Whirlwind weekend

Luke with his friend Behr
Cleaning out boxes of toys
Matt preparing Andres' room for new paint
My friend Laura who brought me to tears with her kindness!

"How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it." 
Author:George Alliston

Simply put, I can't tell you how incredible the last few days have been. They have been exciting, emotional, and most appropriately, overwhelming. Often times in life, we hear only the bad about humanity--the violence, the unrest, the poor decisions--and rarely do we get to celebrate the goodness in people's hearts. Well, right now, Matt and I are experiencing the most incredible amount of kindness unlike anything we have ever witnessed. Since announcing that our children were referred to us last Friday, so much kindness has touched our every day that we can not come close to thanking everyone enough for all that has been done, said and offered. We've had people offer bed sets, various pieces of furniture, bedding, clothing, toys, as well as offers to help paint, mow the yard, take Luke to events, go shopping with me, search for clothing at garage sales, etc. In three days time, two showers have already been planned--one with family and one with my co-workers at school.  People have dropped by the house because they were "just out shopping" and decided to buy a few things for the kids. Luke's good friend, Behr, dropped by a home-made card congratulating him on becoming a big brother. A couple I met for the first time the other night at our monthly adoption meeting extended an offer for us to leave our car at their house if we didn't want to leave it at the airport. You get the picture. . . I mean, seriously, it's overwhelming. I wish everyone could experience something like this in life. It restores all faith in humanity. Not that we didn't know it before, but we realize on an even deeper level how blessed we are to have every one of you in our lives and what a gift your friendship is. I have been brought to tears multiple times each and every day. One of the pictures above shows me with my friend, Laura, who has been so incredible through all of this and then brought two, huge bags of brand new things for Maria. I weeped even more upon hearing that all of the items were selected by her daughter because she thought Maria would like them. Laura--you will just never know what this meant to us! To all of you who have e-mailed and called, and I haven't replied, please know that we are so grateful for all of your inspiring words and kind offers. Our days have been consumed with what needs to be done but we are enjoying EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

Over the weekend, we continued trying to grasp all that has happened to us. As you can see above, Luke helped me to go through boxes of toys. My mom and I went shopping so I could decide how I wanted to decorate Andres and Maria's rooms. Matt began doing some work in Andres' room. And then, there was a large amount of time organizing, filling out and creating certain pieces of paperwork. Today, we sent off our acceptance letter, got fingerprinted again so that the FBI in West Virginia can check our backgrounds, requested updated letters from our doctors, and I finally spoke with a CHI representative. We have decided to request May 19 as our date to get Maria and Andres. We will not hear until probably Thursday is this date is confirmed. So now, we must wait until we have that information before we can arrange our travel and send for visas to bring the kids to the States. We have been told that we will stay in Bogota the whole time. This is somewhat comforting in that it is obviously a little more touristy and there are more things to do. Other than that, there is nothing more to tell. We THANK YOU ALL for what you have done. Blessings to all!

Celebration underway!

Did I say 3-6 months that we would be waiting?  I was wrong!  I meant three DAYS!  Yes, you've heard it right.  WE HAVE A REFERRAL--one girl and one boy!!!!  The call came at 11:15am yesterday as I sat at the computer making a list of all the things I needed to get accomplished within the next three months.  (Needless to say, I haven't gotten back to that list.)  ICBF (the Colombian government) was in clear understanding that we would be switching back to the 0-7 list when they initially approved us for 0-6.  They knew we just needed to play the waiting game until timing was right.  Since our dossier was approved in November, we literally have already done our waiting time.  Matter of fact, a family whose dossier was approved the same day as ours left yesterday to get their two, new children.  For this reason, we are suspecting that the ICBF approved us based upon that knowledge!  Regardless, you can imagine the complete shock I felt when getting the phone call.  You can never prepare for the moment when CHI says, "We have your children!"  And when they did, I gasped, wanted to scream (but didn't maybe because I am still recovering from my strained vocal cords from Mario's 3-point shot Monday night), wanted to cry (but couldn't because I was in shock), and wanted to call everyone under the sun (but didn't because we wanted to get in touch with our immediate family first).   Instead, I sat in complete silence and began gasping for air a little bit.  As soon as I received all of the information, I immediately called Matt.  He was away from his desk.  UGH!  I called his cell phone and after what seemed like a million rings, he finally answered.  Last night, my mom, step dad, dad and step mom all came over and we surprised them.  (Ok, Dad, I know you were on to us!)  It was a wonderful evening.  We wish we could call each and every one of you and give you the news, but obviously, that's an impossibility!  So, as we will do throughout the next few months, we will share it all through this blog.  Enough about this stuff.  We are thrilled and want to share more about our kids!!!!

Our children are from Cundinamarca which is outside of Bogota.  Our beautiful daughter is named Maria and she just turned four in March.  She loves toys that light up and make sounds, as well as dancing, playing with others and running.  (Luke has already commented that she will love to play tag with him!)  And to our delight, she also loves to show physical affection giving hugs and kisses!!!!  Our gorgeous son is Hector Andres and he will be turning 2 on April 25.  He loves to play with cars (thank God as we have every Matchbox car under the sun!) and toys that can be manipulated and carried from place to place.  He loves to dance, laugh and jump.   Although we have no specific info on when this will all take place, it is typical that you leave within a month of getting your referral.  So it looks like we will be heading to Bogota by the middle of May.  YIKES!  I guess I better shorten that list I was making yesterday as I don't have as much time to burn now.    I feel as if I just found out I was pregnant and then the doctor followed it up by saying, "Oh yeah, not only are you pregnant, but you are due in four weeks."  So much to do, so little time, but how blessed we are!  With sports cancelled today due to the weather, Luke and I are going to spend time going through the boxes of toys that I have saved to see if any of them will be of interest to Maria and Hector Andres.  I will also go through the few boxes of boys clothes that I have saved to see if any would be appropriate for Hector Andres.  As far as Maria goes--if any of you have or know of anyone who has any used girl clothing in the late 3, early 4 year range, I would be very interested in taking it off of their hands and paying for it.  My other goal is to figure out how we will furnish their bedrooms as they will each have their own room.  How exciting to get to decorate a girl's bedroom!!! The financial expenditures ahead of us just to prepare for their arrival is a little overwhelming, but this is one of the moment's we have waited for and we have faith that all will work out!   So as you can tell, WE ARE ECSTATIC!  Luke is so excited to finally be a big brother, and the sweetest part of yesterday was when Luke was going to bed.  He told me, "Mommy, I want to dream about them tonight so I can see them better and we can play."  Priceless!!!!!

You can expect that I will posting a new blog every day or two to give you updates of what is happening.  We will be getting a call from CHI on Monday to tell us more about what paperwork has to be rounded up/obtained as well as dates to expect to leave.  Until then, we have a weekend ahead of us to celebrate and begin planning!   Blessings to all, and please keep saying your prayers.  How wonderful that we can now refer to them by name when we pray!  Until then, this proud, proud mom of THREE is signing off!

24 Hours to Remember!

24 HOURS TO REMEMBER

What an incredible 24 hours it has been!  First, let me preface this by saying that there will be some "adoption" news as I know that's why many are reading, but I'll get to that in a minute. Let's start with last night.  As most of you know I am a Kansas Jayhawk fanatic who lives, bleeds, breathes and will die crimson and blue.   I feel such tremendous pride for my alma mater.  Even when our teams don't win, I am a steady fan who cheers them through the highs and lows.   Football or basketball. . . it makes no difference.  When they lose, I hurt for them. When they win, I celebrate with them. After 20 years of waiting, the Jayhawks worked their way through the NCAA tournament and won the national championship!  What an awesome night to see my son sitting in front of the TV with great intensity, hoping and praying for a Jayhawk victory.   Once again, I can see that I have a Jayhawk in the making.  Luke and I screamed (after Mario Chalmers game-tying 3 I hurt my vocal cords), we were calm, we paced, we left the room, but in the end, we celebrated.  It was incredible!   It was after 1am that I went to sleep and my sleep was interrupted multiple times throughout every hour until I finally got out of bed at 5:45am.  My mind was crazed with thoughts of what it must be like to be in San Antonio, in Lawrence on Mass street.  I just couldn't get the thoughts out of my mind.  I couldn't wait to get up, put on my Kansas shirt and let the whole world know I am a Jayhawk.  For those of you who aren't sports fans, this may all sound a little crazy to you.  But this is the stuff I live for.  Well, I also live for good news.  Which leads to the second half of the story.

This evening, I jumped into my car to go get milk.  This is not an errand I particularly enjoy.  I mean, seriously, does anyone else think that milk prices are absolutely crazy right now!!??  Not only that, but I am EXHAUSTED.  I don't remember the last time I got a measly 4 1/2 hours of sleep before I had to go to work.  Even when Luke was a baby, at least I could go about 5 hours. All the way to the store, I was lamenting about how tired I was, how I couldn't wait to get home and turn in for the evening.  When I got to the grocery store, I checked my cell phone before heading inside. Most of the time when Matt or I go to the store, the other will call for a few other items.  So I wanted to make sure I hadn't missed a call.  Instead, I saw the notification that I had a new e-mail. When I opened it, I saw it was from CHI, our adoption agency.  The e-mail read, "And just after you asked!  We finally received news today that they moved you to the list for 2 siblings 0-7 on 3/18/08."  Are you kidding me!!??  Did I read that right?  Not only had we been approved, but we were approved 3 weeks ago?   I closed my phone, screamed at the top of my lungs (straining my vocal cords once again) and immediately had to open it up again and re-read.   Not only were we approved 3 weeks ago, (which ultimately means 3 weeks of waiting have already passed--YIPPEE!) but CHI believes we will have our new children within the next 3-6 months!!!!!!

I'm sure you can tell I am ecstatic.  I am no longer tired, want to celebrate and wish I could run to Lawrence and have a party of my own!  Life is good, God has blessed us.  Our dreams will soon come true!

Wait, wait, wait

The waiting game. . . we've all played it, endured it and grown irritated with it. The whole idea of hurry up and wait has never been something I've been good at. However, with the adoption process, it's a given. Maybe that's why I have dealt with it so much more gracefully than any other time. It's been about 1 1/2 months since we sent our request to ICBF to get switched to the 0-7 years of age list. Still no word. After speaking with our agency last week, I have learned that things are moving "slower than molasses" right now with paperwork. They say the switch usually only takes 1-2 months, but I know of another family who put in for a switch in the middle of January and they still haven't heard anything. So, the waiting game continues. : ) Matt and I have learned to look at the postives of it all. We believe that God has a time planned for us to get out children. Until that happens, it just gives us more of an opportunity to save money, enjoy our family of three, and learn Spanish. I have enjoyed taking my time finding ideas of what I want their rooms to look like. I've found comforters and accessories and draw energy and excitement from that process. Outside of being frustrated with buying time before we could get on the right list (to make sure that our children will not be older than Luke), this has been a wonderful experience!!

Besides looking at room furnishings, I've most recently been working on learning more about English as a Second Language (ESL)/English Language Learner (ELL) education. They mean the same thing, but different school districts call it different things.) I spoke with the school district that we live in last week about the process that we would need to go through to make sure that our kids will be placed in the correct grade to meet their needs. Since our oldest, adopted child will more than likely be 7 years old, we feel very confident that we will have at least one school-aged child. As an educator, I thought I knew a lot about these kinds of things, but after speaking with the school district, I realized how much I didn't know! In two more weeks, Matt and I will go meet with the school district I work for. Even though we don't live in that school district, I am allowed to enroll my children in it. Since they will physically be taking us to one of the schools that houses the ELL program, and because we have a large number of Spanish-speaking kids in my school district, I will be interested to see how it all operates and how it may be different from the school district in which we live. The good news is we have plenty of time to think about what route we will take! We are just very fortunate that we live in/near two VERY GOOD school districts!!! What an awesome decision to have to make.

Not only am I learning new things from this whole journey, I am also meeting a ton of new people I would have never known. It seems like no matter who you meet or know, everyone has an adoption story or knows of one. It's been enlightening to hear how so many families have opened their hearts to the adoption process. I am adding a new piece to our blog page which highlights other adoption blogs of people I have met. One that is exceptionally fun to follow right now is that of the Hollis Family because they are leaving in a few weeks to go to Bogota and adopt two siblings 0-7 years of age just like we will be doing. So, if you're interested in catching a glimpse of what we'll be going through, you can follow along with that one. However, all of the blogs are awesome, so inspiring and uplifting!

That's about all for now. Thanks to ALL of you for your continual interest in how things are going. We don't go a day without people asking us about it all. Please continue to say your prayers, especially ones that can help to expedite our list switch! We are so blessed to have such supportive family and friends!

Traci

Time for a Change

Happy New Year to all. (I guess I'm a month late on that one, aren't I?) It's amazing how there are days when we feel like time is dragging on. However, when I looked at the website and realized that it's been over two months since our last post, I see that time really is zipping by. I guess selling a house and moving within a 7 week period of time will help the days and weeks to fly. I am so excited that we are another month closer to getting our children! I thought I would post a new blog to answer the many questions that we get each and every day. We have been so blessed and our hearts have been overwhelmingly warmed by the amount of people that continue to hear about our adoption, send their love and moral support and ask us questions. I seem to add people to our adoption list almost every day so that they can be made aware of blog updates. And most exciting, I have people who are wanting to know more because they are now considering. I haven't always known the answers to all of the questions, but I have some great sources. Recently, I joined a Yahoo group of women that meet online every Monday night. All of us are either awaiting Colombian adoption or have already adopted in Colombia. Their knowledge, stories, recommendations, words of wisdom and prayers have been wonderful. Plus we continue to seek advice and info from our friends who adopted there. I thought it might be a good idea to use this blog entry as a way to answer the questions that we are asked over and over again. So, here it goes. . .

Question #1 (which we encounter every day): What's the latest?
As you all know, we have been in a holding pattern since our dossier approval in November. We currently are on the 2 sibling, 0-6 year list which has about an 18-month waiting period. The reason we are on this list, just to re-cap, is because we don't want our new children to have any chance of being older than Luke. And if we would've stayed on the 0-7 list, there was a very strong chance that we would be assigned our kids somewhere between March and May and one could've been as old as 7 years, 11 months. So we opted to go into a holding pattern until timing would be right. Well, the timing is right now. We had our social worker come out to our new house yesterday so that she could survey it and make sure it was suitable for the children. She should have her report written by Monday which means I have, I mean, get to drive to Topeka again to get the document apostilled. Once I do this, we will attach a letter requesting the change to the 2 sibling, 0-7 year waiting list. We will then send the new homestudy and the letter of request to our adoption agency's home office in Oregon where they will be translated to Spanish. Next, the translated documents will be sent to Colombia for processing. This processing will probably take 6-8 weeks. Once it is done, we will receive official notification that we have been approved and we will be placed on the 2 sibling, 0-7 year old waiting list. So we are thinking we should have a referral for our kids between August and October.

Question #2: How long will it be before you get to see your kids?

This is a little more complex than one would think. The timeline will go something like this, though I could have a few things wrong. We will be told when a placement is in the works. Then, we play the waiting game of waiting for more details which can sometimes be 3 weeks or so. When we receive the official referral, I believe it is at that time that we will learn of the children's genders and ages. We will then have to write a letter of acceptance, have it translated and send it to Colombia. Then, we will wait for our official date to travel as well as our "Gotcha Day" when we will finally meet the children. From the time the referral is sent to us, this whole process can take a few months. So I am guessing we will travel between October and December. Don't hold me to this. It's just a guess!

Question #3: How long will you know about your children's ages and genders before you go get them? / How long will you have to prepare their rooms, etc., before you see them?

I believe about 1 month. Yikes! As most of you know, I am a hard-core planner. One month to get everything done, including updating fingerprints, getting new doctor's letter, driving to Topeka AGAIN for apostilling of documents, etc., will put me in overdrive. So beware! ; ) I can't wait to get started on the rooms!

Question #4: Will you change their names?

We aren't sure about this one. Haven't done a lot of thinking about this as it seems to far away to worry about.

Question #5: Aren't you afraid to go to Colombia?

To quote Matt: There's nothing to be afraid of. You have a big, strapping husband to protect you! Seriously, though, I have days where I hear stories about things that go on and have concerns. (Thank you, Dad for keeping me aprised of situations--I love your fatherly protectiveness you continue to have for a 38 year-old daughter.) But every adopting family I have spoken with says it's fine. There are people assigned to us when we are there that kind of tell us things to be careful of. Everyone also says that Bogota has a very safe feeling. So, I trust in those who know.

Plus, we have also learned of a few highly recommended destinations if we want to go there while waiting for our kids' visas. There is a place called San Andres Island that has received glowing remarks. Matt has put his feelers out to a guy he knows in Panama to see if it's something he'd recommend as well. But, let's be honest, we're not sure of how much it costs so it may be totally out of the picture. I'm hoping it might be an alternative, though, because it helps to break up the incredibly long time away from home.

Question #6: Why Colombia?

You can look back to our first blog in June for more info here. But bottom line, it's the country that best suited our needs. We wanted more than one child, liked that the children will come from a foster care situation rather than an orphanage, didn't want to wait too long as we are not getting any younger and didn't want to have to pay double the adoption expenses. It also helped that we knew of a family that adopted from Colombia.

Question #7: How much does it cost? Do you mind me asking?

We have had a number of people ask us if we would be comfortable sharing the cost of our adoption. While it's really no big secret, I do feel a little strange addressing it. So for those of you who want more info, you can click on the link on the bottom, right side of our blog page. This reflects our personal experience of adopting 2.

Question #8: Will you be able to communicate while in Colombia?

Yes, although it is my understanding that the internet is not always the easiest to access. We will hopefully have a laptop to take by then, and we will try to post each and every day. Most importantly, we will try to include pictures and maybe even videos (if we are able to get a video camera before leaving, too). I'm not sure if I will post them all on the blog, as some people have told me that it can take a long time to download them. I have heard that e-mail can sometimes be tricky and take a while to get delivered. So, I strongly urge all of you to sign up with a Google account so that you can post your thoughts directly onto our blog site. Here's how you can do it:
1. At the end of each posting, you will see "comments." Click on that.
2. Next, you have to choose an identity. If you have a google or gmail account, I believe you can use that e-mail address. If not, click on "sign up here."
3. You will need to fill out the rest of the info on the following page and accept their terms. Be assured that your e-mail address will not be exploited nor will you receive any spam from it. I have done it to be sure.
4. You will be taken back to the post screen where you can type in a response and then send it.

I have been told by my Yahoo group of women that the blog posts were a welcome part of every day. It can get pretty lonely in Colombia due to homesickness and having that connection with friends and family is what comforted many through the 3-5 weeks that they were there. So, I urge you to please try it now so we can communicate while we are in Colombia. Plus, it's really fun to see what all of you are thinking. It's definitely not a journey that we are sharing just with our immediate family! We love the fact that so many others have opted to ride along with us : )

Question #9: (Last one since this blog is so long. We'll answer more next time.) How can I find out when you post new blogs?

If you are interested in this, let me know. You can either let me know of your interest by posting it after this blog or e-mail me and let me know. I will send out an e-mail whenever there's an update. However, once we head to Colombia, we will try to post every day and I will no longer send the e-mails to let you know. You can just go directly to this blog website each day to see what's going on. You can set it as a favorite so you don't have to remember it.


Well, that's enough for this post, I believe. Hopefully, there will be more info to pass along soon! Take care and continue your prayers!

Traci

Approval with a twist

It’s been a little over a month since I last posted and so much has happened. Shortly after we learned that our wait time was potentially cut from 12 months to 4 months (once the government approved out dossier), we knew we needed to find a bigger house. Immediately, we contacted my former hairdresser, Lisa, who took us around to some houses nearby. We found that we were interested in pretty quickly. However, since our house wasn’t up for sale, we had to offer the owners a 45-day contingency offer. Fortunately, they accepted the contingency. Immediately, we spent a long, grueling 14 days of cleaning, discarding and prepping our house for sale. We rented a storage unit, got out most of the clutter and had it on the market the Friday before Halloween. Within a week, we had two offers. We were incredibly blessed! Kudos to Lisa and her incredible work ethic. I can’t imagine ever selling another house without her help. Everything just worked out perfectly and we will be closing on both houses on Dec. 6. We absolutely love our new house—see the picture posted. It has four bedrooms, a beautiful kitchen/hearth room, a finished basement and a 3-car garage. Luke is most thrilled about the fact that we have a huge driveway where he will finally be able to play basketball! You can imagine that the house goings on have kept us quite busy but now it’s down to packing. Hopefully the weather will continue to cooperate through December!

Now for the news on the adoption front. Last week, we received word that the Colombian government approved our dossier. YEA!! We were pleasantly surprised to hear so soon. There is a twist, however. As you probably remember, we have asked for two siblings from 0-7 years of age and younger than Luke. Well, since we were approved so quickly, this meant that we could potentially get our children as early as April. This presented one problem . . . since a 7 year old could be 7 years and 11 months old when assigned to us, there was a chance that he/she would be older than Luke. For this reason, the ICBF (Colombian govt.) approved us for ages 0-6 instead. The wait time for that age range is much longer at 18-24 months. The good news is we have options. Since we definitely want to keep Luke the oldest, sometime after the first of the year, we will write the ICBF and ask to be switched to 0-7 years. This change will take 1-2 months. So now, it looks like we may get our children as early as August or as late as November if the wait time remains steady at 4-6 months. Honestly, I really feel like this has happened for a reason. It will give us more time to get financially adjusted to our new house and to prepare it for the kids. The extra time is actually a welcome relief. Be assured that we continue to enjoy the adoption ride and there are no heavy hearts or frustrations at this point!

Finally, we want to congratulate our friends, Shawn and Cindy, who just brought back their fourth child from Colombia. We are so happy for them. Just as we are so happy and thankful to have such a wonderfully supportive family and a fabulous group of friends who are constantly asking how things are going. God has truly blessed us with all of you and what a better time to give thanks than right now. Please continue to say your prayers for our children. Hopefully your words and thoughts will reach and comfort them on difficult days.

Happy Thanksgiving!