Green Light!

Can I just say that I really appreciate the diligence of the caseworkers that God has coordinating our family's future? We really seem to be matched with great people that understand not only the system, but also the children and the families that they work with. The caseworker called us Monday and told us that our profile was being reviewed by the child advocate. If she gave the go-ahead, we'd be able to schedule a visit. I was hoping she was a quick reader, and...she is!

Within an hour, we had heard back that we go the green light to schedule a visit. Given that this is a holiday week (AGAIN), the choices were limited. It came down to Tuesday (today) or Friday. My husband has an end-of-the-year meeting today from 7 - 12, so that would put us there in the late afternoon, and one of the workers was not available then. So we're shooting for a Friday lunch meeting. This will just be a meeting between my husband, myself, the workers, and our son-in-waiting.

While I would have LOVED this to be the day we could meet face-to-face, I'm kind of glad that it has worked out to be Friday. This year has been bumpy, to say the least. Friday is 2009, so it's a great way to start a fresh new year. This also gives us a little more time to think about the kinds of things we'll do to "break the ice" a little. I will certainly bring the scrapbook that I have made for him (it has pictures of us and our home, etc.) And I'll definitely bring a few things for him to do in the very good chance that he will feel uncomfortable, or when the adults are talking (stuff like crayons and paper, coloring book, puzzle, etc.) This will be the first time Eric is meeting a kid at the outset. Usually, I meet them first and then "introduce" them to Eric. So he's a little nervous. But I have every confidence that he'll do a great job.

Anyway, we're praising God for this breakthrough, and praying that these visits will go as smoothly as possible. We'll pray that God will provide us with the right words and ideas to make the situation as comfortable as could be expected (it's always a little awkward), and we'll just continue to go from there. Stay tuned for updates over the weekend!

Standstill

Well, the caseworker came out on Tuesday. The home inspection itself went well. Our water is running. Our electricity works. Our phones are functional. We don't have exposed electrical wiring. Etc. However, we've run into a little snag.

It seems that someone who knows the new little guy has decided that THEY would like to adopt him. I guess they know that he already has an adoption in process. If so, they don't seem to be concerned about that. Until the caseworkers are sure we can proceed legally, we are not allowed to visit/meet him.

SO...we could have met him for Christmas and got this party started. But now we have to wait. Needless to say, my heart is aching. I would understand if this person came forward in September - prior to our knowing about being selected and matched with this guy. But now? Two months into it? I don't think so. Although we may not have met him yet, he has been growing in our hearts for the past several months as we have learned more about him through things we have read and things we have seen. We have prepared for his arrival. He has a toothbrush here, Christmas presents are waitng, and his name is on the wall in his bedroom, along with Cameron's. Cameron has been asking more and more about his brother by name, and is anxious to meet him. I told him that he would get to after Christmas. Now I'm not sure how long we'll have to wait.

I still have one week off of school, and I'm optimistic that we may be able to take advantage of that time to go down and meet him. I will continue to pray and wait and love him. I will fight for him, if we need to. I just know that he needs to be out of his current placement as soon as possible, and we are the best chance he has at that happening - as all of our paperwork is done and we're all cleared to go. SIGH.

Now that it's the weekend, I know that we have a couple more days of no more progress. But I also know that the workers are doing their best to be diligent in finding the correct way to handle this situation. I know that they are rooting for us, and I am so appreciative that they've continued to work on this, despite the holidays. Our caseworker will be back to work on Monday, and maybe we'll hear more by then. Hopefully, we'll have more good news to report soon.

I guess this is just our part of labor being painful. I can definitely withstand it, if it means that we'll bring our son home when all is said and done. I was very sad that he could have had a family for Christmas, and now had to go one more Christmas without. But he doesn't know what's going on and that there has been a family identified. So I think that's better. He doesn't have to wonder why we're not there and whether or not we care. I'm crazy about him already, so that's not a question. And I would be there if I could - as much as I could. Soon. Hopefully, it will be soon.

Patchwork Families

A friend sent me this link. All I have to say is ... Amen!

PROGRESS!

The caseworker is back from leave! She got back on Wednesday. I talked to her several times yesterday. She's supposed to come up to do a home study this afternoon, though I'm not sure she still will, because of the ice and the snow. After that, we should be able to go to meet our new son very soon. We're then going to have weekly visits there until he's comfortable enough to come to visits here. So it shouldn't be too terribly long until he's home for real. YIPPEE!

Both Cameron and I have a snow day today. I was kind of counting on it. I have a little more cleaning to do, in case the caseworker does come. I want to finish re-painting the name blocks (I had painted Cameron's blue and the others tan, but want them all to be blue now). We hung them last night in their bedroom. I also moved my dresser in there, so they will each have one. I will get some drawers for the walk-in closet, and will do without an official dresser. No big deal there.

I made a coffee cake and am trying to put off giving Cameron his medicine until later in the morning. He's watching cartoons right now - a rare treat. After breakfast, I'll take my shower and then we will likely do some "work" together. Cameron does pretty well when I work with him one-on-one with workbooks and stuff. I can go into "teacher mode" and my patience with him also increases. I'll give myself some video game breaks (as in - let Cameron play video games) throughout the day. I think we'll be fine.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that things are moving forward. Our new addition is officially off the adoption photolisting, as he is now "spoken for." Reviewing his paperwork has certainly sobered us to the task that lies ahead. It will likely take a great deal of adjustment, testing, etc. before he feels like part of our family and we can get into a better routine. But it does look like he will benefit from a family that advocates on his behalf and refuses to take "no" for an answer--whether from him or from others ;)

Merry Early Christmas!

TWO MONTHS IN

...and still no visit. Unfortunately for us, the caseworker for our new little one is on a leave of absence. So things have been crawling since we've completed all of our paperwork. She was supposed to be back yesterday, but I don't think that happened. So my caseworker (who is awesome) said she'd do a little more legwork to see if she can at least get us a visit before the holidays. Given that I am a teacher, my time right now is not extremely crucial. Trying to get anything of vast significance done in the week before the break is a big order. We're doing okay, but if I had to bail to go for a visit, I wouldn't feel terribly about it. Then, of course, I have two weeks off of prime time that I could be using to help with whatever needs to be done. So I'm hoping that we can convince SOMEONE that a visit would make a lot of sense.

I feel like crying, but I'll save that for later. I think I've been doing pretty well for the past two months, but now we're just sitting and waiting, and I'm back to feeling helpless again. All I can do is advocate for "my son" and try to get him a family for Christmas. If God can send His son all the way to earth for Christmas, He is certainly capable of sending mine home. But whether or not that is His will is a different story all together. So I wait, and I trust, and I hope. Tuesdays are difficult in some ways, because I get off work earlier and have the whole afternoon by myself. I have plans to go to the Y, do laundry, Christmas cards, wrap gifts, etc. But I will likely also take a nap and try to waste away some of that almost-eternal-seeming emptiness.

Hopefully I'll have a more uplifting post soon.

Video?

MY CURRENT THEME SONG

WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING - SANCTUS REAL
It's time for healing, time to move on.
It's time to fix what's been broken too long.
Time to make right, what has been wrong.
It's time to find my way to where I belong.
There's a wave that's crashing over me
And all I can do is surrender.
Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos, but somehow there's peace.
And it's hard to surrender to what I can't see
But I'm giving in to something heavenly.

Time for a milestone, time to begin again.
Re-evaluate who I really am.
Am I doing everything to follow Your will?
Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills?
So show what it is You want from me
I give everything - I surrender

To whatever You're doing inside of me.
It feels like chaos, but somehow there's peace
Though it's hard to surrender to what I can't see
I'm giving in to something heavenly.

Time to face up, clean this old house.
Time to breathe in, and let everything out
That I've wanted to say for so many years
Time to release all my held back tears.

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos, but I believe -
You're up to something bigger than me
Larger than life, something heavenly.

Whatever you're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos, and now I can see -
This is something bigger than me
Larger than life, something heavenly.

...make that Pennsylvania!

So, the past few weeks have been interesting. We've mostly just been preparing our home for our home study update. We decided that we'd at least try to adopt domestically through the foster care system (bypassing the foster care stage, and adopting ready children) for now. And - yesterday - we found out that we are going to have another son!

This is all very new, so we don't know many of the details on the process just yet. However, we do know that this little guy is six years old (just six months younger than Cameron - call us crazy - everyone else does). We've seen a picture, and know a little bit about his needs. He has some similarities to Eric and Cameron in different ways, but we feel that God has prepared us for this challenge and this addition to our family. We have a bit of a curvy road ahead again as we transition him into our home and into our routine, but we are grateful to have a name and a face on the next member of our family. We are looking forward to finding out when we will get to meet him. Right now, we're working on updating all of our paperwork, clearances, etc.

I joked to Eric the other day that we should adopt one child through foster care (Cameron), one child straight from care (that would be this one), one internationally (Russia), and then one domestic infant adoption to round things out. I was kidding, but such kiddings in the past have turned out to be prophetic. So who knows? Right now, we'll just focus on this one!

Russia, It Is!

I got the "go ahead" today from our adoption agency's Russian representative. Woo hoo!

I have just about everything I need for our application - except a picture of our home and a picture of the three of us. Well, let's change that. I just went outside and took a picture of the new house:


Well, that was interesting. Just as I was uploading the picture, I received a call from a caseworker in Philadelphia. Stay tuned for more details.

Let's Try This A Different Way

Foster parents for eight years. Married for five. Ten kids. One adoption. Lots of heartache. Good intentions. New direction.

I have a lot of questions for God and His logic. It's amazing to me when I look to see who in this world has been able to have children. No questions asked. No home study necessary. Nine month waiting time. Medical costs covered by insurance.

Then there are those of us who have to travel a different road. But there are many different roads to travel:
- Do we just accept that we'll never have kids?
- Do we try to adopt?
- Do we pursue infertility treatments?
- Do we foster parent?
- What are our choices?

I started down the road of foster parenting eight years ago, when my first foster son walked through my door, cat-calling, whistling, and asking how much allowance he would get. He was seven years old. Eight years and two days later, here I sit with one son sleeping upstairs. And I feel like I am no further ahead in many ways than I was at the beginning of this all.

We recently decided that we'd like to take a more active role in the expansion of our family. We've had some rough times in our five years of marriage. We've spent three years trying to help out a teenage girl who has now decided that she does not need us (three months before her 18th birthday), but still wants to know what we're willing to do for her. It's time for a change.

Foster parenting ground to a halt for us after our son moved in two and a half years ago. There's been one thing or another that has stood in the way of us expanding our family through foster parenting again. So we've looked into our options. We considered an infant this summer who had been born prematurely. He passed away before we had a chance to meet him or pursue it further. My heart longs to have more control in creating our family. It's discouraging that we have to jump through so many hoops to get anywhere.

So now we are pursuing international adoption. The first few steps have not given us much more hope than we've had in the past. We're too fat for one country. The fact that our infertility has contributed some depression excludes us from another. We haven't been married long enough for that one. And on and on. So the search continues. Right now, we're waiting to hear back as to whether or not we'd be eligible for another country's programs. Finally, the agency that did our son's home study wants to "talk to us some more" before they "allow" us to purchase his home study back from the state (who initially paid for it, since it was an adoption through foster care). Are you frickin' kidding me?

Wouldn't it be nice if ALL prospective parents had to endure such scrutiny? Or would it? How many less children would be conceived if there was a pre-conception requirement? I can tell you one thing - I wouldn't likely have our current son. And his biological mother wouldn't have had the two that have come after HIS placement with us.

I have my limits about the things I'll do to add to our family (though some may argue that this isn't the case, and certainly my limits have expanded over time). I just can't believe that it's SO difficult to even qualify to be considered to adopt children that are in need of a family that will be committed to them.

So, as my title says, I have just a little faith left. But that's all that God requires. So -- watch as we move this mountain that looms in front of us. This is going to take a lot of time, money, and energy. But we'll do what we need to do, in the interest of creating as normal of a life for our family as we possibly can. Time to get creative! I've already sold three pies to start to defray the costs related to the fees that we will incur. It will take many more before we can find and bring a child into our home as part of our family. But at least it gets me doing SOMETHING!

Stay tuned for our progress reports....