Day 100

I have written an introduction to an update so many times and then deleted it. I'm really not sure how to begin this update. So I'm just going to begin it this way. It is just awkward enough to fit how I feel these days.

100 days. It doesn't seem like so long when I word it that way. Almost a third of a year...that feels a little longer. My perspective flip flops almost daily when I think about the amount of time that we have spent with Silas.

I've been trying to think of one word that I could use to summarize our first 100 days. I think I'm going to go with supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. That's what you're supposed to say when you don't know what to say, right?

All in all, life has been great. Really. When I take a step back and look at our life from a distant vantage point, we really and truly have a blessed life. It's impossible to not be grateful at the end of the day.  We have continued to share so many firsts with Silas and that is such a joy.

2. Playing dress up with brothers

1. Getting to know cousins

3. Trying to ride a bike

5. Driving!

4. Riding!

6. Video Games

7. Flashlights!!

8. Grocery shopping

9. Road tripping

10. Hiking

11. Halloween

12. Losing a tooth!

13. Animals!!

14. Getting dizzy on a tire swing!

All of these and so much more that I can't even begin to include on the blog! And we are still going. Almost daily we encounter something new. But along with all of these firsts that seem so great come challenges that aren't so much fun to talk about. It's funny how pictures can speak one thing and yet the reality of that picture can be something totally different. In every single picture that I just posted, there is an obstacle that we had to overcome or are trying to overcome still. Some of them are bigger than others. Some of them are totally normal, that every child deals with. Some of them are really good victories. Some of them are just plain hard. With almost every happy moment, there is a struggle of some kind.

Along with all of the fun firsts also come the hard firsts. The firsts nobody really talks about. The ones that remind you that you have absolutely no idea what you're doing as a parent. The ones that leave you praying to God for strength because you realize that you just can't do this on your own. The first time he tests his boundaries. The first time he tells you he doesn't like you. The first time he says he wants to go back to his old school. The first time he disobeys. The first time he lies to you. The first time that you have to discipline him.

Because after all, he is a child. He is just a normal kid who struggles with all the same things that all kids struggle with. Sharing, getting along with siblings, wanting his own way. But not only is he a normal kid dealing with normal kid things, he is a child that has zero reason to love and trust you. A child who really has no idea what love is. A child that is relying on you to teach him how this life works in literally almost every aspect.

This life is hard. And as a good friend of ours reminds us, adoption is not for the faint of heart. We wake up every morning not knowing what we will be dealing with and praying for good to come out of whatever it is. And then we go to bed every night talking about all we wished we had done differently and praying that good will come out of whatever happened.

But it's in those struggles that beauty comes. Sometimes it's immediate and it's rewarding and we can cheer. But other times, it's not immediate. Sometimes, it's not rewarding. Sometimes, it just plain stinks. But there is still beauty. I really have no clue why God chose me for this job. And even with all of the hard things, I am so grateful that he chose me. When I sit on the couch with him and he reaches over and wraps his little fingers around mine, I am reminded of how far we have come, how long I waited for him to be in my arms and how much God has done and is doing in his life and in our family, the tears of gratefulness fall. All of these things are necessary to his growth and understanding of who he is. As each day goes by, he is finding his place in this world. His place in our family. His place in God's family. And it is worth it. So worth it.

So when you see our happy pictures on Facebook, remember to say a little prayer for us. Yes, we are happy. Incredibly happy. But just with any Facebook post, there are hard moments that come with the happy pictures! I think it would do a world of good if we could remember that for everyone we encounter!

Day Five

We had a pretty low key day. We didn't want to get out in the crowds so we decided to make it a day at the hotel. We took the boys swimming. QiLong said it was his first time and he loved it. He is a brave little stinker, but figured out quickly what he liked and didn't like about the pool. He did great and was a natural swimmer. I'm so excited about that because I know swimming will be a great activity for him and his muscles. 

The pool was on the roof of the hotel! So cool!

My three fishies!

First time in!

He loved it from the very beginning.

 Keeping up with all three in the pool was hard work!

They were all three jumping in before long.

Mom and Dad only lasted about an hour, and these are the faces of two little ones who did not want to leave.

We had lunch at a restaurant near our hotel and came back for naptime. We had hoped they would go to sleep easily with all of the swimming, but it wasn't so easy.

Silas is beginning to really test his boundaries to figure out if we are going to stay or if we are going to go. He is actually really well behaved and listens very well. Except for certain times when most likely there is something bothering him and he just doesn't quite know how to communicate it to us yet. Unfortunately, we ended up having to let him throw his tantrum until he fell asleep on his own. We pulled out all the tools that we had used before to try to get him to calm down enough to talk to us so we could ask him questions. But nothing was working today, so we laid down with him and said you can cry if you want to, but we are all going to lay down together. We stayed right there with him until he finally drifted off. It's so hard to know what the right thing to do is. We've read all the books and we have been expecting moments like this, but when they happen, it's still just hard. 

It's easy in these situations to want to label our moments as successes or failures. And it's easy to doubt yourself and to doubt the child. It's sometimes even easy to sit and wonder, what have we done? Or even, I don't know if I can do this!

But through it all I am reminded of my relationship with God and how many times I have kicked and screamed and dug my heels in when he is lovingly telling me to do something I don't want to do. In that moment, I have to envision my life before my loving Father and ask myself "How would he treat me in this moment?" I have had toddlers throw tantrums before. This is nothing new. And as easy as it is to become frustration in a situation like that, the most important thing I can teach any of my children who are having a hard moment is love.

Unconditional love.

No matter what. I will.be.here.

"For He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you, nor forsake you.' So we may boldly say: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.'" Hebrews 13:5-6

At the end of the day, if I can look back and say that I showed Silas and Stephen and Sean unconditional love, then I can call my day a success. The moments that create the day will change day by day, but the message I want them to hear loud and clear is "I love you, no matter what."

Once we finally got the little boys to sleep, Stephen and I went for a walk to the store. Oh my big, brave, sacrificing and selfless first born. He doesn't always want to consider other before himself, but this week especially, he has displayed wisdom beyond his years. He has been there with us through the crying, helping his youngest brother when Mom and Dad have to be hands on with the new brother. He has been patient, he has been kind and he has been so.grown.up. Oh my tears.

We wouldn't be here without him.

I love him so.

And then there is this little one. He has my whole heart. Every inch of it. He just squishes it in his hands and gives it back to me in a mushy pile and says "i yuv you mommy."

 I had to go to the bank before we could order dinner. Because #1, see Day 4 if you need a reminder of how many people there are out this weekend and #2 we discovered this AMAZING delivery company that will bring you food from pretty much anywhere that you want. So I took little S out for a walk to the bank. 

I haven't always done the best job of this with Stephen when Sean came along, but now that we have three I see it as all the more vitally important to spend special one on one time with each child. They all so desperately need to know that they are special, so important and so loved for who they are as individuals. 

Even a two year old.

 Especially a two year old that has had his role of center of our lives taken away overnight. He has been a rockstar. He loves his new brother something crazy and he looks up to him already. But I've seen it. I've seen it in the quiet way he watches Daddy carry Silas when we are out. I see it in the way he turns around every time he hears one of us say I love you. I've seen it in the way that he cries a little more than normal when it's time for bed and he has to choose if he lays down with Mommy or Daddy, instead of having both of us there. It's heartbreaking, really when I stop to think about how much his heart must be hurting at times.

But then I am reminded of what it was like when Sean was born and how Stephen had such a hard time. Even though he was older, he had been the only child for 7 years and he went through the same emotions. And now, you would never know it when you watch the two of them. They are best friends and he loves his brother fiercely. I reminded him of this yesterday on our walk and asked him if he could even imagine our life without Sean in it now. And he said, "No way!" I know that it will be the same with Silas. As hard as it is to add a new member of the family, either by adoption or by birth, in the end, it's SO worth it. There will come a day when we all look back and say we can't even fathom our life without Silas!!

Tonight, we knew we needed a new plan for bedtime and we also needed something special for bonding time. So we pulled out something that we had been saving for a time when serious intervention was needed. We had bought these for Gotcha Day based on a Youtube video that we had seen and thought it was such a great idea. But Gotcha day went so well, we didn't need them. So we decided to do it tonight. What is this magic you ask?

Glowsticks.

Oh yeah!

 

This one looks like a dragon!

 We all had so much fun in the dark with our glowsticks dancing to Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

(Yes, Jarred and Amanda, Justin has changed a lot over the years!! LOL!)

And thankfully it worked. Silas conked out as soon as he hit the pillow and Sean was out shortly after.

With a little bit of creativity. We will win the battle!! 

DTC!!!

The past couple of months have been a wild ride!! We have seen God answer so many prayers! We are so happy to announce that today we are officially DTC!! For those outside of the realm of adoption acronyms, this means that our Dossier has been sent To China! This is one of the biggest steps throughout the entire process. At this point everything is completely out of our hands for now and we wait mercilessly for the wonderful workers at the CCCWA offices in China to do their part. This is also often described as one of the hardest parts of the wait because you move from busy, busy busy with the never-ending paper chase to a screeching halt. But it doesn't matter if the wait is a breeze for you or agonizing, any person who has been through the process knows how much we wanted to jump up and down and scream for joy at seeing those 3 letters in our inbox this morning!!

This last few weeks, we have had a few more ups and downs. After we found out that we had been awarded the $4,000 grant, we emailed our agency and asked what was next. They had to first request the money. This organization likes to wait to send the money once the family is within 4 months or less of traveling. Since we weren't DTC yet, we weren't sure if we would be considered within that time frame yet. But since we needed this money in order to be DTC, our agency said they would go ahead and request it. Thankfully, they said that they would disburse the funds now, but that it could take up to 4 weeks for the money to arrive at the agency. Cue the sound of screeching tires in our minds. We were so close, and yet these few words once again put us on edge. The agency needed the money in their account in the next 8 days in order to be able to send our paperwork "as scheduled." Whatever that means, right?! So we did what we could do. We prayed.

Fast forward those 8 days. We woke up that morning feeling a little ho-hum because the deadline had arrived and we hadn't heard anything about the money arriving. We had been checking our email almost first thing every morning just hoping to see something, but for some reason, we didn't that morning. We went ahead and had breakfast and did our morning things. And then all of a sudden, Justin says "Whoa!! Do you see this?!" We had an email informing us that we had been awarded a $10,000 grant from another grant organization that we had applied to. We sat stunned for a few minutes, and let the fact sink in that this meant we were for the most part fully funded for the rest of our adoption! Then the first person to move was actually our son Stephen. He got up, jumped up and down, and said "we are getting this boy!" while I sat there crying.

I immediately emailed our agency and told them the news and they replied back saying that they had the check 2 days before but weren't allowed to say anything until we had been notified from the organization. All we could do was laugh. Because sometimes God is just hilarious in the way that He answers prayer!!!

This was on Wednesday, May 18. Then three days later on Saturday, we woke up to an email that said "Rejection at the Embassy" in the subject line. My heart sank as I read that the Chinese embassy was rejecting 3 of our documents. In order for them to authenticate that our documents were real and legitimate, they have to be notarized by a US notary. Well, because we live overseas, we don't have access to a US notary, except for the Consulate. So back in March we had taken the 7 hour trip to our US Consulate and paid $300 USD to notarize our documents by a US notary. But the new Chinese consulate in DC said that they would not accept any documents that originated in another country, even though they were notarized at the consulate. Yeah, don't ask. It's not even worth trying to explain sometimes. Fortunately, only 3 of our documents were affected by this and they were easily reproducible. I replied to her email and ask if we needed to make a new copy and send them to our Power of Attorney in the States in order for them to be notarized there and therefore become more "legit" than if we had signed the papers ourselves here. Ha! She replied back within a few hours and said that she had heard back from the CCCWA (Chinese Adoption Association) that they would accept the documents as is, notarized by the US Consulate, without being authenticated. YAY!

So here we are, today, May 25, with three big letters hovering in our minds, and for the first time in months we feel like we are finally able to completely exhale. And we celebrate. No matter what lies ahead, because we are sure that there are plenty of other bumps waiting to be jumped over, we are incredibly grateful for today. And this whole thing is finally beginning to seem real.

Humbled and Grateful

Just an update for our family's sake and anyone who is actually interested in the process that wants to read our journey, give some details about what it looked like to get here.

We began this journey, as most families do, with a timeline in front of them and high hopes that ours would actually be smooth, unlike most other families that seem to hit huge bumps in the road. HA. First mistake. Actually, we knew that obstacles and hurdles were going to come up, and we have had our bumps. Our wiggle room is getting smaller and our next steps are feeling farther and farther away. We spent the majority of the month of March feverishly applying for grants. We applied for a total of 10 grants. To the unsuspecting eye, that may not seem like a big deal. It's just an application. In one sense, yes, that is true. But the truth is, these applications are almost just as involved, if not more on some levels, as the initial application to begin the adoption process. And while each organization asks the same general questions about finances, testimony, calling, parenting and lifestyle, the questions are worded just differently enough that you have to write your answers differently for each one. While we did copy and paste a lot, it was still a difficult task. But we got them done. We had to step out of our comfort zones and ask for even more references, often having to burden the same people again and again to fill out a reference form. Oh and it needs to be turned in like now. :/ But fortunately, we have some great friends and leaders who went above and beyond to help us out.

The next task was fundraising. The month of April we poured ourselves out completely asking anyone and everyone that we knew and even those that we didn't know if they would be willing to donate an item or service to an online auction that we were hosting. It was a TON of work, but in the end we ended up collecting over 100 items and we were able to raise about $3,500. We also sold T-shirts, which astonishingly brought in almost $900. We are overwhelmed at the generosity of friends and complete strangers!! During this time of fundraising, I think we pushed half of our Facebook followers away and I'm sure we were deleted several times. But that's ok. We also saw God provide in really big ways through people that we didn't even expect and we are so incredibly thankful!

When we started the process, we really didn't think that we would be able to fund raise money successfully. First of all, we lived overseas and so "traditional" fundraisers were obviously out of the question. And second of all, we have spent the last 3 years raising money for ministry and our circle of influence are already so incredibly generous to give to what we do. But we did fundraise and were pleasantly surprised with the success. We could not have done it without the help of our friends and family, mainly our brother and sister in law, who were themselves in the process of adopting. The biggest fee that we have had to date was certainly our agency fee of $6,000, which had to be paid before our agency would begin work on compiling our Dossier packet. This seemed almost insurmountable to us, but through our fundraising efforts, very generous donations, personal savings and an organization that awarded us a $1,000 grant, we will be able to turn that in within the next week! (During our fundraising, we also received our USCIS approval, which was so exciting!!)

The next financial hurdle is a fee of $3,100 that covers the document preparation, registration and authentication. This amount had to be turned in before our agency could actually send the paperwork to China. We had been hoping that this was an amount that they could bill to our family, as they had several fees in the past. But we found out that it in fact had to be paid before they could mail the papers. This is honestly disheartening for us. We have worked so hard for two solid months, and we are flat worn out on fund raising. We know that God is the only one that can make this happen, because He is the only one that has made any of it happen so far. And deep down we know we can trust in His timing, whatever that might be. But if we are honest, we are discouraged because we feel like this just meant more waiting. More time before we could be with our son and he could be with us. We want so badly to be able to send him a message and say Mommy and Daddy are coming! But from where we were standing, already more than a month behind our timeline goal, we just know that we have to surrender our desires to God's sovereignty. We have sent out one last plea to our friends and family, and put on our best face. We are choosing to keep the faith. We still have a couple of weeks. And we know from experience that a lot can happen in a couple of weeks!

One Less

Gotcha Day. It's such a weird word for me. It doesn't settle right for some reason, but it's the word that we use. That day when all of your waiting and all of the paperwork and all of the mystery comes together and you get to meet your child and he or she officially becomes a member of your family, even though their picture has been plastered all over your house for months now. But now, it's official. On paper, not only with your signature, but with your thumbprints too. It's a big deal.

There is not a single time that I look at pictures of Gotcha days that I don't wipe away tears. Today was one of those days. I am sitting in the living room of a friends apartment, literally just a few meters away from a family that welcomed a precious little girl into their family today. I'm looking at her pictures on Facebook and just praising the Lord through tears of gratitude.

One less.

It's so easy during this process to get caught up in the paper chase, the money, the waiting, the uncertainties, and the insecurities. All of that is necessary, but all of that aside, this is what it's about. One less child spending another day without a family. One less child who will never know the love of a mother. One less human being who doesn't understand what it feels like to belong to something, to be loved or to be wanted.

One less. Hallelujah, today, there is one less orphan.

Mountains and Valleys

Mountains and valleys are both beautiful places.

On the mountaintop you can see what seems like the whole world laid out before you and the possibilities are endless. If you are on a mountaintop, you most likely have just climbed that mountain and the adrenaline is making you feel like you can conquer anything that comes your way. Nothing can shake you. The sun is shining on your face and for a moment you can almost reach out and touch heaven. Nothing is impossible on a mountaintop.

In a valley, however, you have a very limited view. You can only see the mountain in front of you and without the right perspective, it can feel isolated in a valley. When the sun goes down behind a mountain, it gets cold in a valley. And you might even begin to wonder and hope for what lies over that mountain in front of you. 

But if you take a step back, you will see the beauty, the awe and the grandeur of that mountain. You will feel how small you are against a mighty Creator and find yourself in the perfect place of humility to truly receive His grace and joy. With the right perspective.

We are blessed to live in a place where we get to experience these differences between mountains and valleys in a very real way. And it brings new insight to the circumstances in our lives that we classify as mountain or valley circumstances. I am reminded of the familiar passage in Ps. 23 where David sings to us about our Shepherd who makes us lay down in green pastures and leads us beside still waters. That sounds so peaceful and refreshing, right? But let's think about it. We often separate the part of this same passage that talks about walking through the valley of death from this first part of peaceful still waters and green pastures. But it's actually the same place. You will never find still waters on a mountaintop. Water on a mountain will always be moving. Will you find green pastures on a mountaintop? This beautiful place with green pastures and still waters that refreshes our souls, is in the valley of death!

Perspective.

When we began this process, we hit the ground running. We received our home study packet on Oct. 8 and we got to work, sending in paperwork the very next day. By November 24, we had all of our paperwork turned in, minus our health checks and we had approval to wait for a little while to do those so they didn't expire. We were feeling really good about things and even though we have to wait until Justin's 30th birthday on April 1 to turn in our paperwork to China, we knew we needed that extra time to apply for grants and get our account with the adoption agency in good standing before we can submit those papers anyway. We had heard of so many people with so many bumps in the road in a never-ending paper chase, but we had also heard of people that just zipped and flew right through the process with little to no snags at all. We were really praying for the second option. 

But once we turned the paperwork in, the waiting started. The first wait was really out of anyone's control because it was the holidays and things slow down drastically around the holidays anyway. Our sweet case worker actually traveled to our house on New Years Day and did our home study in two days. But then somewhere between the time of her sending in her first draft and today, time seemed to stop. We have been waiting for a long time to see a final copy of our home study, and our case worker has been emailing every day trying to find out why it has taken so long. And we are excited to say that the final hard copy was placed in the mail yesterday and should be on it's way to the next step very soon.

Before I go further I want to say that things could be WAY worse. The other day we read about a lady whose paperwork had been destroyed in the mail. Like completely destroyed, illegible, couldn't even tell which document was which. It could be way worse. And we still have many opportunities for it to get worse. So I am very grateful. But still a little frustrated.

We are still waiting to actually receive a copy of the home study in our inbox, so that we can begin applying for grants. We received our next bill last week and we need to have $9,000 in about one month, so that we can hopefully meet our goal of sending our papers off around April 1, so we don't have to make this sweet little boy wait any longer than he has to. We are ready for him to come home!! Most grant agencies take longer than that to process applications, with many of them only awarding grants every quarter. So we are praying hard for God to lead us to the exact grants that He wants us to apply for. If you would like to donate to our adoption fund, you can click  HERE  to find out how. Please pray with us for these next few steps.

1. Mailing application for US Immigration approval for us to adopt.

2. Fingerprint appointment at US Consulate.

3. $6,000 due to continue to the next step of compiling our Dossier documents.

4. $3,100 due to authenticate and process those documents and send them to China.

In all of this, we are praying for the grace to see the beauty in the valleys of life and allow our Shepherd to refresh our souls in the way that only He can. Thank you Lord for still waters.

Letting Go

This has been a really, really, really hard week. We haven't been through these kind of emotions in a very long time and they aren't very fun. We were on our way back home Monday and opened our email to find the responses we had been waiting for from our pediatrician. We also received a response from another doctor friend. Both of them shared their opinions on Qi Long's condition, which unfortunately revealed issues what we *thought* were in the clear.

Without going too much into detail, both of our pediatricians feel like he has some serious issues that we were not seeing. A couple of them, his file clearly stated that he did not have. But after hearing from the doctors, all of the signs add up and all of the signals are pointing to the fact that he does.

Going into this process, Justin and I both felt like we would be very open to many special needs that we have seen listed. But the more we thought about it and thought about our job and our family, we realized that as much as we want to, we just simply can't do some of the things that we normally could. First of all, we live in a very small town in East Asia and our medical care is not great. So anything that might potentially need emergency assistance is pretty much out of the question. Of course accidents can and will happen, just as with any kid, but when you know for a fact you are dealing with life and death, it's just not a possibility for us right now.

This diagnosis is literally rocking our world. We have to give our decision on whether we want to keep his file for good, or let it go back into the list for other families to view. And at this point we are really struggling to find our answer. Yesterday, we were all in, and today we have no idea what to do. They never tell you how hard it is to have to think about saying no to a child here. No one tells you about how quickly your heart can become attached to a picture. We all look at pictures of orphans and feel pity, but no one tells you about the grief that you go through in actually considering one of these precious children to be your own. Or maybe they did, and I just didn't listen.

At this point, we aren't quite ready to let go, but we can't say yes yet. There is still a strange small hope that it's not what it seems. But, we are letting his file go back to the list and are begging God to show us what to do. We know that if we aren't the family that was meant to bring him home, that we have to trust God to bring him the right family.

In the meantime, we are still going to send our questions to the orphanage and see what they say and just pray for guidance.

Let the Hurdles Begin

We received a reply from our application yesterday. There were a few initial details that were going to make it difficult to adopt from China. All three of these, we already knew about, but were hoping that the agency could find ways around them. We had heard from several people, that if there is a will, there is a way and your agency will help you figure it out. After a couple of replies, Justin and I began to realize that maybe China wasn't the option for us. And the strange thing about it, was that we are at peace with that. We just know that we are ready to adopt, and the fact that we live in China and can speak some of the language is a big, fat plus, but really, we are open to other places as well. We are looking into Bulgaria and Ukraine. Both of these programs we could get started on today without having to meet the steeper requirements of China. The only problem with Bulgaria is the wait time is considerably longer and we are hoping to be finalizing our adoption before we come back to the States for our furlough. And Ukraine is a good option for the timeline, but the process is not quite as organized as China and there are many unknowns within their program, such as not knowing anything about your child until you arrive in the country to meet them. We have a Skype call Sunday night here to talk about the different program options available. All we can really do is trust Father to lead us, just like He always does.