Ok, so we havent even left for our second trip (May 27-June 1) to visit S and we already have GREAT NEWS!!!!
The original plan was for a slow transition, his caseworkers wanted us to come out around 5-6 times and anticipated him being ready to come home late July. BOOOO.
Well, all of the people involved with the decisions about S's future met yesterday and came to the conclusion that he is READY! (Even though he has been telling them that for weeks LOL)
Soooo we will go on our trip, come home, and then go back 4-5 days later to BRING HIM HOME FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are SUPER excited and nervous!
I thought I had at least another month to get his room ready!!!!!!!!!!! Not to mention coming up with the funds to turn right back around and get him. We cant stay for one long trip because it would be too many days away from work for JD and too long for the dogs to be in boarding.
But, we will make it work!!!!!!!!!!!
And if thats not the best news youve ever heard, its also his BIRTHDAY weekend that he gets to come home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I cant believe that we have been home for a little over a week from our first trip to Missouri. We leave in 11 days for our next trip. We will be there for about 5 days which is much longer than our first trip. We get to celebrate JD's birthday AND S's birthday while we are there!
This trip he will stay with us for the whole time, even overnight. He begged and cried to do that last time and they just wouldnt allow him on the first trip...they wanted to make sure he was comfortable enough with us! ha! He cried everytime we had to leave him! But, we know that this is procedure and we will be together forever very soon....then we dont have to go by anyone else's rules.
We call S 2 nights out of the week and he calls us the rest of the nights. We are only "supposed" to talk to him twice a week because "they" think that its best, but thank GOODNESS his foster mom understands that is just not enough. She has told us that he looks forward to talking to us all day long and he stops strangers to tell them how much he loves his mommy and daddy and he is going to live with us at the beach forever and ever. He even told me last night that when he grows up he wants to live with us still, he never wants to leave. AWWW.
His new thing is to tell us every night that he "loves us all the way up to Jesus and back". lol We started telling him we loved him to the moon and back and I guess he thought he would try and out do us lol.
We have to play everything by ear as far as when he will be home with us for good, but we are hoping by the beginning of July. There are alot of factors and people involved with the decisions, so we just have to see how things go. We've made it this far and this long, we can do it. Just knowing that our baby is happy and safe and being able to hear his voice everyday makes it that much easier.
Next weekend we will start painting his room (I just finished his bathroom today, he wanted MONKEYS!...since thats his nickname that he has totally taken to, he says "Im mommy and daddys little monkey! haha yes you are buddy!) We let him pick out his bedroom colors too and he actually surprised us! We were going to go with a pale blue....maybe even a yellow, but he said he wants "purplish red". So, instead of guessing what that meant, we took him to Walmart in the paint section and let him pick out his colors. He picked burgundy and a khaki color! They actually look great together lol. I thought maybe we just caught him on a day that he didnt really know what he wanted so we didnt bring it up for awhile and then every car that we saw drive by that was burgundy he would scream "THATS the color that I want my room!!". So, I guess he does know what he wants! He said he also wants a soccer room (blah) I TRIED to get him to go for the basketball or hockey but nooooo he wants soccer!
Too late too blog tonight, will fill in all of the details tomorrow. But here are some pics, which is what you all want anyway!! :) Click below for the link to the album! Ill add more tomorrow! HANKS FAMILY/MEETCHA TRIP
His favorite thing to do other than sing EVERY song that came on the radio and tell us the make and model EVERY car that passed us, was to text message us from one phone to the other. He got a kick out of typing out a message and then us reading it even in the same room lol. His favorite color is Burgundy....yes burgundy. Or as he says "purplish red". When a car would pass us that was that color he said thats what color he wants his room!
S is so smart and definitely has a sense of humor! We cant even begin to explain how comfortable and "right" it felt to be with him even in the first moments of meeting (which is when the above picture was taken). It was as if we had been a family all along.
1 Samuel 1:27 I asked the LORD to give me this boy, and he has granted my request.
We leave in 2 days to go meet our SON! We are so excited! Obviously, we have a million other emotions at the same time...we're nervous, anxious, happy, sad, worried, all at once! We just keep reminding ourselves that these are all normal :) We wont have a laptop and not sure the accessibility to a computer while we are there but we will definitely post some pictures and video once we get home!!
So......we received "the call" and the verdict is in. WE HAVE A SON!!!!!
We can finally say "S" will be OUR little monkey!!
Once we make our first trip to meet him and we take our first pictures together we will share his full name :) We are planning to make our first trip May 4-7!! Its right around the corner and we are SO excited.
The best part is that we can actually be excited now that we know he is ours!
The Adoption Staffing went well yesterday. We felt fairly comfortable...as comfortable as you can be having 8 pairs of eyes stare at you through your computer screen. (we used Skype) We were under the impression it would be 1 or 2 people....not 8! Each person that was there was a major part of monkeys life. It was so great to finally see each of these people who have been so invested in him since day 1. It also eased our minds that while we have been on this roller coaster for "S", by each of them being involved in this decision making process, they truly do have his best interest at heart.
I was soooo very proud of JD too. He did an amazing job answering questions and answering them from his heart. We started this process 2 years ago ( and 4 months ago for "S") and we have talked ALOT about our feelings and making decisions on this subject together. I have NEVER in that time heard him speak the way that he did yesterday and it just brought me to tears...happy tears of course! He is such an amazing man and I cannot WAIT for us to get this call today. We have both grown so much from this experience and we look forward to growing even more with monkey in our home. **PRAYERS!
We were supposed to find out the decision yesterday. After our staffing they were going to deliberate and then we were to know last night. Well....after our staffing his caseworker said that they were going to make their decision tonight................and then they would call us in the morning. HUH? WHAT???? I said "Sooo, you don't want us to sleep tonight, is that it?" They laughed....but I was serious. Then I said "I'm glad we did the Skype session today, because tomorrow I will have huge, ugly bags under these eyes!". Again, they laughed and again, I was serious.
Anyone who has gone through this process knows that it takes ALOT of patience....and even ALOT is not enough. There are a ton of things that have irritated me along the way and one day I may write a book. As for now, I just want people to know 2 things about some PAP's (Prospective Adoptive Parents). Of course, I cant speak for all, but this is how WE feel.
1. Do not tell a PAP "oh, you just wait until you have your little one" or anything even slightly related to this sentence. For me, it burns me to the core. Dont tell me to wait.......we have been waiting......very patiently I might add. So, hearing a mother tell me to "just wait until you have a little one and you have to do this* or that*". UGH.
2. Do NOT tell me "What will be, will be" or "It will all work out the way that it is supposed to". Believe me, we understand this and believe more than anyone knows. But NOBODY wants to hear that. I'm positive that this is because some people just don't know what to say to be supportive. But I'm telling you......That isn't it. A simple, "We are praying for you", "We are excited for you", or "We cant wait to hear more" would suffice, then just walk away. Sometimes that's all we need to hear, not entire scriptures on Gods path for us being different from our ideas of our own path.
Ok, I'm done venting and still only killed about 8 minutes. Whew, this is going to be a long day!
So I missed the countdown for "2" and "1"....but that doesn't matter because TODAY IS THE DAY, 4.19.10!!!!! We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and today our lives will change, no matter the decision made by "S"'s caseworkers. Our staffing is at 4p (our time) and will last about an hour. That means tonight we should know whether or not we will be chosen to be monkeys parents. Let's pray the next post is a happy one!!!!
