For Hope and Faith,
Today was your big brother's 13th birthday. We had a good day--spending most of it at church as it was a Sunday and he also had confirmation classes. After morning church, we stopped by the grocery store to quickly get one thing, and a white dove was there. Several people were watching it walk around the parking lot. It was beautiful and quite a curiosity in this area. As soon as we pulled up, he seemed to walk toward our car. He followed Dad toward the store and then came back to the car. Your brother even got out of the car and looked at the beautiful bird. It seemed like a sign to me--one of Hope, Faith, and promises to be fulfilled. I took it as a sign from God that you will both be here and to continue to have Hope and Faith for that promise to be fulfilled. It was a very powerful message to me.
Within the next five weeks, we should have a completed home study. Shortly after that, we should have a chance to finally meet you, followed by an overnight stay of you both here in your room, and then you will come to live with us, and after 90 more days, you will forever legally be members of our family. I say "legally" because we truly have already adopted you both in our hearts.
We also picked you both out an outfit tonight--one to wear to Disney World in June. We are all so excited for you to be here, and your big brother is already protective of you. We love you both!
Love,
Mom, Dad, and BB
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
When Are Your Birthdays?
For Hope and Faith,
Hello, my darling girls. We had your big brother's birthday party today. It was really a birthday party for boys, but it got me thinking about your birthdays. I don't know if I can even find out when your birthdays are until we have passed our home study and been officially approved as an adoptive resource for you. That does not stop me from thinking about it. I would love to have an amazing birthday celebration for each of you and am hoping that you will be in our arms and home before your birthdays. I don't know if either of you has had a birthday since we first learned about you. I'm not even really sure if you got the nightgowns or the dolls we sent you for Christmas. I hope you did and hope you like them.
You have cousins all over the place--some close by, some a few hours away, and some a couple of states away. When we find out when your birthday is and if you are with us then, we will invite them all to come and celebrate with you. We may just have to have one big party to celebrate all the birthdays we haven't been together as soon as you are home.
We are also going to Disney World in June (and two different church camps), so we will celebrate our Gotcha Day or Forever Day then. Hopefully we will get you home in the next 4-6 weeks, though our worker said six weeks until our study would be approved last Tuesday--so, we still have five weeks to go. We aren't supposed to call and make an appointment with her for three more weeks. I definitely want to celebrate getting you, all the birthdays we have missed, and our Forever Day once we have you home. We have to have you here for 90 days before we get to make it official and celebrate forever day. The way I see it, we could be celebrating Forever Day at Disney World. I wonder if you have ever been there. You are just now old enough to really appreciate it. We will have to let you both be princesses for the trip. I also want to get family photos made at Disney.
I am so looking forward to meeting you both for the first time and putting my arms around you and just holding you.
Love Always and Forever,
Momma
Hello, my darling girls. We had your big brother's birthday party today. It was really a birthday party for boys, but it got me thinking about your birthdays. I don't know if I can even find out when your birthdays are until we have passed our home study and been officially approved as an adoptive resource for you. That does not stop me from thinking about it. I would love to have an amazing birthday celebration for each of you and am hoping that you will be in our arms and home before your birthdays. I don't know if either of you has had a birthday since we first learned about you. I'm not even really sure if you got the nightgowns or the dolls we sent you for Christmas. I hope you did and hope you like them.
You have cousins all over the place--some close by, some a few hours away, and some a couple of states away. When we find out when your birthday is and if you are with us then, we will invite them all to come and celebrate with you. We may just have to have one big party to celebrate all the birthdays we haven't been together as soon as you are home.
We are also going to Disney World in June (and two different church camps), so we will celebrate our Gotcha Day or Forever Day then. Hopefully we will get you home in the next 4-6 weeks, though our worker said six weeks until our study would be approved last Tuesday--so, we still have five weeks to go. We aren't supposed to call and make an appointment with her for three more weeks. I definitely want to celebrate getting you, all the birthdays we have missed, and our Forever Day once we have you home. We have to have you here for 90 days before we get to make it official and celebrate forever day. The way I see it, we could be celebrating Forever Day at Disney World. I wonder if you have ever been there. You are just now old enough to really appreciate it. We will have to let you both be princesses for the trip. I also want to get family photos made at Disney.
I am so looking forward to meeting you both for the first time and putting my arms around you and just holding you.
Love Always and Forever,
Momma
Labor of Love
I wanted to start this blog with the first letter I ever wrote to the girls, hoping that one day they would read it sequentially. The truth is that I have been so busy lately getting ready for the second home visit in our home study and with their older brother's birthday that I haven't had time to pull it out. As I write this, I remember that I may have emailed it to their social worker 6 weeks ago (or more), so I may be able to copy and paste it. Either way, I can begin here by saying that we have been praying for and hoping to adopt two little girls for about eight weeks now. The first time we learned of them, I tried to not think about them, as we were only about halfway through our adoption GPS classes, and I didn't want to get my hopes up. The next time we heard about them was on our last night of class, and their social worker wanted to get them in a home that would become their forever home by Christmas. Unfortunately, we live in a different county, and our social worker didn't see it exactly that way. Without overcomplicating things, our older biological children (all from previous marriages) had chosen to live with their same gender parent, and though we didn't really want that to happen, we had agreed to it. This made our worker very suspicious about the type of parents we were--if our biological children had chosen to live somewhere else, why would she place "someone else's children" with us. That was devastating news. I might not have been so quick to agree to let my other children live elsewhere if I had realized it would hurt my chances (or at least quadruple the time for placement) of getting my future children. Not to mention, our social worker is insisting that due to the children living with their other parents, she now has to talk to the two people who care the least about us in the world before deciding if we can be parents again. That--that these two people who did not want to remain married to us and to whom we had Biblical basis for our divorces now have control over whether and when we get our other children--is the worst part to me. They would not have such control if we were able to and chose to have a biological child together, and I have wanted to one-day adopt since I was a child. So many people have our and these children's futures in their hands.
Like our first home visit, our second home visit went well. We passed the inspection and did well in the interviews. Our youngest child, our son who now lives at home again, spoke candidly to the social worker, telling him that he wanted siblings here, that we were good--if not a little strict (we make him do his homework and before any games or TV) parents, and that he wanted to live with his father again because he got to do more and has siblings there. An honest almost-13-year-old during his interview, the social worker still told us that due to her caseload and her "need" to get in touch with our former spouses, it would be another six weeks before she finished our home study. She wanted us to call her in four weeks to schedule the next home visit (they usually only require 2), and she warned us that those girls wouldn't still be available then.
But, see...we feel as if we have already adopted those girls and two other children in our hearts. I feel as if I am "expecting" them and that this truly is a labor of love. As a labor doula and woman who has been pregnant five times (with three baby angels), I know what labor is like. The "pregnancy" and "labor" for an adopted child can be a very, very long process, often longer than the pregnancy of any human known and even longer than that of an elephant (that is close to two years, FYI). It is an extremely emotional process, even when you have all the Faith in the world that you are meant to have this child (or children).
The girls we hope to give the middle names "Hope" and "Faith" and our last name to soon (they will keep their first names, though one will be spelled one-letter differently), are a biological sibling pair and are currently two and three years old. We don't know when their birthdays are--I wish I did so I could give them presents, as we did at Christmas. We have never seen them or seen a photograph of them. We do not know their background or if they have any special needs. We just love them unconditionally, as we would a biological child we have never met. We pray for them daily and have our friends pray for them, and we have asked everyone to just pray that they will be in the best home for them as soon as possible. Of course, we think that is our home, and it will be bittersweet if it isn't, but we really want what is best for them.
For now, we have an empty nursery, with two toddler beds, dolls and toys, and clothes to last them a couple of years at least. We have the outfits we plan for them to wear on our first trip together to Disney World this June. We are hoping that when we go, they will already be officially ours, and maybe we can be in the process of getting their then 11-year-old brother and 17-year-old sister . . . Maybe.
Like our first home visit, our second home visit went well. We passed the inspection and did well in the interviews. Our youngest child, our son who now lives at home again, spoke candidly to the social worker, telling him that he wanted siblings here, that we were good--if not a little strict (we make him do his homework and before any games or TV) parents, and that he wanted to live with his father again because he got to do more and has siblings there. An honest almost-13-year-old during his interview, the social worker still told us that due to her caseload and her "need" to get in touch with our former spouses, it would be another six weeks before she finished our home study. She wanted us to call her in four weeks to schedule the next home visit (they usually only require 2), and she warned us that those girls wouldn't still be available then.
But, see...we feel as if we have already adopted those girls and two other children in our hearts. I feel as if I am "expecting" them and that this truly is a labor of love. As a labor doula and woman who has been pregnant five times (with three baby angels), I know what labor is like. The "pregnancy" and "labor" for an adopted child can be a very, very long process, often longer than the pregnancy of any human known and even longer than that of an elephant (that is close to two years, FYI). It is an extremely emotional process, even when you have all the Faith in the world that you are meant to have this child (or children).
The girls we hope to give the middle names "Hope" and "Faith" and our last name to soon (they will keep their first names, though one will be spelled one-letter differently), are a biological sibling pair and are currently two and three years old. We don't know when their birthdays are--I wish I did so I could give them presents, as we did at Christmas. We have never seen them or seen a photograph of them. We do not know their background or if they have any special needs. We just love them unconditionally, as we would a biological child we have never met. We pray for them daily and have our friends pray for them, and we have asked everyone to just pray that they will be in the best home for them as soon as possible. Of course, we think that is our home, and it will be bittersweet if it isn't, but we really want what is best for them.
For now, we have an empty nursery, with two toddler beds, dolls and toys, and clothes to last them a couple of years at least. We have the outfits we plan for them to wear on our first trip together to Disney World this June. We are hoping that when we go, they will already be officially ours, and maybe we can be in the process of getting their then 11-year-old brother and 17-year-old sister . . . Maybe.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Waiting for Hope and Faith
December 4, 2013
Dear Hope and Faith,
We learned about the two of you this past Monday night at our GPS (Group Preparation and Selection) classes. We know that you are both too young to really understand this letter, but we wanted to write it just in case you become a part of our family and want to know more about your adoption story one day. Even if you don’t, you can always come to us. We know that anything can happen, and though we would be honored and amazed to be your parents, we pray daily that you will be placed with the family that is best for you. We hope it is us, but either way, you have already touched our hearts. Our hearts are broken for you as you were not able to stay with your first family, and we hope that you will always feel loved, wanted, nurtured, and cherished. We promise to do our best to help you feel these every single day for the rest of your lives. We also promise that we will pray for your first family when we say our daily prayers, as we know that although you will come to love us very much, your first family will always be important to you.
We have four children right now—two boys and two girls—so you will have at least four older brothers and sisters. We do plan to adopt some older children in the near future, so you will likely be a part of a very large, loving family. Right now, only one of your older brothers or sisters live with us full-time for different reasons. Your oldest sister is a senior in college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and plans to become an equine veterinarian (she will take care of horses). You will get to see her several times a year and on holidays, and she will adore you. Your oldest brother is a junior in high school and has chosen to live with his biological father after living with us for almost fifteen years. He is very smart and knows a lot about rocks and fossils, and you will get to see him several times a year and on holidays. Your other sister is fourteen and is in the ninth grade and lives primarily with your oldest sister and her biological mother; however, she comes to visit at least a couple of times a month and will probably come for several weeks during the summer. She is very sweet, loves animals, and will love you very much. Your other big brother lives here again, after staying with his biological father for a while. He will be an amazing big brother. He might seem too protective of both of you at times, as he will want to protect you from everyone and everything, but he will also teach you some cool things, too. He is really good at sports and is an amazing helper.
Your daddy is J. He retired from the Army last year and served our country for 25 years! He can fix anything. He is the most amazing Daddy and man ever. Just ask Your older sisters. He has been a father of girls for almost 23 years and will always have a tender place in his heart for both of you. J. is also the best husband and friend that I could have ever hoped for. He has loved me unconditionally and will love you unconditionally, as well. Your daddy will want you to have every opportunity and will cherish his little girls, and he will also make sure that you are prepared to take care of yourselves before you go out into the world. He will teach you how to drive, but only after he teaches you to take care of your vehicles. Just don’t talk to him about that for another twelve or thirteen years because he will want you both to just be happy little girls as long as possible. You have to understand that you will always be his little girls.
My name is N. and I look so forward to being your mommy. I have dreamed of you both my entire life. My grandmother, your “Great-Grand,” and my father, your “Pop” were not raised by their first family, either. I grew up knowing this and always wanting to bring other children who couldn’t be raised by their first family into my heart and home. You have been in my heart since I was a little girl, though I did not know exactly who you were. I spent my entire life preparing for you both. I love to cook and sing to my babies. There are songs that I have sang to your brothers and sisters that I will sing to you, books I will read to you, and places that I will take you. I want you to have every opportunity in life, and if you want to be a swimmer, or a ballerina, or a gymnast, or a girl scout, or a piano player, or a cheer leader, or a basketball player, or a scholar, or whatever you want to do, I want you to have the opportunities to do these things. If you want to be President of the United States when you grow up, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a Social Worker, or an artist, or whatever you want to be, I will love and support you and help you come up with a plan to do just that. I have had a lot of life experiences, and I want you to have a lot of wonderful, amazing life experiences. Regardless of wanting you to have these experiences and opportunities, I want you to always know that I love you both completely and unconditionally. “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my babies you’ll be.”
Right now, we don’t know anything about you other than your age, that you are both girls, and that you need a forever family. That is all we need to know. It is important to us that you know that regardless of your cultural, ethnic, or racial background, you will be accepted as a member of this family, and we still want you to know that if you are not of the same background as us, we will respect your desire to want to know more about and share your roots with the rest of the family. Regardless of what happens, we have adopted you in our hearts and will continue to pray for you forever. Know that if you ever need anything, we are here. Even if we are wrong about the feeling that you are meant to become members of our forever family, we will always be happy to educate, empower, and support you. We hope that the two of you are always close. We know that even though you will become part of our family or another family, you will always have a special connection to each other.
We love you, and we’ll never forget.
Love always and forever,
Mom & Dad
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