Today’s visit was somewhat better. Mikaela still has a bit of a cough, and the orphanage doctor seems a bit concerned by it, but we did get a bit of time to hold her. The doctor told us that she wants Mikaela in the stroller to stay cool when we are outside, but we can hold her for a bit at the beginning of our visit when we are inside. I had just over 15 minutes to hold and snuggle her before I took her outside to see the others. Greg brought her back to her room, and was hoping for a similar time with her, but one of the workers took her away almost as soon as he got her out of the stroller. Of course, we think it was a misunderstanding due to the language barrier, not an attempt to take her away from him. All the same, it was still a bit frustrating to him. Probably he will go pick her up from her room tomorrow so that he gets a little time with her.

It is still very hot, and the heat is wearing on all of us. We think today is a little cooler than yesterday, and certainly cooler than the day before, so we are thankful for that. We are praying that the heat will break fully very, very soon. In spite of the heat, the kids seemed to enjoy our visit to the orphanage today, although they both insisted on drinking a lot of juice while we were there. We can’t wait until we are allowed to give juice and snacks to Mikaela. It is hard to know that she is ours, but we still have to ask permission before doing anything for her. We are almost done with that, though, and we are so thankful to be here with her. Very soon now we will all be together.

We have made it a full week from our court appointment, and we are pleased to see how quickly this 10 day wait is passing. On Monday, it will be behind us. Tuesday promises to be a crazy day of running around, and Meghan will have the kids all that day. Then, if we understand things correctly, we will be able to bring Mikaela to our apartment with us on Wednesday, one week from today. We are not certain of this yet, but that is how things sounded after talking with our facilitator today. If that is the case, we will have a big celebration on Wednesday evening in honor of Mikaela’s joining our family and of Josiah’s second birthday which is Monday. Meghan has already been looking in all the shop windows trying to pick out the perfect cake for our celebration.

Thank you for all your prayers. Meghan is feeling much, much better, and so far no one else has gotten sick.