My beautiful sister

I was an only child growing up. My mother and father worked full time, and I was in school all day and at gymnastics practice every night. We lived a very busy life, and I never even had time to feel lonely or to be overly spoiled (but I was a little spoiled). When I was still a little fetus in my mom's stomach, they realized that her uterus was shaped oddly, and that I was only able to grow in about a fourth of the uterus. The pregnancy was difficult, but I was born full-term and healthy. My mom on the other hand, barely made it. She almost bled to death and had to have an emergency hysterectomy just minutes after I was born. Her heart stopped beating multiple times and she was very, very sick. Needless to say, she couldn't have any more children and she was heartbroken. When I was 10, my parents told me that they had decided to adopt a baby from China, and that I would have a sister soon. The adoption process actually took four more years after that. But on October 3rd, 2008 I met my sister, Lidia Faith Coan, for the first time. In that moment I knew what it felt like to love someone else more than you could ever possibly love yourself. I felt the strongest type of love and the strongest need to protect her and keep her safe. Since that day, we have been best friends. She is the most beautiful, sweet, creative, and compassionate child I have ever met (though I may be biased). She was only a year and a half old then, and was extremely underweight and delayed in speech and gross and fine motor movements. She is now 7 and a half years old and is in the second grade. She is not delayed in any areas anymore, in fact she is so intelligent that it's scary. I love her more than anything in this world, and I'm so incredibly proud to be able to call her my sister.