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.