Our Pediatrician Calls It...

Experiential Healing.

One Week HOME...

Today marks one week as a family of seven! I'm not even sure where to begin this post....this week has held so much joy, pain, happiness, confusion, laughter, questioning, SINGING, hurt, dancing...so much of so many emotions. I'm not sure I will put it eloquently tonight- but I do want to have something written to remember where we are now- so one year from now I can look back. To start, the boys are doing phenomenal- I have read enough to know that they are not without their struggles and questions- and we are not without ours- but they are doing great. Are we seeing pain? Yes. Without a doubt. And rightfully so. Are we seeing happiness? ABSOLUTELY. This house has never been filled with more laughter, singing, and dancing than it has this week. We laugh so hard sometimes that tears flow....such was the other night when the two oldest and Little Man put on a show for us with traditional song and dance mixed in with some contemporary rock. Or when B (our 6 year old) came up to me at the stove and asked if he could eat "a foot"....you know- a chicken leg. They make us laugh, they challenge us, and they make us question everything we thought we knew about parenting. Isn't that every kid's job? Today when we surprised them with a trip to the beach and let them run free- they threw themselves in the water- face first into the waves...laughing huge deep belly laughs, screaming free...I thought of one word...soaking...we are soaking it all in, soaking in each other, learning how to be a family...soaking in God's plan for us...soaking in the hurt and the healing...and grateful that God had bigger plans for all of us.

WE ARE HOME!!!

THEY ARE COMING HOME!!!

Early this morning a cry came from down the hall...right around 5:40am....after putting said child into our bed and stealing another hour of sleep....my husband snuck downstairs with Little Man and found that at 5:40am halfway across the world...our other three children were CLEARED by the embassy! That's right folks...Little Miss was just trying to be the first to announce that....OUR BOYS ARE COMING HOME!!!! We leave this weekend and head to Ethiopia....and by this time next week we will have our boys in our arms for good!

I have NO earthly reason to give for why we cleared embassy so fast...but I'll take it!

It is hard to believe that we are heading into the final phase of the adoption journey....and a WHOLE NEW adventure is about to unfold! To God we give ALL the glory.....for only He could write such a story of redemption and grace....He makes ALL things beautiful in His time! 

The Great Adoption Debate: And Why We Did It Anyway

When we first began considering the prospect of adopting our next child....we were immediately confronted with a decision to make- of who? At the time Little Man was just about to turn 3 and Little Miss was 8 months old. It seemed almost natural that we would approach this change in our family dynamic the same way as a pregnancy....in fact, some agencies suggested we wouldn't have an option otherwise...and one told us it was best to wait to adopt until Little Miss was older (obviously we didn't go with that agency). We settled with an agency that was not completely against going out of birth order...just in case very young siblings were in God's plan for us...we honestly thought we might wait until a pair of siblings younger than three were available....and so we proceeded and planned to bring home an infant.

Yet, even after we began the paperwork...something did not seem right. We were about to take our place at 100+ on a waitlist....and then I heard about the Waiting Child List....well, something seemed a little backwards to me...we were about to wait for a child...when other children were waiting for a family. I began to think- God- you gotta help me process this!

 Again we found ourselves questioning- WHO? God began to take the wheel- and lead us to WHO HE HAD for our family...yes, it completely shook us to see that it did not match what every book, most agencies, and common thought suggests...do NOT disrupt birth order! Keep your oldest the oldest...not only were we disrupting birth order but we were also artificially twinning...and bringing home three older boys. But despite all that...it was clear that God was speaking...our hearts could not deny it...now we just had to wrap our minds around it.

The more we thought about it....the more we began to question....why is it so important for the biological child to remain the oldest? What about the adopted child...what if THEY ARE the oldest in their sibling set...do we not take their birth order into consideration? There is more to this birth order debate than we really talk about. Are we worried about de-throning the biological oldest for the right reasons? Is it because they exude such leadership qualities that we fear risking their future presidential possibilities....or because its HARD to bring in a new oldest...its HARD to mix-up, disrupt, and beautifully re-design the make-up of our family? Yes, this IS going to be a struggle in our house...I am certainly not writing this from a place of expertise or success. I decided to share because when we were faced with this decision I searched endlessly for the blogs of families who had done what we are about to do! Bringing home older children presents a whole new set of considerations...school, language, a whole history we do not know about, perhaps a whole lot longer time spent in an orphanage....but it ALSO brings home children who are waiting...waiting for somebody to choose them, despite the scars and history, despite the language barrier, despite the missed first steps, lost tooth, and first word...

In our time with our boys during court- we got to experience a lot of firsts...it still gives me chills when I remember their first bite of ice cream...yeah, its a little different watching a 9 year old take their first bite of ice cream than a toddler...but seriously...9 years of waiting to try ice cream?!?!? How fun is it to buy them that first bowl- I think I might have been more excited than him!

I pray that anyone reading this knows that I thoroughly understand the need for families willing to wait for an infant...adoption needs to be a team effort...so that no child should ever have to wait...but if we are for adoption we need to be for ALL orphans... so for those families in the same shoes we were less than a year ago...I thought I would share how we came to our decision to bring home our three precious boys.

We've been SUBMITTED!

Through blurry early morning vision this morning I saw the awaited email...Your case has been submitted! It feel like by a true miracle that exactly one month from passing court we have been submitted to embassy =) What does this mean? I can't really tell you just yet....but hopefully in two or three weeks we will have more information and maybe even travel dates to bring our boys home! There was a point in time that I could not picture this day...and now I look behind and before me at the true miracle that God has performed...and I apologize to Him for all the "you better do this God" threats...because He is...and I should have known all along that He WOULD...but I guess that is what happens when you take a leap of faith and begin to realize that what you are doing is really for YOUR growth...and I have to remind myself that when you follow God's lead you are really walking on holy ground- where things that seem completely unfeasible...actually happen.