What a gift

In addition to the beautiful pictures of Adam she sent me, Elisabeth from the Dillon List, who is currently in Vietnam picking up her son Noah, sent me this lovely note telling me about the time she spent with Adam. Pictures are precious, but this is my first glimpse of him as a person, rather than an image:

Hello Kathy!
I wanted to send you a short message and tell you just a bit about your sweet little Adam! He is ADORABLE! When we walked into the room the first day he was very interested in us and our purpose there in the baby room. He did get a little fussy because there was so much going on. It is hard when their day is interrupted. But he soon calmed down and watched everything. It was on our second day in the orphanage that I really got to see his personality! He absolutely LOVES attention. Especially fromt the nannies. He is very attached to the nannies, which is wonderful! He started to get a little upset because he really wanted out of his crib to explore! So when the nanny took him out he was crawling everywhere! He would crawl under the cribs and just sit, then crawl under another crib and just sit. He really was crawling towards us but kept enough distance from us that I could not snatch him up and kiss him. (unless I was willing to crawl under a crib...........which I decided would not be the best. :)) Then one of the nannies took him by his arm and helped him walk a bit! He was very active and loving every minute of it. You need to rest up now because this little guy is going to keep you very busy! On the third day he remembered me and I walked up to his crib and rubbed his face and he REALLY liked it! I actually got a great smile out of him, but of course I did not have my camera. So he likes his head rubbed. I rubbed his head, well his face really, a few more times and he was quite happy. You can tell that he really loves his caregivers and is quite attached to them, however he really wanted to get to know us and was very curious about us. I would suggest when you come, bring or buy when you arrive some sort of small pillow. He always had a pillow in his hand when he was in his crib. He would also crawl towards one if it was on the floor. It was kind of like his security. At least when we were there. It may not be by the time you arrive. You are just going to love him and he is going to love you! I would suggest when you enter the room for the first time you let him get a good look at you first and kind of just make your way over to him slowly. Then just rub his face. He is very gentle and needs to warm up to those he doesn't know, but once he warms up he has such a cute little personality!
I can't wait to follow your journey to get him!
Elisabeth

Wow. What an amazing and generous gift -- especially the time and attention spent on my son. It means so much to me. It will be a priceless addition to Adam's life book. And yet.....

And yet...mixed in with the very sincere gratitude, there came the jealousy. I wanted it to be me! For the first time, the waiting feels painful. There are times when its been frustrating, of course, but this has suddenly become hard.