My Little Orange Blossom...

As we decided on a name for our sweet baby girl, I was truly hoping our trip to Arkansas would culminate with a name decided upon by the birth family and us.  When I asked them what they would like to name her, the response was that they wanted us to choose.  My response was… I really wanted them to choose.  And so the name discussion began.  Lani has been the force behind the names of the other children and Andy smiles as she thinks how he has come up with each of them.  Lani explains how in their family they like to combine family names.  For this baby they thought maybe they could take part of his mothers name (Emwa) and part of her mothers name (Jo Jo Lynn) and combine them to form a name.  After much thinking on the fact that they like combined family names, I suggested combining their names!  What did they think?  Andy and Lani…. Alani.  They loved it.  Andy thought it was so cute and Lani was so happy.  It was settled!  Our baby girl would be Alani and named after her birth mother and father. 

This being said, I had always secretly hoped for a “Hawaiian” name of sorts.  But I didn’t feel I could choose that name.  So coming up with this name with them was beyond perfect.  When I returned home from Arkansas I went to the computer to look up the meaning of Alani.  I knew it was Hawaiian, but had no idea of it’s meaning.  I was happy to see that it was beautiful …  Hawaiian for “Orange Blossom”. 

But there is more to this story!  Many years ago when Chris and I had first talked about adoption and began to move in that direction, we started our journey in the country of Nepal.  Because of government laws, we would be adopting a baby girl.  Now we had just started this process, but I could not help myself when I was at the store and saw a cute Strawberry Shortcake doll.  She had beautiful brown skin and dark brown flowing hair.  I had to have her, so Chris and I purchased this beautiful doll.

As time went on it was clear that we would not be able to adopt from Nepal and the entire adoption program later went on to shut down.  We were, in turn, blessed to find the Marshall Islands and the rest is history!

But I kept that beautiful little doll with the beautiful brown skin tucked away.  When we began this new process of adopting Alani from Arkansas/Marshall Islands, I got that little doll back out.  She has been sitting in Alani’s nursery waiting for her since before we even dreamed of naming her.    

Oh… and the name of the Strawberry Shortcake Doll with the beautiful brown skin and brown flowing hair…  it is Orange Blossom. 

God continues to be in the details!