Age

What does age mean?  It can mean a lot, it can mean you can or cannot stay up until a certain time, it can mean you rely on someone to drive you around if you are not old enough to do it yourself.  It can mean that you are able to be sent off to war to protect our Country.  It might be that you are old enough to make decisions for yourself and have enough experience that some of those decisions are really good!

It can also mean that you have began to understand who you are, but I think even that changes over time with people.

Why am I speaking of this?  As we are trying to move forward in adoption age is a serious question.  Is there a point where age does matter? What does that look like, who does it matter to? How does it matter, what will it effect?

There are a lot of different answers to the above questions, depends on everyone's experiences!

We are considering a journey much different than we had imagined, considering something that at times seems a little crazy, but in my heart feels right.

Those of you that read this that have adopted know that we all have a different calling, that we all have different abilities and that we all have to figure those out and choose them.  It is not easy, I know for me there are some major things that I know that I cannot handle and some that seem ok, but it is really the little things that seem to be harder to know if you can handle. Those are the things you have to let faith lead in though.
We will hopefully be announcing next week what our journey is until then any advice on age or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!

Back to the Drawing Board!

People ask, why do you post about things that could change, doesn't that make it harder?  Yes, it does, but I want anyone who is about to enter the world of adoption to see that it is hard, there are so many bumps in the road and they are not alone.  I don't want anyone to give up just because the plan changes!  Because in the end you will have a child, a child that is so precious to you and that those bumps seem so minor to what THEY have been through.

So yes we hit a bump at the end of last week, we will not be working with the Agency we thought we would, it is a very strange story but I am ok with it.  I do not want to be part of ANYTHING that does not put the needs of children first.  We had really prayed about it last week, I fully gave it to God and for the first time in a long time I did not have to really listen, it was a NO do not move forward and he put a clear stop to that path.

So now we are back to the drawing board, we are going to speak to the agency that we used when we adopted Chaltu, this week, we also are considering domestic adoption.  There are a lot more things to consider if we move forward in that direction, but there are several (that we have seen basic profiles) children that are school age but younger than Chaltu waiting...I am more nervous about this than international so we have to do some major homework and praying!

The journey continues!

What good is history??

Well- if you learn from it a lot is good about knowing history!!  If you are wondering what I am talking about...well we are just beginning with the home study and we are already running into road blocks.

1. Dr. Appts...impossible to get I had to actually explain myself 3 times of why Chaltu needs to see the Dr. and the person could not understand as it has only been 6 months since she was seen.  She actually did not know how to make an appt  since it had not been a year... What?????? Weird!!!

2. Fingerprints- no Duane did not slice his finger again (for those who don't know that happened the week of fingerprints during our first adoption!) but we were suppose to go on Thursday, now Duane's work schedule has changed...

3. Notary- Due to Duane's work changing this will now have to wait until next week. UGH!!!

So what does all of this mean? Well our home study social worker is available July and September- then she retires! She is gone the month of August!  So all of this means that we may have to wait until September to get our home study completed UGH!!!! Of course we could have a different social worker, but we love ours!!

You might be asking yourself what does all of this have to do with my title?  Well, lucky for me I remember the history of our first adoption, the set backs, the tears, the anxiousness....I am not saying that it is easy to look at the above 3 and be ok with it, BUT all of those set backs  that we had in the first adoption led us to Chaltu!! God always has a plan and even when we think that it is going astray if we will wait we will see just how beautiful it actually is!

On a separate note, we have decided on a Country- Uganda!!  We are very excited to see how this all unfolds.  If anyone has any information or knows anyone that has adopted from there I would love to chat!!!

Heres to making more history!!

Decisions...decisions...decisions!

We went to our intake meeting! All was great! We are now in the process of making a decision on a Country.  

We are going between Ghana and Uganda, they both have their risks and their benefits! We have seen profiles of children from both Countries which can make it a bit harder, but we are trying to put those out of our mind for now and decide on Country.  

The Agency we are using as had great success in Ghana, but it is risky as most other Regions have suspended adoptions, so I am a bit nervous about it.

Then with Uganda it is a pilot program for this agency, so that will incur risk...UGH! Any advice out there or things to consider would be greatly appreciated!!

As for Chaltu in this process?? (I can't not talk about my angel!!) She is very excited! We are providing her with as many answers, details she wants.  We want her to feel comfortable with this, it also shows her what all we went through to get her, I say this in a positive way, she can see how hard we worked to have HER as our daughter!  She asked me the other day when I was working on homestudy paperwork if I had to do ALL that paperwork when we were adopting her...when I said yes, she smiled so big!  How important all these small details are to our girl!  I leave you with an adorable pic of her!! Thanks in advance for any other thoughts or advice!

Dusting off!

I began this blog...well almost 3 years ago! We began the process of our first adoption 3 years ago this month!  It is hard to believe that it has only been 3 years! The year and a half of paperwork and process was...well you can read my blog to see how it was!  But the past year and a half has been AMAZING! Chaltu is the most wonderful, delightful, beautiful child.  She has touched us in ways we could have never imagined.  God truly blessed us.  With that, we begin the process again.  We have been dipping our toes in the adoption pool for about 9 months, we almost took the plunge last summer but it failed before it really started.  But now we are diving in!  Tomorrow we have our intake meeting and it is where it all begins.

I wonder what this second time around will be like, will I be as anxious or scared? Will I have the sleepless nights?  There are so many decisions out there that we still have to make...what Country, what age, how many, are we thinking of gender???

Then I wonder how will Chaltu do, she says she is excited, but I know there is a part of her that is scared, scared we won't love her, scared of what this will mean for her. I know that in the long run everything will be fine with her, but I don't worry about long runs, I worry about the now!

It feels good to be writing again and I hope those of you who use to follow me will join again, as your support, comments and reading your blogs got me through! I leave you with a beautiful picture of our girl!

how is she acting...

I was asked today how does Chaltu react to fun things like May Procession, Mother, Daughter tea, fancy dresses and all new stuff? 
As I think about it made me want to post about a few things that she is still "going through"

She loves all of it, but when she gets to much (stuff or doing a lot) she still gets over stimulated, her reaction to this?? she wants me, it should all be about her and she wants more and more.  She gets very self-centered.  This happened this week with the dresses I bought, as in the same down I also gave her 2 books and a movie, WAY to much spoiling in one day, by the end of the night she had to give me the movie back as her behavior was not appropriate.  My lesson, stuff in small doses, my guess is she subconsciously thinks this could end so better get all she can while we are giving!  I could be totally wrong and she just wants more!!

The other piece she is still going through- being alone, does NOT like to be alone, by alone I mean in a room by herself. She is still sleeping with us, actually me in her bed, but nonetheless, she cannot sleep alone (never has)  she also will not go upstairs without one of us with her, which kind of stinks as she wants to play with her stuff, but is scared to be alone, if I go upstairs to get something and I don't tell her she will ask where I am.  She is really afraid to be left alone, we are working through it and taking small steps to get her comfortable although she did tell me that even when she is married she and her husband will sleep with me and her daddy!!  LOL!!!

so these are two of things we are still working through.  Not too shabby and not anything we cannot handle.  Just thought I would share!!

short update

We have been home just under 5 months! It is hard to believe!  My posts have been off and on as i find very little time to write! 
So here we are and what Miss Chaltu is up to!  She continues to excel in school, math is her favorite subject and she is learning to read more and more everyday.  Homework use to take 2 hours as I had to read and explain what she had to do, now she does it without my completely!!  She has made a lot more friends and has finally come out of her shell at school! Today we have our first all day play date!  She is really excited, as she is completely bored playing with me!

her language booms every week, she has lost most of her amharic, but still speaks her native language.  She now loves to wear her down (out fro style!)  She ran her first race last week and enjoyed it.  She gets in trouble as a normal 7 year old should!!

She is not sleeping in our bed anymore, although I now sleep in hers...baby steps!

She does not talk about her first family as much anymore, but is comfortable when she does.  She does not like to make decisions (what to eat, what show to watch, what dress to keep!) not sure if this is normal 7 year old behavior or not!

Eating- we have added pancakes, waffles and yogurt to the mix!  Mash potatoes are ok, but prefers boiled. 

I am not sure what else, while I am sure there is so much else!!  She is the light of our lives!!