We are home safely

Wow! what a long trip. Mikenna didn't do good. She started to cry before we even took off. I knew I wasn't going to make any friends with the people sitting around us. The good thing was that we were sitting right by the engines so when we did take off,it was harder for anyone to really hear her. She took a 2 hour nap and woke up cranky and we played a little bit with one other little boy that we had been with the whole trip. Then it was miserable until about 10:45pm. She slept until we landed. We made it thru customs and immigration just fine. We got home around 4:15pm. The girls were very excited to see Mikenna. She had just fallen asleep again from the time we left Arlington Hts. to St. Charles. She did not like the car seat. We had a wonderful dinner that I really don't remember much about because it was early morning hours in China. I fell asleep on the couch and didn't even hear my parents leave. Mikenna let Melia hold her for a little bit but then it was back to Mom. As I reflect back on our trip it amazes me how God has been with us every step of the way. For those of you that have known me since I was little, you would know that I have always loved children. Paul and I had always wanted a big family from the time we were first married. God decided to lead us down a path that we would never had chose for ourselves with miscarrying our first 4 children. God doesn't always make his ways clear to us but we know that He always had a plan and His ways are better than our ways. So, our adoption story really began about 18 years ago when we had miscarried several times. We had started to look into international adoption. We had never even discussed which country that we would like to adopt from. At that point is when I found out that I was pregnant. We put things on hold to see if I was going to carry this baby full term. That was our Melia. From that point on we didn't have any trouble with carrying Brienna, Meriah or Madissen. Although God gave us our 4 beautiful healthy girls, I still had a longing to adopt. At different times, I would bring it up to Paul and he usually just blew off the idea. In December of 2006, I told Paul again that I really felt the desire to adopt. At that point, Paul and I prayed about it for 2 months. We felt that this was the time in our lives that we could go ahead with an adoption. We told our girls about what we had been thinking and praying about and told them that we wanted them to all be in agreement on adopting otherwise we would not go any further. It took the girls about 5 seconds to respond that they all wanted to adopt. So, here we are with our little Mikenna. My heart is overwhelmed with the love I already have for her. We have been waiting since October for this little one and our hearts have been prepared to love her just as she was created. Before time began, God had a plan for each of us and what a blessing for us to have the newest addition to the Kruit family. Thank you again for all your support and love thru this new path that the Lord has set us on. God's love and blessings to all of you, Lori