Adoption has taught me.......

When we started this journey we were so caught up in changing someone else's life for the better. We knew we wanted to help a child have hope for a better life and hopefully a life in Christ. As I look back I can't believe how much WE have changed because of this journey. We look at everything differently, our needs, our children, our possessions.....The things we thought were important before aren't nearly as important(besides our children which have always been #1)
Our family has forever changed. Our children are learning the world is bigger than us and what it looks like to make sacrifices for His kingdom.

What?!!

We have been waiting to get our appointment to be fingerprinted for our FDL. Now we know why it has taken so long. I received our application in the mail yesterday and get this....WE FORGOT TO SIGN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't ask me how. I am able to laugh at it now but seriously, what?How?why?
We are pretty sure it won't affect the timeline of us getting her home but still.........We overnighted it right away.
We are trying to keep busy and work on the room changes. We moved the toy room down to the family room and now the 3 boys will share the big room(old playroom). We are going to do a car/garage theme, the boys are excited!! Needless to say I won't have to buy much for decorations and Travis won't notice all of his missing car stuff.
We have her paint colors and bedding already. We are looking for a bed and a comfy glider for all the cuddling we are going to do.
We have lots of painting and reorganizing to do but when we are done hopefully it will be time to bring her home.
Thatcher is so cute when he sees her picture he says, "That's my sister!!" He doesn't want to call her by anything but sister. We can't wait to see all of our children together for the first time.

Sinking in

Now that the reality of us getting her is sinking in, my emotions are changing from ecstatic to sorrow. I of course am excited to get her home and get to know this child we love already, but I am now saddened by the loss she has and will always have. I am sad knowing that her family will be saying goodbye to her and she will always deal with that issue. We are starting to prepare our letter for her father and siblings and I am just so heartbroken when I think about our children and how I would feel having to give them up, for any reason. Then to think about the amount of children that deal with rejection, whether they are an orphan or still with their families but just not loved, possibly abused, it's beyond comprehension. Everyone, whether they can recognize it or not, long to be loved by someone on this earth. Unfortunately, some will never have that kind of love, but my prayer is that EVERYONE can know the kind of love that lasts forever-God's.
I hope we can help her as she goes through every grieving stage to realize her worth and value. I hope we are sensitive to the specific way she might grieve her loss for her family and culture.

Passports

Even though I feel like there is still so many mountains in front of us before we get to Addis(this is the name we have for her-it means "new" and is the city she is in), there are little rocks being pushed aside. For instance, we have received our passports. That is another thing checked off our list. I wish I could show the passport photos, they look more like mug shots. We did them at walmart and the lady told us not to smile and took the photo from above us-not a good angle, trust me. They are horrible pictures, but they'll get us to our sweetie.
I love that families are hearing good news about court dates. It gives me hope that it won't be too long before we are hearing the same good news.
Our hearts long to be with her, what is she doing right now..........is she happy.......she doesn't even know that she has a family waiting to see her and hold her forever.

International Pediatrician

We heard from the Dr. that is reviewing "W" medical files. She said things look promising and that with some love and good nutrition she should blossom. We were so excited to hear that(although we had our mind's made up already) and it was nice to hear her perspective on the medical concerns she has. We know that the permanent effects will not be known for years to come, but we feel confident that she is our child.
We are praying she stays healthy and continues to do well at HH until we can get to her. It is so hard to be here and know she is so far away......
We have made more progress in the "O" area accepting this new little one. This morning he commented on the blanket we bought to send to her. He asked if I thought she would like it and I said "I hope so", then he replied, "me too". In my heart I know he is fine with it, it's just his personality to reject everything that is new or unknown. When not prompted about her, he is interested, but if WE ask him about her, he isn't interested in discussing the subject. But again, we are making progress and we still have a couple of months till we bring her home.

Finally pink in the house

Okay, so during every pregnancy, when we had an ultrasound to find out the gender, we would go and buy the baby an outfit to celebrate. So.........that's my excuse to buy "W" some clothes. We were in Fargo and went shopping at the mall there and I restrained from buying every cute little dress available. I did buy a blanket to send to her and an outfit to fly home in. We don't know her exact size so we can't buy too much right now. I also went to "My friends attic" sale this weekend and picked up some cute sweaters. A little girl's gotta have some cute bows and of course comfy PJ's (Thanks again Michelle).

Now that this is becoming a reality, I am finding a lot of things that I need to research and get ideas about. At the beginning we were thinking our child would probably be a baby, but knowing she is a toddler changes things a little bit. It's weird to think we have all of this love for her and we are excited to get to her, and she has no idea who we are and she definitely doesn't love us yet. We pray God prepares her heart for us and our first meeting goes well , if not at first, that she quickly gets use to us.

Thank you

Before I show the Pink, I have to say thanks to my husband who brought me flowers after we learned that we were going to be able to get "W". Flowers are a special treat, since I have told him not to buy flowers for me in the past.(I love them but they die so quickly) So "Thank you" again!!!

Referral Packet

On friday, we received her referral pack. We were so excited to read all about our little "W". Everything looked great and we are just waiting to speak with the international pediatrician on Monday and then we will give our ''YES".
A thought popped into my head the other night, of the timeline of "W" life and our adoption process. The reason she was given up happened the same time we applied to AGCI......She was brought to Hannah's Hope the same time we were able(when God provided the money, not when we actually could have) to send the money to contract with AGCI.....we were declined to move forward with her the first time and we didn't have the money for our dossier yet and the same day we had the money for the dossier AGCI called to see if we were still interested in "W"..... HOW AWESOME IS THAT??!!!HOW AWESOME DOES GOD WORK THINGS OUT?
I AM IN AWE!!!
Oh, "my cup runneth over" right now.
Stay tuned to see how the rest of our journey goes.......

They said 'YES"

We got a call from our agency yesterday and they said we could move forward to adopt a little girl we have been interested in for a month. We first saw her through a waiting child e-mail from AGCI. Travis e-mailed to get more information about her and we started praying about her and how she could fit in our family. After a long weekend we notified AGCI that we were interested but evidently so were some other families. Since she is in between Thatcher and Sebastian, it would break birth order, something they don't like to do. So we were told they were going to go with another family. We were so sad about that, but knew God had a plan for her and us. We had the door open and shut for her 2 more times. Throughout this rollercoaster ride we never doubted God's plan, whether this plan had her in our family or not. We don't know why it went this route or why we had to be disappointed, but we are rejoicing now.
Our heads are spinning with what is to come the next couple of months. Our prayers are heavy for her and her health issues, whatever they may be. We pray God will prepare her heart for what's to come. And for our boys hearts to be open to her and not doubt our unconditional love for them.
We have lots of planning to do, rooms to rearrange, painting. And the thing I have been waiting to do since we started having children but was never able to do, SHOP FOR GIRL CLOTHES!!!!
We have no idea what size she is but we know she is really small for her age, so we won't buy too many right away. Even though the idea is exciting for me, I know our focus will not be on clothes when we get her.
I can't wait to be able to post pics for the world to see our new family member!!!

Learning a new language

Today we got a book we ordered, Amharic, A Complete Language Course. We thought we should learn as much as we could before we travel to Ethiopia. As we started reading the book, we realized this is a language you have to actually hear to learn. So we are going to have to find some tapes.....But we are excited to get started. In a way, it makes us feel closer to her and her country and it gives us something productive to do while we wait.

new number

We got an update today and we have moved to number 43!!! We couldn't believe it-2 in a matter of 4 days.

We had a breakthrough today with O! So far he has been reluctant to talk about the idea of a new sister, insisting we need another boy. But today he actually voluntarily said, "will sebastian still be a baby when we get our sister?" I was shocked and giddy at the same time. He is acknowledging that it is going to happen and it will be a girl. I can't wait to see them all together, and now with a little pink mixed in.

NUMBER 45!!!!

We got a call from our case manager on Friday. She reviewed our dossier and everything was in order and correct so we were able to be put on the waiting list. I was so nervous about sending it in, I was sure something was going to be wrong and we would have to redo something. I was suprised when she said everything looked good-whew!!! It was a relief to get that out of our hands and out of our heads. It was a constant feeling of something hanging over our heads until we sent it in.
We are number 45 for a girl and number 11 for siblings.
Now all we have to do is wait. Not my favorite thing to do, by far. But we know God's timing is PERFECT and He is not one minute late on His plan. So we can confidently wait knowing that!! We have dreamed about this moment-getting on the wait list. We never thought it would come, well, looking at the mountain of work and fees at the beginning it is hard to imagine yourself getting to this point.
Thanks to those who have made contributions to our adoption-we couldn't have made it this far without you!!!!! I should try and create a name for her using all of your initials, since you were such a big part of his. LOL!!