Yayyyy

We have an agency that we are definitely going with. They are located in a town about 3 hours from where we live... a town that I lived in for 8 years. They do not usually work with families this far away, but have made an exception with us!!!!!!!!

I am soooo thrilled. We are going to adopt a healthy infant boy from Korea :0)

We are still waiting until Jan. to start the process due to finances and waiting for H to get a few months older. But, we are going to go ahead and send in our 1st application and start on our education requirements :0) :0) :0)

YYYYAAAAYYYYYY


Thank you to those of you who have answered my questions and have helped us get this far. A special thanks to "Jill" for taking the time to read my blog and give me honest feedback. I think that we were headed in the wrong direction until she brought some things to my attention. Thank you!!

Clearing my head

I think I need to take a couple of steps back to find out where we are supposed to go from here. I'm starting to think that we need to go with our first thought- to adopt an infant. The reason is bc our children are so young and it may be better to keep them in their birth order. I want to do what is best for our adopted son, but I also want to make the right choice for the children that we already have. The whole reason we want to adopt is because we want more children- we want our children to be close so that they can enjoy good, close relationships like I have with my brothers. There is NOTHING like growing up in a house with many siblings close in age. It is SOO much fun!!! We still have a blast together. We all live in the same city and can't seem to get enough of each other. I want my children to have that. I don't know how much I can take on as far as special needs goes bc I really feel that I am already stretched kind of thin. But, I want another child sooo soo bad. So, for that reason, we are now considering Korea instead of China's special needs program.

So, my blog name may change soon- and, honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if it changes a couple of times before we actually know what the heck we are supposed to be doing hehe. All we DO know is that we are going to adopt and that we both feel that is what we are supposed to do to add to our family. We want a boy and we want our children to be close together. After all of the searching I have done, this is still ALL that we know!! craziness...

Signs Signs everywhere signs... don't do this, do that, can't you read the signs

I was watching an awesome lady preacher on TV Saturday night. She was talking about how she wants to know that she is doing what God wants her to do. She told the story of how her husband asked God for a very specific sign that they were supposed to be married (this was before they got married, of course hehe) and how God totally revealed it to him in a very specific way.

So, even though J and I are absolutely sure that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, I asked God to give me a sign. I was halfway being silly and I didn't really think much about it.

Then yesterday, I decided to watch a Netflix movie on my computer while my kids were busy playing. I randomly picked a movie and I had NO IDEA what it was about. Out of thousands of movies that I could have picked, this one was about adoption. It was about an adult adoptee who wanted children very badly but did not want to adopt bc her mother adopted and she didn't want to be just like her mother. Everyone kept telling her that she would love an adopted child just as much as a bio child, but she refused. She had a miscarriage and then tried a fertility treatment that was unsuccessful... so in the end she adopted a beautiful little girl from China.

So I thought that was really cool. Then this morning I was watching Barney and it was about China. In the end, this little white boy was telling this little Chinese girl that he was her brother... she was adopted from China.

Maybe I'm just being weird, but this seems a little too coincidental to me.

Awesome Article

While researching Limb Differences I came across this article:

 http://www.rainbowkids.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=574

It's definitely worth reading!!

List of special needs

Ok so I have decided to get the list of "special needs" from the agency that I think we will go with and research every one of them. Some of them scare me- like heart problems- but maybe they would be less scary if I would just do a little research. Since we have several months before we can begin the process, I may as well. Then, we'll be more prepared in case we come across the perfect child for our family who has a need that we haven't considered. I would have never thought we'd be open to the special needs that we are open to now if I hadn't learned more about them.

I'll post what I learn and if anyone wants to add anything, please do!!! I want to learn as much as possible beforehand.

This is completely off topic. The day before yesterday I noticed that my daughter had mucous coming out of her eyes (yuck- I know). So we took her to the doctor in the morning and found out that she had an ear infection in both ears :( We picked up her amoxicillin and gave her some right away when we got home.

Not long after she took it, she started getting these big red bumps on her face and shoulders. Pretty soon they were all over her body. I googled it and realized she was having an allergic reaction. Soo scary!! The rash got bad quickly and we didn't know if it the reaction would get even worse- like her throat closing.

I called the doctor and the girl that answered the phone was like--- ok so do you want to make an appointment or leave a message for a nurse. Really???? Are you crazy??? But a nurse got on the phone and told me to give her benadryl right away and not to give her anymore of the amoxicillin. The rash was gone within 5 minutes after giving her benadryl. But, that was a little scary. Thank God her reaction was very mild.

Why am I so obsessed with fulfilling God's purpose for my life?

In October of 2008, we got one of those phone calls. You know the kind that makes everything in your life change in a matter of seconds. The kind that no one ever wants to get. The phone call that is in the back of your mind all of the time that you try to suppress and say- that happens to other people, but not me. Yeah, it was one of those.

My dad had cancer. To understand how shocking this was, you'd have to know my dad. He was very hyper and healthy. He loved life- and I'm not just saying that bc it sounds good. He LOVED life. He was very active and extremely happy. He was the guy that paid for everyone's dinner if you went out with him. He got sooo excited over little things like making a fresh pot of coffee or eating a peanut butter sandwich that mom made for him. He cried over Disney movies LOL.. seriously he did.

So, without going into too much detail, the next few weeks were a complete nightmare that no one should ever go through OR witness. It was horrific. I never knew that a person could get so ill and still be alive. He was in constant pain, tortured at the hospital for weeks, and could not eat a single thing for weeks. He went from a perfectly healthy (seemingly) 59 year old man to a man that looked like an 80 year-old holocaust victim. About 5 very long months later, he passed away at home. If you've been touched by cancer in your life, you know how bad it can get and I want you to know that, whoever you are, I am truly, truly sorry.

Seven weeks after my dad passed away, we got ANOTHER phone call. My husband's mom had cancer. You can't imagine the blow that this was. We were finally starting to try to get on with life and put the graphic images of dad in the past, when it started all over again. J's mom went through many of the things that my dad did. We went to Hong Kong to visit her and had the most amazing 2 weeks ever. We got so close that she ended up converting from Buddhism to Christianity minutes before her death- which was a complete miracle!!!

So, all of this to say, I learned a valuable lesson. I learned that our time here on Earth is short and there are no promises that we will even see tomorrow. We HAVE TO make today count. We have to reach out to people in need and to the lost. We have to win people to Christ. We can't wait for later to find God's plan for our lives. We have to ask Him what we can do now to serve Him. Maybe He'll tell you to go preach, maybe He'll say to do missionary work or fund missionary work. Maybe He'll say to reach out to people that you work with... Only He knows. But, we have to do something. There are too many hurting people in this world.

How did you find your child?

Someone asked this question in one of my yahoo groups. That is a good question! I always thought it would be better to have an agency pick a child and give you the referral. But, since we have 2 young children already, there are a lot of things with age to take into consideration. I thought that I would like to adopt a child that was younger than H, but after seeing that sweet boy's profile (he already got matched with a family btw) I think that a boy closer to C's age would be great, too. So, I may want to pick our child from Rainbowkids.com. Any advice? I guess I should't get too set on one agency over the other so that I can just go with the one that has our child listed. I know that they "share" profiles now, but I'm not really exactly sure how that works.

A lot of people have said that we should go ahead and have our homestudy done... but our orignal agency said that we need to do things in the proper order and have our homestudy done after we get our application approved.

Totally OT:

I bought my textbooks for school and will be starting in Aug. :0) I am REALLY looking forward to it. I'm such a nerd.... My first class will be on the Gospels and the book of Acts. I can't wait!! The program that I am in is set up for adults with a full-time life. So they have you take one course at a time- one night  a week (4hours) for 8 weeks. I'm going to go through December and then just register one class at a time while we are getting our paper work done. Then, after we bring our son home, I'll take a break for a while until we get well adjusted. I would like to get my Master's degree eventually, but my goal is just finishing one class at a time. If you already have young children, you know how quickly things can change and how hard it is to commit to anything!