Update on living with 5 girls

I am amazed how the relationships are working out so far with all the girls. Although I am fully aware that once home and settled in, there will be conflicts and testings.

But, I have never had this feeling of 'family' before. Yes I had the twins and older daughter, but they are still working out their relationship and it's been 3.5 years. My older daughter had a really rough time in the orphanage, and it has been hard for her to trust, feel, grasp concepts of applying common sense, prioritizing and self love, (among many other things). Although she has come a very long way. So with her it has always been to pick your battles, teach her in small amounts, and appreciate when she is light and happy. With the twins, they had huge abandonment issues that manifested into one having very low self esteem and the other totally shut down and giving the appearance that everything is fine. She wouldn't cry, I had to give her permission. I'm now teaching her how to use words to express her hurts, her anger and her fears.

Right now I have 5 girls helping each other, sharing and caring, watching out for each other, and playing and laughing. Wow, this is so amazing. I always felt that this is what family is all about but I have never experienced it before. Harmony is a great thing! I do realize that it doesn't stay like this all the time, but this does feel so good!

My dh keeps saying and shaking his head..."Five girls...five girls..." But I actually think he is enjoying it more than he thought!

So now the newspaper articles are everywhere about my daughter searching for her birth family. I translated some using the Google translator, and have found out so much information. It's like a jig saw puzzle being put together, including the Father's age when she was born, the name they gave her, what she was wearing when found, AND her age! I emailed the reporter today with more questions and ideas to locate the person who said that he was the Father. I hope we can have some conclusive info before we leave.

We received an incredible amount of information about our daughter form Luoyang. The information is, her parents name, how each one died, her Grandmother's name and the letter from her Grandmother giving her rights over to the orphanage. With my facilitator I was able to question her what she remembers, because she was about 9 years old at the time. Well, slowly the tears came as she remembered the hurt and confusion of why these people came and took her away. I was able to tell her the reasons for her Grandmother's choice and how it was made out of love. The Grandmother was old and sickly and didn't have the money to continue her care. I made sure that she understood, so perhaps the healing could start. With her tears falling, I held her in my arms so she knew I understood and cared. And that I wouldn't be going away.

I think between the two of them this was just the first of many tears to come.