Adding On

I keep meaning to sit down and update things here on this lonely little blog, but life gets in the way every time I try! For posterity sake, I need to document the happenings of this coming year with more than brief facebook updates here and there. It's gonna be another biggie.

This whole past year, as life with Miss Hazel has finally calmed down and she has become more happy and well-adjusted, I have had those familiar nudges from the Spirit that there were more kiddos for us.  I didn't know how our littles were going to come, or how many... but the Lord let me know that there was more than one, and that it would be through foster care or foreign adoption.  

I kept praying for direction. It's a touchy subject because, let's face it, life can get really stressful sometimes with a family our size. But Jeremy agreed to go to Foster Care classes early in the year to kind of feel things out. We went to three of the classes in the spring, then took a break for 6 or 7 months while we moved and got all settled here in AF, then we went to one more in the Fall. We ended up leaving that last class with a sure feeling that our kids weren't going to come through foster care. It wasn't that we had learned anything new. We just weren't feeling like it was our path right now.

In November, I told Jeremy that I was feeling really drawn toward China. I didn't feel like I could ask him right from the get-go about adopting two...this was a line-upon-line thing, haha! So we decided that we would pray about adding a toddler, so that the transition would be easiest, birth-order wise. I can't say he was too excited about starting anytime soon, but he agreed to start thinking and praying about it. Can I just tell you how incredible my man is?  He will seriously consider things that he doesn't want to consider, just because his wife has crazy promptings. Not many guys will do that. How I love him.

I started looking at files of toddler boys on the Special Focus List. These are kids in China who have some kind of medical need or special need that makes them more difficult to place with families. So agencies will have their files for several months, and they will put them on their waiting child web pages where adopting families can find them. After looking at 8-10 files, I found 18-month-old "Domineax." The agency sent me his file and I watched his video over and over and sent his medical info to our friend who is a pediatrician to look over. Our friend told us he would feel comfortable adopting him, which was reassuring. :)

This is the video our agency shared. 

One thing Jeremy and I noticed in his video is how carefully he watched his caregiver as they interacted. This eased a lot of our worries about his hydrocephalus and the possibility of attachment difficulties. 

Jeremy's biggest concern was how the kids felt about all this. They would have to be 100% on board in order for him to feel good about it.  But as soon as we talked to them and showed him the video and pictures, that concern drifted far away. They all jumped right on board with it and said, "Let's do this!" and they have been excited ever since, and so has Dad!

So, we sent in our initial paperwork to the agency and received pre-approval from China about a week before Christmas.

These are a couple of the pictures that were included with his file:

On Christmas Eve morning, I received these in my inbox from someone who was at his orphanage. 

Look at this little cookie monster. Don't you want to just eat up those cheeks? And, yay...he's walking!

And these were taken in February, by another mom who was there picking up her baby who was one of his roommates. They plucked him out of the corner filled with playing babies, gave him a sucker and snapped a few pictures. He's looking bigger! 

I am soooo grateful for these pictures. I hope and pray that his hydrocephalus (if he even has it) isn't causing him any pain or vision issues or anything like that. The mom who briefly met him last month said that he seemed very go-with-the-flow. So that's good. He'll have to be like that in this house. :)

OK, so here's how #2 came into the picture. As soon as we got things going, I finally got up the nerve to ask Jeremy about adding our 2nd boy. My feelings were this: There are two. If it's the right timing for both of them to come into our family, then we would just *know* when we see him. This wasn't something we were going to force. We just needed to be open to it and see where things lead. Jeremy, again, was reluctant, but agreed to fast and pray about it, then let things move along and see what happens. 

Our social worker was fine with approving us for two, that was good.  Our placing agency was as well...they just wanted both kiddos to be in the same province, to simplify things and not make our time in China take any longer than it needed to be. 

There are so.many.boys available for adoption in China. I've heard that 75% of the waiting children in China are boys. The fact that they are boys, alone is considered a "special need" because it makes them harder to place into families. For some reason, most people want the little girls. It was hard for me not to go searching. My agency said to be patient, though, because they were going to be receiving some files from Liam's SWI (orphanage) soon.

We decided that #2 would need to be a little older because between Liam and Hazel, we will be swimming in toddlerhood. :)  So, with that, I asked them to be on the lookout for boys that between 6 and 13. 

After a few weeks, our agency started sending me files. I reviewed a few of them who seem like great, well-rounded kids, but I didn't have that "he's ours" feeling. 

Then one day, they introduced me to "Derrix." They had met him last summer and had taken video of him singing his little heart out so that his Momma would find him.  They had his file for six months, but no one committed to him. Then, they had to let go of his file. Apparently, it was with an Italian agency for a few months, then, as if on cue, our agency found him on the shared list...just when we were looking for him.

We were ALL drawn to him right away, and started talking like he was already ours. But what really got us was this one, that came a couple of days later. Our agency asked for updated video, so his foster mom (he lives in a Christian foster home!) videoed him.

In case you don't know Mandarin Chinese, He's saying that he is in school and at school he likes to help his teacher and other students. If another kid falls he will help pick them back up. He loves to help others. He then tells us his address and names all of his friends. He says at home he can do chores and clean up toys all by himself.

Oh, my heart. Listen to that boy. Could he really be any more adorable? Here's a video that was put together by Find Me, International. This was last August.

His special need is lower leg weakness...or in other words, mild Cerebral Palsy. Interestingly, we weren't open to this special need before we found him. But when you find your child, those things just don't matter. So, he walks differently and loses his balance sometimes? Big deal. He'll do great here, with some good therapy and care from Shriner's.

We just know he's going to make our lives so much more amazing. Can you feel his amazing spirit? I don't know if it's just us because he's "ours" or if other people can feel it.  We just feel something special about this kid. He's going to go places.  He needs to be in a family, making a difference in the world. If he doesn't get adopted, he'll age out of the system there and, no matter how smart he is, he will have zero hope for employment. Just because he walks differently. The statistics there just aren't good. Kids who age out in China usually end up being forced to beg for money for people, or worse. Many times they take their own lives because it's so bad. Not for this boy. Nope, not happening. Look at this face. And I love how his shirt says, "Let the good times roll."  It's like he's saying.."Peace out, family of mine. You can't go wrong with me!"

There was a time, just before we received Pre-Approval from China on him, that I started panicking. I wondered if we could really pull this off...TWO new kids who come from a life of loss, at once...added to what we already have on our plate. I talked to Jeremy about it and we told the agency we were kind of teetering, and that we'd get back to them in the next day or two with our answer.

But the strangest thing happened. That whole day, I had the gloomiest feeling. I was just sooo incredibly sad and felt like I was turning away one of my kids. It was indescribable. I just kept weeping, all day long. How could I be so sad? I had never met this boy. All I had was pictures, some videos and some things that people had written about him. But why did I feel like I was rejecting my own child?

Jeremy and I decided we would talk things out with Sadie, Max and Bennett (the kids who are old enough to "get" all this.)  That night, we all sat in the living room and chatted. I asked them how they felt about letting go of Louie's referral and just adopting Liam, then told them all the reason why we would do this. They know it gets crazy around here. They know what kinds of things they have to give up because of the number of kids in our family, and their little sisters' needs.

But what happened next completely floored us. All three of them, without any hesitation, told us, in their own cute ways, that there was just no way we could leave Louie in China. They already feel deep inside that Louie is their little brother. They would make whatever sacrifices they needed to make in order to have him in our lives. Jeremy actually recorded the conversation on his phone (they didn't know) and I'd really like to transcribe it one of these days. It was one of those really special moments that I don't ever want to forget. When we were done talking, I went in our room and crashed on the bed, emotionally exhausted, but praising and thanking our Heavenly Father. We had our answer, and from here on out, there was no question. Louie will be coming home with Liam. He's ours and we are his.

So...I have to share something so super exciting!  Our agency is in charge of an advocacy camp in our boys' city, where certain kids from the SWI are chosen to come hang out with Americans for a week. This camp is April 23-29, and guess who was chosen to be one of the campers?  Our little Louie!  Do you think I could pass up an opportunity to go spend 5 days with my son, 5-6 months before bringing him home? No way. I found out that I'll even get to go meet Liam at the SWI. Jeremy agreed that this is a rare opportunity that we just can't pass up. Luckily, we have lots of airline miles, so my flight will be paid for. And since the camp is considered a charitable endeavor and can be written off as such, Northland Design is going to sponsor the rest of my expenses.  I'm so very grateful, and excited!  Louie will be matched with me as his "camp buddy." He'll even stay with me at the hotel. So we'll get to know each other well. I'm going play things by ear as far as telling him that I'm his mama goes. Six months is a long time for a little guy to wait. I'll talk to his foster mom when I get there about it. She'll know what's best. At any rate, this is just such an incredible blessing and we can see the hand of the Lord in every detail of it. April 22 can't come fast enough!

This is our 3rd adoption, and you'd think it gets easier each time....the waiting, the sharing the news with people are less than excited, the emotional stuff. But it doesn't. Maybe a tiny bit easier, but not much more than that. Unless you have ever done something that is against the grain a bit, that you feel 100% right about, you'll never understand what it's like.

But just know that we feel deep down that everything is going to be OK. We know it's going to be really hard as we adjust and help our boys get through their grieving. We know there will be days that I just want to hide in my room and cry. We've been through this before.

But something I'm learning with this calling as an adoptive mom of hurt children is that these challenges are a gift. I can't imagine the person I would be, the people we all would be, if we had not followed our hearts to our girls. They are continually transforming us. Molding us, refining us.

I was listening to a podcast about challenging children yesterday that really rings true to me. The guy who was being interviewed said that we need to realize that challenging children are incredible gifts to us, because it's the continual challenge that brings us closer to God. He even went so far as to say that our kids' spirits chose to have these physical or emotional challenges on earth because their very challenges are what our specific spirits need. He said that as soon as you embrace this way of thinking, and get yourself out of the way of letting them blossom as their own person, something magical happens, where you start seeing the hand of God in your life in a beautiful, continual way. I loved that so much. A lot of our struggles are the result of us trying to fight things that are just supposed to be a certain way. You have to learn to let go of trying to control everything, and give it all to Christ.

We'll keep you updated on our progress. Right now, we're just trying to get through the home study (we're having some hold-ups with fingerprinting issues) so we can get approval from the US government, then send in our paperwork to China. It's looking like we should be finished with the process in Sept or Oct at this point. We are hopeful that it doesn't take any longer than that because we want to be all settled in before Landon returns from his mission.

This is a video that was produced about bringing Anya and Hazel into our lives. The video was made to help create awareness of special needs adoption...that it's not as scary as you think, and that normal people like us do it! :) Enjoy.