Adoption Journal – 17

Ok.  I can’t wait til tomorrow to post my last adoption journal entry because National Adoption Month ends today.  So, for your reading pleasure, here’s the last installment (for now) of Adoption Journal entries. . . .  It is dated June 1st, 2001.

SHE LIKES US!!!!  She wants to meet us!  She has pretty much chosen us but wants to meet us!

She has school-age children who don’t even know she was pregnant, and she wants to keep it that way.  We will go next week during the day while the kids are in school.  We will meet Miss C, the birthmom, and then go meet the baby in the hospital.

He gained a little weight so the doctors are optimistic and think they will possibly release him in 10 days!  And it is probable that he will come home with US at that time!  We have some work to do and some diapers to buy!!

Lord, if this is the one, then let it happen!  Thank you, Lord!!

And then, 3 days later is the very last (very short) entry:

The meeting is set.  We are going Thursday morning to Detroit to meet Miss C and then to meet Baby Boy Glenn!!

Well, as it ended up, we got a call the night before our planned meeting.  The agency informed us that the baby would be released from the hospital the next day and wondered if we wanted to bring him home.

Did we want to bring him home??!! Well, YEAH!!!!!

Oh, my.  We quickly (with the help of some very dear friends) bought diapers and some clothes and some formula.  And another friend came over and set up the crib!  We worked until late into the night, but we got it all done.

And the next day, on Thursday June 7, 2001 we drove the 2 hours to Detroit.

We met Miss C at the adoption agency and really liked her.  She was so sweet but so sad and so thankful.  Her main request was that we make sure the baby always knows that she loves him very much.  We did our best to assure her that we would love her baby forever and would take good care of him.  We tried to express our thankfulness and gratitude and humble spirit at being chosen to adopt her newborn. And in a very short 1/2 hour meeting we tried to find out as much stuff about her as possible, not knowing if we’d ever see her again:  She thought the movie Titanic was too long and ridiculous and stupid.  We laughed at her description of it!  She ate lots of spaghetti while she was pregnant.  It was her favorite food.  Her dad has diabetes. . . .

After saying goodbye to the very lady who carried and birthed our son-to-be, we went straight to the hospital – to the NICU – to meet our son.

He was tiny!!  He was very tiny!!!  We held him and rocked him and fed him a bottle.  We took photos of our new baby and of the nurses who had cared for him for 3 and a half weeks.  And then we dressed him. The preemie clothes we brought for him swallowed his little 4 pound body right up!  Then we waved goodbye to the nurses and the social worker and walked out with our precious baby boy, Zachary Aaron.

And that’s the nutshell version of our adoption story.  <sigh>  Love it!  Love it!

 

Adoption Journal – 16

For National Adoption Month, I’m sharing my journal from when we adopted 8 and a half years ago.  This entry is dated May 31, 2001 and is the day we first learned about Baby Boy Glenn — our Zachary!

There is a birthmother scheduled to see our profile tomorrow afternoon.  The baby is already born; he’s nearly 3 weeks old and is still in the hospital.  He was born at 33 weeks (the mother had an infection in her amniotic fluid) and tested positive for cocaine.  He apparently went through some pretty major withdrawal but seems to be over that.  He weighed only 4 lbs 6 oz at birth, and his lungs weren’t mature.  He isn’t eating well and has lost about a pound, and he is in an incubator to help his breathing.  He is African-American.  His mother will learn all about us tomorrow.  Is this our baby?

Lord, have your will.  If this baby is the one You have for us, we pray that his mother will like us.  Give her peace and direction as she makes these difficult decisions concerning her son.  Have Your will, Lord!

Did she like us?  Did she choose us?  Find out tomorrow right here on this blog!!  🙂

Adoption Journal – 15

Here’s another entry from my adoption journal.  This journal entry isn’t dated, but it falls right into place in my journal that there is a good chance that I wrote it around the day that Zach was born; but, of course, we had no idea.  <sigh>  Amazing to read it again!

And we wait.  We have no idea how long we will wait.  Yes, the need for families to adopt black children is great, but there is no guarantee that this will be quick.

Will a black birthmom choose a white family to raise her child?

Will a birthmom choose a family who is pregnant to raise her child?

We have pictured the adoption taking place before the birth of our other baby, but that might not be the case.

I have an adoption bracelet that I wear everyday to remind me to pray for our baby (since I can’t feel him/her kick).  However, it is hard to pray not knowing if the baby is even conceived yet or at what stage of pregnancy he/she is in or if it has even already been born.  God knows, of course, and that is a beautiful comfort.

We continue to be filled with peace and confidence about the adoption.  We look so forward to getting our new baby!  Prepare us, Lord!

And prepare us QUICK!  Little did we know that Zach was being born about that time and that we would bring him home in 3 and a half weeks!!  How exciting!

Considering adoption but think you can’t afford it?  Check out here, here, here, and here for information on grants for adoption.

Adoption Journal – 14

Almost to the end . . . .  Keep reading . . . . .  This journal entry isn’t dated, but probably is a day or so before Zach was born.

We have started talking about names for the babies.  Even though we have no idea if they will be boys or girls, we have envisioned adopting a boy and being pregnant with a girl.  We’ll see in a few months.

Funny that we are picking two names at the same time.  At present we like Sophie Annette for a girl and Zack Anthony or Quincy Aaron for a boy.  We have others that we like, too, but these are our favorites.

Certainly we are doing better this time than when we went to the hospital with a list of 12 or so names for Elliot!  Ha!

Funny that we sorta knew we were adopting a boy and were pregnant with a girl.  And we kept pretty close to the chosen names.  We ended up with Chloe Annette and Zachary Aaron.

A name is a very important thing, isn’t it?

Besides making sure the name sounds nice and trying to ensure we are not setting our child up for some terrible nickname, Paul and I also took care to choose names with meanings that we could claim for our children.

Elliot Alan.  Elliot means “My God is the Lord.”  Wow.  That is a strong name.  And we gave him the middle name of Alan because that’s Paul’s middle name.  Alan means rock or little rock or handsome.  I like all of those for Elliot.  I certainly think he’s handsome.  And I pray that he is always a strong rock, standing firm in his faith and in his character.

Zachary Aaron.  Zachary means The Lord Remembers.  Yes, it’s a perfect name.  The Lord certainly remembered Zachary — in his birthmother’s womb . . . in the NICU after he was born . . . three weeks later when we picked him up and brought him home . . .  and still today the Lord remembers Zachary!  We decided to stick with middle names starting with A.  Aaron means mountain and enlightened.  Wow.  I like those, too.  The two words make me think of wisdom and confidence — two things I pray for Zach.

Chloe Annette.  Chloe means blooming and verdant and growing.  Oooo.  I like that.  We have watched that little girl slowly blooming right before our eyes!  And the growing and verdant (green) part makes me think of alive and fresh, which she totally is!  Neat!  Annette means grace and favor and full of grace.  Wow!  That makes me want to holler!  She is so full of the favor and grace of God!  It is just all over her.  I can’t even express what a perfect name that is for her. . . .  Now, I must admit if you were to see her walking down the hallway, you would not say she is very graceful!!  Ha!  No, it’s not that kind of grace.  But it’s a more beautiful kind of grace that radiates off of her and touches and blesses everyone she knows.  Graceful, indeed!

Well, now that I’m all touched and emotional and covered with chills reminding myself of the meanings of my kids’ names, I would love to hear about your kids’ names.  Why did you name them what you named them?  What do they mean?  What does it mean to you?

Adoption Journal – 13

The end of the month is nearing . . . . the end of National Adoption Month and the end of my adoption journal entries.  Thanks for reading them with me!

This one is dated May 7, 2001 (exactly one week before Zachary was born!).  It seems we had already settled into the idea of two babies.  🙂

Lord, thank you for this baby growing inside of me!  You are awesome to give us this special gift!

We also come to You asking for the gift of an adopted baby if it is Your will.  We desire to adopt a baby, Lord.  We have wanted it for a long time, and we feel that our hearts are so ready to adopt.  Lead us, Lord.  Continue to direct us.  Thank You for the peace that we have about continuing the adoption.  But we ask that You would continue to open and close doors according to Your will.

And I wanted to go ahead and include the next entry today.  It doesn’t have a date, but it has to have been shortly after the previous one. . . .

We had our first OB appointment today.  What joy to be going through the prenatal stuff again.  Everyone at the doctor’s office congratulated us on not only this pregnancy but also on our pending adoption!  How exciting to be in this place!

The doctor thinks I’m 10 weeks along and says my due date is December 14.  So if the adoption takes place soon, the babies will be about 7 months apart.  That will be 7 months that I can spend bonding with the new baby (and getting him/her on a good sleep schedule!!).

We heard the baby’s heartbeat today, too!  Incredible!

Lord, thank You for the two babies You are preparing for us!

Did you know that while white couples wait and wait for a white baby to come available for adoption that black babies will often wait and wait for a family to adopt them, simply because of their race??  There is a big need for people to adopt African American babies right here in the US.  Today I pray for more families to choose African American adoption!

 

Thankful, So Thankful!

I am a happy and thankful woman!

I am thankful for my children and for my husband.  I am thankful for my parents and brothers and sister-in-law.  I am thankful for my in-laws — the whole crew!  I am  thankful for all my nephews and nieces.  I am thankful for my friends and for my neighborhood and for my church.  I am thankful for my kids’ schools and their teachers.  I am thankful for my home.  I am thankful for my salvation through Jesus Christ and for the promise of eternal LIFE through Him.  I am thankful for the sunshine.  And today I’m thankful for yummy food and time to hang out with those whom I love!

But bigger than my thankfulness for these things is the amazing Thanksgiving miracle that took place for one little orphan girl with Down Syndrome sitting alone in an orphanage in Europe.  Darya received the promise of a loving family to adopt her today!  Check it out here and get the update!  Thank you, Lord, for loving Darya!

And continue to pray today for all the other orphans in the world.  May they know God’s peace today!

Adoption Journal – 12

I am loving National Adoption Month!  Loving re-living our adoption experience.

Here’s the next entry.  This is following the news of my pregnancy, which really took us by surprise!  It was a shock — and not a completely good shock, which seems so odd for someone experiencing infertility. . . .

This entry is dated May 2, 2001.

Immediately after taking the pregnancy test, Paul and I picked up some friends (who had dealt with infertility for years and were beginning the adoption process) and drove to Kentucky for a church leadership retreat.  We would be spending a long weekend on a houseboat on a lake in Kentucky with some really good friends — friends who had walked with us through our adoption journey thus far.  We were in the car with them for hours without mentioning the pregnancy to them.  Paul and I had not even been able to discuss the pregnancy and to process what it meant for us.

That night, half-way to Kentucky, we even shared a hotel room with our friends so we still couldn’t talk about it!  We did decide, however, that either we needed to tell our friends and the other couples who were on the retreat about the the pregnancy or else we would not be able to talk about it until after the retreat. And I thought I might explode if I couldn’t talk about it!

The next day in the car, we talked to our friends about the pregnancy and about our feelings about it.  It was more awkward to talk about it since these friends were right in the thick of infertility.  How can we not simply be thrilled to be pregnant?

We, of course, were thrilled and blessed by the new life growing inside of me — there was no doubt this pregnancy was a gift from God!  But we were also very frustrated.  We were so sure that God had spoken clearly to us that now was the time to adopt.  This pregnancy obviously showed us that we had missed it. We had misunderstood what God was calling us to do.  The Bible says the sheep know the Shepherd’s voice — and we obviously didn’t know His voice!  We had missed it!  And we were crushed!

We had weird mixed feelings of joy and blessing and confusion and bewilderment.  We were left feeling alone since we had messed up so badly.

After telling our friends about the pregnancy and about our feelings, they immediately spoke into our lives encouraging us that we do know God’s voice, that He did speak clearly to us, that we were obeying Him!  What we needed to do now was to figure out what this new piece of the puzzle meant for us.

During the weekend of the retreat while we told more people and began to process this new information, we became more comfortable with the idea that perhaps God wanted both adoption and another biological chid for us.  We knew that this pregnancy was NOT a surprise to Him!  And the pregnancy did not change the fact that He was saying, “Adopt!”  Several people agreed that perhaps God was giving us TWO new babies!

Continue to direct us, Lord!

It was becoming clear why God had made it so clear to us that it was time to adopt.  If He had not made it so clear, then surely we would have stopped the adoption process and just enjoyed the pregnancy and biological baby that God had given us.  We probably would have continued the adoption process later, but we would have missed out on what God had for us.  He had communicated so clearly to us to make sure we followed through with Zach’s adoption!

God is so good!  And He is so patient!  And He knows us so well!  He knew exactly what Paul and I needed at that time.  And He knew exactly what Zachary needed in a family.  What a good and loving God!

Chicken Tenders

Have you seen the movie Kung Fu Panda?  I haven’t.  But my boys have.

Apparently in the movie, someone gets hit or kicked between the legs.  Then he doubles over and exclaims, “Ooooo!  My tenders!”

Well, my boys quickly adopted the nickname “tenders” for their boy-parts.  They quote the movie fairly often and use the word “tenders” with great joy.  They certainly had some fun with the word this summer when Elliot had surgery on an undescended testicle —  the tenders doctor, the tenders surgery, the tenders scar, etc.

In light of their overuse of the word “tenders” in the past year or so, imagine, if you will, the reaction I received from two grossed out little boys when I pulled up at the Chicken Express drive-thru last night and ordered CHICKEN TENDERS for dinner!!!

 

Adoption Journal – 11

Continuing on with my adoption journal from when we were adopting Zach 8 and a half years ago, here’s the next entry dated May 2 . . . .  less than 2 weeks before Zach was born:

Our reference letters arrived.  Our criminal clearances arrived.  And this afternoon I turned in my medical form, the last piece of paperwork!  We officially became a waiting family!!!  Wow!!!  Yea!!!

THEN . . .

The curve ball from God:  two hours after turning in our last piece of the paperwork and being announced as a waiting family, I took a pregnancy test which was positive.  Positive!  Yes, I am pregnant!!

What does this mean?

What do we do about the adoption?

God, is this for real?  What are you doing??

We were floored at the news of my pregnancy!  Floored, shocked, and dismayed!  Tomorrow’s journal entry is a long think-it-through entry.

 

An Amazingly Sweet Cause

You must go visit this blog today.  There, the blogger explains the Darya Project — an amazingly sweet effort by an 11-year-old girl to raise the money to adopt her sister-to-be from Europe.  Her sister-to-be, Darya, has Down Syndrome and is waiting for her forever family.  Read about it here and even consider being a part of the fund-raising effort!

Amazingly sweet, eh?