she
was a bit scared, but then she started jumping off the side of the pool into my
arms. She laughed so hard every single
time she jumped and it was cracking us up.
She kept wanting to jump off 50 times in a row and not stop! I wondered
if she would get exhausted from all the jumping, but she just kept on! That
evening we took her to dinner and to get ice cream before she went home. This was her first time to ever try ice
cream. I was so excited that I chugged
mine down, but she was not a fan at all.
In fact, she does not like sweets.
She hasn't had very many in her life so I assume that's why she is not a
fan, but I begged her to try another kind and she kept saying no! That's my
kind of girl always eating healthy- I love it!!! Instead of ice cream, she had
her usual fanta and continued her favorite thing of blowing bubbles through the
straw! Here are some pictures from day 3:
Day 4:
Today (Monday) we drove over to another part of Accra and
visited the Art Center Market. This was
a tourist place to find lots of different Ghanaian items. We told Lebene that we would buy her anything
if she would just tell us. The first
thing we did was buy her a new dress so she could have some extra clothes after
we left. She picked out a beautiful
bright yellow and orange dress. We also
bought her the matching shoes because she was outgrowing her other ones. I looked over and saw some cute purses so I
picked some out for her to see if she liked them. Instead of getting a purse with flowers or
glitter, she wanted a small square side bag just like the one I carry. I thought it was the sweetest thing ever that
she wanted one just like mine! We got her the purse, but we wanted to find
something for her to put in her purse.
She decided on some small bracelets to keep in her purse. She also wanted a bracelet for her best
friend back at her foster home so we got her one as well. After we finished at the market we headed to
another beach to check out a different area.
This time we just enjoyed watching the waves and did some relaxing. After we left the beach we went to the mall
to eat lunch. On the way to the mall we
stopped for some fresh coconuts. Lebene
was in heaven when she got her own coconut.
She was supposed to share some of it with Sean, but that did not happen
LOL! She ate that coconut up and loved every bit of it! We ended up eating
dinner at a nice place in the mall and she had her usual rice with orange
fanta. For dessert she wanted some
frozen juice instead of ice cream. She
picked grape juice flavor and loved it. When we dropped her off at her home
that evening, she was so excited to show all of her friends her new stuff. Here are some pictures of day 4:
Day 5:
Today (Tuesday) we spent the day sightseeing in the area of
OSU. Lebene wore her new dress that we bought her & she was very proud of
it. The drive was a little bit longer so
Lebene slept in my lap most of the time.
We stopped at a popular restaurant to eat lunch and Lebene got rice and
orange fanta (surprise)!! While we were waiting on the food, Sean let her watch
a movie on his tablet. She hadn't ever
done this before or seen any Disney movies so she was loving it. He introduced her to Frozen and she was hooked. When we were headed back to the hotel she sat
up in my lap and said that she wanted an apple.
We stopped and got her 3 apples and she ate all 3 that night. That evening we taught her how to blow
bubbles and jump rope. She had never
seen these items before so she was having the time of her life. I couldn't believe that she could jump 10
times in a row when she's never seen a jump rope in her life. She kept alternating between jump roping and
blowing bubbles. When she got tired and
needed to rest then she would get on the ipad and play with the Barbie app. Yes, Sean was the one who downloaded and
played the Barbie app with her! I must say it was very cute to watch. They dressed up Barbie's hair and makeup
together! She also wanted to play "peek-a-boo" & scare Sean
because she had never played these things either. The first time she tried to "scare"
him she just whispered boo! I explained to her she has to tip toe behind him
and ROAR like a lion to scare him. It
was so cute watching her tip toe up to him and ROAR really loud (she actually
did)! We also played chase around the hotel, but I am not sure if she realized
the difference in chase and hide & seek LOL! Are you worn out from just
reading all of this? I couldn't believe her energy was this endless! We sat
down to rest and gave her a Bible that her Ma (grandmother) sent her. This was a Bible with pictures so she could
look at it even though she couldn't really read the English. It was the coolest thing ever because she
knew the story of Jesus' birth and she was able to point & tell us about
Joseph, Mary & Jesus at the manger with the animals (which she also told us
about)! It made us want to start crying happy tears because we knew the Lord
has really been watching over and protecting her during our waiting
period. Once again, our time together
just continues to get better & we didn't even think that was possible.
I forgot to add in some news that we got on this day. We got a phone call that our court date had
been canceled. It was no longer Thursday
(19th) because the judge was not going to be in town. They were trying to reschedule for the
following week, but they weren't sure of a date yet. We were flying out that Friday so we started
getting really worried. At this point
they told us that we probably wouldn't be present for court, but that would be
ok because we had spent all of this time with her. We started praying because we really wanted
to be at court with her and be present for the hearing. The Lord heard our prayers and answered them
because the judge called back and decided to cancel his trip and continue on
with our court date. What a MIRACLE! The
Lord truly revealed Himself in so many ways during this trip. This was one of MANY answered prayers. We could truly feel the prayers from everyone
back home and they were working! Thank you to our prayer warriors, you truly
mean the world to us and we appreciate you more than you'll ever know! Here are
pictures from day 5:
Day 6:
Today (Wednesday) is going to be considered a rest day
because court is early in the morning and we have to be up at 4 am! We started
the day playing outside blowing bubbles, jump roping & throwing a
frisbee. Lebene was really coming out of
her shell by this point and she was even singing the whole day to us! We
couldn't get over how adorable the singing was and I took like 100 videos of it
lol. This was the day that we had the
discussion of what she wanted her name to be.
The social worker asked her and she told her that she wanted her name to
be Princess. Yes, I am serious when I
say that she really said that LOL! Let me explain where she got this idea
from. Sean started calling her his princess
from day one. Like I said earlier, he
also introduced her to a lot of Disney movies with princesses. She thought her name was now going to be
princess since he tells her that's what she is! We all giggled and thought it
was the sweetest and cutest thing ever, but we explained that princess is a
title for her and not a permanent name.
The social worker told her that we want to name her Jada Lebene, but we
can continue to call her Lebene like she has been her whole life. She told us that she would rather be called
Jada. It was on this day that we all
started calling her Jada. She loved the
name and we were so excited about it! We went to eat lunch at the Accra Mall
& she had her usual rice and orange fanta! She also did her usual blowing
of the bubbles in her fanta bottle LOL! That night we had to get to bed early
because we had court. Before bed, Sean
sat down and painted her toes and nails while she watched a movie on the
tablet. She was kicked back and relaxing
like she was on cloud 9. She had never
seen nail polish so she was enjoying herself! She was also drinking an orange
fanta haha! When she fell asleep that night she basically took up the whole
king size bed. We were cracking up
because we couldn't believe such a little body could spread out that far LOL! I
slept next to her and we cuddled while Sean basically slept on the floor haha!
It was such a wonderful night and we wished it never ended. Here are some pictures from day 6:
Day 7:
Today (Thursday) was the day that we went to court. This was the day that our lives would change
forever and our daughter would "officially" become Jada Lebene
Richardson. We left at 5 am and drove over 2 1/2 hours to court. We sat down in
the court room around 8:15 am. We were
not the first case to be called so we pulled out some coloring books and
crayons for Jada to use so she wouldn't get bored. Sean and I were both nervous about court and
I think that was pretty obvious by the look on our faces. It was around 9:30 am that we were called
into the Judge's chambers. We sat down
with Jada, our lawyer & the director of our agency. Jada, grabbed both of our hands and held on
tight the whole time. I started to tear
up just because she was wanting to hold us so tight and I knew that the bond
between us was growing even more. The
judge starting asking us some questions and questioning certain details. I really can't say much so I will just say
that we felt like that was the longest 30 minutes of our entire week. He finally looked up at us and said that she
is now legally "Jada Lebene Richardson" and tears starting streaming
down our faces. This was the happiest
day of our lives and I think Jada could tell that too! We went outside to
celebrate and take a lot of pictures! She was so excited and running around
like crazy. There was a case after ours
so we ended up staying 2 1/2 more hours and we got extremely worn out. Jada ate 2 bags of cheetos, played on the
ipad, took tons of pictures, colored in her Doc book, read her Minnie Mouse
book and took a nap. By the end of the
day she was so worn out because we had been up since 4 am. We went back to the Accra Mall to eat lunch
and celebrate. We tried to get her a
milkshake for celebration, but she said she would rather have an apple. We went and bought a pack of apples, some
banana's and even some oranges for her.
I looked over at the store and she was balancing the apples on her head!
Of course I got out the camera and captured that moment because it was
priceless. On the way to the hotel she
stopped a guy selling grapes and told him she wanted some. This has been quite a funny story to me and
Sean because she did everything herself and it caught us off guard. Everyone in the car was cracking up! We
thought she would pass out when we got back to the hotel, but we were very
wrong. Our social worker explained to
her that we had to leave tomorrow and she didn't want to believe it. She covered her ears and pretended like this
wasn't going to happen. I was already an
emotional wreck today from court and thinking about having to leave her the
next morning. She didn't want to go to
sleep that night because she didn't want us to leave. I started to cry a little bit and she crawled
into my lap. She was hugging me and
laying her head on my shoulder while Sean was sitting next to me. It was in those next few hours that we hugged
each other as a family of 3 and didn't let go.
Jada started to tear up and as I wiped her tears from her cheeks, I
completely lost it. She told us "I
love you" and that she didn't want us to leave then she started crying a
lot. I had never seen Sean like this
before, but he also lost it too. This
was truly the hardest thing we've ever had to do. We felt like our hearts were being torn apart
because we had to leave her and we knew she didn't want us to. We held her tight, told her 1,000 times that
we loved her, we told her 1,000 times that we will be back to bring her home
very soon & we told her to hug her bear tight and remember to squeeze it's
hand to remind her that mommy and daddy love her very much. We left her a book of pictures, a backpack
full of toys, a bag of snacks & clothes, a Bible & a princess bear that
says I love you. We haven't talked about
this night much because it brings up a lot of emotions, but we finally fell
asleep holding each other tight. We
never knew our hearts could feel this broken leaving her and we dreading the
next morning when we had to drop her off.
Here are some pictures of day 7:
Day 8:
We woke up early, but the question is did we really even
sleep? We were so heartbroken from the
night before that we hardly slept at all.
This was the day that we dreaded, the day we wished wasn't here &
the day that we had to drop Jada back off at her foster home. Our social worker was here to pick us up, but
we couldn't get ourselves ready. She
told us to take our time so we started getting things together for Jada to take
then we tried to eat some breakfast. I
went to talk to our social worker with Jada and she could tell the two of us
were upset. She kept reassuring Jada
that we would be back soon to bring her home.
Sean was in our hotel room very emotional and not ready to face having
to drop her off. I kept praying for both
of us a peace so that we could get ourselves together before having to leave
her. The three of us got into the car
and we held her hands all the way to her home.
She laid in my lap like usual so she wouldn't get car sick. It was around 11 am as we pulled down her
street. I could feel my heart beating
fast as we got out of the car. We both
took a deep breath because we didn't want to overwhelm her with a goodbye. We went in and sat down with her a
while. She was very happy to see her
foster siblings and that gave us some relief.
She is in a wonderful place with some great kiddos so that helps put us
at peace. We hugged her several times
and told her we loved her & would be back soon before we walked out. She followed us out and waved bye with that
big beautiful smile of hers. To see her
smile put us at peace. We were heartbroken
and in tears when we drove off, but we were happy that we left seeing her big
beautiful smile. Here's the picture of
her beautiful smile:
I want to say that we've felt at peace since we left Ghana,
but that would be a lie. We have tried
really hard to handle this the best we can, but things are very difficult at
times. We talk about her daily, we look
at her pictures daily, and most importantly, we pray for her daily. We know that the Lord is watching over her,
we know He is protecting her, and we trust that He has big plans for her, but
it is still very hard at times to get through this process. We waited 2 years to meet her and now that we
are finally to this point, we are just ready for her to be home. We are praying that everything processes
smoothly so she can be here forever with us very soon. Those who are close to us know that we have
our good days and we have our emotional days, but we feel so much encouragement
from all of the prayers and support you all have given us over the last 2
years. Without the prayers and support
from family and friends, we would not make it through each day. The Lord has continued to reveal Himself
through this entire adoption and He has grown us in ways we never knew
possible. We are truly grateful that He
chose us to be the parents of this beautiful little girl. To think of how He paired us together perfectly
just brings tears to our eyes. He has
literally blown us away through this whole process. Adoption has changed our
lives for the better and we can't imagine life without it. We love Jada so much and can't wait to bring
her home. Please continue to pray for
the remainder of our journey until we bring her home. Please pray for the Lord to protect her,
watch over her & comfort her so she will know that we will return
soon. We also ask that you pray for our
paperwork to process smoothly so we can get her home soon. We truly appreciate all of the love and
support and we can't wait for everyone to see her beautiful smile in
person. I'm sorry this blog was so long,
but I wanted to do one big update from our trip! Once again, we truly appreciate all of your
love and support. We love you all! XOXO!~
Love,
Sean and Sarah
