Thursday, September 26, 2013

Where We Are

Our beach vacation with friends,  their kids, toasting life and sitting by the pool. 
School is well under way, and the older two, Little Dude and JR, are now in First grade and Kindergarten! Isn't that crazy how much time has gone by? They are such sweet, BIG little men now. They amazing me daily.

Little Dude is reading up a storm and I'm so proud of him for enjoying it so much. He is loving soccer still and doing well in school and still OBSESSED with Legos. It is fun to watch him build things!

JR is loving that he is in school now too, and insisted on walking in all by himself the first day, just like Little Dude. Man, they grow up more quickly with each one, don't they? Sigh. He is all about learning the alphabet right now and insists on also "reading" a book at night, just like Little Dude. It is cute, since most of the books he reads he already has memorized or he just says what the picture is. Love it. I know soon enough he will be reading and getting yet more big. Sigh again.

Champ is a crazy and wonderful 2 year old. I adore this age so very very much. All the little sayings are just the best. Right now he is into saying "Why, mom, WHY?" for just about everything. And "Bugs eat me" whenever the mosquito get bad in the back yard. I shouldn't laugh at the poor guy getting itchy bites, but his little voice is too cute saying it. I must remember to try to catch him on video.

Our Princess is three now and I'm sad we missed her birthday. Foolishly, I thought we might just have a referral by her birthday and be able to send her something, but no. We are still STILL waiting to see if our agency can get her file. So many changes have occurred with her country's adoption rules, that honestly, I'm not expecting the file to come. We aren't even sure if her file made it through before the government strike that is going on over there right now (can I heave another huge sigh?) or if her file did indeed come through with the first batch back last April, and she has just already been chosen, or our agency just isn't getting the file sent to them. (Agencies can only get so many files at one time, and they cycle through agencies a different periods of time, from what I understand.) So, who knows. She may be out there, she may be adopted, we might still have a shot at getting matched to her, or her paper might still be awaiting a stamp on some government official's desk and it won't be glanced at until this strike is over, at the earliest. We just don't know.

We have considered looking at other kids, but I don't think I could look at another little girl until I know for sure we can't have our girl.

We did look very closely at an 8 year old little boy's file and very much were considering accepting it, but our social worker advised against it due to birth order affecting our older two, and the fact we would need to re-do our home tudy to update for a boy child. We also aren't eligible for a boy unless he is over the age of  7, has more stubstantial special needs, and has been waiting. And even then, it would be still up to the judge of whatever court we got assigned to say if they would over look the gender rule (I don't know what else to call it) that says with three sons already we can't adopt a son.

This little boy DID fit those things, and has been waiting quite awhile, and does need some pretty heavy duty surgery to his back and some other things, so we likely could have gotten matched to him, but, after talking it over, our social worker here at home felt his medical needs, along with needing to learn English and the birth order disruption would be unreasonably hard for our oldest two boys to adjust to all the many changes adding that boy to our family would bring, so we didn't pursue his file.

That was really hard and a bit of a heart tug, because now I can't help but go and check this little guys waiting profile to see if it changes to "adopted". I really hope it does. He had medical needs that would require surgeries and hospital stays from the get go, but all were easy to correct here in the US and none would affect his mental capabilities, and one would make his physical limitations go away AND our agency contact knows him and thought he was just THE SWEETEST KID, would be such a great big brother, and is always looking out for the little kids at his orphanage and wanting to help. Sigh. I hate that there are orphans.

So. We are still waiting, hoping her file comes through after this strike is over. Sometimes I wish I had not see her information so that we were just waiting for a referral and could take the next kid that came along, but then, at the same time, I know that we would have given up already if we hadn't had her, and all the information from so many people that have met her, to keep us going. It is very scary to read all the things that could be "wrong" with an adopted child, especially Reactive Attachment Disorder (Holy hell. That is scary shit) It is covered in a lot of adoption books, but that link seems to be the most informative for someone outside the adoption reading circle wanting to know why that terrifies me when considering "just any child" to bring into our home.

This whole adoption process is just soo sooo soooo long, time consuming, nerve wracking, and a complete lesson in patience. But I know, that I wouldn't have kept pushing through all the paperwork, spending all the money, and doing ALL. THIS. WORK. if we didn't have knowledge of her and have heard her sweet laugh, so even if things don't work out to get her now, she did get us to this point, which might just lead us to a different child that needs a home, and for that I'm very glad we are kinda "stuck" at this place in time. I've been pretty calm about it and actually not thinking about it too terribly much, since it really is all just in God's hands now.

What Bill and I have learned in this waiting? That we are so blessed to have our family, to be so supportive to each other, to watch our children grow, and to realize that our blessings must be paid forward. We live in America, where it is OK that I was a girl. I was never taken to a hill to die just for being the wrong gender. We have a hospital down the street (in fact, quite a few of the countries best are right down the street!) We have running water, air conditioning, tons of food, and our choice of churches.

We are so blessed.
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