Marwan Hourani holds his 5-month-old daughter, Therese, in his arms, grinning widely as he looks into her large, innocent eyes.

She smiles back at him — a huge, gap-toothed smile.

"Therese, I love you," Hourani says, kissing the baby's forehead.

Life hasn't always been so simple for the Hourani family.

Therese is Marwan and Nawal Hourani's only child, adopted from an orphanage in Lebanon earlier this summer. The baby's arrival in the United States gives her parents, who live in Lansing, plenty of reason to smile — mainly because she got here safely.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out in mid-July while Nawal was in Lebanon. The hopeful mother was in the war-torn country waiting for the necessary paperwork so she could bring Therese home.

Another local family, Christopher and Ruth Abood of East Lansing, faced a similar situation. Ruth went to Lebanon to visit her adopted infant son, John, but wasn't yet planning to bring him home.

But that plan soon changed.

Both women said they returned home at the end of July with their babies, who were granted temporary immigrant visas from the U.S. Department of State and humanitarian parole from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The families still are waiting for the children's birth certificates to arrive, which could take months.

"We heard bombs, and you just saw on the TV everything that was being destroyed," said Ruth Abood, who stayed with her husband's relatives in Lebanon. "If it wasn't for them, I don't know how I would have made it."

Special delivery

With her dark, curly hair and big, brown eyes, Therese resembles her parents — both of whom are originally from Lebanon. The Houranis emigrated to the U.S. in 1984, a month after they married.

The couple has no biological children, but had been thinking about adopting for some time. They started the process more than a year ago.

"We came from Lebanon here 22 years ago," Marwan Hourani said. "We want another child to have what we had here — that freedom. We appreciate it so much, and we thought, 'We're going to give another child that chance.'"

After Therese was born March 26, the adoption agency in Lebanon contacted the Houranis to let them know the good news.

"They called us and said, 'We have a baby girl, and she's yours,'" Marwan said.

He said he had a feeling the news was coming soon. The night before Therese was born, Marwan said, he had a dream that the late Mother Teresa gave him a baby.

"That's why we named her Therese," he said.

The Aboods, who both graduated from MSU, worked with the same Lebanese orphanage as the Houranis to adopt their 4-month-old son, John.

They, too, are relieved he came home safely. The family was preparing to leave for vacation Friday, and Ruth Abood was trying to keep John awake so he would sleep in the car. He nibbled on his fingers as his brown eyes began to droop.

Christopher Abood, who is of Lebanese descent, has relatives in Lebanon. One of his cousins called at 6:30 a.m. on April 24, informing the couple that John had been born two days earlier.

Ruth answered the call, then passed the phone to her husband before learning the baby's sex.

"It's kind of like giving birth — is it a boy or a girl?" she said, smiling. "We went downstairs and looked for plane tickets to go see him."

Before either couple could adopt internationally, they had to be cleared by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, even before a child was ready for adoption, Ruth said. She and her husband finished the process late last year.

Neither child could leave Lebanon until paperwork was complete. The Aboods made two weeklong visits and were on their third when the bombing began. Nawal Hourani left June 6 for Lebanon and planned to stay until Therese could come home.

No one imagined what would happen next.

The conflict begins

Nawal Hourani framed the first photograph of her with Therese. In it, she's holding her baby close to her chest.

"I love this picture," she says, staring at the image.

From the airport in Lebanon, Nawal went straight to the orphanage, and officials there released Therese into her custody.

"I was just like, 'This is mine?'" she said. "She is just beautiful."

They stayed with Nawal's brother about seven miles from Beirut, Lebanon's capital city.

Israel bombed the airport in Beirut on July 13, and soon after, Hezbollah retaliated.

From her brother's home, Nawal could see the bombs. She said there was so much smoke that it clouded the sun.

Marwan Hourani stayed in the United States, constantly concerned for his family — especially the infant daughter he had yet to meet.

"I was here sitting by my TV almost 16, 17 hours a day," he said. With the help of a satellite dish, he also was able to receive Lebanese news channels.

"There is no way (Nawal) would leave without that baby," Marwan said. "She's the best thing that happened to us."

Ruth Abood was only supposed to be in Lebanon for about a week — and Christopher a few days — when the bombing began. They were going to find an apartment in which to stay in August until they could bring John home.

Christopher Abood left the day before fighting broke out.

Ruth wasn't able to leave the country for about three weeks. She stayed five miles outside Beirut — the center of the conflict.

"We knew something was going on," she said. "And of course from there, it just got worse and worse."

After a while, Ruth said, she became "desensitized" to the events around her.

"Bombs are dropping and the 9-year-old cousin, it was her birthday, so they made a cake and we sang," she said.

At home, Christopher's focus became his wife and his son.

"We wanted to get them out and get them home," he said.

A safe return

Ruth Abood only asked her husband the question once.

"How long am I going to be here?"

No one really knew the answer.

Neither mother wanted to leave Lebanon without her children. But neither baby had U.S. paperwork.

From home, Christopher Abood began to work with legislators to acquire either a temporary immigrant visa or humanitarian parole for John, which would allow him to leave Lebanon.

"We only needed one or the other, and on the same day both went through," Ruth said.

The process was accelerated partly because her husband had left the country before the conflict began.

He called Ruth and told her the paperwork had been processed and to go to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut the next day. At 8 a.m. on July 22, Ruth and Nawal Hourani — who had connected once they got to Lebanon — arrived at the embassy. Only people with U.S. passports could enter, so Ruth went in to check on the babies' statuses.

After hours of filing paperwork, they went straight to a Beirut port to board a boat for Cyprus. The trip lasted roughly eight hours.

The foursome then boarded a bus for a military camp in the capital of Cyprus, where they learned they could wait up to four days for a flight home.

Christopher Abood contacted friends in Cyprus, who helped arrange flights that night for the families.

They arrived home July 24, after three straight days of traveling.

At Detroit Metro Airport in Romulus, Marwan Hourani anxiously waited for his family's flight to land. He held flowers to give to his wife, and others held balloons that read, "It's a girl!"

"It's hard to imagine what that feeling is like," Marwan said of the moment he met Therese. "Right away, that baby warmed up to me."

Both families hope the conflict is behind them.

The infants should not experience any lasting effects from their exposure to the conflict, mainly because they will be surrounded by supportive, caring parents, said Holly Brophy-Herb, an MSU associate professor of child development.

"I'm sure it was very chaotic and traumatic during that time, but again, infants are very resilient and they're going to have the loving support of adults," Brophy-Herb said. "The strength of that relationship contributes to resiliency and positive outcomes."

The Houranis worry about family still living in Lebanon. But they are grateful their story has a happy ending and everyone was able to return home safely.

"We're nice and safe here, but we definitely still have family there," Marwan Hourani said. "When they say 'God bless America,' it's for a reason — for everything we have here."