Remember the list of things to take to Ukraine that I previously posted? Well, thanks to Charissa and her wonderful heart and story, I have decided to add this to my list.
P.S. Their story is one that truly touches my heart. God bless them and their little girl Ava.
Dear all of you nice blog readers that could actually care what this total stranger has to write about,
I remember that I'd said if I had more time, I'd say a bit more about the whos and whens.
But frankly, how can I ?
Both of these answers (which child and the timing) are only determinable by God. Today has enough trouble of its own. I don't and won't worry about either. I trust it will happen when and with and however He writes such fate to occur.
But what I do actually know is that it will be a child rejected by not just a mom, and an immediate so-called family, but a child rejected by an entire country that had at least a full year to say, "no thanks / not interested". I think about that simple fact long enough and can get real sad. What I also know is that however undesirable he is to any society, he will be that much desirable to me. I don't want to sound high and mighty or at all self-righteous and flame me if I do.
But the fact that this will be not a puppy or a kitten but part of the human race makes me think of the famous quote "no man is an island". If you want the simplest-sounding explanation perhaps my love will be there just because no one else's is. This is impossible for even me to totally understand. I'm not saying the desire and love will come easy--may even be damn hard--I don't know because I haven't met him yet--I'll save that for a future post--but I know my love will be there.
I'm so thankful for the love that has been shown to me BY PARENTS, BY FAMILY, BY SOCIETY, and I believe, BY GOD, that this 'return' would actually be a very small token of my appreciation and not some huge thing some folks are making or will make it out to be. This child will be another Reed. Another Reed in the long line of interesting but loved Reeds. I can't wait to introduce him to you.
I'm not sure I have shared this or not. When we go to Ukraine we are planning on making two trips. There is just no way we can be gone for 5 or 6 weeks straight. In addition to that little bit of info, I will probably be making that second trip alone. I was really reluctant to even think about this possibility until I found out that Nataliya and Tami were traveling alone. They are so inspiring and each day I read more and more about their trip, I keep thinking to myself, "I can do that."
I just hope that I travel at the same time as somebody else that I have gotten to know in the blogging/adoption community, and that maybe we can hook up for lunch or something.
It could happen.
As the time gets closer to the day that we will eventually travel, I find myself including our son in my prayers with the kids more and more. It is sweet how one of them (once in a while) will actually remind me that I didn't pray for him that night.
"Mom, you fawgot to pway for owr baby bwother," Andrew has told me before.
"Mommy, don't forget about our new baby. Maybe if we pray, he will come quicker," Anna will tell me.
Aw, my dear Anna. If only that were true. Maybe if we all pray for our children to come home, it will make a difference. I have heard that praying in numbers is similar to moving mountains.
Come on everybody, whether you are adopting from Ukraine, Russia, Guatemala, Haiti, Columbia, Africa, or even right here in the US, take a moment and say a little prayer for your precious child waiting for you in a faraway land.
Matthew 18:20 (NIV)
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."
1. Pavel (Pasha)
2. Naum (Nome-chick)
3. Anton (Antonska)
4. Nikolai (Kolya and Nikolinchka)
5. Konstantin (Kostya)
6. Danil
7. Misha
8. Alexy (Alyosha)
9. Igor
10. Evgenii
11. Bogdan
12. Dima
13. Vitaly
14. Vladimir
15. Sasha
16. Artom
17. Ivan
18 Oleg
19. ???
20. ???
Thanks everyone for contributing. I would be okay with almost any of these names.
Why can't I think of just 2 more Russian boy names to make it an even 20 list? Probably because I am still a little delirious from the pain of my sprained ankle. First thought when I fell and twisted it was, "Oh my gosh! I'm going to Ukraine with a cast on!" Thankfully, I don't think I broke it.
BTW, still no I-600 approval yet. I wonder if expecting it by the end of January is too optimistic? Anybody traveling in Spring?
I have some random thought here.
If a pregnant woman is expected to gain around 30 lbs when she is expecting, how much are adopting woman expected to gain? I hope the same because I think I have gained at least five pounds since we started.
Since a pregnant woman is known to be emotional, can't I be extra emotional too?
Why does nesting come in waves? One day I'm all gung-ho to clean the house and like today, I could barely get myself to wash two loads of laundry. I didn't even feel like cooking dinner.
Do you take diapers with you or do you buy them over there?
I have been thinking. I keep trying to guess what the name of our little guy will be. Misha, Sasha, Ivan, Artom, Danil, Dimas..... it is so fun going through the list of Russian names.
This time around, we are open to changing his name because he will be so young, but I don't know if we even want to. We certainly don't have a name picked out for him ahead of time. I guess if his name was one that I didn't like, well then maybe, but I can't even think of a name that I wouldn't care for. Oh well, it's kind of early to be worrying about the name game anyways.
But, out of curiosity, what is or was the name of your child when you first met him or her?
I just added a bunch of new blogs to my sidebar. If I forgot to add yours, please let me know.
Today we got fingerprinted. I sure hope our I-600A approval letter comes soon.
Meanwhile, I am going to finish up three more documents that we need for our dossier. Thankfully, I can apostille the remaining documents locally.
One of the forms that I need to do is the "application to adopt." I am still stumped on how to word this particular sentence. For families that have filled out this form, I would love to hear how you finished this sentence.
We would like to adopt ___________.
Remember, this sentence is where you describe the type of child(ren) that you would like to adopt.
I was recently asked why I am inspired to adopt yet again, and with the same enthusiasm as a first time parent. I guess I just love children, think they add so much to this world, and feel that each child deserves as much enthusiasm as let's say, a first child would get. Where some parents feel exhausted at the end of the day, my children literally energize me. My adopted children, complete with whatever issues they may have, energize me even more.
I seriously welcome whatever challenges they bring, because everything is a learning experience. If I could learn to become more compassionate, patient, forgiving, loving....... and a better teacher and servant to the Lord, and in the process be giving a deserving child a family and home, I don't know why I wouldn't be inspired to keep doing what I am doing.
I look at it this way. I....... I mean we, are raising the future generation of our country, and there are not many things that I can think of doing that trump that.
We are not rich, but we live more extravagant than most of the people on this earth do, and adoption is a wonderful way of sharing what we have with another precious living person. When I think of adoption costs, yeah sure I wish they were free, and I can't quite understand why adoptions cost so much, but what better thing to spend our money on? Others might say, a nicer car, bigger house, fancier vacations, and such, but I just don't think those are the treasures that God is talking about storing up in heaven.
Matthew 6:19-20 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
As of now, I am storing up 10 precious lives in heaven, well worth their weight in gold. Pretty soon it will be eleven. If all of us could spread the word, and touch people's hearts enough to put the desire in their heart to want to adopt too, then just think of how much gold would be stored up in heaven.
It came! It really came!
Now we can be fingerprinted.
Things are finally moving along, and I am thankful.
Had another dream last night. This time it was of our SDA appointment. We were showed five files. They laid out all of the files at one time for us to go through. The first was for a three year old little boy with Down's Syndrome. The second was for two boys ages four and six who were relatively healthy. The third and fourth I can't remember, and the last one was for a little boy who was 17 months old, and diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy. Just when we were about to choose, I woke up.
Oh how I wish, I could have finished my dream. :)
I wonder how the real appointment will go.
This came in the mail today! And yes, I am smiling. 
(I thought this was appropriate since we just got back from Caleb's orthodontist appointment.)
Not much to update you with. Nothing in the mail.... still.
But, I did post on my other blog, and rather than repost it here, I just thought I'd give you the link. Why? You might be wondering. As I was writing about my little boy Jonny when he was six months old, I kept thinking about our soon to be new son, and how since he will be so much younger than our girls at the time of adoption, I will be able to do a lot of the things that I didn't get to do with them. Anyways, just thought I'd share, that's all.
Well for those of you that are following along, remember how I mailed off our documents for apostilling back on Dec 17th? Well, I hadn't' seen a check clear and had no idea whether or not they even got my documents, so I spent the day (off and on) calling the Sacramento Notary Office to check on things.
After my 20th call or so late in the afternoon, I finally got through to someone who nearly scared the dickens out of me by saying that only one of my documents had been apostilled and they were mailing everything back to me. I was really nervous and asked her to please find the person who actually handled my documents to see if they could verify this. This just didn't make sense. Why would I send a check for $220 if I only wanted one apostille?
After what seemed like forever, the woman came back on the phone and calmed my nerves. Her mistake, she had read the computer info wrong, and all 11 of our apostilled docs were mailed back to us on the 31st. We should be getting them back any day.
I must have thanked her 10 times before I got off the phone with her.
Has anyone ever told you how stressful international adoptions can be?
