She is now 8.5 months old! Time is just flying by. It has been 2.5 months that we have known about her and have called her Eliana Nardos. Eliana, meaning "God has answered." This is what I wrote about the name Eliana a couple of months ago...
"As we waited for the past year and a half, I couldn't help but think about our daughter's birthmother. At the time, I knew nothing about her. I still don't know too much. But I was confident that because she chose LIFE for this little girl, she loved her. I also couldn't help but think that at some point she prayed for this little girl. And possibly asked God to take care of her and to give her a family that would love her unconditionally. And GOD HAS ANSWERED that mother's prayer with ADOPTION."
And Nardos is the name on her birth certificate. The name that she has been called since she was born.
The first few days of our trip we called her Eliana a little, but mostly Nardos and Nardi (as her nannies like to call her). Very cute. Well, I LOVE the name Eliana and I LOVE its meaning even more.....but one night while we were there, Dan turned to me in our room and said, "I'm just not feeling "Eliana" for her name anymore." And for some reason, and I didn't know why, I wasn't either.
The next morning, we visited our baby girl, went to lunch, and then drove 2 hours to Adama to visit her orphanage that she lived in before being moved to our agency's transition house.
While at the orphanage, we had a chance to meet our daughter's birthmother and to sit down and talk with her for a bit. I'm not sure you can prepare yourself for a moment like that. But I am glad that we were all able to talk and can provide our daughter with more information later in life.
Let me pause and just back up a bit right now. Many of you know that we chose Eliana as her name after we received our referral. The other name in the running was Jordan. We have a little theme going on in our family right now. We call our kids, "The Old Testament Crew." We have Caleb, Joshua, and Aaron right now. Dan and I would often say that if we had another boy, we would name him Jordan (because Dan has a hold up with naming girls BOY names) :) But he still loves you if you do that. ;) Anyway, then, as we waited for a referral of one or two children we said that we would do Eliana and Jordan if we received a sibling set. When we were called about one child, we still debated both names, but went with Eliana because I still loved it and its meaning. Jordan was great, but just went with the theme....no meaning behind it at the time.
OK, back to Ethiopia and the birth mom conversation. Dan asked her why she named her "Nardos." She, through a translator, said that she didn't name her Nardos. That was a mistake. She named her "Yordanos" but someone wrote it down wrong. We sat there, having no clue what that meant. So Dan asked, "What does Yordanos mean?" Our translator turned to us and said, "It means Jordan." I immediately burst into tears. How could two mamas, who live halfway around the world, who love this little girl more than anything, both have had the same name in mind for her?? How could we not name her Jordan?? Had God been slowly preparing our hearts for this? It just seemed odd that the name I LOVED weeks earlier, just didn't seem right when I met our little girl a few days earlier.
As we ended our conversation, her birth mother told us that she had been praying for and wanted Yordanos (Jordan) to grow up in a family that loved Jesus. Here is where Eliana still fits because, oh my goodness, GOD HAS ANSWERED. I have been praying hard for this woman for almost 2 years and at that time felt like she was praying for a family to love her daughter like she wishes she could. And He definitely answered. Adoption is hard. Meeting our daughter's birth mother was harder than I could have imagined. But God is good all the time and he is going to redeem these lives and make beauty from the ashes of tragedy and hopelessness.
Our trip to Ethiopia was life-changing, emotional, and absolutely wonderful.
We are now waiting to hear that we can bring her HOME. The wait will be 2-3 months. I am praying that it is no longer than 2 months. In the meantime, we need to set up her nursery, buy some girl clothes and toys (and whatever else girls need, AHHH!!!!), and practice saying her new name:
Jordyn Eliana :)
