1 month together... God is so good!

  I was on Facebook today and fellow adopting mom posted a picture of her daughter's finished room with and empty bed because they are still waiting to travel and pick up their little girl. The sight of that empty bed brought back so many memories for me. I was reminded of the constant reminder of our own empty bed that somewhere half way around the world our little girl was being raised by someone else. It was such a hard time for me and seeing that empty bed picture made me so grateful that she is home with us now. It also helped me to see how hard the wait really was. When we were in the middle of it I was just trying to pretend like there wasn't this sadness constantly with me. I would pray and feel peace but the sadness would creep back in. I would often just go sit in her room and pray. Sometimes after I knew there had been another board meeting without our names coming up I would just go and sit in her room unable to even pray I would just let God hear my heart and yes, my sadness. Looking at our little girl today she is a reminder of God's faithfulness. He never left us or her but brought us all together in his timing. It's easy to see that now but there were definitely some very dark days where I wasn't sure. It's almost impossible to explain how hard it can be if you have not been through it yourself but to any of the parents still waiting just know that the wait is completely worth it and for me the hardest part so far. Which brings me to my next part of the post today.
   Today marks 1 month of having physical custody of our little girl. It honestly feels like she has been here forever... and not in a bad way just that she fits so well with our family. I have hesitated to say just how well it is going. I don't want people who have had a hard time to feel bad. However, I was challenged by an adoptive mom who adopted about 15 years ago to share anyway. She pointed out that people need to hear the good and the bad. It's popular right now to highlight how hard it is and be "real" and if you say it's going well people think you are sugar coating. So let me say it's going GREAT! Kannika has been a rockstar at attaching and adjusting. There is only reason she has been doing this well though and that is GOD. He alone is the reason it is going well. We are definitely not super parents in any way. We prayed from the beginning that He would prepare us and her for what was to come and I believe He heard our prayers and has done just that. Yes, she still has fits of crying but they are pretty few and far between and don't usually last as long. She also had made great progress with the word "no". She can tell the difference between a "no, that's not safe or I just prefer you not to do that" and "no, you are in trouble". Even when she is actually in trouble she recovers quickly now and generally obeys. She runs to us and hugs us when she's excited and yesterday she gave me a kiss without me asking she did it just because she wanted to. She has gone to the nursery at our church and does great there too. She has fun while she is there and when we pick her up she's excited to see us. Tonight she even gave me pouty look to let me know she wasn't happy I left but as soon as we picked her up she smiled. She has done great with every milestone she has come up against since coming home. Even her doctor appointment wasn't a complete disaster. Since I don't want this post to go on forever tomorrow I will write about her medical issues. I will end with some pictures of our little cutie. She loves dressing up with her sister.

This picture sums up their sister relationship pretty much perfectly.

 She did great on her first bus ride with mommy. She came with me to a cross country running meet while I coached. She didn't love not sleeping at home and being without her siblings but she did good considering the changes she's been there.

Makayla is constantly touching her new sister! 

 All ready for her first Sunday at church. Gavin adores his new sister.

Delays and lessons

 We have been at Jr. High camp all week at this wonderful little camp that is pretty much in the center of a mountain. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been. It was a great time for our family to get refreshed and spend time together. The people here are great and have gone out of their way to minister to us while we are here. Darryl gets to speak every night at chapel which he enjoys very much.    

  So onto the reason for the post on our adoption site. We don’t have very good cell phone reception here, actually we don’t have any reception here except an occasional spot where the phone will ring but as soon as you answer it the call is dropped. Well, on Monday I saw our adoption agency came up on my caller ID. I was so excited but of course I couldn’t get the phone to keep the call. I thought they were calling to tell us our dates for travel. I finally found one spot near the lake where if I sat on this one rock I could get 3 bars of service on Darryl’s phone. The news was definitely not what we had hoped. They were calling to tell us that USCIS (US government) needs a new form that we had already filled out because they thought we sent them a copy of an original. We did not but there is no way to prove that so we had to fill out a new form and send it to them. If I was home I could do this in 1 day and overnight it and it would actually get to the desk I need it to get to about 10 days later. BUT we weren’t home and I had no idea where the closest post office was to us or how far that was going to be to drive. I also didn’t know if there was anywhere to print the form we needed to fill out. SO this meant about another 3 weeks before we would even expect to hear a date. I spent the next hour on the verge of tears and quite honestly feeling sorry for myself. Here I was in this beautiful place with my family and I felt like on day 1 it had been ruined. It also didn’t help that I had taken Dramamine earlier. I knew with the curvy mountain roads I had to take it. So I was trying to process all of this with a VERY foggy brain.  Well I found a place to print the paper we needed and a post office about 30 minutes away. However then I remembered this paper has to go to a special address and I needed our government case workers reference number which I didn’t have. It was on a piece of paper in the mail at my house and I didn’t have enough cell service to call my mom and get what I needed. I was really starting to get discouraged. SO I tried to put it out of my head for the rest of the day. I went to bed early that night because the Dramamine was still in my system.  I slept for 12 hours that night! I decided to try for some cell service again. As I was walking around looking pretty silly with my phone in the air one of the camp staff informed they have a cell signal booster in their office and I needed to do was walk up to their offices and step inside and my phone would find a signal. That was a huge relief within minutes I had all the information I needed from my mail and the form was on it’s way to the post office with Darryl. HERE IS WHERE GOD SHOWED ME I HAVE SO LITTLE FAITH! I was doing some reading in a book called “The Mission of Motherhood” I have been reading it for a while and decided to finish it while I was here. The chapter could not have come at a better time (obviously God knew this ahead of time and planned it just for me). It was a chapter on getting your kids out in nature to truly experience what God made and to appreciate His creativity. She quoted Jeremiah 32:17 “Ah, Lord God! Behold, Thou hast made the heavens and the Earth by Thy great power and by Thine outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for Thee!” God couldn’t have hit me any harder in that moment. I just had to pray and ask for forgiveness for my unbelief. He created all the beauty around me and I was doubting his ability to get us to our little girl. These were just small steps in our journey.  He does not need me to question Him. She also points in that chapter of the book that when Job questions God about his hardships (which were way worse than my little complaints) God answers Job by pointing out that He created the Universe. He didn’t explain Himself to Job He just says (paraphrased) Hey I created the Universe I have a purpose for this.”  WOW, that is all I have to remember in times of my perceived struggles. God is God and that’s all that matters what a beautiful thing to rest in.

APPROVED!!!!

  We got THE call we've been waiting for this morning. We have our 1st Approval! I know if you aren't in the adoption you are thinking... and that means? Well 1st Approval is a phone call that our adoption agency gets from Thailand to tell them that our match was officially approved by the board in Thailand. The social worker in Thailand will now mail a very important piece of paperwork to our adoption agency. That piece of paper will have our travel date. Our agency worker said it usually takes about a month for that paper to get to them from Thailand. So she said to expect to travel in 2-3 months.
  The timing of that phone call could not have been better. We have been having some leaky pipe problems in the house and my husband just keeps finding more mold that we need to take care of. It was just really getting overwhelming on top of the constant ache in the my heart that we are so far from our little girl. We needed some good news this week. I am crying tears of joy. If you know you me very well you know I'm not a crier and I only cry at sad events. But the emotions of the last year of waiting and finally getting that call put me over the edge. I was also kind of dreading Monday (the 20th) because it's our little girls birthday. She will be 2 on Monday and the not knowing when we were finally going to be with her was just to much for me to be looking forward to another milestone that we are missing in her life. BUT now I know it is really coming to an end. We can now celebrate her birthday and confidently say "We are coming to get you baby girl!"

Cover Girl :)

  About a week ago a fellow adoptive mom sent me a message on Facebook to let me know our little girl was on the cover of our adoption agency's magazine. I was so excited to get the magazine. We have been checking the mail every day and it finally came today!!! Our sweet little girl is on the cover of the magazine with her foster mom. The biggest surprise was this little tiny paragraph on the inside cover though.

  I have often thought I can never repay this amazing woman for the last 2 years but this paragraph brings tears to my eyes. Our little girl was with her during the flooding in 2011 but we didn't know her at the time. To know that she has been so well cared for and that she is LOVED is just priceless. At a time when the wait has been getting so hard (it's been almost a year since we first saw her picture in our email) to know that she is so well cared for is just what I needed to hear. Also, this amazing woman has that same look in almost every picture we have of the 2 of them. She so obviously adores our little girl. Thank you Lord for this woman!
   We also get to send another package to our little one. We were hoping to not have to send another package but instead get to be there in person. That has not happened yet so I am just thankful we can send pictures to her so she can get to know us a little bit. This package we included pictures of some of our extended family that she will see often. We put the pictures in a little photo book for her to keep. We also included a coloring book with crayons and a little shirt.

  There will be another board meeting next week so we are praying this one is ours. REALLY praying we get to pick up our little girl soon. She will be turning 2 next month and every milestone is hard to miss.

We have a little GIRL! God is so good!

   Just a note of warning... this post might be long and scattered trying to convey the incredible string of events God worked out so we could be matched with this little girl. I will start from the beginning. At the beginning of our home study I had a "discussion" with God. I was telling him how I just wasn't sure what to put on the medical checklist form. It felt so strange to me to say no to a medical problem. Mainly because in my heart I knew that if God chose to give that specific condition to a child we conceived we would accept that condition and love the child. I didn't see how this was different except that I didn't really want to ask for something I didn't think I could handle. After discussing this with Darryl he felt the same way so in the end I just checked the "maybe" box down pretty much the whole medical checklist because I couldn't say no. It was my way of compromising on the fact that I really felt God asking us to adopt a special needs child. HA! I know, compromising with God always works out so well. Looking back God was so obviously preparing us for this referral because every time I prayed about the adoption I felt led towards a special needs child of some type I just didn't know in what way or what child. I looked through the waiting child profiles and none of the children fit our family. Thailand requires a 2 year age difference so that was hindering some of the possibilities but mostly it was just that they didn't feel like our child. 

   We were not expecting a referral until about June or September of 2013 because of some low referral numbers coming out of Thailand. In the end of May Darryl received an email from Holt about a little girl in Thailand they were looking for a family for. The email stated that if they had no interest she would be put on the waiting child program list. I took one look at the email and knew she was our child. I can't explain that but I just knew. I immediately contacted our Pediatrician who happens to also be a friend of the family and my boss. He called me and we discussed her medical needs. Darryl and I decided we wanted further information so we contacted Holt. We were informed there were 2 other families that also requested her information. We prayed about it and discussed more with our Dr. about her medical conditions. There are several unknowns with her condition but through all the prayer and discussions we never felt apprehension. It's a strange feeling that can only be described as God's presence in the situation. I am a nurse so I feel very qualified to deal with any of her medical needs from day to day. I am also pretty well connected in the medical community so I know who to contact for anything she needs. We discussed the unknowns with being a parent in general. God never promises us tomorrow will be easy or that there will even be a tomorrow with our children. We have seen parents with perfectly healthy children lose their child to an accident. No parent likes to think about it but it's the truth. God has loaned us our children to raise for Him. So we didn't feel comfortable saying no just because she has some unknowns. We all have unknowns. So we then contacted Holt and told them we wanted to be her family. They told us that we had to wait 2 weeks for the other 2 families to decide if they wanted to be her family also. At that time the board would meet and decide which family would best suit her needs. It was a VERY long 2 weeks. At the end of the 2 weeks Holt called back to inform us that the other 2 families both decided they were not best for her. I couldn't believe it! I had just felt the whole time that God was telling me she was going to be ours but was to afraid to believe it. We then had to wait for the board to meet and approve our match. Well the board met and realized our home study needed to be updated because the social worker who did our original home study didn't include some of the things it needed to say. So were waiting again (which is basically how international adoption works... lots of waiting and waiting). It took a month but we finally got the updated and notarized home study to Holt on this last Wednesday. Friday Jessica from Holt called to tell me we had officially been approved!!!! We were actually camping at the time and I had very spotty coverage so I was pretty thrilled the call went through at all. 

   I waited until today to say it was official though because today is when we got our paperwork from Holt with all the approval documents. There is so much paperwork to do but that's normal with international adoption too. We have paperwork for our government and for their government also. It's domestic adoption paperwork x2. The most surreal part for me so far has been writing a letter to our little girl and her foster family. We are supposed to tell them about ourselves. It's so hard to introduce yourself to your child. I mean really how do you explain that you love them and can't wait to meet her to a 1 year old.

  We are pretty much beyond excited. Our kids are excited but just want her to come home now. I'm not sure if I can post pictures or even her name but as soon as I find out from Holt I will post on here.

Celebrating the small things

   Today I finally got in touch with some at USCIS (see last post) and our I800A was approved. That basically means we have approval to travel overseas and bring home a child. That is a huge relief to have that finished. Then after I got off the phone I checked my email and found out we have all of our required paperwork in for a grant from JSC Foundation. I heard about this organization through another adoptive mom. I feel blessed to have a community of people to learn from. They said we should hear in Mid-June if we received any grant money from them. So if you could add that to your prayer list that would be wonderful. It would be a huge relief to qualify but even if we don't I know we will be okay. God is in control and he will provide even if it's not through this grant. 
  I am excited for the little steps on our way to meeting our next child. God is so good!

I like control.....

    Okay so I like to be in control of my situations. I like to be able to fix a problem if there is one and I am a HUGE planner. I like to have things planned out very far in advance. However pretty much everything about adoption goes against that. I'm sure that God in his infinite wisdom knew I would have to force myself to let go of this need for control during this adoption process. Some days I do great and some days I have to pray a lot to let it go.

   The latest part I have no control over is the I800-A form. For those not familiar with adoptions it's basically our permission from the US government to travel oversees and adopt. It's only one part of the process but it's the first part. We received a request for more evidence from the government about 2 weeks ago. I got a call from Holt before I even got it in the mail telling me not to panic it is normal. So I called UCIS (govt. agency handling our form) and they said the wording wasn't correct in my home study. So I called our home study agent and she tells me it is in there they just aren't looking at the right page. So she took my UCIS agents number and said she would call them. That was last week.... I have tried calling both places to see what is going on and I haven't been able to contact anyone. I got an email from our home study agent earlier in the week saying she was still working on it but hadn't been able to make any progress yet. It's so frustrating to not be able to do anything. I am literally waiting for someone, really anyone with one of the places to call and tell me what to do next.

  So I ask for prayer that this would be fixed quickly since as with everything with adoption there is a deadline that this has to be done by. Also pray for me this is only the beginning of MANY areas I won't have control over and I am learning but I still need prayer.

Movement up the list

  I emailed Laura from Holt earlier this week to ask about progress. She was unable at the time to tell me about how far up we moved but reminded me that they do not go numerically all the time. They look over the files of the children they get from Thailand and match the child with the family they think God has for that child. It's very comforting to know that they take such care with the matching process. Even though for us it means we can not get to excited about a number. I will still take the number though and be excited about every movement we get to make.

  We received an email update from Holt on Friday. There were 4 referrals to the main program this time around. So that should put us up to #18 on the waiting list. We have no preference about gender so I'm hopeful we will get a referral next December.

#22... this is very exciting news

   We received a call today from Thao at Holt and she said we are #22 on the waiting list. She said that means we should get our referral either in December or next March. Thao explained that the referral board in Thailand meets every 4 months. So every 4 months we will get an email letting us know our new number on the waiting list. I know that it is a long time away but I cannot express how excited I am to just be on the list! This is a huge step. God is so good we were originally told it would be about 1 1/2 till our referral so it's nice that it will probably only be a year at the most. 
   Now I can focus on getting all the grant applications done. I would appreciate prayer that we will qualify for some grants to help offset the cost of the adoption. I know most people are not going to be able to donate to our adoption but praying we get a grant is the best thing you can do as our friends.

Dossier done and mailed!!!!

    Today we received our Dossier back from the DC. So I went straight to the bank to get the certified check for Holt and then to the post office. We mailed our Dossier to Holt and they should receive it on Thursday. I am so excited about this being done for so many reasons but mainly because once Holt receives our document we are officially on the waiting list to get our child. YAY! I also completed everything for our I800 (permission from the US government to travel overseas and adopt). I'm just waiting on a few things from our home study agency and I can send that off also. I love seeing things happen but I also know that now that "my part" is done it's a whole lot of waiting from here. We are told it should be about 18 months before we are matched with a child. I am okay with the wait though because it means we have time to save more money. I will also be spending this time filling out every application for grants that I can find. I included a picture of Gavin and I after we got all the paperwork filled out at the post office. He loves helping with the adoption process.

Homestudy Approval!!!

We received an email this last Friday that our homestudy was approved! This is very exciting. Our paperwork should be in the mail. As soon as we receive the paperwork we can start the process of getting everything notarized and certified. When our Dossier is finally done we can officially be on the waiting list for a referral. This is really a big step. It's also the last thing we have any form of control over. After we turn this in it's all waiting.

Adoption Home Study

Yesterday was National Adoption Sunday. It was also the first meeting for our home study. The meeting went very well. The questions were what we expected from the paperwork we had already filled out. Both children did very well with few interruptions. Our homestudy worker was very helpful and you could tell she really enjoys her job and has a heart for orphans. We have our second appointment next week and after that it should only be about 2 weeks until the homestudy is complete. Then we get to complete our Dossier and start the process of waiting some more. :)

Flooding in Thailand

   For the past few weeks we have been receiving email updates from Holt about the flooding in Thailand. It's the worst flooding they have had in 50 years there. Many of their Holt families have been displaced. Holt is a very involved organization and they are doing their best to ensure the safety of all their families and help out as many other people as possible. This is causing delays of course for the families that have been ready to travel. Please pray for the families that are waiting to go pick up their children and also for the MANY people affected in Thailand. 
   We are still waiting for our adoption study to continue. Last I heard from the coordinator with our local agency she was working on getting our file together. We have turned in all the paperwork she needs she just has to get the fingerprint reports back and other time consuming things done. Hopefully we will hear back soon though so we can move forward.

God's plans are always perfect

Well so much has happened since our last post almost 1 year ago. It took 11 months but the house finally went through. In June of this year we closed on our house and moved into our own home. It was a long process but completely worth it.
On the adoption front things have changed there as well. In the year we have waited the waiting times for China have gotten even longer. God has been preparing our hearts for a change and I (Amanda) started researching other countries that need adoption families. I came across Thailand and decided to research that country. I discovered we are already old enough (no waiting till we are 30!) and they have a great need for adoptive families. As I was researching Thailand I decided to check up on China just to see what was going on with that country. Well the 2 adoption agencies we were looking at using have closed standard adoptions to China. I decided to research more on why there are so many orphans in Thailand. I forgot about the major tsunami there in 2004. That left not only orphans at the time but also so many families can't afford to raise children now with the devastation left by the disaster. They also have a huge child trafficking problem in that country as a result of the poverty and desperation of some families. As I was researching this, I felt very strongly that God was moving us toward that country. So I requested an application from Holt International. When we received the application we found many more things that were perfect for our family. The average wait time is 12-36 months and the average age at adoption is 18 months - 3 years. That puts this next child around 2-3 years younger than Makayla. Which is exactly what we were hoping for in the beginning. We wanted to be able to raise all of our children together. It is important to us that they can play together and grow up together. When were looking at China it was looking more like Makayla would anywhere from 6-8 years older than our next one. That was a little more of an age difference than we were hoping for.
Everything is looking like it is falling into place for us to change countries. At first, it took some prayer on my part because I had wanted to adopt from China for so long. Slowly God showed me that with a 5 year waiting period just for placement that obviously He has enough parents for the babies in China and He wants us to move on and help other children. So after a slight redirection from God we have received our application and are hoping to have all of our paperwork done so we can send the completed application to Holt by the end of the week. We are asking for prayer as we continue our journey. Prayer for our family, the adoption agency, our future child, and also for the finances to complete the adoption. We are extremely excited to begin this new direction in our journey.