Surprises!

I think it is fair to say we have had some challenges in this whole process. However, we prefer to call them surprises!  At least with surprises, there is a possibility that they might be positive things.

One of the most surprising things to us is the people in our lives, both old and new.

We were very surprised to receive some prickly reactions to our news of our adoption plans from folks who were very close to us, even devout Christians! We continue to pray for those relationships, that they not be strained and that those folks can love our new child just as they love our current children.

Most of all, I have been so surprised by how close this process draws you to such a vast array of people.

We have seen our relationships with several of our old friends grow deeper and stronger.  Women that I always thought were pretty cool have opened up and shared their unorthodox journeys to motherhood with me.  They were some of the first folks with whom we shared the sad surprise about E being adopted by another family and to see their outpouring of sympathy, prayers and cupcakes for us was truly heartwarming, as many had been there before in their own ways.  I am so grateful that before we leave PA, we are having the chance to forge these deeper bonds that will withstand a 5 state move!

Also surprising has been the amazing families we have met who are also in the process of adopting from Eastern Europe.  These families are from all over the country, some with no kids of their own, some with many, many kids of their own.  Some families are Christian, some are not.  But regardless of how we all differ, we all share broken hearts for these kiddos and are passionate about doing our share to help as much as we can.  We have supported fundraisers, donated items to others' auctions, answered and asked three bajillion questions about the process and country.  Though we may never meet these families in person, their support through the process is incredible and we are inspired every day by their stories!

One particular couple includes one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen outside of the airbrushed models and actresses of Hollywood.  They are choosing to forgo our society's standard model of get married, buy a house, and have a baby and instead have chosen to adopt a 12 year old boy to start their family.  They know there is lots of time for babies, but not too much time left for their J.  How cool is that!?!? I can only imagine how weird some of their other newlywed friends must think they are, but they simply recognize it as a good thing to do.  How inspiring!

Another family with the demands of full time jobs, 18 month old twins and all of life's other stresses has made it their mission to learn just about EVERYTHING about the adoption process and the agency many of us are using all in the hopes of sharing it with others.  She spends countless hours answering questions for everyone and is the official go-to woman of our group.  She has calmed, informed and inspired just about everyone in our little community, all of this while trying to juggle her family and FOUR trips to Eastern Europe to finally welcome her daughter!  After a conversation with her, I feel like I can do anything!

There are also 2 families that are adopting in our region. One has brought their son home and the other is preparing for court to fight for their daughter.  They have been constant support, guidance and shared excitement.  They are amazing prayer warriors and it is their goal to support those adopting from our region. Oh how we would all celebrate to see that orphanage cleared out! Their faith and love of God is truly awesome and we hope we can possess just a fraction of that faith.

We went into this process looking to add a child to our family.

We will leave this process with a whole lot more!

Thanks, God for your surprises!

Pink or Blue

Much to the chagrin of others, with each pregnancy, we decided to wait until the baby was born to find out the sex of the baby.  We loved the surprise!   We loved the delicious anticipation as labor pains got well, painful!  We loved not being tempted to  buy every cute baby girl or boy thing in the stores b/c they were so tiny and cute.

Not everyone loved our choice and many folks gave us a hard time about it.  The biggest gripe we received was about the preparations for a baby. They asked us how we could plan for a child if we didn't know the sex and how they had to know because they wanted to be prepared.

As far as we were concerned the needs of a baby were the same regardless of the sex. We had neutral clothes for the first few months and we knew the gender specific clothes would come pouring in after the baby bad been born. We even had a cool nursery that didn't rely on yellow or green, but a stylish combo of teal, cream and black with multi-colored accents.

When we started the adoption process for E, we were preparing for a girl and even joked that this is the first time that our family and friends would know the sex of our future child before we brought her home forever. 

Now we are considering two children to bring into our family, a boy and a girl.   We are so attached to them both and even looked into the possibility to bring them both home. Due to their geographic locations in the country, that is not a possibility, so we will have to decide, pink or blue.

Luckily, we know that we can meet the needs of either a boy or a girl and we feel prepared for either.  And in the mean time, we once again make our family and friends wait for the big announcement of pink of blue!

It All Started With Some Shoes....

We are very quickly learning the differences between girls and boys.  One is their choices in clothing, or lack thereof.

Noah is 3.5 now and still has no interest in what he wears.  I tried to let him pick out his outfit for his first school pictures and he ended up with a shirt that was too big and pants that were too short.  Perhaps picture day wasn't the ideal time to experiment with his clothing choosing abilities.

However, Audrey, has style!  And it all started with these shoes!
We are so blessed to have so many awesome folks in our lives that have supplied lots of girl clothes to us!  My brother passed down these super cute shoes from his super cute daughter, and while it might not be what I would have purchased, I was very appreciative.

Audrey discovered them one day in a box of hand-me-downs and immediately plopped down and began screeching to have them placed upon her dainty feet.  Too bad her feet were size 3 and the shoes were size 5. She didn't care. Now, E.V.E.R.Y D.A.Y we must put on the sparkle shoes and not take them off until the very last possible second before nap or bath.

It didn't end there.  She discovered a pair of pink corduroy pants from a darling whose name begins with N. Though the pants were cute, it was the attached shiny pink belt that made all of the difference.  She will now dig into the washer, dryer, hamper, wherever and find those pants.  Immediately the screaming begins and will not end until the pants are on her body.  Operation midnight laundry has commenced so they will be clean enough if she finds them the next day (and she will!)  I thought the solution might just be putting them higher up in her dresser. But she and Noah speak a magical language that only they can understand and Audrey convinces him to get the pants from the very top drawers of the dresser.  They are in cahoots against mommy already!

Her newest obsession:  Her cupcake hat.  I quickly examined it at Target, as I thought it might look a bit small.  I made the mistake of trying it on her head.  Fortunately she did need a winter hat because there it has remained.  For the first day, she didn't even let me cut off the tag off or the mittens that were attached.


As I wasn't particularly a "girly girl" growing up (in fact, I was just the opposite!), I had no idea this would come this early!

The Post We Have Been Dreading....

3 weeks ago we got "The Call."

Well, actually it was an email. It informed us that a couple from her native land will be adopting our sweet E.  Our world feels just shattered.   Perhaps it is hard to imagine how our souls could be so crushed upon receiving this news.  Logically, I agree and keep trying to tell myself that we had no official claim on her and we hadn't even met her.  But in our hearts, she was our daughter and a huge part of our daily lives already.

We had upgraded to the minivan (breaking our unofficial wedding vows to NEVER own a minivan) and Noah quickly claimed the middle row of seats for him and E, relegating Audrey to the rear row.  Each dinner prayer and bedtime prayer by Noah always ends with "And thank you for our new sister E, thank you she is far away in Eastern Europe, and Thank you for helping us bring her home. In your name we pray, Amen!"  We had her clothes (and clothes for the rest of the family) picked out for her welcome home family photo shoot. We had even started arranging her future marriage. 

It is with extremely heavy hearts that we celebrate her finding a family. She will be an orphan no more, and that is what truly matters!

So what now?

Our future child may have changed, but some things haven't changed:

We still have the capacity to love the stuffin' out of a child.
We still are a great family and can provide for a child.
We still have a heart for God's children in need of homes.


What we believe also hasn't faltered:

We believe that God nudged us to this particular child and this particular region of Eastern Europe for a reason.
We believe that God has been blessing us through this process with an amazingly supportive community, successful fundraising and even God's perfect timing. 
We believe that God tells us we are doing the right thing in His word.
 

So now we journey forth.  We wait to see what child God has in store for us and we have faith in His plans and trust in His perfect love for us!!  We never got to handpick our biological children, and God always did a pretty good job there, so we know He will do the same for us now!


And through this all, 2 children will end up with homes!  Praise be to God!