Asha is now with us!!

Hello everyone, we wanted to send you a few pics of our "gotcha day" with Asha. Right now, Emily has her in a sling and is unable to blog (where is her priorities??). She asked me to post a few pics until she is able to spend more time discussing our day at length. I will let her tell you all about it.

For me (Kirk), it has been unusually peaceful and calm, nothing at all like some of the catastrophic scenarios I played out in my head at times of high anxiety. I have been very surprised by how natural this feels, and how she feels like ours already. Not just like some kid that we are babysitting for the time being. She responded very well at first, smiling and laughing at times while Emily held her. Ms. Roy has told us that she is one of the more resilient kids in the orphanage, and she has been showing that today. But the enormity of the disruption to her world is apparent, and she has been battling tears off and on ever since we got her in the car and back to the hotel. There have been no major episodes, just some whimpering and a few tears. Emily has done an excellent job of soothing her and she responds to being held very positively. It is more heartbreaking than anything since we cannot explain to her what is happening. After a few tearful episodes, she fell asleep and was out for a couple hours. She woke up and we got through our first feeding with her with, and she ate with the appetite that Ms. Roy told us she is famous for. We had to stop in the middle as she began to make eye contact with us more and slowly became tearful. It has been mostly a quiet crying, no tantrums or inconsolable spells. Very impressive for her given the state of her world. Anyway, I will send this now and Emily can fill in the rest later.

She is the most adorable girl to me, and I have also been battling tears when the ayahs said goodbye, when she cries, when she was sleeping, and then at times for no reason. One of the most amazing days of my life.