I started a new Bible study recently. Okay not really, but I've been reading this blog. :) It just reads like a Bible study with subjects from real life. First off, this blog started after a mom had a baby with Down Syndrome. I read through her words and remembered my own grief when I heard the term "special needs" applied to my own baby. I remember my heart breaking when I walked by handicapped parking spots. (Now I hunt them out with glee as I park up front.) Then as I kept reading her words the grieving ends and the joy begins. (As is typical. :)) Then eventually this family decides to adopt another child with the same diagnosis! It's like I'm reading my own story.
Only not.
Because I pale in comparison to this mom. Reading her blog made me hurt for a closer relationship with God like this family has. To quote their blog:
When God opened our eyes…
…to the fact that children with special needs just like our Verity who are born in Eastern Europe are sent to understaffed and underfunded orphanages until at some point during their childhood they are transferred to adult mental institutions–places an average American wouldn’t put a dog–where 80% of the children who are transferred die within the first year…unless they have Down syndrome, then the percentage jumps to 95%…
…and then opened the door of adoption before us…
…and then opened our hearts to wholeheartedly loving this child who needs a family so much…
…we could have exercised our choice, closed our eyes, closed the door, closed our hearts, and replied, “No way!”
We wouldn’t have been saying “No” to just another option from our range of options.
We would have been saying “No” to the calling of our Master. (http://theblessingofverity.com/2011/06/eyes-wide-open-part-one/)
She shares my desire to save a child from "being tossed like refuse into a third-world mental institution." And they eventually do. But I feel like I have a long way to go on a personal level before our second child comes home. And I'm making steps towards that personal relationship with God, even though I already feel like I speak too much Christianese. Not helping adorable blog! :)
First off I need to stop worrying. I worry about money. Blog doesn't worry about money. Blog is near poverty level and doesn't worry about money. God provides. Now I need to believe that, only really.
I need to wait on God's timing. I'm really impatient. Sometimes blog seems impatient and I inwardly smile. :) I want this child in my arms now now now! My husband (bless him) made me wait. He had to be sure. He had to make sure he could provide. Bla bla bla. Man logic. Go figure. :) But I don't wait well.
I need to use my time wisely. I waste time. I am lazy. No more! (I did well today. :))
And lastly I need to trust and listen and be open.
Jesus even says, "Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me." So if I'm planning on welcoming a child into my life, I need to treat him well! And that means giving my all.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
My muse
Laelia loves the orphan. She prays for a list of orphans every single night. And if I skip a name she will add it. She asks for a brother some days and a sister other days, but she always asks for one without a mommy or daddy. She calls the orphanage overseas the "baby hospital." She knows what a tummy baby is and those come "from their mommy" but if they don't have a mommy they come from "the baby hospital." She wants to save one who is lost. She has an incredible heart. She's my muse. And she's my encouragement as I continue this long, hard process.
The goal in mind
My husband and I seriously discussed adopting a child with many issues today. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. The more I thought about it the more discouraged I got. I'd be giving up a lot. It would be hard. My poor back... And the way this child looks in the picture... just lying in a crib... it's too much. Part of me wants to hide the picture away and go back to a world where this kind of neglect doesn't happen to children.
But it does. And that's why we're doing this in the first place.
So today I'm keeping my mind on the end goal. I'm taking one day at a time, but my eyes are fixed on the prize.
Here's the prize.
That's what I wait for. That's what love can do. The picture of the child we're looking at now will not be the same as when my love hits them.
Here's the prize.
Not the same as before. Loved. Wanted. Saved. Not sad anymore. That's what's coming.
Here. This is the prize.
When starving becomes fed. When fear becomes love. When terrified becomes quiet.
And there's so many. So so many. With the same story. The same before and after pictures.
Then when I look at that goal, and those who have gone before me, my puny courage kicks in. There's a purpose. My goal is not pictured in this little one's face yet. But in that little face there's a promise, a possibility and a great big bundle of potentiality.
But it does. And that's why we're doing this in the first place.
So today I'm keeping my mind on the end goal. I'm taking one day at a time, but my eyes are fixed on the prize.
Here's the prize.
That's what I wait for. That's what love can do. The picture of the child we're looking at now will not be the same as when my love hits them.
Here's the prize.
Not the same as before. Loved. Wanted. Saved. Not sad anymore. That's what's coming.
Here. This is the prize.
When starving becomes fed. When fear becomes love. When terrified becomes quiet.
And there's so many. So so many. With the same story. The same before and after pictures.
Then when I look at that goal, and those who have gone before me, my puny courage kicks in. There's a purpose. My goal is not pictured in this little one's face yet. But in that little face there's a promise, a possibility and a great big bundle of potentiality.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Starting an adoption blog
Here's my adoption blog! Ta da! Although it's a private blog no one can see, so if anyone is seeing this now then that means we've commited to a child and made this public! How exciting! I'm a Mommy of two! Yay future us!!!
*ahem* But since right now we're still a family of three, I'll continue.
This blog is pretty much for all the things I can't talk about out loud--an outlet so that my adoption plans stop slipping out to strangers at Target.
I feel like it's the first trimester in a very long pregnancy. Usually in the first trimester you don't announce anything because that's the most dangerous time for the baby in your belly. For my "first trimester" I am keeping quiet because there are so many unknowns. But it's been well over three months since beginning our Home Study and I'm getting ansy.
We started this process back in July! And we did counseling sessions to talk out how this would affect our family. And we prayed like we never have about anything. And God didn't give us more information than the next step. So we have been at this one tiny step at a time. And that's so oh oh not how I do things. I like to know everything in advance and have the money to do it up front. Please and thank you.
I guess I should put out there that I have zero fertility issues and my daughter's condition is not genetic. Adopting kids with special needs from insitution settings is a great need and one we're willing and able to fill. That's all.
I could go on and on and on about institutions overseas, but I do that often enough so I won't here. (*cough* links *cough*)
So where are we now? We just finished our Home Study a few weeks ago, which is the first step in the adoption process. Pretty much our lives were an open book that just got flipped through a couple times. We had interviews in our home, had three close friends write reports on us with our strengths and flaws, and had to produce paperwork on everything from where we've lived the last ten years to vet reports on our cats! Plus fingerprinting. Plus school reports. Plus copies of birth certificates and marriage license. Oh and we also had to take five online classes! We passed. F..I..N....A..L.L.....Y!
Right now the only thing we're waiting on is finding our child so that we can get a placement agency. Then there's the dosier process that I don't know enough about. The plan is to find our child on reecesrainbow.org. We are looking at boys and girls, but more at boys since they are typically less likely to get adopted. We were told in our counseling session to look at kids younger than our daughter so we don't mess up the birth order for whatever reason. We did look at a six year old briefly. I emailed about him and was told another family was getting him. Lucky kid.
So what am I doing right now? Right now, every morning, I go on Reece's Rainbow and cross my fingers. I've typed one word into the search engine so many times that it auto finishes it for me: arthrogryposis.
While there are many conditions that would get a little kid thrown into a torturous institution in EE, the condition we're most familiar with is arthrogryposis. (It's a beast, but it's the beast we know.) We've decided not to look at children with multiple diagnoses. And I have to remember I agreed to that every time I see that sweet little baby with arthrogryposis AND convulsive disorder. Or that darling little girl with arthrogryposis AND a small heart condition from not being stimulated enough and enlarged ventricles in her brain (which wouldn't affect the function of her brain). Or that little guy Laelia's age with AMC and vision problems. I want so bad to make them mine. Ugh!
Now I say we're only looking for one diagnosis of AMC, but it's not like AMC would be our child's only diagnosis. If that makes sense. A child who spends their first couple of years in an institution has special needs just from being there even if they were born typical. We look forward to teaching our child how to trust, bond with his or her parents, make connections in his/her brain by being out of a crib and touching things, eating, swallowing, adjusting to different smells and noises, culture shock, second language learning, etc. And then on top of that do treatment for AMC including casting, daily stretches and surgeries.
All that is the real reason I changed jobs to stay home. It will be a bonding process that may take a year before I can leave the house for a girl's night out again.
So right now I wait. And I pray that God puts our son or daughter into that darn website I check everyday.
In the meantime I've been contributing to a blog about arthrogryposis adoption. None of my co-bloggers know I'm adopting or that I've even done a Home Study. Is my first trimester over yet?????
*ahem* But since right now we're still a family of three, I'll continue.
This blog is pretty much for all the things I can't talk about out loud--an outlet so that my adoption plans stop slipping out to strangers at Target.
I feel like it's the first trimester in a very long pregnancy. Usually in the first trimester you don't announce anything because that's the most dangerous time for the baby in your belly. For my "first trimester" I am keeping quiet because there are so many unknowns. But it's been well over three months since beginning our Home Study and I'm getting ansy.
We started this process back in July! And we did counseling sessions to talk out how this would affect our family. And we prayed like we never have about anything. And God didn't give us more information than the next step. So we have been at this one tiny step at a time. And that's so oh oh not how I do things. I like to know everything in advance and have the money to do it up front. Please and thank you.
I guess I should put out there that I have zero fertility issues and my daughter's condition is not genetic. Adopting kids with special needs from insitution settings is a great need and one we're willing and able to fill. That's all.
I could go on and on and on about institutions overseas, but I do that often enough so I won't here. (*cough* links *cough*)
So where are we now? We just finished our Home Study a few weeks ago, which is the first step in the adoption process. Pretty much our lives were an open book that just got flipped through a couple times. We had interviews in our home, had three close friends write reports on us with our strengths and flaws, and had to produce paperwork on everything from where we've lived the last ten years to vet reports on our cats! Plus fingerprinting. Plus school reports. Plus copies of birth certificates and marriage license. Oh and we also had to take five online classes! We passed. F..I..N....A..L.L.....Y!
Right now the only thing we're waiting on is finding our child so that we can get a placement agency. Then there's the dosier process that I don't know enough about. The plan is to find our child on reecesrainbow.org. We are looking at boys and girls, but more at boys since they are typically less likely to get adopted. We were told in our counseling session to look at kids younger than our daughter so we don't mess up the birth order for whatever reason. We did look at a six year old briefly. I emailed about him and was told another family was getting him. Lucky kid.
So what am I doing right now? Right now, every morning, I go on Reece's Rainbow and cross my fingers. I've typed one word into the search engine so many times that it auto finishes it for me: arthrogryposis.
While there are many conditions that would get a little kid thrown into a torturous institution in EE, the condition we're most familiar with is arthrogryposis. (It's a beast, but it's the beast we know.) We've decided not to look at children with multiple diagnoses. And I have to remember I agreed to that every time I see that sweet little baby with arthrogryposis AND convulsive disorder. Or that darling little girl with arthrogryposis AND a small heart condition from not being stimulated enough and enlarged ventricles in her brain (which wouldn't affect the function of her brain). Or that little guy Laelia's age with AMC and vision problems. I want so bad to make them mine. Ugh!
Now I say we're only looking for one diagnosis of AMC, but it's not like AMC would be our child's only diagnosis. If that makes sense. A child who spends their first couple of years in an institution has special needs just from being there even if they were born typical. We look forward to teaching our child how to trust, bond with his or her parents, make connections in his/her brain by being out of a crib and touching things, eating, swallowing, adjusting to different smells and noises, culture shock, second language learning, etc. And then on top of that do treatment for AMC including casting, daily stretches and surgeries.
All that is the real reason I changed jobs to stay home. It will be a bonding process that may take a year before I can leave the house for a girl's night out again.
So right now I wait. And I pray that God puts our son or daughter into that darn website I check everyday.
In the meantime I've been contributing to a blog about arthrogryposis adoption. None of my co-bloggers know I'm adopting or that I've even done a Home Study. Is my first trimester over yet?????
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