This Adoption journey just keeps getting better

For those of you just joining us. Let me tell you our story rather quickly. We are a family of 5 almost 6 that God set us on this journey called adoption 11 years ago now! We watched and waited and prayed and watched some more as we began to fall more in love with those sweet Asian faces with the almond shaped eyes. There is a lot to all those years of waiting but just know God prepared us in every single way possible to begin the journey we are on now. He built up our faith SO strong that when He finally said "GO" this past summer we did not hesitate one bit! There have been some road blocks along the way even since He said "GO" but we just kept trusting Him to get us through. Some were to the point of "this journey may not be seen till through the end" BUT GOD! Oh when those words appear in scripture you know big things are going to happen!! 

We trusted and we watched Him show off time and time again!! When others said: 

"you aren't worthy enough,"

"this will not happen,"

"be prepared for a no"

"are you sure you really want to do this?"

"I just don't understand why you are doing this."

"aren't you too old?"

"it's really expensive."

"you already have kids"

and the list goes on.... we said God called us to this! Told us with His own voice and reaffirmed it over and over again for 10 years, THIS is exactly what we are supposed to be doing! But still the hurdles came and the mountains looked steep from where we were. We just kept knocking on those doors and jumping hurdles and asking God to move the mountains if this was His Will. Time after time He did just that!! Do we still have a ways to go? Why Yes! But do we trust Him with everything He has called us too? ABSOLUTELY! This journey was never about us or even or sweetheart waiting for her family. Oh we like to think it is, but it is NOT! It is about our faith and our walk and the greatness and powerfulness of a call on our lives. IT is and always will BE about HIM!!! So as another No gets put into a YES in His book we praise Him once again!!

Today after waiting a mere 30 days, others just prior to us have waited 60-90+ days we were told YES!! All of our paperwork went to USCIS (United States Citizen and Immigration Services) to see whether we were a worthy family to adopt an international child. Let me tell you, our past is not perfect in the worlds eyes. We fought tooth and nail to be honest and try and divulge everything we could. There was one thing forgotten and finding that out before we got all the way to immigration both freed us and frightened us. Because that forgetting could have been our NO! And that NO could have been the end to our journey. Sounds simple to fix but it is NOT when you are looked at with a fine tooth comb through a looking glass. Again we are SO thankful that God's answer continues to be YES!

There is always extra paperwork to send to backup what the mistake was. I was tired of paperwork, tired of being exposed, tired of all the judgement. BUT I would do whatever it took to bring our daughter home. So we asked God that if it was His will, that this process go fast and we would loved to be approved and would LOVE not to have to send MORE paperwork in to explain even more of what they already had in our packet. My Spirit was calm as I prayed but as the wait got closer to a possible time that our file would be assigned to an officer I began to doubt. I became afraid and began to worry. Just this morning I asked God to forgive me for all that and He reassured me with one of my favorite bible verses! Jeremiah 29:11 our adoption verse I like to call it!

I had peace after that. It was like He just smiled GREAT BIG at me! I finished up my quiet time and went about my day. Bud had just got home from work and we were talking. I got a ping on my phone that I had an email. Earlier in the morning every ping made me nervous, but this one I didn't think anything about. I hit the button and there in my inbox was the words NBC HAGUE (the dept that handles adoptions for immigration) I clicked on it without even thinking and these words appeared.....Good morning. Your file was approved yesterday!! Have a great day!!! YESTERDAY!! WHAT!!! I expected, "Your file has not been assigned an officer yet, or we need more paperwork or blah blah blah blah blah, but the words APPROVED totally did not register. It took me a whole second to start screaming my husbands name!! He was 5 feet away from me not even kidding! I just kept repeating his name in this sing son voice over and over again!! Ok maybe I was screaming with excitement! He comes over and says what? I said LOOK!!!! And began to JUMP up and DOWN laughing and praising Our GOOD GOD who always has a YES when we follow His plans!! I have been on cloud 9 all day long! It was not just a, "this MIGHT be something you will have a yes on in the FUTURE." It was an ABSOLUTE YES you ARE qualified and you ARE worthy to be a parent to an international adopted child! We just kept praying that their Yes would line up with God's YES and the two collided today!!!! 

We are so thankful that His plans are far greater than our plans! We know what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good!! We will trust Him on this journey as we are one step closer to our baby girl!! This is a huge leap forward and in a matter of weeks our dossier will be ready to send to Ch*na! But that my friends is another blog!! Please continue to pray for our family and for our little girl. She has had a few of her friends adopted in the last few months and I am sure she might be wondering where her family is. We still have tons of funds to raise so stay tuned for fundraisers and ways you can help us bring her home! We are so thankful for each of you following along and praying for us on this journey and for those who have truly stepped up and are walking this journey with us!! It is not easy but it'll all be worth it when we get to hold our sweetheart in our arms and tell her how Jesus got her home!! We love you Ladybug!! Momma and Daddy are coming just hold on!! Please continue to follow along as we give God all the praise and glory and watch this journey unfold. All for Your Glory Lord!! All for Your Glory!!

Lots of love and Ladybugs :)

The Graduate...Tommy's Story

Ok I know I have not updated in awhile what the family has been up to so I thought I would start with our soon to be graduate!! Wait didn't I do this last year..oh yes we did! :) So in order to catch you up I must share a little bit of back ground about our youngest child...(so far ;) )

Tommy was born July 4th 1994 a beautiful healthy baby boy 9lbs 12 oz! Or so we thought. Delivery went well the day following went well, then the doctor came in with bad news. Tommy had not had his first movement. (Sorry not trying to be graphic but this is a huge part of his story, there is more of this to follow so bear with me please?) Being a mom for the 3rd time I was not to awful concerned until the Dr explained that this was not normal and that they needed to rush him to our nearest children's hospital 45 minutes away. I panicked! My hubby had went home to pick up our other 2 kiddo's so we could take pictures and then take Tommy home. That was not in the plan. As soon as he arrived with the kids and two other family members. I had to tell them they had sent Tommy by ambulance to the children's hospital (Thank You Lord for one being so close!) We were heartbroken.

When we arrived at C*H they quickly took us up to the NICU to see our son. He was all hooked up with wires and we had to scrub up to see him. This would not be the last time that happened. We spoke with the Dr's to see what the plan would be. They said they would do a procedure and he should be fine, nothing to bad but it would cause him to be able to get the meconium out and he would be great! We were so relieved! So everything was going good after that. We took him home and he did fine for a few days then it all happened again. We went back and forth to the dr but they couldn't figure it out. So we took him back to C*H to see what they thought. They ran some tests. One for CF the other for Hirschsprungs Disease. We waited for days to get results back but no one knew anything. Meanwhile my baby boy was suffering tremendously.

After Dr regiments for moving his bowels that didn't really seem to work we were just worried. Finally through a friend and we know by God's hand we found a pediatric surgeon. We went in to the office distraught and tired and confused and explained to him the situation. He immediately got on the phone and got the test results which were inconclusive. So he scheduled the 1st surgery for Tommy. A simple same day surgery to do a more invasive test. Keep in mind he is about 6 weeks old by this time. You don't really wanna hear the word invasive when it comes to a 1 1/2 month old. It took a week to get those results back. The Dr called in the middle of the day in the middle of the week and said words I will never forget, "You need to bring him in right now for surgery! If we wait any longer he may not make it."  Not to be graphic but by this time Tommy could not have a movement at all and when he did eat he would regurgitate it from his upper intestines. That day we found out Tommy indeed has Hirschsprungs Disease. It is a hereditary disorder of the intestines. I called my hubby who was at work 1 1/2 hrs away and he met us at the hospital. The surgery lasted 4 hours. Numbers I remember 4 hr surgery 7 week old, 3rd child. I did not understand why we were all going through this. IT was heart breaking sitting there waiting. They took out 8 inches of his Large Intestines and made a colostomy on the left side of his tummy, so tiny but so lifesaving! God was in the details let me tell you!!

 He would require an additional surgery that lasted 5 hours to reconnect his intestines  later on when he got bigger! That happened when he was 7 months old. God truly saved our sons life. There have been side effects to all this. Potty training was very hard and he has some other issues that can sometimes be funny or embarrassing. But if you know Tommy at all you know he makes those "issues" funny and just lets them roll off of him like they don't matter!

Next Post: Growing up with our Boy...now the graduate

God closing doors

Ever had God close a door you were sure He opened? I was sure He opened a door for us that would have allowed us to have the final thing we needed to meet the requirements for China. There was no way I would have went and searched this thing out, it was kind of handed to us. I was shocked and amazed and at first I told myself there was no way this could happen. Then we talked to someone about this thing and he gave us hope. In the mean time I prayed fervently to God "if this is not what you want for us then take it out of my thoughts" but it would pop in there even when I wasn't thinking of it. My hope grew when my thoughts would be filled with the idea of having all the things we needed (minus the money of course) to say Hey we met the requirements!

China is tough on requirements and some of them I think are just silly, stupid things. But whatever. I will do whatever it takes to bring our baby girl home to us. I guess it just appalls me that there are people right here in the U.S. who allows their kids to do horrible horrible things and they are never questioned as a good parent or not. I have been a parent for 19 years and worked hard at it to raise our kids in a godly manner. However, when China wants all these requirements to show your a good parent when those things they are asking of us do not really gauge our parenting skills whatsoever, makes me kind of crazy. OK through ranting, just one of those things I will never understand this side of heaven.

Anyway so the door was closed today. Not sure how to feel about it. I know God's plans are always better than what I ever imagined. I know He has our best in mind. I guess I just felt my hopes dashed a bit. So now I wonder, Lord if this is not what you want, then how do we meet this final requirement and step out in faith with the rest of this adoption? So many questions! I pray sometimes He would just give me a little bit of a glimpse of the very next step. Apparently not privy to that I guess, at least not now. The funny thing is this morning in my quiet time, He revealed something to me out of Revelation. I never thought He would speak to me about the adoption from this particular book but He did. Revelations 13:10b This calls for patience, endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints. I thought that was pretty cool early this morning. However at this minute it confuses me. Haven't I been all those things Lord? 6 years is a long time to wait before we even start. I have been patient, I have prayed and endured my friends going and coming back from China with their sweet ones. I have been faithful to them and to you Lord so how have I not met this verse, what does this mean at this moment? So at this moment I am confused. Still leaning on Him for everything but I have to admit I guess my heart feels a little sad, not because we didn't get the thing we thought He wanted, but because I feel like we have taken a step back and are stalled again. I hate being stalled! It wears me down and takes away my hope.

Does this change anything in our home right now? No, not really. There is still a ruckus coming from the other room from the teens in this house. They are laughing and having a good time visiting with each other and catching up. Not sure how long that will last but it is good for now. It's funny the things that affect them and the things that don't. They are worried about finals coming home and last minute grades. I know they will all be fine because I have made sure they know what they need to. That's the kind of mom I am. I am involved in my children's lives. I am worried now that this could have helped us start to bring their sibling home and now they may not get to see that happen while they are home. Lord will they really know her when she comes home or will they all be gone and not get to love her and know her like I'd hoped? Maybe that is the plan. Maybe that is what she will need, but I feel like they all will be missing out on each others love and goodness and things only siblings can share. Just a frustrating afternoon I guess. Giving it all over to the Father. He knows best anyway. Hoping He will help me with this frustration and doubt. Boy I hate doubt. I am so thankful He never leaves me. Gonna go love on my kiddo's. That will help I am sure. This gift would have been for them too. Not sure where we are headed but I know God is with us. He promises!!

Blessings