New Blog Home

I started blogging in 2006 as we were first setting out to adopt our daughter Ella from China.  I wanted her to have a written record of everything we went through on our journey to her.  It was also an opportunity for us to share that journey with our friends and family. 

Ella has been home for two years now, and I have decided to transition our blog away from the www.babybernacchi.com site to this new location where we will focus more on our everyday journey as a family. 

The name "Especially Bright" was chosen because it was a promise God gave me early on in our journey to adopt Ella.  I was praying -- complaining really -- to God about how He promised Abraham his seed would outnumber the stars in the sky, and yet at this rate we'd be lucky if we even had one.  And it just wasn't fair.  And I heard him speak to my heart, "Maybe not ... but the one I give you will be especially bright."

We waited for almost 5-1/2 years in the non-special needs (NSN) line of China adoption and were quickly approaching the time when we would have received our NSN referral, when we felt strongly that we were supposed to get in the special needs line.  In the natural, this didn't make a lot of sense.  After waiting all that time, and being so close to a healthy child, it seemed a little hasty.  But of course we know now, that there was a reason for it.  You see the little girl God had planned for us was in the other line, and the only way we would find her was if we switched to that line. 

Ella came to us with multiple special needs.  She had a hole in her heart (this has since been repaired), an undeveloped lung with unusual complications (this has since been miraculously healed), developmental delays and several other special needs that had the doctors convinced she had an underlying genetic issue. After much study of her chromosomes, and several misdiagnoses, it was determined that she has a rare condition called 18q- deletion syndrome. 

When we learned of the 18q- deletion syndrome my first thought was, "NO!  God you promised us our child would be 'especially bright'.  How can this be?  And yet, if you have met Ella you know that she is without a doubt a bright shining star, and she is the light of our lives. God has had His hand on this little girl from the time she was conceived.  Her story is nothing short of a miracle.  And we believe God is continuing to write her story with each and every passing day. 

"Especially bright?"  You better believe it!  We are holding on to God's promises for our daughter, and believing that she will continue to baffle the experts with her ongoing testimony.  No label can define her.  No chromosome deletion can delete her value.  She is a joy and we are honored to be her parents.

We invite  you to join us as we enjoy God's faithfulness in our everyday lives!