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. 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 didn't really know what he wanted so we didn't 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!!
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!!!!
Wow......that 3 over there stands for 3 DAYS....NOT weeks! I feel like we were just saying "Ugh I cant believe we have to wait 3 weeks and 6 days!". Some days it seems to go by quickly and other days it feels like an eternity!! But, its finally ALMOST here!
Many things come in fives: the five senses, the five Chinese elements, and five vowels in the English alphabet.
Punch is a drink that traditionally has five ingredients - spirits, water, sugar, lemon juice and spice. The name punch comes from the Hindi word for five.
We have five digits on each hand and foot. V, the Roman symbol for five, may originate from the image of a hand with the fingers spread.
Five was the lucky number for the superstitious French fashion designer `Coco' Chanel. In 1921 she chose the fifth day of the fifth month to introduce her new brand of perfume which she called Chanel No. 5.
And....last but certainly not least: 5 is the number of days left until our Adoption Staffing for "S"!
Six days until our Adoption Staffing! I emailed monkeys caseworker this morning to get a little more clarification on whether or not MONDAY will be the day that the we find out for sure if we will be his forever family. We really want my mom to drive down from Charlotte to be here for us as support for which ever way the verdict goes! I didnt want her to have to drive down if we werent even going to find out for another week...or more!
So, she wrote back and said that "Usually a decision is made right after the staffing and that we 'should' know that same night." I didnt think it was possible, but I am actually over-analyzing MORE than I was before. I think it must be that the more time that passes the more ups and downs in this rollercoaster. One day I feel completely calm and sooo sure about it all, nothing rattles me. Then the next day I can feel like everything is against us. I know that this is normal and we will go through 100 more feelings between now and then but at least we are at SIX days now! I will be pretty busy the next few days working at the radio station and then fri, sat, and sun at T-Mobile....in theory this week should go by quickly......lets pray!
We are 10 days away from our Adoption Staffing for "S". I think it sounds a lot better being one day away from single digits! haha We are finally down to using 2 hands to count instead of toes! Nothing new to report, just a countdown :)
Im not sure if any of you have seen this video before or even heard this song...but I hadn't and I had to pass it along. Its incredible. Click on the link and prepare to cry :) EVERYTHING TO ME
My friend Lori posted this on her blog recently and it hits so close to home for us and it really puts into words the feeling of the wait and roller coaster ride of adoption.
If you haven’t been through an adoption think of it like this, you haven’t eaten all day; you’re starving so you go to a restaurant. It’s a good restaurant and as always there is a line of people waiting to be seated, so you go to the end of the line. After a time you make your way to the front (hooray you’re at the front) only to have the Hostess give you a pager and tell you the actual wait is an hour (boo you have to wait some more). An hour goes by but your pager doesn’t buzz. You watch as another party is seated (you are certain they arrived after you). You check in with the Hostess and she promises it will be just a few minutes longer. She tells you you’re the next to be seated (you think about going to another restaurant but the wait is long everywhere and since you would have to go to the back of that line and since the food here is REALLY great you decide to stay). A half hour later your buzzer goes off and you rush to the Hostess, who finally brings you to your table. Now since you spent the last 90 minutes studying the menu you know just what you want to order and you are more than ready to eat. Just then, the waitress hurries by apologetically, "I’ll be right with you" she promises as she disappears without explanation.
BUT TO REALLY GET A SENSE OF THE PATIENCE REQUIRED TO ADOPT ….
Now imagine the waitress after her inexplicable absence comes back and says “I’m really sorry but I need to take a break right now. I’m not sure how long I will need so just be patient and enjoy looking at the menu until I get back. I know you are hungry but I promise the food is soooooo good it will be worth the wait.”
So, its not like I'm counting down the days or anything...I mean, its not like I have a calendar laying next to me on the computer desk with huge X's crossing off the days until April 19th.....Because "if" I did, I would be able to tell you that we are 3 weeks and 6 days away from this date...and that would just be coo coo. :) It just started hitting me how close we are to this huge change and event in our life that we have been so patientlywaiting for. And I use patiently, very...very...loosely.
I continue to keep my promise to post updates regularly :)
Alright....so I didn't really stick to my New Years blogging resolution as promised and those who know me well, won't be too surprised. Oops! And I decided today to change up the blog a bit. I was tired of the old one and needed something different :)
But, the good news is...........we have good news! Since my last post alot has happened, where to begin?!
Once our adoption homestudy had its official "stamp of approval" in December we started looking at profiles. We were overwhelmed with how many children were looking for their forever families. We always knew that there were ALOT of children waiting to be placed, but when you are actually looking at these children and their profiles, its definitely overwhelming. We came across a child that jumped out at us. It was as if he was popping out of the computer screen saying "Im yours!" We sent in our homestudy to be considered and waited...... And then we waited some more.... Finally a few weeks later we were given some more information about him!! After a few more weeks we were narrowed down as prospective parents and given his long profile to read (this includes his bio family history, medical history etc). This information was given to us on a very special day...our Wedding Anniversary :) This was the BEST gift either of us could've asked for. We let his caseworker know that we were absolutely still interested in him!
Here we are a few weeks later and we just received an invite for an Adoption Staffing!! :) We will have our meeting on April 19th and they will decide THAT day if we will be a Forever Family of 3 :)
About "him": He is 5 years old and we are only sharing the first letter of his name at this time, "S". From the beginning of our adoption journey we always said our age range was 0-12 months....2 years at most. After seeing "S", our age restriction went out the window. Alot of people dont understand the adoption of an older child, some of our family included. Im sure on the other side of it, it is a surprise since we always thought and planned for an infant. Well, as most everyone can attest, Gods road map is the only one that matters. He has a path for us that we are just now beginning to see and we are so excited for the rest of the road left to travel. We have chosen to keep his biological family history and reasons for his placement private. We will share the information with "S" when the time comes but we feel that it is his information to share if he so chooses. We know that this information would put our cautious family members a little more at ease to know what a happy, healthy child he is...but hopefully you will soon know this first hand :)
Please say a prayer for us and for "S", he deserves an amazing Forever Family!
Ok....so one of my resolutions for 2010 is to do a better job at this blogging thing!
We FINALLY received our letter in the mail that OFFICIALLY tells us that we have completed the pre-adoption process!!!!! Basically...means that we are waiting for a phone call for a placement! We both literally cried...actual tears when we opened the letter on Christmas Eve. It was the best Christmas present ever, next to actually having our child here of course :)
I hope everyone had a VERY Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hear 2010 is the year of the baby :)
Sooo....It has been some time since our last blog post. Ok....almost 4 months! Yikes! Alot has happened in the last 4 months, personally and with the adoption. I wont bore you with the personal since we all know that you want to know about the adoption!!
JD and I decided in May that due to finances and other factors, our International Adoption was not meant to happen for us at this time. It was a hard pill to swallow, but we knew that we would have to put our Kazakhstan adoption on hold. Before we even had the chance to discuss what we were going to do...we met some amazing people that educated us on state adoption. After a ZILLION questions....we felt that this was the path to our baby. The timing of meeting them and when we knew that our International adoption would have to be put on hold was definitely a God thing. It was too ironic to be anything else.
We know that if we had not started our Kazakhstan adoption journey, we never would have met the families that have supported us on this journey and given us advice for all of these months. We truly feel that our reason for starting our journey on the Kaz path had aligned us with friends and supporters that we needed in our life. We learned so much about ourselves and the true meaning of patience!
We decided to keep this news private for awhile, even from our family and closest friends, because its easy for us to handle the ups and downs of this process, and all of the changes or re-directions...but it is alot harder for them and we wanted to wait until we had jumped through all of our hoops (classes and inspections) before we shared. Thank you all for sticking with us on this long and crazy journey! We hope to be able to pick up where we left off with our Kaz adoption one day....maybe for baby #2!
I will definitely get better at updating the blog now. We are closer than ever to meeting and introducing you to Baby Hanks. :)
I'm sorry it has taken me a whole week to post pictures from the first annual Lowcountry Forever Families Festival! It was a busy, exciting, and exhausting day which yielded a week long recovery! :) JD and I were SOOO very pleased with the amount of support and attendance at our first year event. Families came from as far as Columbia, SC!! And a few people even asked if I would help them do this same event in their city! :) We met some amazing families who have adopted from Guatemala, Columbia, Russia, and Kazakhstan! One family we met had adopted FOUR children from Kazakhstan. It was so great to have met them and to have the opportunity to hear about their journey and experience....which is exactly why JD and I chose to do this event in the first place! We hope to make next year an even bigger event with an even bigger turnout! Thank you to our incredible sponsors. Without you, this event would not have been able to happen! Thank you to every person who came out to support this event and helped us increase the community's awareness about adoption!
Well....we are at it again! On Saturday, May 16th from 11am-2pm, JD and I are hosting the Lowcountry Forever Families Festival in Charleston, SC! We made the decision to organize this event as an opportunity for local families to enjoy getting to know one another while also increasing awareness of adoption in the community.
JD and I don't think that there are enough events or groups for adoptive families in the area, and we hope that this event will spark a change in that! If you are in or around the Charleston area, or want to make a vacation out of it and travel this way, we would love to see you there! We hope that you will bring your whole family to enjoy lunch with Chick-Fil-A, live music, jump castles, face painting, SC Aquarium turtle touch tank, Kids Safe I.D.'s, Fire Safety, and much more! *Please check out our festival website for all of the details! www.foreverfestival.com
