The "Birthmother Turtle"

You may have noticed in several pictures of the peanuts......there is a turtle. Sooo....what's up with that?

(3 months old)

When we first began the adoption journey.......about the time we had started the process from Ethiopia, I came across the blog of a birthmother named Stefanie. She had placed her precious little girl just the day before, and I immediatly developed a deep respect for this young lady. I have since learned so much from her. She chose a wonderful adoptive family, and they have done many creative things to keep her up to date and in Olivia's life. One such thing was the teddy bear. They have 2 identical teddy bears, one for Stefanie and one for Olivia. They regularly take pictures of Olivia with the teddy bear. Stefanie can then look at her teddy bear and have a way to compare and visualize how much Olivia has grown. How neat is that!

(4 months old)

The day we got the call, was just a normal day. We had no idea our profile had been show, no idea a birmother had chosen us, and definatly no idea there had been twins in foster care for 11 weeks waiting to come home to us! I ran into Kohls that Monday morning to return some things, and noticed they had stuffed turtles for sale. "That's it!"I thought. "Great for a girl or a boy.....it will be our birthmother turtle!"

I also found a sweater on the sale rack that I thought would be good to wear to placement....which I had no idea would be less than 48 hours later! Good thing I got those items then, because jsut 2 hours later the call of our lives came and there would have been no time time for anything leisure after that:). We ended up with 4 turtles.....one for Jordan, one for Eliana, one for our foster family and one for our birthmother. We have not had the opportunity to meet our birthmother....we pray and hope and long that that opportunity will present itself in the future! For now, I am hanging onto her turtle and taking pictures so she can look back and "see" how little the babies were one day.

We gave a turtle to our sweet foster family, and it is fun to send them pictres of the babies with the turtle. Their 3 girls can then get their turtle and envision the babies and how much they have grown. They were in the 4 pound range at birth, and I wish we had pictures of them with the turtle then. They would have been tiny compared to it.

I would image these little turtles that hold so much meaning and love will be very special to the peanuts as they grow up!

So, now when you see the turtle, you know it has special meaning:)