Nashville, Tennessee, August 13, 2011, 10:07 p.m., D.S.T.~

My name is Jamie Delgado.  I live in Nashville, Tennessee, with my husband, Jorge', and our son, Raymundo Carlos, as well as our newly adopted daughter, Soraya Nicole, who joined our family just about a month ago (although the process took much longer than that!).

I am a police officer; as for Jorge', he works as a crime scene investigator (CSI).  We've both worked at our jobs for over 10 years and we love what we do.  When we are at work, my mama, Coral, watches the children; she is very good with them, and we trust her with them.

We tried to have another child after we had Raymundo six years ago, but it just wasn't to be.  Therefore, we tried adoption.  We knew we wanted a sister for Raymundo, so we opted to adopt a little girl.  We didn't care where she was from: as long as she was healthy, well, that was the most important thing.  Even if the child had special needs, we wouldn't have minded it one bit: we were ready to love a second child and love her as our very own.

When we first saw Soraya's picture, we fell in love.  She was a tiny peanut of a child, then age three, with big, black eyes, and long, tangled black hair.  She was beautiful.  We knew we had to add her to the family.  We just didn't expect all the paperwork, the home studies, the interviews or medical appointments, and such; eventually, we were cleared to adopt, so we chose to adopt a child from another country.  We wanted a girl one or two years younger than Raymundo.  

The waiting was the hardest part.  We didn't think we would ever hear anything from our adoption attorney.  Then we got The Call, the Call that would change everything!  It was the happiest day of our life, but even that didn't compare to picking Soraya up at the airport not even two weeks later!  That day was like the Fourth of July, my birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all rolled up into one!  We cried buckets of tears, especially when Soraya was brought over to us.

You never heard such crying or carrying on (or happy shouts from Raymundo) in all your days!  Oh, it was wonderful, although I think we scared Soraya into submission from all the noise we made! LOL

Soraya was everything we imagined she would be, but she was taller than we expected.  We knew that would happen because she continued to grow, even though we weren't aware of it.  She was going to be tall: Soraya had the longest, thinnest legs we ever saw on a child; it was a miracle they even held her up!  LOL  She reminded us of a little bird.

Soraya is still adjusting to life here (and we are doing the same with having a new child); it is a day by day process.  Some days are still filled with tears of anger or frustration, but we will do everything in our power to help Soraya get used to her new life here in America and to help her adjust to having a family/home of her own.  It won't be easy, but with God's help, we will ALL make it!

I'm just glad Louisiana Sandusky talked us into adopting.  After seeing her beautiful (but burgeoning) family of children adopted internationally (as well as domestically), we knew that adoption was the right thing for us to choose, and now that Soraya is finally a part of our family, we couldn't be any happier than we are right now!  We are certainly blessed!

~To be continued.~