The waiting is so hard!

Christmas has so many aspects to it, and the one that I am really being made aware of this year is longing. For so long the promise of a savior the Messiah was what people clung to, and longed for. He came that first Christmas as a tiny baby, a baby that brought so much joy and expectations.

We too are in a season of longing, to bring our baby girl home. It is a hard season of waiting, and for Christmas, having that feeling that someone is missing can be tough. We so desperately want our baby home with us, but recently we were told that our approval is being slowed down because she's not yet six months. So she may have to wait in an orphanage for an extra month before we can even be approved as her family.

I'm holding onto the truths that God has made so clear to us throughout this whole adoption process, but sometimes that can be so hard. I was reminded recently that true living means embracing each season He brings to us, and even the season of waiting to bring our child home. One day (hopefully soon) we will have her in our arms, and we will remember the longing, and will be reminded again of God's faithfulness.

I am reminding myself that the same Father that put the stars in the sky over the precious babies manger is the same Father watching over all of us, including baby Grace. I hope to never forget this feeling either, so that we can always remember God's faithfulness now and forever.

We got to skype with our baby girl!

Want to know what the best part of this whole process has been so far? How many times God has given us exactly what we need, and shown us time and time again that his hand is in this whole thing.

Since being matched with our little girl we have been stressing about how she is, if she's sick will they get her help right away, what are the conditions she's living in, who's taking care of her, is she loved and hugged or is she alone a lot of the time.

A few weeks ago a friend said her cousin was going to travel around the country she's from, and wondered if she would maybe be able to go and visit her. Thankfully it was able to be arranged and we not only got a video and more photos of our baby, we actually got to video chat with her on Skype! We got to see some pretty big smiles from her, and completely melted over how precious she is. Seriously, she's one CUTE baby. She looked so healthy, alert and content. She's pretty tiny for four months (especially compared to what Donny was at that age...) but that doesn't seem to be slowing her down!

 We got to see the room she is in, and even her crib mate (she is never alone!) and the nannies that care for her. It is nowhere near the same as having a family, but we have comfort to know that she is doing well, and is being well cared for.

Our paperwork is still chugging along as far as we know, and still no word on when we can travel. Jake and I are still holding on to hope that we can travel by late January, but not sure that is possible or not. If we're still around in February you may want to avoid me, I'll probably be pretty grumpy...

Quick adoption update!

We just learned that our babies dossier is currently at the Department of Adoption, which was the next step we were waiting for. We are praying it moves through there smoothly so it can be sent over to us for our signatures! It will take an estimated six weeks for the DA to approve and send us this first letter.
It is so great to hear that things are moving along, and we are feeling thankful and hopeful that it will keep chugging along! We were unsure how long it would take to get to this point, and were given an estimate of around a month, which is exactly how long it took so we're pretty happy there were no delays!

Adoption Timeline

It is such a surreal feeling, knowing that your baby is here, but not here yet. When I close my eyes I'm in an orphanage many many miles away looking at her sweet face. We are doing everything we can to bring our baby home, and yet at this point there is nothing we can actually "do" to help the process along except sit and wait. 

We have been waiting for an idea of timelines for the next steps that need to be completed before we get to bring our baby home. I was really holding onto hope that our timeline would be super short, unrealistic of me to even hope that, but still. I can't help it! It looks like my hope of traveling in January to pick up our baby is not too realistic. It could be closer to march (!)

There are a couple of steps paperwork wise that need to happen, we need first approval from the Department of Adoption, which then comes here for us to approve, to our Canadian government for approval, and then goes back there for a second approval. We're praying that each of those steps goes smoothly and in good time as well!

A friend said some words I really needed to hear the other day, instead of feeling like I'm waiting on word from our agency, I need to instead be waiting on God and His timing. Trusting that He has this all under control.

In the meantime I'm trying to focus on getting our house all ready for baby, every room is getting organized and re-decorated probably a few times before she will actually get here, and Jake's project to do list is growing by the second. Thankfully he's so good at booking off a day on the weekend to help get it done. Such a good man.

Want to help? We would so appreciate your prayers, prayers for our baby that she will continue to thrive, grow, be healthy and well cared for, and that our paperwork will all move along without any delay. I think its very cute that the kids are now always praying for her, even Donny will mumble "give baby hugs. give baby bottles, give baby toys. Amen" such a sweet "big brother".

Baby girl!

Jake and I are so thrilled to announce that we have been matched with baby girl! This is called a "soft" proposal, so she is not ours yet, but we are working hard to make it that way!

She is a month and a half old, and the most precious little thing ever. We can't share any photos until she is ours, but just believe me when I say she is ADORABLE.

Now we begin the work of bringing her home. Which brings us to our request of you...could you please pray with us that she stays healthy, is well cared for, and also that our paperwork goes smoothly and in a very timely manner? We are so anxious to get to our little girl, but we are dependent on paperwork moving along without any hiccups.

I'm going to be honest. The waiting is much harder when you know who your baby is but know that it will still be a while until we can have her in our arms. Also knowing what conditions she is living in until we can get there. Please we would appreciate it if if you can pray that it all goes smoothly and quickly as we are eager to have her home!

And now we wait...

As soon as Donny turned a year old we were able to begin our home study and all the other paperwork involved for our adoption. China has an age requirement of 30, so we had a few months before we both turned 30 to get it all finished before we could send our dossier to China. I expected the whole home study and dossier to be a little more intense than it turned out to be.

However we do like adventure, and after talking with our social worker, we decided to look at moving. Our house was a two bedroom rancher when we bought it, and we added a master off the back, but we were starting to feel like it was going to be a little tight for four kids. Especially because there was no play room or play area, just the bedrooms, which really got in the way of napping babies! We decided that if we did want to move, it would be better to do it before transitioning a new child into our family.

 

Within two days we had found a perfect house, I had a list of "requirements" that I really wanted to find before moving, and thankfully we found them! A large playroom off the kitchen, you can see the back yard from the kitchen window, bedrooms up living on the main, and although the back yard is decent (not the 1/4 acre we were used to!) it has a private park just two doors down with lots of room for the children to play. Dream home! I needs some work but I happen to know someone who is good at renovating. We just had to find a buyer for our current place!

Through this whole process God has really made things fall into place, we prayed that if this was a good move for us that things would just work out. Within 5 days we had a really good accepted offer and were getting ready to move! I think the amount of help my in laws and mom put into cleaning and staging our place was a huge contributing factor. Moving with three kids is no simple feat! The icing on the cake really is because this new home is not as extensively renovated as our last, it has helped free up some money for the adoption.

                                                            Our new play space!

By April Jake and I were both thirty, and our dossier was ready to send to China (DTC). We were pretty pumped. Clearly God had another idea though. It turns out we were in the right geographical area, but our baby is not in China. Our agency contacted us the day before Jake was going to be dropping off a payment so it can be sent off, and asked us if we wanted to consider another country, that seemed like a really good fit for us.

Jake took it all in stride and was on board pretty quick. I on the other hand was not. I've been learning a lot about Chinese culture, reading books, watching documentaries, our kids referred to their sibling as "China baby", I was mentally prepared for China. We weren't able to actually chat with our agency about it until the following day, but we prayed that when we did, it would be made so obviously clear to us which country to choose, and that we would feel peace.

We feel peace, and actually we are getting very excited about this new culture and country. I am not going to share the name of the country, I was advised not to, as this country does not really like it when you blog or share about it on the internet. So I wont. It would probably be fine but I really really don't want to jeopardize anything. You'll just have to call us or ask us about it next time you see us!

So currently our dossier is getting approved by the Canadian government before we can send it off to be translated. It should be done that in a few days, and once its been sent off then we wait to be matched with our baby. It could be only a few months until we are matched, or up to around 10 months, but not likely to be longer than that. Once we are matched we need to wait for paperwork, visa's and processing times before we can travel so it will likely be another 5-6 months after being matched.

 

I suspect I will be a ball of nerves for the next few months, waiting to find out who our baby is, and then the agony of knowing who they are, and knowing they are living in an orphanage halfway around the world. I am so thankful that we have faith in God to be with our little one, and keep them safe and loved. I don't think I could handle it otherwise!

On having a baby with a cleft

 We had three and a half months with baby Donny before his cleft repair surgery. We memorized every detail of his lips, the way he would close his mouth and blow through his cleft. When he smiled his whole face lit up, and you couldn't not smile or laugh. When his surgery date got closer I couldn't help but think about how much I was going to miss him just the way he was. We would hand him over to the nurses and a few hours later have him back in our arms looking different. Similar to the way we missed how Bud could raise his eyebrows up to the top of his forehead in surprise before his surgery because he didn't have the proper facial structure in place. Things that they would want changed when they are older, but still things that we LOVED about them.

All the worrying I did before he was born about needing to protect him from people that would make fun of his lip was really for nothing. We had a few comments from people, never people we knew, but sometimes strangers would come across as rude, probably not intentionally, more out of curiosity. For the most part though everyone was very kind and more curious than anything when they saw his cleft.

When baby Donny was a few weeks old I took him to see a dentist that works with Children's Hospital. I didn't know what to expect at that first appointment but I figured since Donny didn't have a cleft palate, just a big notch in his gums, this appointment was a formaility.

Turns out I was wrong. It was an emotional appointment. I've since learned that this dentist is kind, knowledgeable and incredibly well meaning. It sure didn't feel like it at the time though. He hooked us up with this interesting contraption, which I didn't expect, but also the reasoning behind it was not explained to me. It turns out that in the first few months after birth cartilage can be taught to hold a new shape. Donny's nostrol was collapsed so this little nose hook was supposed to hold his nose in its new shape until his surgery. It looked interesting, it was always falling out and poking him in the eye, and I thought he was pretty cute without it. We listened to the dentist but I sure didn't want to.

To make that appointment worse, a mother of another child getting dental work was unintentionally being rude and making comments that I am sure she meant well in, but they sure didn't come across that way.

The next few appointments weren't so great either, but they got a little better each time. Maybe I just was able to rearrange my expectations.

Donny had his surgery when he was three and a half months old. Thankfully my sister was able to capture some really good photos of his smile before surgery. They are still up in his bedroom.

 

The surgery only took around two hours, and within an hour after that he was back in my arms. He looked incredible. He wasn't thrilled, but he looked great. As he healed he would try to blow air through his lip like he used to, and then look a little confused as to why it wasn't working.

He will have some pretty decent dental work in his future, and possibly a bone graft to repair his gums, but we are not worrying about any of that right now.

I love this part...

One Tuesday morning, shortly after my 20 week scan with baby Donny, I was supposed to be somewhere but I just wanted to stay home. I grabbed a cup of tea, and sat down to read a post from my favorite blog. It was a post about seeing the beauty in someone for who they are, specifically in that post, about the beauty of a child with a cleft. The smiles in the photos truly were beautiful.

For the first time I saw a cleft lip as something beautiful. I saw the beauty in the smile even though it was different from our idea of perfect.

It wasn't even moments later that my phone rang. My midwife (an incredible woman who I was able to see with all three of my pregnancies) called to tell me that my baby was healthy, and a little boy. There was something else that we needed to know though, the ultrasound showed that he had a cleft lip.

Wow. I felt like God had prepared me for this moment. Oh how he loves us. I cried, I cried like any mother would when they learn that their child will need to feel pain. Surgery again. We had already been through one with Bud, and we were already preparing to go through it again with our adopted baby, but the reality of it still hurt. Our precious baby. Would I be able to nurse him? Would people make fun of him? What would surgery be like? Oh I felt so protective of this little one that we had not yet met. But I also laughed. Seriously? I had just been marveling over the beauty of a cleft smile only moments before! I had complete confidence that we could handle this. I was curious about this little boy that I could feel wiggling around inside of me.

When we got to see our little guy on his birth day, we felt so blessed, very prepared, and just incredibly head over heels in love. But who wouldn't be. He was adorable if I can say so myself!

Restless

In early 2012 I started feeling restless; searching for something more. I believe that many times, when this happens, there is something that God wants us to search for, or open our hearts to. This could be something very small, but sometimes something a little bigger, like moving to a new home, or a new job. This time I just couldn't shake the feeling of restlessness. I was very happy with my two precious babies, and we knew we wanted to have more children, but I started to believe that God had something planned for us in the next few years, I just didn't quite know what.

So I started reading, because really I do love a good book where I get a chance to learn something new. Two of the books that really stood out to me where "Anything" by Jennie Allen and "Interrupted" by Jen Hatmaker. Both of them are about saying yes to God, and committing your life to working to bring glory to him.

A side story in both of those books also happened to include adoption. Everywhere I looked it seemed adoption was coming up over and over again. Maybe when you start thinking about something you just are more aware of it, but I started to believe that maybe it was God bringing these to show me something. My heart started to break for the orphans, babies that didn't have someone to cuddle them when they cried, and did not have the security of a full belly, warm bed, and most of all a parents love. It wasn't something that Jake and I had previously really talked about or planned to do, but nor were we opposed to it. And when your heart starts breaking, well you just have to find a way to do something about it!

I really started sharing all of this with Jake, and while he tried to understand and feel the same way, adoption was not something he had ever seriously considered, and he (understandibly) needed time to think about it. I guess when your wife comes to you sobbing because there are children without family, and we can be that family, it can come across a little strong :)

I used what little wisdom I could muster and left the poor guy alone for a few months. Well, kinda alone. I prayed continuously that if adoption was truly what we were called to do, then Jake had to be on board too. Two months later Jake told me that he just couldnt stop thinking about adoption and maybe this was something we needed to look into.

Two minutes later I had is signed up to meet with different agencies. That's how I roll.

After our initial meetings we left feeling pretty dejected. Adoption is expensive, wait lists are long, and we didn't meet the age requirements for some of the countries. We didn't really know where to go from here. So I went back to researching. And praying.

After much researching and praying we felt like we had a lot more clarity. Special needs adoption seemed like the road we wanted to go down, and since we had experience with Bud's surgery, we started to believe that maybe that surgery was preparing us for this. Cleft lips and palates are what came up most in our research, something I had previously known nothing about. At the same time we really felt called to Asia. So we made our decision. We wanted to adopt a baby from somewhere in Asia, with a cleft lip/palate.

Our agency said the China Waiting Children's List was the best fit for us, but we would need to wait until we were thirty. And so our decision was made. We would wait. And while we waited we had a third biological child. I figured this waiting would also give me a lot of time to learn all I could about clefts. I just didn't realize exactly HOW much I would learn.

Once Upon a Time...

Our adoption story begins a ways back, over 5 years back actually. Our first baby was born with something called Metopic Craniosynostosis, which means one of the sutures making up his skull fused prematurely. The metopic suture goes right down the forehead. So little Bud had a ridge down his forehead, and his head would grow back more to compensate and allow for room for his brain to grow.

We were told he would need surgery at around 9 months old, and I prayed over and over for a miracle, I couldn't see how good could come out of it at the time, I couldn't see the whole story. Let me tell you, watching your baby go through surgery is horrible. Childhood illness of every kind is horrible. You just want it to be you, not them. It was an extremely stressful period for us.

(Some of these photos are not pretty, consider yourself warned.)

Here is his forehead before surgery:

And here he is post op. The swelling was the worst part, the surgeons (a neurosurgeon and plastic surgeon) completely rebuilt his forehead. What was once on the left side was taken over and put in on the right, and the same with the right. I still don't really understand exactly how they did it to be honest. And his skull to this day feels really great with dips and bumps, but his forehead looks incredible.

And we all survived it. Even more than survived. I would never want to go through that again, but I am so thankful for everything I learned from it. I learned about trust, I love this little guy so intensely, and as hard as it is to imagine, God loves him even more, and wants to give him hope and a great future. I learned that I am stronger than I thought, and I learned that no matter how much you don't want to eat when stressed its actually a really good idea!

A few years later, when Birdie was around a year old, Jake and I started to talk about adopting a child. I will share more about how we came to that decision another time, but when we would look back at Bud's surgery, and Bud as a little baby, our hearts were broken for babies that were born with medical conditions that were given up. Most of them we will never know why their parents came to that difficult decision. Maybe they were pressured by family, maybe they felt their child had a better chance receiving medical care as an orphan because the family was too poor to handle it. Maybe they were scared and just didn't know what else to do.My heart breaks for the mothers of these children, but it also breaks for these children.

We felt like we were being called to welcome one of these babies into our home. We already know how much love and joy our children give us, how much they teach us, and how much richer our lives are because of them, so we are very excited to add another little one to our family and have them be a part of our story, our adventure.

Let me introduce us...

Woohoo! My first official post.  Let me introduce a little about me & my family, and in the next few posts I will share bits of our story so far!

I am so very proud of my husband, he works really hard and has so many talents but some of his greatest are his heart for people, all people really, and his sense of humor. Laughter follows him.

These are my three babies. I am actually fairly private when it comes to the internet so I am choosing not to share their names. (I know, most people reading this already know them. But there is something about publishing them that I'm not comfortable with.) SO I will use their nick names. The little long haired baby is Donny. His sister is really into Doc Mcstuffins, and she started calling him Donny (Docs brother) and the name really suited him so it stuck. The middle guy is Bud, he's been called that by his sister for years. (notice a theme? it seems to be her that comes up with the nicknames around here!) and our little girl is Birdie. Her older brother called her that before she was born, and it stuck.

We are also currently on our journey to baby number four, and are excited (and a little impatient, because waiting is not my strong point). I'll be sharing more on our adoption journey in the next while. It has been such a great journey so far of trusting in God's timing and direction and it gets me really excited whenever I get to talk about it!


These incredible photos were taken by my sister http://www.rachelludwigphotography.com/blog/ she chose to stop photography to focus on her family but luckily for us we ARE her family!