Diary of an Adoption p.14 (by Thom)

August 12
OK, this is a couple of days late, but we have been granted legal custody of the girls! At this moment, Miriam Ruth and Hannah Marie are officially part of our family. It was such a small thing; we only had to write a one page paper and sign it. Still, having it done is such a relief. I don't have to worry as much now about someone coming and taking them away from us.
This past Tuesday I was reunited with my girls - Amanda and the twins. I hadn't seen them since early Thursday morning and it was so nice to see everyone. We met in Segou, which is about 2 1/2 hours drive from Bamako. Amanda was at the hotel and surrounded by other missionaries who wanted to see the girls. I had to wait in line to see my own! Miriam looked so much healthier. She has added a lot of weight and looks like a normal chunky baby now. Hannah, though, makes me want to cry. She wasn't able to digest cow's milk, which is in formula, so she was getting pedialite. That gave her some vitamins, but no protein and no way to gain weight. Actually, she lost a lot of weight and, we were told later, was very close to death. However, we were able to get goat's milk which she could drink. It was such a blessing the way the hotel staff adopted our family into theirs. They called Amanda "maman" and me "papa" and always wondered what they could do for the girls. They even made sure we got goat's milk delivered, that it was pure (no cow milk mixed in, and pasturized it for us!
Anyway, I don't enjoy waking up 5 times a night. I don't enjoy dirty diapers. But I love being their dad, and everything else is trivial next to that.