What's in a Name

We have a small update in our adoption. We are officially Out of Translation (OOT). We were OOT on March 14th, which is Cade's birthday. That has to be a good sign, right? We are now waiting for Letter of Acceptance (LOA) sometimes called Letter Seeking Confirmation (LSC). This is where Ch*na officially gives their approval for us to adopt Emma Grace specifically. If we get this quickly, then June travel is still a possibility. If not, then it will probably be July before we travel :-(

Names matter. In our family, all of the boys have a family middle name. Before we knew who Emma was, we thought that we might use part of her Ch*nese name in her name. We knew it would depend on what her name meant. Some children available for adoption are given names that identify them as an orphan or mean things like the location that they were found. When we found out Emma's Ch*nese name, we were happy to find out that her name means Rain Drop Song. Unfortunately, we can't pronounce it. We decided to not use any of her Ch*nese name in her name. Mark has already nicknamed her "Rain Drop". I have wanted to use Grace in a girl's name for a long time. I like the name, plus I feel like it is the by the grace of God that we are bringing this daughter into our family. We really felt that we needed a family name also. I didn't want her to be the only one without a family name. The problem is that I had a hard time finding a family name to go with Grace. Mark wanted Ann (his mom), but that is part of my middle name, and I am not fond of my middle name. I just couldn't do it. We finally made Grace the middle name and are using a family name as her first name. My maternal grandmother's name was Clara Emma. She did have a heart for children in children's homes and children without families. I remember how often she talked about a children's home that she used to work at when she was younger. It felt right. Plus, I like how Emma Grace sounds, and the boys approved. We are so happy that she now has a face and a name. Now we just want her HOME.


- Jenna