Emily and Sydney

Sydney is excited about traveling to China to adopt her "baby sister." She sort of understands that we'll go through the same process to adopt Emily that we went through to adopt her. Sydney loves to go through our collection of pictures - she'll look at them several times a day, if we have the patience - that chronicles her own adoption. She seems to understand that Emily, like Sydney, will be "looking for her mommy and daddy" when her orphanage nanny hands her to us, and she seems to understand that Emily will be her sister from China.

Some days Sydney understands that Emily's mommy and daddy will be the same mommy and daddy that Sydney has. Other days, she seems puzzled about where Emily's mommy and daddy will sleep when we all return from China. When we first explained that Sydney would be sharing her mommy and daddy with Emily, she cried and refused to share. Now she seems resigned to the fact that she will share us with Emily, but she sometimes requires reminders.

We've been told to expect that Sydney will ask us to send Emily back to China. The transition from only child to sister must be difficult - another challenge for us all! We decided to start this process of transition in China by bringing Sydney with us so we can experience the adoption together. Daniel's dad, Tom, will accompany us as our traveling companion, taking care of Sydney during the times we work to cement the bonds between Emily and ourselves. I am positive the transition will be difficult for all of us, but our hope is that Sydney will embrace Emily as her sister by the time we return to the United States. Two weeks in China will not "make" Sydney accept her sister, but we hope that our experience of adopting Emily together as a family will assist rather than hinder the transition process.