⁃ traveling back and forth twice a day
⁃ 3-4 hours in the car with a carsick child
⁃ Taking her back to the foster family in the evening, and hear her cry after us to not leave her
⁃ Mandatory Medical appointments for the adoption file – she is afraid of hospitals.
⁃ Physical and mental tiredness
⁃ Learning to set boundaries she pushed and tested
⁃ Hear her cry to go back to her foster family after coming home full time
⁃ Learning to care for a sick child during the night
⁃ Making time to date my spouse
⁃ Accommodating the biweekly visits of our social worker during the 90 days of her being entrusted to us, before the adoption was finalized
⁃ Dealing with her self soothing habit – gently banging her face on the pillow when she was cold or couldn’t sleep
⁃ Cooking a lot more and eating at a regular times daily
⁃ Losing my personal space
⁃ Finding a kindergarten mid year
⁃ Walking slower everywhere
⁃ Wearing a larger purse to fit a water bottle and snacks, socks, little underwear, extra pants, hat, toy, hair clips
⁃ Changing bed sheets half asleep when your kid wakes up crying for wetting the bed, but is also too stubborn to wear pull-ups because she’s a big girl at age 3.
⁃ Brushing teeth, reading bed time stories every single night without fail
⁃ Going to the ER
⁃ Going to the dentist and spending a month’s income on fixing all the baby teeth at once, putting her under to fix the incipient cavities – best decision!
⁃ Going to any and all parenting /adoption classes
⁃ Fighting over parenting methods with my spouse
⁃ Giving up most of our screen time to be available and set a good example.

But everything is so worth it! I can’t explain why or how. It just is. I love this kid with my whole being. I’d give my life for her.

We love her with commitment and joy.

She painfully chisels our selfish ego and she brings out the best in us. We play a lot more and we taste full joy.