Beach Weather

Yesterday, it was even hotter (at least 92 degrees) so we took the boys to a nearby beach. We weren't sure that the water would be warm enough to play in, but I think the air was so warm that even that cold water felt great. The boys sure had a good time! I think this is going to be one long, hot summer. I guess it'll make the temps in Africa less of a shock (if we ever get there...)

Seriously?

From snow to sprinkler in 15 days...only in WI!

On May 8th, our boys wanted to play in the freshly fallen snow from the night before. Chris and I were completely un-thrilled with the new snow, so we let the boys call our good friend (and children's pastor), Preston, to see if he wanted to have a snowball fight with them. He was out and about, so he stopped over to play with the kids in the snow. We watched from inside wondering if this made us bad parents. We have since decided that this made us smart parents--we still let our kids have fun in the snow (in May), but we didn't have to get cold or wet to make sure they had that opportunity. Thanks Preston!!!


Today, May 23rd, it was like 85 degrees and 100% humidity (rare for us ever, unheard of in May). I took the boys out for a walk which just produced a lot of sweat, so when we got home, they played in the sprinkler--just 15 days after having a snowball fight in the same backyard. Crazy!

Babies

Some great friends came to visit last weekend and brought their baby with them. Gavin, as usual, was enamored with the baby--but who could blame him? Liam is seriously cute!

No great news to report on our baby (now 6 months old), but we did learn that our case should be submitted to the Ethiopian courts in about two weeks and we will be assigned a court date sometime after that. We're still hoping and praying for July, of course. For now, we're just working on fundraising to help pay for that second trip. Our garage is quickly filling up with items donated by great friends who want to help out.

The sale will be the first weekend in June--wish us luck! Think we can make about $9000???

Adoption Thoughts

As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to adopt. I remember being in college and seeing commercials for special needs and older kids that needed to be adopted and I would try to figure out if it was feasible for me to adopt them. I was thrilled when Chris told me he was open to adoption--I wouldn't have married him if he hadn't been open to it. Adopting was not an option for me, it was THE option. When we decided to become parents, we went about it in a rather unconventional way and decided to do foster care to adopt. Of course, we all know how that turned out...it didn't result in adoption, but I ended up pregnant twice in the middle of all that and I now have 4 boys in my heart (side note: Roth will be 16 in July, which is crazy!).

Last spring, Chris and I decided it was time to dive head first into adoption again, hoping for different results this time around. We decided to go a completely different route to help guarantee different results. Eventually, we settled on Ethiopia, breezed through our paperwork and were approved. Waiting, waiting, waiting...a year later and we have a little girl thousands of miles away just waiting for us to come and get her and you'd think I would be in my glory realizing that my dream should shortly be a reality. Instead, I keep playing this saga out in my mind.

This could be a royal disaster. We have to fly to Ethiopia twice now and something could happen to us leaving our boys without parents. Financially, this is tapping every resource we have and putting all future dreams on further hold. I keep hearing attachment nightmares from other adoptive parents that are honestly scaring me a little bit. This shouldn't scare me, I mean we parented a kid who had reactive attachment disorder for 2 1/2 years and we still have a real connection with him--though different from the one I have with my other kids, it's real. I can handle smaller attachment issues with my hands tied behind my back after all we went through with Roth and Dera. Or can I? I'm older, I'm definitely more tired--I've loved and lost two children, I have been pregnant twice and have two terribly busy little boys that will be affected by this adoption, Chris and I rarely see one another and parenting is done in shifts rather than as a team, really. I'm not saying that I want to back down from this challenge, but I can definitely see, for the first time in my life, why adoption is not for everyone. I also understand why other adoptive parents tell us that they are proud of us for embarking on this journey. It takes a lot of courage, an abundance of patience and a really incredible support team. I have two of the three...this one might finally teach that patience God has been trying to beat into my head for almost 32 years. Maybe...

Just my thoughts for the day. If you have ever given a thought to adoption, make sure you pray about it a lot and let God lead. This is one adventure that is not to be entered into lightly.

We're good

Sometimes it just takes a bit of time to process all the information we're taking in regarding this adoption. We've processed the latest information and we're fine...at least for today!

I looks like we will not have to wait the predicted 3-4 months for a court date because we were already so far along in the process when the changes came, but there are no guarantees. We are hoping, and praying, for a court date sometime in July since the courts often close for all of August and September due to rainy season--if we don't get a July court date, it'll be more like a 5 month wait for court.

Please pray with us that we would have peace to just let this process run it's course. We know that we will have her home at some point and that we will have our daughter months sooner than if we had stuck with our old agency. So, really not all that bad when you get some perspective. Still, it's easy to get caught up in the details and to let the discouraging news that keeps coming get the best of us.

At this point, our ideal situation has been completely done away with, so plan, um, maybe k (way past a & b) would be that we get a court date in July--which we will have to travel for--and that we will then be able to pick up our baby in September sometime. Fingers crossed!

Then again...

We just found out it'll be 3-4 months before we have a court date. Of course, that's right in the middle of rainy season and they just close courts for weeks during rainy season, so it could be October before we have court and then another 2-3 months before we can bring her home. I honestly don't know what to say to that.

AHHHHHHH!

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday morning, we got fingerprinted so that we could get approved for a visa to bring our little girl home. Getting this approval typically takes at least a week, sometimes up to six. Under this new 2-trip policy, our agency has to have our approval before they can schedule us a court date. So, I called the visa approval office and while we were on the phone, they got our fingerprints, approved them and faxed us the approval. I'm still in shock. I faxed the approval to our agency, so hopefully we'll have our court date very soon. It's looking like we'll get to meet our little girl in June! As much as I still dread leaving our boys twice and having to leave her after meeting her, at least it feels like something has finally gone right. If we have to go twice, I just want to embrace the change and get this show on the road. Let's get this traveling over with and get on with life! (Thanks, mom, for listening to me and helping me change my attitude around. I could not do this without you.)

Also, I had a great meeting with a friend today who told me about a couple of great adoption grants and is willing to help us run a fund raiser. God will provide, I am certain.

Traveling twice

Well, it's official, we will be going to Ethiopia twice. It sucks and as much as I try to think of the positives, I just keep thinking about leaving Gavin and Reily behind twice and then meeting this precious little girl and having to leave her behind. In the end, it will all be fine, but getting to the end is going to be very tough. Let the fund raising begin, I guess! We've got to come up with that extra $9000 that we weren't planning on somehow. Let me know if you have any great ideas for that. Please pray for safe travels. I am nervous to leave our boys behind, twice now.

It's been a strange day...

Well, today some others from our agency heard that they will for sure only be traveling to Ethiopia once and we didn't hear that. Since today is the true cut-off, I'm guessing that means we will be traveling twice. Of course, we don't know this for sure, but it's feeling less and less likely that we'll get away with one trip. On the plus side, this likely means we will be meeting our daughter as early as June. On the down side, this means we will have to meet her and then leave her for 1-3 months before we can bring her home, we will have to leave the boys twice, AND we have to come up with about $9000 more. Yikes, hopefully God will just drop that in our laps! Overall, I'm not feeling too down or overwhelmed by this. It is what it is and we don't really know for sure yet, so I guess we're technically still waiting to find out, it just isn't looking so promising anymore.

Additionally, it is stinkin' May 7 and we are getting snow. Not just a little bit of snow that will be gone in an hour, but SNOW! Here are some pictures that I just took to prove it. This is one of those...you know you're a Wisconsinite when...moments.

My poor patio furniture
I love that bright green grass under the tree

Looks like all the flowers on the ground will come out okay--they're covered by the tree

I don't know that the blossoms on the crab apple tree will be so lucky

What a strange day! Gavin asked me if it was Christmas again.

You Know You're An Adoptive Parent When . . .

I'm totally stealing this from someone else's adoption blog. I LOVE IT! My personal thoughts are in orange.

You Know You're An Adoptive Parent When . . .
1. The fact that there are 143 million children without a parent to kiss them goodnight has made you lose sleep. (It feels so inadequate to help only one...for now!)
2. You realize DNA has nothing to do with love and family. (Lucky for me)
3. You can't watch Adoption Stories on TLC without sobbing. (Not so much sobbing, but definitely getting emotional which is kind of rare for me. Well, it used to be rare)
4. The fact that, if 7% of Christians adopted 1 child there would be no orphans in the world, is convicting to you. (I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is, let's get moving people! 7% could correct this issue? Seriously, let's get moving!)
5. You spend free time surfing blogs about families who have experienced the blessing of adoption. (Pretty much 3-4 evenings a week after the kids are in bed. How do you think I found this list?)
6. It drives you crazy when people ask you about adopted child's "real" parents. (Drives me nuts when people ask about my "real" parents, too. Biological is the word--or birth--leave "real" out of it)
7. You have ever been "pregnant" with your adoptive child longer than it takes an elephant to give birth.(2 years!) (2 years, try 6!)
8. You had no idea how you would afford to adopt but stepped out in faith anyway, knowing where God calls you He will provide. (Here's hoping...and believing)
9. You have ever taken an airplane ride half-way around the worldwith a child you just met. (Hopefully in the next few months, this is exactly what we'll be doing)
10. You believe God's heart is for adoption. (100%--again, lucky for me)
11. You realize that welcoming a child into your heart and family is one of the most important legacies you could ever leave on this earth. (Welcoming them into my heart, family and introducing them to the Lord, of course)
12. You know what the word "Dossier" means, and you can actually pronounce it! (And use a different word for all those out there that have no idea what it means = paperwork)
13. You have welcomed a social worker into the most private parts of your life. (Serious invasion of privacy, but we love ours)
14. You shudder when people say your child is so lucky that you adopted them, knowing full well you are the blessed one to have him or her in your life. (This one even bugs Chris, so you know it's bad)
-Author unknown

It's THERE!

Okay, so our paperwork is officially in Ethiopia, with the people it needs to be with. Now, I believe that if it is translated and approved by the courts by May 9, we only travel once. Of course, no one is certain on that, so we may not know if we're traveling once or twice until mid-late May or until our court date is set. Still, knowing that the paperwork is there makes me feel so much better.

Now what? I guess we just wait to hear when our court date is. Many families working with our agency received good court news today. Some received court dates in May and others found out they already passed--one family passed just 6-7 weeks after receiving their referral. I don't know how fast this will go for us, but it can go very quickly and it can take a lot longer than predicted...really no rhyme or reason. I keep telling people we'll have her home sometime between August and November. Of course, if we have to go twice, it'll probably make things take longer, but we'll get there! At least, I'm feeling positive about it today. Ask me again tomorrow...this is such a roller coaster.

Shopping!

Well, no good news on the paperwork...it is IN Ethiopia, but FedEx won't deliver it to where it needs to get by tomorrow (well, it's actually already Friday in Ethiopia). I have no idea why they won't deliver it, but they won't. So our agency is trying to figure out how to get it where it needs to be. We're still praying!

Onto more positive things...A few Christmases ago, my family decided that we'd just buy gifts for kids and that the adults would pool their money and give it to a specific charity. This past Christmas, I got to choose where the money was spent. Chris and I decided that we'd buy stuff to take with us to our daughter's care center in Ethiopia when we finally got to go. Well, tonight I went on the first of many shopping trips to gather some of the needed items. I spent $80 and got:

40 sippy cups
48 rolls of fly paper (they asked for it!)
6 tubes of anti-fungal cream
10 tshirts 5T and up
3 wooden puzzles
5 bottle brushes
70 plastic spoons
10 yards of fabric to sew 4 baby slings
1 package of building blocks
I took Gavin with me and he had a good time picking things out for mommy & daddy to take with them for the other kids that are staying with our Kayla. It was nice to have my mind occupied with something adoption-positive for a little while.

Today...

Today has been a depressing day and an encouraging day all rolled into one. At the start of the day, two other families working with our agency announced that their paperwork had made it to Ethiopia. I assumed that this meant I'd probably get an email stating the same thing about our paperwork...not so. There has been "some problem" with the delivery of our paperwork--and a couple of other sets--our agency will work on tracking it tomorrow, but our window of opportunity to only travel once is closing really quickly. So, I've kind of been in a funk for most of the day.

About an hour ago, I decided it's really out of my control so there's no sense letting it consume me. Sure, it's annoying and upsetting, but I can't do anything different now and I couldn't have done anything differently along the way to make this turn out better, so I'm doing my best not to let it get me down (for now anyway). God will make a way...either it'll get there in time or the funds will be provided for us to go twice. If you know me, you know I'm already working on a plan for that anyway. It wouldn't be ideal, but we'd make it work. God has been so faithful to me for nearly 32 years, I can't imagine that would stop now! So, while I'd still LOVE to hear that our paperwork has made it and I'll be checking my email every 5 minutes for the next two days to see if we have that news, I am at peace with either outcome.

Now, to the good stuff...our MOPS group brought in a photographer to do old fashioned pictures of our kiddos this month. For a $10 sitting fee, you could get a 10x13. I went in today to view the pictures KNOWING that I absolutely could not spend the $120-$300 for a package and that I would only take the free portrait. Of course, the pictures of my boys were gorgeous and it was very hard not to purchase them, but we're putting every extra penny into this adoption, so I did walk away. A few of my wonderful friends could tell how much I loved the photos AND they loved them, too, so they got together and purchased some for me. In addition, another friend dropped off a seriously sweet and encouraging note reminding me about the good parts of being in the ministry and put some cash in it to help us out. Her timing could not have been better.

See, God is faithful even in the little things--like me feeling a little discouraged. I just know He'll take care of this big one for us, too.

Adoption Creed

"Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone, but still so miraculously my own. You grew not under my heart, but in it."

I had this saying hanging in my bedroom when I was a kid--from my mom, of course. The same saying is in our daughter's room--just waiting for her to get here. I hope it means as much to her as it meant to me when I was growing up.

Love you, mom!

Our Baby Girl

One of the things our agency asks us to do is put together a photo book to send to Ethiopia. So, today we put together a photo book to send to our baby girl while we all wait to be together. She is just over 5 months old now and her name will be Kayla once we get her home--in case you don't know, that is the name of my parents first little girl who passed away at the age of two. That is what led to my parents adopting me, so I have always known that we would use her name for the first little girl we had.

No news on the adoption--last we heard, our paperwork was stuck in transit due to the volcano in Iceland. Supposedly, it's somewhere in Europe right now. In order for us to only travel to Ethiopia once it needs to arrive in Ethiopia, be translated, authenticated and approved in court BEFORE May 9th. Only a miracle will pull that off, but we believe in a great God, so we're praying for that miracle. Of course, if it doesn't happen, we'll just have to travel twice and we know that God will provide for that, if necessary.

Here are a few of the photos we're sending our little one. It seems silly to send pictures to a 5-month-old, but I'm guessing it's more for the peace of mind of her caregivers than for her and it'll be a keepsake as she gets older.

Our home

Big brothers...ready and waiting

Her room

The family (minus one, for now)

April (Easter)

I got one picture of the Easter egg hunt before the camera battery died. They had fun anyway.
Reily (3 1/2) & Gavin (almost 5)

March

My grandma celebrated a birthday, but because I love her I won't tell you which one. It was a good celebration.

Chris celebrated a birthday, too. He's 31!

Reily lovin' on Pax. This is the first time he has shown ANY interest in a baby. Paxton loved the attention.

February (Family photos)

Our mission trip to El Salvador wasn't the only thing we did in February... One cool dude!
Sledding

The Spam Museum, yep, there is one and Chris' sister lives near it, so we took the kids. It was...something to do!

Adoption

I'm sure that by now you know we are adopting. Chris and I have always wanted to adopt and when the adoption of Roth and Dera fell threw, we decided that when we were ready, we would pursue an international adoption of a girl under the age of two. As Chris was finishing up his nursing degree, we decided it was time to pursue adoption. After a lot of research and prayer, we finally settled on adopting from Ethiopia. We picked a great agency, a fantastic social worker and got working on all the loads of paperwork in May, 2009. Our homestudy was completed in just a handful of weeks and we were put on the waiting list with our Agency in August, 2009. Shortly after getting on the waiting list for an Ethiopian girl under the age of two, our agency added several months to the wait time, making it more like 2 - 2 1/2 years before we would get our little girl home. In February of this year, Chris and I went to El Salvador for a mission trip and our interest in pursuing a position in foreign missions was renewed, so we decided it would be best to speed up this adoption if at all possible and we began researching agencies that were working a bit faster than ours. We finally settled on Holt, International, which oddly enough was the agency my parents attempted to use to adopt internationally before finding out about me! Anyway, we started the paperwork to switch agencies in February and were added to their waiting list on April 2. On April 6, I got one of the most amazing phone calls of my life. They had a little girl for us. I hardly remember all that was said, but shortly after that, I was emailed her information and the most beautiful photo. She is just a few days shy of 5 months old and while we didn't think we would get a child this young, we could not be more in love. Unfortunately, we are not able to post her photo here until she's legally ours, but hopefully that won't be too long--less than 6 months.

While waiting to hold her and see her is tough, it is a bit easier knowing who she is and that she will be ours. Right now, we're waiting to find out if we'll have to travel to Ethiopia once or twice--we'll know early May. Of course, we're hoping for once since it is a rather expensive trip, but God will provide if we need to go twice.

I'll keep this blog updated with new adoption news as we receive it. The next big piece of information will be that our documents have made it to Ethiopia. Then, we wait for a court date and then a travel date. Of course, there are a few smaller steps in between that could throw everything off, but we're hopeful that this will all go smoothly and quickly.

February (El Salvador trip)

My dad playing dentist

Me, playing eye doctor

The trapeze

My sister, Charity, and me

Visiting the orphanage

Medical care for prisoners