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This morning we crossed the Bulgarian countryside, a four hour car ride one way from the capital city of Sofia to Burgas, Hope\u2019s birth city. The hillsides all dressed in bright yellow, fitting for such a joyous occasion. Fields of sunflowers, blooming large, blanketed the landscape, their brilliant faces smiling up towards the sun.<\/p>\n

We arrived at Hope\u2019s orphanage just after her lunch meal. Her caregivers dressed her in the ladybug outfit her big sister chose for her, complete with matching ladybug booties. When she was brought to us, a caregiver handed her to me and said to Hope, \u201cMama\u201d and Hope began to make happy cooing noises. After a quick exchange and good byes we walked out of the orphanage into the sunshine. Hope again made happy cooing sounds yet this time much louder and varied. It seemed as if she knew that this was a very joyous occasion, a time to celebrate!<\/p>\n

We are now two hours into our return trip to Sofia. Hope has been sleeping peacefully for about an hour now. She fell asleep holding my hand. I look at her sweet baby face and I look out my window to see sunflowers far into the distance, like an ocean of pure light. My heart fills with gratitude. This day has finally arrived, our daughter is officially ours and she is coming home!<\/p>\n

Oh, Happy Day!<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.\u201d
\n\u202d\u202dPsalms\u202c \u202d118:24\u202c \u202dNLT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning we crossed the Bulgarian countryside, a four hour car ride one way from the capital city of Sofia to Burgas, Hope\u2019s birth city. The hillsides all dressed in bright yellow, fitting for such a joyous occasion. Fields of sunflowers, blooming large, blanketed the landscape, their brilliant faces smiling up towards the sun. We […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/DSC02001.jpg?fit=5184%2C3456&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YMk4-ox","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1532,"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions\/1532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magnoliaheart.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}