Busy to the 10th power has happen here-all without me quite relizing how. Suddenly, my older boys are BIG boys, off playing sports, playing music, and running round the neighborhood on their bikes.
We go from sport season to sport season, loving every minute as we watch the kids be a part of something they love.
We drag teeth a little with Little Dude to practice piano, but he has learned so much so quickly I push him for now to stick with it. JR plays Cello and I have to say, I thought he would quit after awhile, but he is loving in and quite in his element with the music class kids.
As a past band geek myself, my hear soars to see him with his own little band.
Champ is a KID now, not a toddler, and is officially signed up for preschool next fall.
Ya'll, I'm going to be a MESS when I drop him off. The thought of sending him off away from me has me in tears already. What is wrong with me? haha!
School keeps us also busy-it seems the few hours from after school to bedtime fly by in a rush to get home work done, run and play a bit, get dinner done, do sports and then sigh-sit-and spend a little down time together before bedtime prayers. The days are long but indeed flying by quickly. This year has been really short.
And speaking of time flying, it has been FOREVER since I updated this blog! So now that you are caught up on our family times, let me fill you in on our adoption times.
After we got (and quickly-like the next day-lost) the referral for the little girl that ended up being a twin, we waited until November to get another referral. This one was a sweet little girl in the same state as R, and we were thrilled. But, upon getting her medicals reviewed by two heart specialists here, we discovered her heart condition also affected her lungs-and more importantly, her lungs ability to get oxygen rich blood-and as of now, there is nothing that can be surgically done to repair her problem. So, eventually, she will grow big and old enough that her body won't be able to continue living because of a lack of oxygen. We were told by both specialists she would likely not make it out of her young teen years, and that near the end she would be having a rough time; likely faint a lot and look bluer and bluer as her body outgrew its oxygen supply.
That hit us in the gut pretty badly. Not only had we lost the little girl we'd originally tried to adopt and grieved about that, but we then got the twins and couldn't have them, and then go this little girl and had to decide if we were cut out to bring home a child and watch her die.
And we decided, through many tears, that we just weren't.
Almost immediately, our agency sent us yet another referral, and my husband didn't even want to see it. And while I was so desperate to meet a child that COULD be our daughter, looking back, I understand how he felt. And I think I was grieving and emotionally broken from everything as well, and the time just wasn't right.
So with many tears and much heartache, we decided to pass on the referral and leave the adoption program.
Ya'll, it hurt SO BADLY to tell our agency we were stopping and passing on the last referral. That we didn't even look at it and just couldn't do any more disappointments in this process.
This was all in November 2014. The holidays were a bit sad for us; as we got decorations out of the attic we came across all the gifts I'd gotten for our girl for each year she hadn't been with us. 4 gifts all wrapped and ready. I was pretty depressed, but sent her gifts to a sweet friend how had just come home with her second daughter so the dolls would be loved on.
At times we talked about what it would have been like to have a girl running around, and sometimes mentioned regret for not looking at the last referral in more detail, but we also felt a huge weight of stress was gone, and that was nice.
But then, fast forward to April 28, 2015 and guess who calls me? OUR AGENCY. And guess what they say?
THE LITTLE GIRL'S COUNTRY NEVER UN-MATCHED US. And they had just sent all the approvals for our match to her.
So, our agency wanted to know, did we want to think about it again, before they went in person to un-match us?
I'm telling you, I felt a huge flood of peace and panic wash over me. It was like I could hear God saying, "I'm giving you another chance to say Yes. I want you to say Yes, please look again at this child".
OMG guys. OMG.
So I cried on the phone with Bill about what had happened, and he shocked me by saying he wanted to look at her file (I really thought he would stay strong in his no!) So, we looked over her stuff, talked to our awesome local specialist about her special need, and prayed.
I told Bill I would respect his choice, since he had been the one adamant to stop the process last year, and he shocked me again by saying He felt God speaking to him that this girl was ours and we were getting a second chance to say yes.
OMG you GUYS!!!
So, on May 1, 2015, we got all our referral paper work signed, notarized, appostilled and MAILED back to our agency. She is going to be ours!!
Our dossier and referral papers should be on their way to Ind*a today or tomorrow. I'm currently working on our I-800A document for immigration.
AND then we await Article 5 and NOC. WHAT WHAT!!!
We are SO THRILLED to finally have a referral and can not WAIT to have our dear beloved daughter home with us.
Blessings abundant, indeed!
