A miracle

I don't know who, and I don't know why, but someone has blessed our Reece's Rainbow account with a huge donation.  I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw our balance today.  With the money I'll be getting from my contract work, it means that we're only $2000 short of being fully funded.  We are so incredibly grateful for this generosity.

Travel approval!

On January 29th, we received our travel approval!  We got our first choice consulate appointment of March 10th, but when we discovered how much cheaper flights would be if we waited a week (we're talking $3000+ less!), we rescheduled for the 17th of March.  We're SO excited that the wait is almost over!  We first learned about her on March 11th of last year, so it will be nearly a year to the day when we get her on March 9th.  We feel so incredibly blessed!

Zinnia, here we come!  

I'm just terrible at blogging...

But I'm pretty darn great at doing bulleted, catch-up posts!  Here's another, for your reading pleasure:

• Christmas was lovely, as always.  Compared to previous years, it felt like the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas lasted approximately 45 seconds.  A lot of our traditions were dropped because there simply wasn't time, but the important things were there - the tree, some gifts, the whole family, goody deliveries, and most of all - our thoughts of the Christ child.  

• On the very last day of the year, we received some long-awaited photos of Zinnia.  We were so saddened (OK, *I* was so saddened) to see that her foster family decided she needed a drastic haircut to "fix" the nightmare she appears to have inflicted on her own bangs.  I'm reminding myself it's just hair, and it will grow back.  And I'm packing hair bows.  

• The first week of the new year, we passed another milestone - sending Joshua off to his junior year of college.  He's decided to enter the communication disorders program (proud parents here!) and will be getting a doctorate in audiology.  We hope that he'll come back and join our practice when he finishes.  How awesome would that be?! 

Aw...  Isn't he cute standing in the snow WITH NO COAT?!

• About this same time, my hair started falling out by the fistful!  I have no idea what was causing it.  We did have a lot going on, but I wasn't feeling particularly stressed and hadn't experienced any of the events that sometimes trigger this type of hair loss (childbirth, anyone?).  I went to the doctor and everything was fine - my thyroid, my hormones, my diet - everything.  I was truly afraid that at the rate it was falling out, I was going to be bald in a couple of months!  I had already lost about 1/3 of my hair, so I decided that cutting about 14" off of it would help it look fuller.  It did, but two weeks later, the hair stopped falling out just as abruptly as it had started.  I'm kicking myself because I liked my long hair, but it grows really fast so it will be OK.  I have new hair growing all over my head that's about an inch long.  Crazy.  

• January 11 was Thalia's 10th birthday.  I cannot even.  10?!  10??!!  She is such a sweetie!  She loved everything she got - especially her new silvery glitter Walmart knock-off Uggs.  

• Zoe finally graduated from cosmetology school, so of course we had to attend her graduation ceremony.  By "graduated" I mean she punched out for the last time.  And by "ceremony" I mean we all stood around laughing while we posed with her dummy head and pretended to have it kiss us.  Like I always say, we're a high-class family.  In all seriousness, though, we're very proud of Zoe.  I'm ashamed to say that I used to have a low opinion of cosmetology school as a post-secondary option, but I promise you this girl has worked her hiney off and knows a heckuva lot more chemistry than I could ever cram into my brain!  She plans to move to Idaho, work for a year to get residency, and then start college at ISU. 

On our way to the big punch-out!

She looks thrilled, doesn't she?  The mannequin, I mean - not Zoe.

Punching out for the last time!  

• Then, oh then, ladies and gentlemen, it was Loundia's SIXTEENTH birthday on January 23rd!  Sixteen, folks!  Like she can go on a date!  Woo hoo!  

  
  
  

  Lily's daydreaming in the background, "I'm going to be 16 next..."

• Then came January 25th.  It was a hard day.  

  

  Miss my sweet mom

• Gratuitous cute dog picture because now I'm sad.

• In other really exciting news, we received our travel approval for Zinnia on January 26th.  You can read more about that and our travel plans here.  :)

LOA!

Lots of Astronauts?
Legs of Ants?
Little Old Apricots?
Lasting Outer Armor?
Lilliputians on Amoxicillin?

No, no - it's Letter of Seeking Confirmation of Adopter!

Wait, what?  That can't be right...  That'd be LOSCOA!

Whatever it is, I have it in my hot little hands, and it means we're that much closer to getting Zinnia home.  We've signed it and we're sending it to our agency and mailing our I-800 tomorrow, and then we'll wait not-so-patiently for our TA - Taco Aerospace Travel Approval.  Cool, huh?

If you think that's nifty, how about this?  We have some dear friends who moved away from our town several years ago, and it just so happens that through some crazy twists and turns, they are also adopting from China, also a child with Down syndrome, also with the same agency, and also at the same time.  They received their LOA too, and our agency has told us we'll probably travel together!  We're all pretty danged excited.

So remember that nice weather we had for Halloween?  Yeah, it's gone.  Our dogs are enjoying snow for the first time, as is one of the speech pathologists I'm currently supervising (she's from the Philippines so it's all new to her).  I don't have a picture of her frolicking in the snow, though I'm sure she did - she strikes me as a frolicker, but here's one of the dogs.  I can't get enough of their cuteness!

On Saturday, our kids had their voice and piano recital.  Our teacher is great, and all the kids did a nice job.  Unfortunately the camera wasn't rolling when Beck played, so we made him play his piece again at the end of the recital.  He happily obliged, but now that the recital is over, I hope I never hear that particular rendition of Jingle Bells again.  Like as long as I live.  Bless his heart, he practiced, but oy - I just can't.

 Yesterday, I had an MRI on my shoulder so my doctor can determine whether I need surgery.  I TOLD my doctor I am EXCEEDINGLY claustrophobic.  My first MRI almost landed me in the funny farm.  I insisted on sedation for the second.  I managed.  So based on experience (no sedation=bad, sedation=good), I asked for the good stuff again.  I was prescribed diazepam, and dutifully took it 30 minutes before my appointment.  As the time approached, I started to get worried that I wasn't feeling any differently.  The rad tech told me I should have had 10 mg, 1 hour prior, so she tried to slow things down to allow the medication to kick in.  It didn't.  I'll jump ahead a bit here to tell you that when I got home, I looked at the bottle and saw that I was given was one milligram.  One.

Anyway, we tried to get me into the tube, and I lasted about 10 seconds before sheer panic set in.  I was extricated quickly, and commenced sobbing/apologizing for my irrational behavior.  The tech suggested I come back later for full anesthesia, but I couldn't bear the thought of this already expensive procedure (remember that $15,000 deductible of ours?) becoming even more so.

So, I asked the tech to call my husband over from his office.  He came right away, and I asked him to give me a blessing.  He did, and as he spoke, I felt peace and calm wash over me.  We went back in, and even though I had some serious reservations, I was able to do it.  30 minutes I spent in that mouse hole.  I feel panic just thinking about it.  But I did it because God blessed me to be able to stand it.  Cool, huh?

So today we had something fun happen.  Two missionaries showed up at our house to make dinner.  For real!  They made fry bread that Elder M (right) learned to make while serving on a reservation.  We topped them (the bread, not the missionaries, although that would have been funny) with chili, lettuce, tomato, cheese and sour cream.  I wish this would happen more often.  ;)

English Toffee Fundraiser

We need a mere $5600 to have Zinnia's adoption fully funded.  I'm not being sarcastic when I use the word "mere," considering that's a tiny fraction of the total cost.  To help us close the gap, we're giving away delicious homemade English toffee to those who make donations to our Reece's Rainbow account.  Here are all the exciting details!  ;)

New pics and an update!

Since Yun Li's referral information was over a year old, I ordered a phone update through Ladybugs N Love a couple of days ago. They sent me the update FAST! I'm impressed!  Yun Li sounds like she is going to fit right in at our house. I can't wait to meet her!  I love her so much already!

Here are the questions I asked and the replies the orphanage gave:

1. What are YunLi's communication skills like? 

She can say some simple words, such as daddy, mommy, big sister, etc. she can understand adults.  

2. What does she learn in school? 

At preschool, she is learning language, numbers, art and crafts, gymnastics, etc.  

3. What does she like to eat and drink? 

She is not picky. She has good appetite. She likes to eat vegetable, fruit, cake, juice, etc. she loves them all.  

4. Does she have a nickname? 

Li Li. 

5. What does she like to do for fun? 

She loves to work. She loves to help teacher at preschool. She likes to help others. She likes to help foster mom to do chore.  

6. What is she good at? 

She is good at some simple work and chore.  

7. What things are challenging for her? 

Writing or learning school.  

8. What is her foster family like? 

There is a foster father, foster mother, and a big sister. There is also another little boy from the orphanage. They all love Yun Li.  

9. What is her personality like? 

She is active, restless, independent, and brave.  

10. Is she potty trained during the day and night? 

She is potty trained. Sometimes if she plays too hard and might have some accident. 

Her updated measurements:

Height: 103cm; Weight: 18kg; Head: 46cm; Foot: 17cm.

I need to plot her measurements on a Chinese growth chart, but she sounds like a tiny little peanut, like Thalia!  I'm loving that she isn't a picky eater, that she does gymnastics, and that she's active. Like I said, she's going to fit right in!  :)

Adoption education - DONE!

We received our adoption education certificates late last night, and I forwarded them to the agency.  That means all they're waiting on is two letters of reference, and then they can print our homestudy and I can send in our I800A. That has to be some kind of record!  Seriously!  Woohoo!

Not the way I would have chosen to spend the day...

One of the requirements of a homestudy is that all people and pets in a household have had a recent medical exam.  Last time we adopted I tracked down all the providers that had seen any of our kids during the previous year and had them fill out the agency-provided medical form and get it notarized, and then made appointments for the remaining kids and for Curtis and me (who had to be seen by a physician rather than a PA or NP).  This proved to be a huge hassle, so I decided that this time, I'd just take everyone in for a quick check-up and get it all done at once so that we only had one provider to deal with.  Thankfully, with the help of a very kind nurse, we were able to arrange for one physician to see everyone, and for one notary to notarize all of the forms.  The kids did amazingly well in spite of the fact that it wasn't much fun for any of them.  You can see from this photo that the annoyance level increased with age.  ;)

Jackson wasn't seen this day because he got beaten up during recess a couple of days earlier (yes, really) and I'd had to take him to the clinic to be seen, so his form was filled out by someone else and was waiting for us when I picked up the others.  (He is OK, but he was very sore and the PA thought he had a mild concussion.  The joys of third grade...)  After the kids' visits, I had to take our dog and cat to the vet to get their immunizations done, and because I couldn't find our cat carrier, a brand new shirt that I was wearing is now in the trash thanks to my terrorized cat shredding the crud out of it.  Waaaaaahhhh!

The kids were seen on Monday, and Curtis and I had our doctor visits on Tuesday.  I made cookies for the nurse, doctor and notary that pulled all this together for us, picked up the forms, and mailed them off to our agency that afternoon.  Awesome!  I am amazed at how quickly this is all coming together!  The only thing our agency is still waiting on is our education certificates (which will be emailed to them tomorrow) and two letters of reference (which should hopefully get there this week).

Pre-approval for Lydia :)

Today we received pre-approval from China to adopt Lydia, so I can finally post a couple of pictures.  Unfortunately, the only ones I have are a) embedded in the referral documents and b) more than a year old.  To celebrate getting our PA, I ordered a phone update through Ladybugs N Love which should also include some new photos.  They automatically request updated measurements on kids, but we were also able to ask 10 additional questions about Lydia.  We asked about her communication skills, activities she likes and is good at, things she has difficulty with, what her foster family is like, what her personality is like, etc.  I'm looking forward to getting to know more about her.

12 and 14

Today was a very special day.  We celebrated Maizie's 12th birthday (a couple of days early) and gave all the kids a present they'll never forget: news of #14.

12 candles!  Is it possible?!

Cutting the cake.  It's pink!  What could that mean?

We told the kids that they were going to be big siblings again (except Beck, who's a first-timer!) and asked them to guess whether they would have a brother or sister.  They were split about down the middle, but one guess what the boys were hoping for!  ;)

The first glimpse

When Maizie opened up her first present, she thought at first that she was looking at old pictures of Thalia, but nope!  That's not Thalia!  :)  The kids were all screaming and laughing and talking and asking questions at the same time.  It was delightful madness!  

Nope!  Not Thalia!  

A monster collection of loom bands from Grandpa and Kathy T

A new iPad case from Mom and Dad

Our kids had a thousand questions, so maybe you have a few, too.  Here's the story...

While we were in Shenzhen adopting Thalia in February of 2013, we met a little boy with Down syndrome who was very sweet and charming - so much so that when we got home, I tracked him down and was able to determine that he was available for adoption.  With our adoption so recent and our funds so lacking, bringing him home wasn't an option for us, but I did advocate for him and tried for a while to find him a family.  Because I had inquired about him and a couple of other kids over the past year, the China adoption program director of the agency he was listed with sent me information a couple of times.  I looked again at this little boy, as well as another darling boy with Down syndrome, but they just weren't "our" kids, and realistically, we just don't have the resources to be considering another international adoption.  The 9 adoptions we've done have completely wiped us out!

In spite of our financial circumstances, I kept having this nagging feeling that we needed to be open to another child with Down syndrome.  It wasn't something we were actively pursuing by ANY stretch, but the thought was there, just kind of floating around in my brain.  I started praying about it, and I essentially told God that I was willing to do whatever He wanted me to do, but that it would have to be a situation that would basically fall into our laps because we didn't feel we could look due to the cost.

So after getting the information about these two sweet boys and telling the agency that neither boy was right for us, I was asked what the "right" situation would be.  I replied that if I could hand-pick, I would want a girl (for the trivial reason that we wouldn't have to rearrange bedrooms yet again.  I'm really tired of rearranging bedrooms!), I would want her to be between 5-10, and I would want her not to have serious cardiac or other health issues because our distance from a children's hospital.  But even if we could find a child who met all these criteria, there was still the matter of our seriously battered financial circumstances.  It seemed completely hopeless, at least for a few more years.

This all happened on Monday of last week.  On Tuesday, I got yet another email from the agency that said that they had just had to return the file of a just-turned-6-year-old girl with Down syndrome to the shared list because the family that was working to adopt her had to withdraw for personal reasons.  I saw the girl's picture and was surprised to see that I remembered her from when she was first listed on Reece's Rainbow.  She was adorable and looked so much like Thalia!  I was definitely interested, but the money issue held me back from getting too excited.  It was frustrating not to be able to just call Curtis up and say, "Hey, what do you think?" and jump on it!

A little while later, I got on Facebook and was surprised to see the same little face staring back at me on my computer screen.  A friend who adopted using this agency often posts pictures of available children, and this was the child she had posted that day.  I scrolled through the comments, noting that most of them said things like "So sweet!" or "Adorable!" or "I wish I could talk my husband into adopting her!"  But then another comment caught my eye - one that said that this child had a substantial grant available to go toward her adoption.  I was immediately spurred into action!  I checked to be sure the grant was real and found that it was, so I called the agency, and said (and I quote), "Lock that file!"  The program coordinator was so sweet and so excited that there was already a family available for this little girl who had just lost a family, but as we talked and she worked to get the file locked, she discovered the key code she was supposed to use wasn't working.  We both started to panic knowing that because she was on the shared list, any agency could snap her up at any moment.  Finally the coordinator said that she was going to call "an agency [we're] friendly with" and have them lock the file so that it would be safe, but we could transfer it back later.  I waited 30 agonizing minutes to hear back from her, and when I did it turned out that she had called their in-China staff person at 1:30 in the morning, woke her up, made her FaceTime with the agency, and that they were able to get the file locked!  Whew!  I was so relieved I was practically in tears!

So from that point, we had 72 hours to make a formal decision, and the clock was ticking.  The first order of business was to share all of this with my husband, who had no idea what was about to hit him. As it turned out, he was working only a couple of hours that day, so when he got home from work I showed him the pictures and told him the story.  Curtis has always been awesome about embracing my crazy ideas about adding to our family, but often he needs some time - sometimes quite a lot of time! - to pray and research and consider for himself before we make a decision together.  On this day though, tears filled his eyes and then he laughed and laughed and said, "What in the heck are we doing?!  We're crazy!"  We hugged and laughed and decided to celebrate by going out for lunch and then to get passport photos that the agency required as part of our application.

The next order of business was to be certain that we would really be able to use the funds that were available for this child's adoption.  We knew from Thalia's adoption experience that when you sign up to have a fund with Reece's Rainbow, you sign a contract agreeing that any money that is raised for the child stays with that child in the event you decide you can't continue with the adoption.  We knew this was the case, but we wanted to get the official word before submitting the formal adoption application.  We didn't get an immediate answer, but the next evening (which happened to be my mom's birthday), we got word that the money was indeed staying with the child.  I cried and cried and prayed and cried some more.  I was so overwhelmed with gratitude, and felt so certain that somehow, my mom had a hand in what happened the way that it did.  The timing could not be coincidence.  If I hadn't asked about those boys when I did, and if the agency wouldn't have told me about the girl, or if I hadn't seen her on Facebook later that day, none of this could have come together like it did.

For those who may not know, my mom died rather unexpectedly after a month-long bout with complicated pneumonia.  She died the very day that Curtis and I were supposed to be flying to China to get Thalia.  It was such a heart-wrenching experience, and because of the timing, Thalia's adoption and the death of my beautiful mom are forever linked in my mind.  I fretted that my mom never got to meet Thalia, but I came to feel that she watched over Thalia over the month that we put off our trip to go get her.  Now I feel so strongly that my mom is not only watching over our sweet new daughter-to-be, but that she actually had some hand in bringing this all about.  Don't get me wrong - I know this is my Father in Heaven's doing, but I think of her as being on the sidelines cheering for us.  Getting this amazing news on her birthday was and is such a blessing to us.

So that's the story.  This wasn't planned, but it feels so incredibly right.  We've had so many staggering expenses over the last year that I really didn't let myself even think about another adoption.  But God has no limits, and He knew what He was doing.  I am so grateful to Him for providing this miracle to our family.  At the same time, I pray and grieve for the family that I'll never know who must be absolutely devastated for having to walk away from a child they thought would be a part of their family.  I don't know what happened in their lives to prevent their being able to fulfill these plans, but I know whatever it was, their hearts must be aching.  I pray that they will be comforted and somehow know that we will love this sweet child without end.  I will tell her that there is another family who also loves her from afar.  I love that she has been so valued and so wanted.  She deserves nothing less.

Now for the practical info.  ;)

Because our homestudy has been continually updated as part of Thalia's post-placement visits, we have two more visits with our social worker scheduled for Friday and Saturday, and then our homestudy is DONE!  This shaves a substantial amount of time off of our process.  We'll have to get background checks and driving record checks for the homestudy, but once those our received, our I-800A application can go to the USCIS office.  In the meantime I'll work on getting our dossier documents gathered, notarized and authenticated.  I really think that it's reasonable that our dossier can be on its way to China in 3 months given how much time we're saving with the homestudy.  From there, it's about a 6 month wait.  We could have her home before the end of the year if all goes smoothly.

The number one question our kids are asking is what we're going to name her.  We have no idea.  Her Chinese name is YunLi.  Her birthday is in February 2008, and she's cuter than sin.  As soon as we have our pre-approval from China, which should be this week, we'll post pictures.  We're supposed to be getting an updated social history and medical information too because her file is more than a year old.  She's tiny for her age, like Thalia, and has no known heart issues.

Thalia's first day of school

I just got home from taking Thalia to school.  As always, I have mixed emotions about first days of school.  I miss homeschooling and will always think of myself as a homeschooler at heart, but for the time being, this feels like the right path for us to be on.

As I said in a previous post, we had no intention of putting Thalia in school this soon and had planned to wait until fall for her to start.  But when we saw how well she did in her school in China, it made us re-think our plans.  We didn't want for her to lose the skills that she had already developed, and a big part of that was being able to participate in group activities, sit at her desk, and do the whole school "routine."  We worried that it would be a huge adjustment later on, rather than a smaller one now.  I feel good about it, but we're always willing to reassess if things don't seem like they're going well.  For now, even before an IEP is in place, she'll be with her regular ed class for homeroom, art, music, PE, library, and that kind of thing.  She'll be in the special ed room for the other subjects.  We'll worry about how to get a greater percentage of her day mainstreamed when she starts 3rd grade in the fall, but with so little of the school year left, our thinking is that it will just give her time to get settled, get more comfortable with English, and give the rest of us more of an idea of what she's able to do and what we need to work on.  I think she's in good hands.  :o)

Thalia with her 15 pound backpack she insisted on carrying herself

Thalia and Mrs. K

Video: meeting Thalia for the first time

Here's a video of us meeting Thalia for the first time.  Lots of crying babies in the background, but definitely a special and fun day!

Thalia's "birthday"

I have made no secret about the irritation and sadness I felt over the fact that our former agency sat on our dossier for two months before getting it logged in.  Completing our adoption in November would have meant Thalia would have been home for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, and for her 8th birthday in January.  Most importantly to me, she would have met my mom.  It's hard for me to think about how close we came.  I know that my mom can see Thalia and knows her, but I would love to have had some pictures of the two of them and to know that they'd seen each other and laughed and hugged together.  It makes me so sad that this opportunity didn't come.  I'm trying to be forgiving and not let anger fester in my heart, but it hurts, hurts, hurts.

I can't do anything about that, or Christmas or Thanksgiving, but I decided that by golly, we were going to celebrate her birthday.  I wasn't going to let that be stolen from us.  It was simply postponed by 8 weeks.  :o)  I give you - the birthday photos!

The miracle of Thalia

I have so many thoughts floating around in my mind about this whole experience, but mostly I am consumed with gratitude.  I don't even know how to put into words how incredible Thalia is, and beyond that, how - what's the word?  Cozy? Complete? Content? - our family has already grown to be with her in it.

The flights (three of them!) and two-hour drive home, as miserable as they were, were about as perfect as they could have been.  Thalia played with the iPad most of the time, but also watched a little TV, ate and slept.  She didn't fuss or get out of her seat.  She seemed perfectly content just to be with us.  She was amazing.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we were met at the airport by a couple of reporters, as well as my dad and some friends.  Despite being awake almost continuously for 30 hours, Thalia kicked into performance mode and melted everyone's hearts.  As we were coming down the escalator, she waved with her arm and shouted, "Hello!" to everyone in the baggage claim area.  :o)  She grinned for the cameras, gave hugs all around, and played with my friend's son, who also has Down syndrome, as if they were lifelong friends.  It was as if she knew all those people were waiting there for her.

Once we got home, as I predicted, she was mauled by her siblings and cousin.  She ate it up!  They showed her everything - the kitchen, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the dog, the cats - you name it.  I worried they would overwhelm her but she seemed to take it all in stride.  We stopped the "meet and greet" long enough to watch the news report on the 10:00 news, talked for a bit, had family prayer, and then put everyone in bed.  We heard her really cry for the first time that night when she woke up needing to go to the bathroom, but she went right back to sleep right afterward.

Since then, our days have been filled with her giggles (and occasional chastisements accompanied by finger waggling), and her siblings, teens included, have continued to follow her around like lovesick puppies.  Several of them have come to me separately with the same statement:  "Mom, I love Thalia."  Indeed, she is easy to love.

It's true that once the novelty wears off and she's no longer everyone's golden girl, she'll occasionally get an earful when she crosses someone's path.  But I can already sense that there's something different about this adoption than our previous ones.  Our kids, even the younger ones, seem to understand that Thalia is special.  Not just in the sense that there are things she can't do and may never be able to do, but also because they get that she is most definitely supposed to be a part of this family, and because they perceive that somehow, she is closer to God than the rest of us.  The jealousy that has been evident  in the language and behavior of some of the "old" kids during the adoption of "new" kids is simply absent this time around.  Everyone seems to understand that we all need to work together to make this family the best that it can be for our newest member.  It's like someone has bumped us up to a higher spiritual plane.  I don't know how else to describe it.

The house is messier than usual, but the feelings of peace and harmony have increased dramatically.  I can't get too upset over finding toys in the living room (a big no-no!) when those toys are surrounded by 6 or 7 children playing happily and cooperatively and without the usual bossiness or bickering over who's doing what.  I can't get too bent out of shape when the Friday night bedtime of 10:00 gets pushed back to 11:00 because the kids are putting on their own version of "So You Think You Can Dance."  I can't be tempted to throw up my hands and tell Curtis the kids are all his when they've kept me entertained and laughing with their activities, most of which are centered around Thalia and her abilities.  I love seeing my teens jostling for her attention and playing with her and teasing her and taking her on little outings.  It all almost seems too perfect.

My natural tendency as a pessimist would be to look at this situation and say, "Well, this is the honeymoon period, and we all know what happens when they end - and it ain't pretty."  But I know that this time it's different, that this is our new normal, and it's OK for me to rejoice in it and not be waiting for the other shoe to drop.  We've had a hard, hard road to walk over the last few months.  There have been many changes, some positive but still stressful, and some really difficult.  Losing my mom was and is SO hard.  Our oldest daughter is struggling in ways that we worry over constantly.  We have big changes happening within our business.  We said goodbye to our oldest son as he went off to serve a two-year mission.  These things weigh on our minds, but Thalia is like a soothing balm.  I feel like God is telling us, "I can't take away all the things that trouble you, but I have given you something to help you enjoy your time while you're schooled in patience and your faith is tried."  I truly feel happier than I have in ages, and I consider myself a reasonably happy person to begin with.  I feel joy, and it's awesome.  :o)  This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the blessing I received many months ago in which I was promised that Thalia would bless our lives in ways we couldn't even imagine.  I was also told that she wouldn't be plagued by the attachment and grief issues that have affected some of our other children to various degrees.  I was told she would be a delight, and she absolutely is.  She's a delight with an occasional attitude, but a delight nonetheless.  ;o)

I'm so grateful that God brought us all together.  I had no idea what we were missing.

Our 15 minutes

When we arrived at the Billings airport on Wednesday, we were met by a reporter from KULR 8 News and another from the Billings Gazette.  Even though we'd been up for about 30 hours and at least *I* looked it, we answered their questions and tried to sound as chipper as we could.

Here's a link to the Billings Gazette article, "Miles City Family Adds 13th Child with Adoption of Chinese Girl."

And here's a link to the KULR 8 News story, "Girl with Down Syndrome Adopted from China."  (Click on "watch the video.")

There were a few errors in each, such as the KULR 8 reporter saying we had 13 kids already and were adding Thalia, and the newspaper story saying that kids in China end up in "insane asylums" at 16.  I was actually talking about the plight of Russian orphans at the time, and the fact that at age 4-6, they are moved from their fairly decent "baby houses" to adult mental institutions.  I said that most of these places were akin to the insane asylums in the US around the turn of the century - not good places.  She also reported that it takes 18-24 months to adopt a special needs child, when in reality it's 9-12.  I'm not sure where she got those numbers.

I was a little frustrated that certain parts were cut from the interviews, because the reason we agreed to do them was to help raise some awareness about special needs adoption, and about Down syndrome in particular.  We wanted people to be able to hear our story and think, "Hey, maybe I could do that, too!"  But they cut the parts where we talked about the financial help that's available, and the specifics about how to start.  I know they were thinking "human interest story," but we wanted it to be more practical.  Add to that the flack that we've gotten in the comments sections of both sites about why we didn't adopt from the US foster care program, and bleh...  I'm just not that excited about having done this.  Oh well. Live and learn.

For those who are curious about why we didn't adopt from foster care, here is my response:


1. We went where God led us, and that's really all there is to it.
2. We believe that God is "no respecter of persons;" He loves everyone equally and infinitely, and so should we. Although we like to think so, Americans don't hold a greater place in His heart. And James 1:27 is pretty clear about our responsibility to orphans.
3. The American foster care system, while admittedly flawed, is a thousand times better than any orphanage setting. Kids live in families, have food, clean water, clothing, medical and dental care, education, and ideally - love. Kids in orphanages in developing nations have few of those opportunities. In some of the worst places, they have virtually none.
4. Tagging onto number 3 above, it pains my heart that there are so many children in the US who suffer abuse and neglect and are removed from their homes of origin. I pray for them constantly. But I can't see what I've seen and not feel the need to prioritize a bit. Children in orphanages, especially the bad ones, are truly "the least of these." They need to be rescued from the circumstances they're in or chances are great that THEY WILL DIE. Those who survive live dismal, and short, lives because people with disabilities are not valued.
5. The several times we've inquired about children (especially hard-to-place sibling groups) in foster care, the usual response is no response, or we're told our family is too large. A friend of ours recently spent a year trying to find a foster care sibling group to adopt and had the same experiences - they were repeatedly ignored, turned down due to family size (their family is smaller than ours), or otherwise rejected. They finally did a private adoption recently. To reject larger families out-of-hand when there are so many kids who need homes is shameful, especially when those families tend to include experienced adoptive parents who are familiar with and accepting of the challenges that come with older child adoption.
6. And finally, my question to anyone who asks me why I haven't adopted foster children is, "How many have YOU adopted?" If the answer is none, you ain't got no business being critical of our decisions. ;) But really, point #1 is THE reason we've built our family the way we have.

Consulate appointment, safari park and pizza - a full day!

Today we went to our 8:30 consulate appointment with Thalia, and then our guide and driver dropped us off at the Chimelong Safari Park for the day. We had a blast! The park was beautiful, the weather was perfect, and the animals were amazing! The enclosures were very large and the animals appeared to have good care. It was incredible to see how many of each type of animal there were. It wasn't just a tiger or giraffe or elephant here and there, but whole herds of them! There were also babies being cared for by their parents, elephants trumpeting like crazy, and animals like lemurs and monkeys and large birds outside of their enclosures for all to see. It was so much fun. Thalia loved it, and we'd recommend it to anyone visiting Guangzhou. It was kind of pricey (200 yuan) but comparable to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and totally worth it. There's a 30 minute train ride included in the purchase price, and the rest of the park is explored on foot. You can also rent strollers for 20 yuan.



After the park, we went out for pizza at Calgary Stampede Pizza (which is right by our hotel) with the new friends we've met here. It was a great day!