Mom Reflects on the "Heartbreaking Realities" of Adopting a 2-Year-Old
Elsie Larson and her husband, Jeremy, have been going through the adoption process since May 2016 and have been documenting their story on their blog, The Larson House, as well as on Instagram. In August 2017, the couple announced that they matched with a 2-year-old girl from China, whom they've named Nova Winter. Although the decision as to whether they would adopt her took some time — Nova has albinism, something the couple had hesitations about due to potential medical complications — Elsie shared on their blog that the days following the moment they decided to be Nova's parents were the happiest she's ever been.
Despite the couple's immense happiness, Elsie wrote on her blog that she's "prepared for our trip to China to be awful. It would be wrong to put big emotional expectations on a scared 2-year-old who has just been handed to strangers and left by the only adults she knows and trusts. We're going with our eyes open and our expectations extremely low."
In a post to Instagram, the mom-to-be shared a photo of Nova's adorable room and went further, commenting on the "heartbreaking realities" of adoption and how Nova's first two years will affect the picture of the "magical childhood" Elsie so wants to give her daughter.
Nova lost so much in her first two years . . . her birth parents, her birth name, and her birthday (she didn't have a note left with her . . . sadly, a lot of Chinese orphans have estimated birthdays). Soon she'll be losing the place she knows, familiar faces, and the country she was born in. Today I realized for the first time that most likely we'll only ever have one photo of her below the age of 2 — ONE photo in two years. There are so many heartbreaking realities in adoption.
However, Elsie can't wait for all the firsts she and her husband are going to celebrate with Nova, and she is doing her best to remain positive about this very exciting time in all of their lives. "Preparing to give Nova a magical childhood consumes so much of my mind," she wrote. "I feel lucky that she's young enough to potentially have her first memories with us. We have a lot to try to make up for. Some of it we can't give back to her, but we will still try."