Shades of Blue

1 year. 9 months. 5 days. That is how much time has passed since we submitted all our formal paperwork to adopt. That doesn't include all the time before hand, getting our home study completed. Getting our dossier together. (OMG. That was A LOT OF PAPER). Talking to other adoptive parents from India to learn more about the process, the orphanages, and all things adoption related. Reading and taking classes. Praying if we were really ready for such a leap of faith. To welcome a child we don't know into our home as our own.

1 year, 9 months and 5 days doesn't even start to convey how much time and energy have gone into Princess' adoption.

The answer has always been yes.

But, as this wait drags out, and we start the countdown on our paperwork expiring, there is a debate about weather to spend more money to keep waiting or if we have reached the point that we won't spend any more.

Her paperwork is in. Our paperwork is in. Yet, there is not a single word from India if they approve our request to be matched. Or even a word that they deny it.

At this point, about 6 months out from having any news of any kind at all about our case in India, I actually welcome a no. I just want to know-what is your answer? I'd like to start planning for our girl, or moving on with our family of 5. I really sometimes hate this stupidly long limbo we are in.

I look for signs and pray to God so much, but honestly, I do get very down and discouraged that this just isn't going to happen. And while I'm down, I laugh at myself, because I know plenty of parents that waited years and years and years to adopt their child. I'm really still early in the wait! And I know any of the people in the India program laugh, saying, heh, it is India! It could be tomorrow or 3 more years!

Such drastically different unknowns mess with my emotions so much. I go back and forth all the time. Is this a sign to stop? How much do we spend? Is this a sign to keep going? Is it meant to be, or am I meant to have a different child? Do we open ourselves to a different child completely? Can we do that, after multiple years of trying to get Princess?

We have our 1-800 approval-that surprisingly came back right away! But since that point, have made no progress at all. And that is just depressing. I think of things we could do with the money we have saved (first world problems, I know) like fix the really leaky windows we have-it is SO COLD sitting under the window! Or maybe even moving and finding a home with a garage so there is no more running with kids in the rain to the van.

Lots of things. But, none of them can happen if we need to pay for the adoption stuff. And our girl is worth so much more than any of those things ever would be. But it does stink to find a most perfect house and realize: I still have no idea what to plan for.


I know we have talked about no renewing our paperwork a second time, but a part of me is going to die inside when we stop and close the door on adoption. And a part of me really feels like that is what is going to happen.

We aren't going to get her, and we aren't going to get approved for a child younger than Champ. And we aren't going to feel ready to adopt a child older than our boys.

And that will be that. And my heart will be so hurt and broken, but not many people in this world will know what pain is in there. And that makes me sad too. That will be people that never know we tried so very hard to bring her home and they will look at our little family and think it is perfect and not realize that there is someone missing that should have been walking with us 9 months ago.

Christmas Is Here

It is Christmas time once again! The older I get, the more I realize just how short a year is. I love this time of year, and even through the stress of what we "need" to get done, there are always special moments to realize and reflect on what is really important.

Like getting out cards and wrapping gifts and figuring out who to visit when and for how long OMG and hating the post office....none of that matters at all.

What matters if focusing on WHY we celebrate. Beyond even Christianity, Saving, and what not, we celebrate because it is a lesson in giving.

To give is far grater than to receive. To be selfless and do for others. Especially in the tradition of St. Nick. He carried on the message of Christ, by picking Jesus' birthday to give HIM the most special gift-all of US giving to others.

Selflessly, anonymously, and without any gratification or recognition. We should give to others the thing they most need. A toy, a Bed, A friend.

We talk to the boys about Santa, and celebrate that tradition, but we call him St. Nick, after the real man that lived in Greece and is the source of all things Santa we see now.

We talk about how St. Nick is giving Jesus the most special gift ever, by getting all of us into the spirit of giving and helping.

This year, the boys are completely stoked to get legos-and Little Dude very much had me stressing because he kept changing his mind about which set he wanted. But. One huge Star Wars plane is picked and will be under the tree. JR has been focused on the same Batman Lego set since before LAST Christmas, so, this year, he will get it. Champ is getting a Thomas train roundhouse. I spent too much on it, but I'm so excited for him to have it.

Princess will be getting a doll from the Disney Store from the "It's a Small World" collection. Of course, the doll is a little Indian Princess that sings in English and Hindi. I love it and hope we can give it to her someday.

And, in the meantime, since we can't give her our gifts, we sent a lot of gifts to the orphanage in general, because otherwise, the children don't get things. We sent clothes and undies and socks-things they needed very much-as well as fun things, as you can see in the video below.

I love how excited all the girls are. Our little Princess is in there too, see if you can spy her in her cute flowered dress.

This is what Christmas is about. Those kids will never know who sent all these toys to them, but they will so much love the fun they have together playing, and knowing that is all the gift and importance I need to focus on this Christmas. The long line at the post office doesn't matter in the least, when at the end this is what you get:



Merry Christmas!

Princess' First Steps

I'm so blessed to know so many wonderful people at our Princess' orphanage! I got this wonderful gift and want to make sure I have it saved, so I'm adding it here.

These are her first steps. On 6-10-2012, she took her first steps. So awesome to see this and have it; I hope beyond hope I can show her someday this special moment.




Also, in big boy news, Little Dude currently says the phrase "Can I Tell You Something?" before he proceeds to tell us something ALL.THE.TIME. It is hilarious and annoying at the same time, because he doesn't before EVERY.THING.HE.SAYS. Though, I love him telling us everything and anything; I hope he always feels he can.

JR is SUCH a big kid now. He loves school so very much and I'm so glad he is doing so well. He is also quite the joker with a vast knowledge of poop jokes. I blame Bill for that, haha. He is also quite the cook and LOVES to help me in the kitchen. He tells us he will open a restaurant someday. I told him I'd eat there every day; and he agreed we could have lunch dates every so often. My sweet little man.

Champ is so funny and cute; it is sooooo super hard to not spoil him like crazy. I see now why the "babies of the family" are always babied! I hate seeing him grow out of being a baby! Right now his phrase is "Wait A Minute". LOVE. I think we are successfully out of diapers, too! We have gone quite a few weeks now without having an accident, so yippie!

Though, I am a little sad to pack the diapers away. Sigh. I'm certain though, if all the adoption stuff falls through, we will have another baby, so I may get them back out again in the future :)

We shall see.

This Time

There are no adoption updates at all-and actually my last email of questions went unanswered from our agency, so I'm guessing they have zero to share either and are just putting off responding until they have some kind of carrot to offer us.

But, it is OK and I am fine with it.

To be honest, now that I have gotten past the whole panic of "OMG we missed another birthday, why can't we go get her, what is she learning, is she being cared for, WHAT IS GOING ON WITH MY GIRL" I am actually enjoying this wait.

There is no stress, so far no paperwork to worry about (now that I've said that I've jinxed myself) and I keep reminding myself. that I need to enjoy every second of our family of 5 while we have it-enjoy the "normal" we have, the simple taken for granted level of ability our kids are at-and how healthy they are, and how we have no issues needing therapy or medicine or anything to worry about.

They don't have flashbacks of fear or people questioning if they are my kids.

And those are all things we will have to deal with once our Princess gets here. And those aren't bad things-they are just what they are-and who even knows what it will be like when we get her home. All I know is that I'll have an almost 4 year old that can't speak English, who doesn't look like us-and who people will feel they must ask about, and who's history and experiences are un-shared by us.

It's going to be hard, ya'll, to get to our new "normal". And while I am so eager to get her home, I'm also taking the time to breathe, and focus on the kids now, and the moments we have now.

And just soak in how blessed Bill and I are, no matter what else might happen.

We are just so blessed.

PS. The Disney Store has "It's A Small World" Dolls out now, and I may have bought the India doll to put under the Christmas tree this year for our girl. :) I hadn't realized it til now, but we have gotten a gift for every year she missed with us; that will be pretty fun when she gets home to celebrate each year she missed with her lovely India themed dolls I've collected for her.

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.

Waiting

I know I said before that I wouldn't mind waiting-and really, I DON'T mind being finally done with everything.

I have all the service plan done, we are registered to get a referral, AND I have all of the dossier papers ready to be notarized (happening this weekend, yippie!) and then apostilles  And since we live 10 min from the Secretary of State office, I'm imagining it should be quick order to go downtown and get the apostilles completed.

And then we really are done, with nothing to do but wait, and I have to admit I'm actually not as happy with the waiting as I had thought I would be. It is nice to not have any more education to write about, or paper to chase, or books to read as quickly as possible but it is also distressing to realize that the clock is ticking and there isn't anything at all we can do to make any thing happen.

We have been waiting for our Princess' declaration (the legal paper that would let her be given as an adoption referral to international adoption) for over a year now. And this whole time I have been SO panicked that she would get in the system before we were, and we would lose her.

But now, with the reality of being done, and the reality that many families have waited more than 3 years for their children...it is daunting to realize we very well could wait two more years. It has been one year since we started everything.

And the most daunting part is to realize, that we were only approved for a child from the ages of 0-3. And she turns 3 this June, so past June, the clock is truly ticking, as we see if we can get matched before she turns 4...because if not, we will have to refile and redo our homestudy (I guess? I think?) And I honestly don't know if we will get approved for an "older" child adoption. It is actually a whole different homestudy, from what our homestudy agency said, when we had expressed concern about the age limit on our study. So would be be approved? I don't know. There certainly are increased mental and physical things to consider as a child grows older from the effects of living without a family, from just the reality of being in an orphange and not eating enough or getting enough interaction or stable caregivers to attach to or learn to love,  and trust.

I don't know. But I do know, in the pit of my stomach, that I'm feeling really depressed and down about this whole process and incredibly sad that we still have the whole "this may not work" outlook to face.

The worst would be having people tell us it was for the best, or we wouldn't have wanted to "deal" with it, because really, how can it be for the best, when a child we already love, will eventually age out of the orphanage and go back to the streets at the age of 12? If we don't get to bring her home to us, I know I will be forever haunted by thoughts of her and praying for her safety.

My faith is so weak today and it just sucks to feel this way. I wish I was more excited and just embracing this time, but I just don't have it today. It sucks to think that one piece of paper, getting dusty on a desk somewhere, might cause us to not get a daughter-and worse, will mean our daughter can't ever get a home anywhere with anyone until it is signed, and that may very well seal her fate to a short, hard life on the streets once she leaves the orphanage.

This just sucks.

Saved

Champ and Princess have a shared room set up finally :) The crib can be a toddler bed -just needs girly bedding.

An online friend also adopting from our daughter's country wrote this very poignant post about adoption ethics in the world: http://indiatoappleton.blogspot.com/2013/04/adoption-ethics-in-media.html

It is funny, because I feel like this adoption journey for me started back when I was in high school-and it started with a profound feeling of "save these kids!", which got kicked into high gear after Bill and I got married and had Little Dude-and that was when we started researching all the different types of adoption-countries-talking to people, etc. And we learned SO MUCH. Adoption shouldn't be a "save the kids" attitude-it is so much more than that.

And while it often starts that way for many (and me!) it must morph into a deep love and commitment to heal a hurt child and to grow yourself as a human. My husband and I have changed so profoundly, for the better, for this whole journey. Everything we have learned, everything we have read-it only has solidified our desire to adopt, but has also given us a huge goal to someday make a difference by supporting, helping, serving in developing countries. And it has REALLY made us reflect our our lives as Americans.

We are so very spoiled with first world problems, and at this point, even if our adoption falls through, we feel so very grateful that our eyes have been opened to the world. Our daughter has put a light on our perspective and really made us turn a huge microscope on our own lives and choices-and to refocus our energies on things we now deem more valuable, than the things we used to think matter. They just don't anymore.  It is so hard to describe, and I'm not giving this change justice, but all I can say is, we are forever changed.

We aren't saving her. She is fine and cared for in an orphanage surrounded by people that look like her, speak like her, act like her, eat like her and believe like  her. We are going to take her from that, without her having any understanding, bring her to a hotel, put her on a plane for hours, and drive her in a car, to live in a little town where there will be very VERY few that look like her(especially on a daily basis), no one that speaks like her, no other girls to be around (unlike her orphanage where she is mostly around girls), put her into a white family, full of boys, in a white based world, to eat different food, learn a new language, and have a new religion.

Sure, she will have school, and probably visit Disney World, and have plenty of food, and safety, and love and most importantly-a FAMILY-but really-what are we saving her from? And what are we doing to her? How very much are we asking of a small child to change and be OK with changing? How many of us could be whisked away to another place, culture, food, religion and language and be OK? Even if it was at say, an Islamic Prince's family? How would we feel and behave? The opportunities we will be able to give her, as her family, far outweigh the future she would have living in an orphanage and someday ageing out of it back to the streets-but it will be years before she understands that. And she may never understand that, and that is OK. I don't expect my kids to be grateful I gave birth to them and we don't expect her to be grateful we adopted her. She will be our child, plain and simple.

But you know who is saved through adoption? Us.

We are deeply, forever changed for the better because of her. And we are so grateful for her affect on our lives. In many ways, she has saved us and there is really nothing we can offer her that will be equal to what she has done for us.

Movement

This week  has been tough with tummy bugs, strep throat, illness and other such fun hitting our house! Thank goodness it is Friday; I'm ready to sleep! And catch up on work! But, in adoption news, things have been great this week! Movement is happening, as I'm seeing so many families that have been waiting ahead of us get travel approval, referrals, and visas! Such exciting times to see them getting closer to their children, and exciting for us since it means that maybe, maybe, we will make it through this process without having to update anything. Fingers crossed tightly for that, because I don't know that we can afford any updates-our budget is that tight.

But no worries, we will figure it out as it comes. In any case, movement is happening and that is always exciting to see!

We finally have our last form for our dossier done and now, once I'm feeling all over this illness crud, we can go get all these forms notarized, copied, appostilled and sent to our agency! AHHHHH FINALLY! So close. I'll be so glad to be done with this dossier; it feels like I've been working on getting all these forms together for years. Actually only a few months, but still. SO glad to be at the finish line. I'm planning that next week I can get everything copied and mailed to our agency.

And then we will truly be 100% paper ready for everything. Right now we are registered (YAY!!!!) with the adoption network in our daughter's country, so we are Eligible for REFERRALS NOW! AHHHHH! So, whenever her paperwork get signed to transfer her from domestic adoption to international adoption, our agency can claim her file and send her referral to us!

See why I'm so excited to see movement going on over there?!? So hopefully, soon, our daughter and some of her friends will have their files signed, and our agency can get all those files and send them to us and the other families waiting on referrals. I'm so eager to be able to say she is ours. I've been so nervous to get to that point and I know when we do I can let out a huge sigh of relief! Because, I guess until that point, things could still fall through-and that just makes me so nervous.

But, we will just wait and see; I certainly have plenty to keep me busy in the meantime!

Getting Registered

Our agency is going to try to register us as adoptive parents and get us on the list to receive referrals....OMG!

BUT, Ind*a will only allow so many new families to be registered world wide on the first of each month, and this is the first month they have been open to registering since Oct or Nov of last year....so there are probably TONS of people world wide trying to register. Please pray that we get registered today, because our sweet girl's declarations have been submitted, and that means that now she is available to be given as a referral.

Also, our agency told us that with our registration information, they are submitting a request for our little special needs angel and that after the huge adoptiong meeting CARA had last month, it was declared that CARA would do their best to fulfill adoption requests for specific needs, with the emphasis given for special needs.

So, pray our file gets in today. Pray that CARA agrees to allow us to have our sweet girl. Two huge hurdles, but I know that God can take care of it for us. It will happen if He wants it to. I just have to rest knowing we have done all that we can to reach this point, and from here out it is up to Him.

***Update: CARA registrations didn't open, for some reason, so our agency couldn't register us or any of the other families waiting. I feel sad, and panic-y and just pretty down about it. We didn't even have a chance, it didn't even OPEN. What if it doesn't open again next month, or the month after? Sigh. Our girl is on there, her file is there, and I'm so scared we will lose her. We are no closer to brining our girl home than we were a year ago. And we now have to wait a whole month more to try to be registered again.

An entire month more of just waiting to even get in the system, which actually makes me feel like laugh hysterically because of the horrible show down we had with my mother in law, which oddly enough was centered on her feeling embarrassed/left out/like shes a bad mom/how dare you do this to me/that she didn't know we were serious, when we told her Dec 2011 we were interested in adopting. How dare we wait til now to share the offical news, because, you know, we JUST got our homestudy approved, had to figure out medicial issues our princess had at that same time,  get the dossier together, have a ton of late night heart to heart crying moments to figure out if we REALLY were ready to do this, and then send all the money. And that all happen in the last few weeks, and then right after we told her. Sigh.

And we are no where closer to where we had been. we aren't registered, we can't get referrals, we can't get matched. But we do have a huge pile of paperwork, some grant applications and one annoyed mother/mother in law.

Sweet eh? I'm having a hard time staying positive, though I am trying. Next month will be the month-and on the plus side, we will be completely "paper ready" at that point, meaning that IF some miracle occured, we could get our referral, guardianship, passports, visas and courtdates assigned right then an there. BUT. Even with a miracle, I doubt it. We will be just focusing on the hope of getting registered  for our referral NEXT MONTH.  I feel like I'll be saying that a lot. Sigh.

Help From Adoptive Moms Please

I have a request for any moms/dads that have adopted, especially any from Ind*a.

Can you guys leave me comments with what kids books you suggest to have for our sons and our future daughter? Can you suggest any kids fairy tales or nursery rhyme books from Ind*a? Are there any really great adoption kid books to read to our future daughter and son to really help open up the discussions on a small kid level about how awesome adoption is? And most importantly, any book that you love that show characters of color, especially if there are any of Ind*an decent depicted.

I have this list so far for kid books:

A Mother for Choco by Keiko Kasza
A Child is Born by Margaret Wise Brown
I Wished For You by Marianne Richmond
Over the Moon by Karen Katz
God Found Us You by Lisa Bergren


And a cookbook I'm looking at ordering:

Anjum's New Indian by Anjum Anand

Does anyone know if this might have good recipes to incorporate into our meal rotations? I've made a pumpkin curry chicken and couscous that the kids and Bill (and I) LOVED. I've made it a few times now, and then I've made a coconut curry chicken from a mix I got at the Ind*a market near our house, but I think it would be better if I found some ones to make from "scrtach" rather than mixes, so we can avoid all that salt (and the mixes are expensive when you have to buy double to feed everyone,ha!)

So, can you ladies help me out? What books do your children love? And are there any that are great illustrations about Ind*a? I would love to find some kind of illuinated book about Ind*a to read to all the kids.

And cooking...if there are ANY kid dishes that you think she will be most familiar with, or that might be comforting (like how I feel when I find some place with sweet iced tea in a northern state) I'd love to have something that I could cook that might give her that same comfort.


AND as a Christmas gift this coming year, we are going to give out "Family of Adoption" to everyone, is there any other books you found to be awesome to give family in preparation to your adoptions?

OK, send me your ideas and reccomendations!

THANK YOU ALL! I don't know what in the world I would do without you; I'm so grateful for blogging and the internet and even facebook. Though, don't say anything on facebook yet, we won't put anything offical on there until we have guardianship and our daughter is legally ours-just private message me if you know me on there. :)

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

Coming up for Air

We are still working on the dossier, and are SO close to being done.

We told my in laws we are adopting and learned that my father in law had once tried to adopt with his first wife before they had children-SO wonderful to hear that story and get his support. My mother in law....well, not as positive as I had hoped, but if it means much, it went just the way Will thought it would. So. She will come around, and if not, eh. Family is family, you can't pick them or their feelings, and it will just be what it is.

Little Dude almost comes up to my shoulder now. HOW in the world did that happen? He is such a sweet little guy now. His feelings were recently hurt by a school friend, but he handled it so well, and I was so proud of him for working through it and talking to me about it. We got icecream after-and I think it made the hurt somewhat better. Icecream and a good talk can fix so many things.

JR is just a joyful jumping bean. He is SO crazy excited to get a sister and he is already telling us what we need to buy her. She will be in heaven having Ben as her big brother; he will be making sure she gets whatever she wants....we might have to try to keep him in check a bit so we don't spoil her rotten, haha! He is loving school and tomorrow is his share day....he has been picking out just the right book to take for sharing ALL DAY. It is sweet and I love seeing him so excited about school.

Champ is talking up a storm, mostly saying "Daddy vroom vroom, truck, dog (which sounds like Dock) pee (yes we are potty training, he is doing fantastic) poop, book, go, bye bye, hi!, no (which comes out all whiney like nooooooooo with a bit of boston acent to it. We aren't from boston at all) and now, choo choo for Thomas. HE LOVES THOMAS.  I love that he loves Thomas. He also has the sign language still going like crazy. We are trying to  get him to actually say please and thank you, but so far he still just does the signs.

And us? Well, we are chugging along with the adoption and have just sent the first huge payment and just announced that it is offical. Bill is meeting with his sister tonight over a beer  and I'm excited to have her know the great news. I've call my Aunt, cousins and sisters, and they are all excited for us-it is so awesome to have the excited support! Other family members we will probably call soon. I'll defer to Bill on that, since that is all his side, so he might want to be the one to do it. We will talk to see what he wants to plan for sharing the news.

And, until we get the referral and everything is offical, we will probably just keep this all in the family and close friends (so NOTHING on facebook! ) Because, sadly, until we get that referral and guardianship, it could all still fall thorugh and we could end up not being able to adopt, and that would be pretty painful to have to keep telling people, especially non family or non close friends people.

So, that is the new news! SOON I'll update that our dossier is done and off to Ind*a!

And then the waiting begins....

Waiting for a Friend

I love the internet. Not only does it enable me to work from home and be around my kids while earning money, BUT it has introduced me to SO MANY amazing moms and friends (and made it easier to keep up with extended family). The very best though, is the current wonderful group of adoption moms I have met online.

They rock and are amazing and supportive, and are one of the few groups of friends, that while I haven't actually met any of them in real life, I feel safe to share every adoption worry, snag, and emotional ride.

It is so super awesome to have them, because I would probably be insane by now if I couldn't bounce ideas, learn tips, and just vent everything to them. Them and this blog keep me from just curling up in a ball with wads of half filled out forms, budget mark-ups and money flow charts scattered around me!

And RIGHT NOW one of my dear online friends is waiting to hear that the court paper work has been approved to grant her daughter's visa/passport so then sweet little M can COME HOME!

K is waiting to hear that all is well so she can buy tickets to go over to Ind*a and get M and BRING HER  HOME!

I'm so crazy excited and anxious and all butterflies in the tummy to hear when K gets to fly over and when they get to come back together as a FAMILY.

AHHHHH! Can you tell I'm excited? And the BEST part is, it gives me a little taste of the excitement, anxiety,  and excitement times 10 that we will be having, hopefully within this year, as we wait to hear the same news for our Princess.

AHHHHH! I'm so ready to finish this dossier!

Dossier Transition Labor

So, since I have given birth three times, and all three without any meds (partly due to the speed of my deliveries, partly because a nurse scared me with the "sleep baby syndrome" from the epidoral and partly because I hate needles as it is, let a lone needles in my spine. Anywho) I have decided that the entire process of getting the adoption dossier together IS the transition labor part of birthing.

The hardest, most labor intensive, emotional, and painful part.

Because half the stuff on my list I have to wait to come in the mail, like references, birth certificates, etc. The other half will have me driving for weeks all over town collecting documents, getting notaries, getting appostilles, writing letters, making copies, checking copies, attaching appostille copies....

Every time I think I'm getting a little bit done, I check the list again and just find more that I need to get or do.

So for now, I'm taking it one document at a time (well, actually two documents at a time, because we have to have two originals of everything....)

So, just one at a time, slowly chugging to that light at the end of the tunnel. Just like years ago, when I took one contraction at a time, and Will kept telling me the end was coming, and we were almost there.

We are; I can see the end. We are ALMOST there, and ALMOST ready to send everything to Ind*ia, and yet, it still feels like so much to do.

And the end will be so amazingly wonderful, just as those three special hospital days were, when all the pushing was done.

It Will All Be Clear

Tomorrow should be lovely and the kids are out of school, so we will be spending the morning at the park playing games and meeting up with friends. I'm excited to just relax a bit and not worry about anything or going anywhere.

This whole week has been wrapped in worry about our Princess, but also in stress getting dossier item ordered and together, looking at the super long list of things I need to get in order and just wishing that I could wish them into existence, ha! And we have been pouring over grant applications like crazy, writing and re-writing essays to hopefully get some kind of money awards to  help offset costs.

But, on the upside, with all the stress we have done this week, we also threw in organizing our budget to minuscule detail (something one of our grants required anyway) AND guess what? We have arranged our budget so that we have all but $11,000 of the adoption fees covered on our own.

How super awesome is that? And over the next two years, we could have the $11,000 saved-though we are praying hard some grants come in so that we don't have to take out loans for it-but it is nice to think that we could try to finance, borrow and beg that last bit, and have it paid back to everyone within a two year period.

That makes me so excited, and I don't even care everything we are tossing out of the budget to give us the extra money. It is completely worth it.

On non adoption notes; Champ is talking now-and talking up a storm, as the saying goes. He also has mastered climbing out of his crib. Oh my, how time flies.

I Have Failed

I have wanted to adopt since I was a little girl. We have planned for years to someday achieve that goal, and I'm SO excited to have the ball rolling on it.

But, even with all the preparation, reading, classes and support groups we have attended about adoption and adoption issues, I still failed my daughter the other night.

See, I shared a photo of the Princess we are trying to adopt, her lovely, huge brown eyed photo.

And my friend laughed and said she would fit in with the Mexicans near us. My friend laughed that we had sent our college themed shirt for her-laughed that all the Mexicans wear college themed shirts just to fit in but they don't know what the shirts say either.

And I could feel myself blush, and stutter and I couldn't  make eye contact. I didn't know what to say. So I put away her photo and I made my excuses to leave.

So many times I had envisioned standing up for her, and giving people looks of death that would let them know thy had crossed the line of mama bear. I had snarky, witty and mean, come backs ready for any strangers that dared to be rude to my Princess.

But I never envisioned a dear, close friend saying that, or even that it would hurt so badly and leave me so tongue tied and worst, left me silent.

I completely failed our Princess, because I let someone get away with belittling her because of how she looks. And not just anyone, but a friend we have had for over 12 years. And I regret that so much, I wish I had known something to say, something to convey that those comments were unacceptable. That she is MINE and will have MY last name; she is OUR family and that our friendship will be done if those comments are ever made again.

I totally failed the test.

But I will be better prepared next time and it won't happen again.

I promise.

Bittersweetness

Yesterday was the worst day of my life. I hope I never ever had a day that bad every again.

Not only did we learn Princess has bone cancer, but we also had  a leak in our basement that ruined a lot of stuff, including the carpet.

The upside is that because I was compulsively checking my email to see if there were any updates or more info from dr.s about Princess, I discovered the leak. Otherwise I probably would not have found it as soon as I did. A Silver lining perhaps?

Anyways, so all last night, we took everything out of our laundry/storage room and tore up the carpet.

Once we tore up the carpet, we discovered a huge drain hole in the concrete slab.

Just there. A huge hole. To a drain. To go outside? 

We have no idea, but now I'm cursing the people that we bought the house from, because there have been dumb surprises like this with so many other things. And now I'm just grossed out thinking that this might be the source of the bugs that invade everything when it rains. UGH, so very gross.

So a plumber is coming today to fix the leak, and tell us what in the heck that huge drain is.For now I have a stepping stone covering it so nothing can come out of the hole now that carpet isn't covering it. *shudder*

Silver lining? We have long talked about how nice having a bathroom downstairs off the playroom/office and den would be, but it was going to be too expensive to cut up the slab and put in a drain....now there might be a drain already? Perhaps we could put in a bathroom now in the future? That certainly would make being a family of 5 or 6 a bit easier, to have 3 bathrooms instead of just 2....

And on top of that, we just dropped a ton of money fixing the van because it was breaking. I want to cry just typing it.

Silver lining? It was expensive, but still cheaper than 3 years of a car payment, and now hopefully nothing else can die on my van.

The Bittersweetness of yesterday? 

We got our home study approval yesterday from Ind*a. 

So that means that now I can get the official dossier paperwork together to send over so guardianship of our Princess can be given to us. So then we can wait for travel approval for visas and her passport so we can go get her and bring her home. We are so close.

Ind*a said we could have her, she could be ours. 

Except she is dying. And their courts that would file our dossier paperwork, meet us and grant travel papers are closed until the end of February, which before didn't bother me, since we need to apply for grants anyway, but now, I just fee panic. She is sick, and she could be ours, but I have to get all the paperwork done, wait for the courts to open, pray they look at our case quickly-but knowing there are many more waiting ahead of us, probably. And praying hard that some grant money can come in quick, or that somehow we find a way to fund everything ourselves, because we don't have the time that I thought we had.

Silver lining? Anyone?

Cancer

I know I'm not supposed to have any contact with the orphanage-and I'm not-but, I do have some dear friends who know some of the volunteers that work over there and they have been so sweet to give my friends updates on Princess and send photos of her, which they in turn have passed on to me-like I have the first photo of her trying to stand and the first time she went to the beach-what kind of sweet blessings will that be for her later, to put in her baby book??!

But, as a blessing, it also can be a blessing of sadness, to know everything that is going on. She is in one of the most wonderful orphanages, but....

Our Princess has been sick lately, and a dr. appointment and x-rays showed what looks like bone cancer taking over her body. Friends there passed on to us charts and x-rays so we have full disclosure of what is going on, and what te likely outcome is.

So we can decide if we want to continue her adoption.

And all I can think is, how fast can we get her here? How fast can I get her to UNC's Cancer Center? How much home equity do we have to pay for it until insurance coverage for her kicks in? Until she has a social security number?

Ind*a may not even let us have her. And she is probably in great pain, looking at the masses in the x-rays.

I'm completely devastated  realizing that we live RIGHT near the BEST kid's cancer hospital in the nation, and could start chemo NOW.

But instead, we are waiting on Ind*a to say if we are approved to have her. And we still have to get the dossier done. And pray so hard for grants to come through, to cover that final $10,000 we just don't have right now. And then wait for them to say we can go get her and pass court there.

And this could take another whole year to get to where we actually have her here and can start treatments.

And lord knows if our insurance would kick in right away and cover it. And would they consider it pre-existing, since she isn't legally ours yet and we are knowingly adopting a child with cancer?

Oh God. Help. Why?

Still Waiting

Our tree, pre-St. Nick's visit!

Well, when you hear people talk about all the waiting that goes with adoption, they sure aren't kidding! It has been 1 year now since we first saw information about the number of orphaned girls in Ind*a-and learned the fates many of the face when they age out of the orphanage system at the age of 14.

Can you imagine?

Ready for dinner after Christmas Eve Mass; we clean up quite nicely, eh? 

Leaving food for Santa's reindeer!

So, 1 year of reading, researching agencies, talking to people, and ALMOST getting scammed by another agency that claimed for $20000 up front we could have a healthy little girl in 6 months-ha! (don't worry, I turned them in to the BBB)

But, we are here, with an amazing agency, our home study done, our education training done, a ridiculous amount of international adoption books read, and an ever growing list of local professionals that deal with international adoption therapy, support and medical care

Reading The Night Before Christmas

And so, we wait to hear if we are approved by Ind*a.

After that, we THEN start the hopeful fundraising to grant applications, more yard sales, and spaghetti dinners and hope that we can raise enough money to make that big chunk payment that is  due when we send our dossier. I've started a little on gathering the dossier stuff, but since most of it must be notarized, I'm holding off a bit until we get approved.

I Think St. Nick has been here!

The months after we get approved will be crazy, with me sending off for grants like crazy, and trying to fund raise like crazy (and chasing the boys around in there, too!) and getting our 11 lbs of dossier all set to mail to our agency-and then to Ind*a for our guardianship and official matching to our Princess.

I am praying harder than I ever have before, but I must admit, my faith is lacking. I'm really scared and actually a bit angry that money could hold us back from making her adoption happen. I just can't accept that money could keep us from giving a child a home and family, and keep us from having the daughter we dreamed of for a year now. Sigh, money .

I had really hoped we could tell everyone at Christmas that we are adopting-as we have kept everything pretty quiet, awaiting that approval status of our home study. (So for anyone reading this that knows me on facebook, don't say anything yet!) So far, any mention of adoption as been met with great skepticism from our family members, so I long SO MUCH to tell them all about our sweet girl, and show them her photos, and let the real connection start for them.

And once we have the approval, and we start full steam ahead with grants and fundraising, I am just so excited to share the news, and print her photo out for everyone. I know special needs-especially physical AND mental ones-can be so scary, but I also just know that once they see her little waiting photo, and read about her, that everyone will fall as much in love with her as we are.

And in the meantime, we have some presents under our tree, that will wait for our Princess to get home and open them. I hope that Christmas 2013 sees us with her guardianship, and even better, sees us with her here, opening these sweet gifts.

A gift for the Princess! 

My favorite bible verse right now:
I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. -John 14:18.

Somehow, someway, we are coming to her.

Goodbye 2012

Somehow, the 21st is already here! Thankfully, the end of the world ended up not occurring, haha! Though that does remind me that I need to get back to couponing so I can restock my pantry; I have been trying hard to cut back our budget as much as possible and putting every little bit extra into our adoption fund. So, I guess that can be my new years resolution-hunt down grocery sales! Because, you know, these boys just keep eating and eating and eating.....and making me wish I had their metabolism! It must be all the super hero fighting they do:

In other news, the school year is half over! Crazy! I have to register JR for kindergarten the second week of January; that just blows my mind. Didn't I JUST sign him up for preschool? And he is already writing his letters, starting to read sight words, and becoming just the most wonderful, sweet little man.

The other night he mentioned he wanted to dye his hair blonde like AJ's. It hurt my heart a bit to think he hated his hair, and I don't know if I handled it well or not, but I told him. that if he wanted his hair blonde, that when he got old enough to have it dyed I'd take him to do it-and I told him that I would probably dye my hair his red color, because I think it is such an awesome color like fire. He seemed quite pleased with that. Did I handle that OK? I have no idea, but at least he seemed pretty happy his hair was like fire-and he seemed happy thinking that he could change the color if he wanted. Maybe just knowing he could change it, will make him not as unhappy with the color he has? I know that some people have called him "ginger" and he hates that so much, so I am thinking that might be the source of why he wants to be blonde...but I don't know; next week he may decide red is the most awesome ever.

Little Dude is certainly a little dude now. He just seems so much like a little man these days. He is wise and sweet and so incredibly smart. We hung some ornaments on our Christmas Tree from India, in honor of Princess, and Little Dude asked if she would be scared or sad to leave her friends there and come here. We told him yes, since that is the truth, and explained that we would have to show her that she can trust us and love us, and that we will be her family forever-because right now, even though she has her friends and knows everyone, she doesn't have parents to take care of her, and look after her, or brothers to play legos with. He cried saying he didn't want her to be scared and that he would help make her feel peace.

Is he not the sweetest? Oh that broke my heart to hear him express concern for Princess's transition to our home.

Champ is growing by leaps and bounds. He loves Bill's truck, and says 'Daddy truck vroom vroom all the time" SO cute! I keep trying to catch him on video, but every time he stops talking and just looks at me. Eventually I'll catch him talking!

In overall news, last week there as a school shooting in Newtown CT-20 kindergarteners were killed my a crazy guy with a gun. On the Friday it happen, as soon as I learned about it, I took Little Dude out of school at 2 and we all got icecream. My heart broke watching all my boys play and thinking of the families who were running to that school looking for their children. This morning, there were police guarding his school with guns outside. The sight made my heart stop and I had to take some deep breaths to brightly and calmly tell Little Dude I loved him and have a great day. Seeing those police made me want to do nothing else but drive back home with all my boys and just cry. It is terrifying to realize I can't keep them safe, 24/7. And, playing on that fear, there was a radio ad I heard while driving back home, for a backpack company now selling bullet proof backpacks for kids.

But, enough sad stuff. This year, overall has been amazing. It is hard to realize that we started our research into adopting from Princess's country more than a year ago-and this coming March it will be an official year since we started the first of our adoption paper work. My, a year is going by quickly! And hopefully, the next year brings us lots of grant money, lots of blessings, and somehow, gets me through all the paperwork gathering for our dossier.

I'm really NOT looking forward to getting all those documents gathered and notarized and apostilled. But I am SO MUCH looking forward to using my passport, which came in the mail today.

My nice, new, UPDATED to married name, passport is now here. I'm ready to travel and go get our Princess. I'm so excited to see if we are blessed with her in 2013!

Somehow God Knows

So this blog is turning more into an adoption blog rather than a family blog-I promise to fix that soon. I need to download some photos from my camera and get them on here to share, along with sweet stories of what the boys are up to now.

Everyday is amazing, yet simple and mundane. We go to school, we do chores, we eat, we do homework...and somehow in that mix, amazing things are happening as our children grown and we grow watching them. It is the everyday, but it is wonderful.

For our adoption news, Bill and I are still waiting to hear if our homestudy has been approved-I'm really hoping we hear soon, but I'll let go of that.

In other adoption news, I wrote recently how nervous Bill and I were after reading and studying up on the "worst case" issues of attachment, mental health, and all that such stuff that is just so up in the air with any adoption.

And we have been really talking about if we are ready-can we do this? What if she is a worst case, what do we do?

And we prayed, and I spent hours finding local therapists with experience in international toddler adoption (though sadly I couldn't find any with specific India experience, but international toddler adoption mental health issues at least have to be somewhat similar, I guess).

So armed with those, we have just been praying that we don't ever need to use them, or call them for help. And then, a couple we met through our adoption agency, who are also adopting a sweet little girl from India-and from the same orphanage our sweet Princess is at, had the opportunity to come over for dinner.

And they have actually been to India, and met our sweet Princess many times, and they showed us some videos of her that had me working really REALLY hard not to cry.

Because watching her, made me SO BADLY want to scoop her out of the orphanage, out of the mass of kids there, and bring her here to our home, to her room, and celebrate Halloween with us. It hit us so hard, watching her, that we are doing the right thing and that everything is going to be fine. Hearing stories about her at least help to indicate there aren't any blatant issues to be worried about-and that her attachment to her caregiver is strong. Which is good, since is shows she can trust and places trust, but also sad, since she will be devastated to lose her caregiver.

Thank goodness for the internet, right? We will always be able to look up the orphanage, or maybe even skype, and send photos and letters, and keep in touch. And I have hundreds of photos already of her orphanage, caregivers there, and of her and her friends that I plan to put into a detailed book for her, so she can see them any time. I also plan to print out and frame the photo of her and her caregiver for Princess's room.

But somehow, God knew, we needed a little help keeping motivated, and to keep going forward and shake off our fears. To just TRUST that we are doing the right thing and that we can handle it. He knew, and he let our path cross this sweet couple's path, and I am so grateful we got to see her, and hear her giggles (she is certainly the giggle machine I can turn into at a lame joke; I'm so excited about that!)

The boys got to see her and hear her too, and it looked like love at first sight. JR was completely smitten and has since been pointing out toys in the big catalog that came for Christmas what we need to get for Princess. Champ started smiling so huge when we watched Princess laughing, and Little Dude actually seems pretty wise about the situation she is in and points out that we could put two more kids in our home, since the empty room could easily have bunkbeds, so maybe we need to bring two kids home. I love him and his sweet heart so much.

We had not shared much yet with them about her, since we still were so unsure about getting matched to her, but now, it looks like we should be good, with almost certain chance of getting matched to her because of her special needs, the area she is in, and our amazing agency.

And apparently our Princess LOVES tickles, which made Bill super happy, since he is always trying to tickle me and the boys and we all hate it. Bill will finally have a kid that loves to be tickled :)

Every time we have felt defeated, scare, or questioning by the whole adoption process, God has put someone in our paths that keeps our hearts focused on bringing our Princess home.