New Blog

We have emerged from our cone of silence!

Victor is home and doing well.

If you wish to continue our journey with us, please find us at our new blog - The Adventures of Victor Boy.

To Be Continued....

We are so excited to be in the last stage of the adoption... so excited!

Part of the last part of the paperwork included a form that we had to sign that said that we would not blog about this adoption or the process thereof.  So to stay true to our word, we are discontinuing our blog until our little boy is officially ours. When that happens, we will reevaluate whether we will have time and energy to continue.

That does not mean that you will stop hearing from us - we will be communicating via a private Facebook page, email, and other more private means. If you are not already part of our circle on Facebook, we are rather easy to find - just send me a private message saying that you would like adoption updates and I will include you.

Thank you for understanding - we realize that many of you are devoted followers of our little musing and will greatly miss us. However, we value keeping our word and want to ensure that nothing will get in the way or cause trouble in this final stretch.

May God bless you and yours!

Much love,

Ian and Mel

Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

So what about this second trip to pick up little Victor? Here are the answers to a couple of common questions:

How much more do you need for your final adoption trip to be fully funded?

The cost of this trip is a bit more than our last one… we will be staying longer in order to complete the immigration/visa process. Here are the funds that will be needed:

Flights

Our flights, including a one-way ticket home for Victor, will cost around $2500. (Of course, this is just an estimate – it will depend on when we get to travel.) We are working with an adoption-specialty travel agent who can get a child’s one way ticket for pretty cheap – about $500 – otherwise it could cost around $1700 alone!

Lodging

Since we will have to stay about ten days for this trip, our lodging will be about $125 a night for a total of $1250. Our lodging for our last trip was much less because we were staying in a smaller city. Hotels in the capital can be twice as much as other areas of the country!

Food/Miscellaneous

We anticipate about $750 in food and miscellaneous expenses like taxis to the airport and emergency diaper runs. We may be able to get by with less than this, but won’t know until we get there.

Grand Total

$4500! Quite a little speed bump in our race! However, we already have around $1600 of this so the amount we still need is only $2900! That number looks so much more do-able!

When will you go pick him up?

WE DO NOT KNOW!

It is horrible. It is awful. The suspense is killing us... but we do not know when we can go pick him up!

But we are ever so eager to go… we are like racers at the starting line – waiting for that shot that will propel us forward at full speed toward the finish line. But until that shot is fired, we are poised to start at any moment, focused on the track ahead! The shot will probably not be fired for another two months or so; please pray that we can remain focused, yet restful, for the long wait! 

After the court rules in favor of our adoption of our little son and all the legal processes are complete, we will receive “the call” – we will have a week or two to make our travel arrangements and then we can fly over the ocean to the son of our heart and wrap our arms around him and never let him go again! The very first thing we will do upon arriving in Bulgaria is to travel to his little town and free him from the orphanage! We will thank and say good bye to his nurses and the director of the orphanage and walk out of there forever! I get goose bumps just thinking about it!

We will then travel back to the capital city and begin the long process of medical exams and tests, all for our visa interview. We will get his new birth certificate – with our names in the Mother and Father slots! We will answer many questions and spend a lot of time waiting. This process is supposed to take about ten days.

It will be very cold then – the coldest time of the year in that area of the world. This will mean a lot of time spent in the hotel room, so we will have to bring lots of toys and be inventive to keep our boy entertained and happy– all the while bonding with us and getting to know each other. It will be scary for him – it will be the first time he has not been either in the orphanage or in the hospital. He will be used to being left alone for hours on end and now he will constantly be in our company – his Mama and Tati – complete strangers who love on him more than he has ever experienced before. I can imagine even this will stress him out and we will possibly have a very cranky three year old on our hands: all within the confines of a small European-style hotel room.

Soon everything will be finished and we will get on our plane… his first flight and into a strange land too. Eleven hours or more of travel. I hope he sleeps most of the way and is not too frightened.

When we land in the States, we are planning on having an airport welcome party with a few of our friends – we will have much to celebrate and people will want to meet our newest addition! I am sure I will cry and shout for joy and sing Hallelujah all at once. It will be a short, but joyous, occasion and then we will go home and sleep. Our new life will begin as a family!

Christmas

Can I write about Christmas yet?

Last year, it was a rather sad Christmas… No little ones, not even my cute little nieces and nephews, to run around with Christmas joy.

I know that the joy of children is not the only joy of Christmas – there is the joy of family, the joy of friends, the joy of giving, the joy of making a difference in others lives, the joy of knowing that God sent His only Son to us out of pure love… the list could go on for quite a while. But for me, my empty arms and the broken mother’s heart within me made it hard to feel the other joys.

It was so awful that I did not want to face Christmas again without my little one. I worked hard on paperwork to bring him home in time for Christmas. I prayed and prayed.

But here we are, Christmas again, and still an ocean between our son and us.

However, it is different than last year. It is still sad, yes, but not quite so sharply.

Instead of yearning for a child, I am yearning for a son that I have met and held in my arms.

Instead of wondering at the future and if we would ever make any progress with the adoption, I am wondering when it will be finished.

Instead of tears, I have quiet sighs of impatience patience.

So even though I do not have my sweet son under my tree yet, I can honestly say that my Christmas is not joyless. Not by far. A little sad, yes, but it feels more like a determined patience than a sorrow. This may not be the first Christmas he spends with us, but we know him and have him in our hearts and minds.

“Just think,” we say, “Next Christmas, he will be with us!”

We look at his photos, laugh at the memories of his cuddles and temper tantrums, and hold on just a little longer without him.

Come home, soon, sweet Victor!

P.S. If any of our friends and family want to get us Christmas prezzies this year, could you instead give to our adoption fund? We have all the possessions we need – and the only thing we want is our son to come home. We have a few thousand left to fundraise for our second trip, which is now at least 10 – 12 days long instead of the 5 – 7 days we were expecting – all due to a new requirement by US Immigration. So instead of chocolates and new hats, would you consider helping us bring our baby home? If not for Christmas, maybe for Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Or maybe Valentine’s Day? Or, at the very latest, St. Patrick’s Day?

Storming the Gates

The final documents (I know I have said "This is the last paperwork" about a dozen times now) required from us are ready to be mailed off! I will walk them up to the post office during my lunch, fight the ornery postal workers who would much rather be home watching HGTV (wouldn’t we all?), and send the papers on their merry way to our adoption agency.

A momentous occasion, I know.

These three documents are the final pieces of our dossier that will be translated and submitted to the Bulgarian government.

I am not a moody person – I may have my ups and downs but try to keep things pretty even keel. With this adoption, however, emotions become deeper – this is my son we are talking about after all! What would be a normal thought of “Oh, I will have to wait another five months for such and such to happen” is transformed into “O woe is me!!! I have an eternity to wait and am certain that I will not be able to bear it, much less make it through my daily life of work, sleep, eat, church!!!”

When I have thoughts like this, I start to fantasize about storming the gates of a mighty castle to free my gentle little son. Now I would never do this in real life – it is illegal, unethical, and just plain wrong. There are procedures to go through that are in place for very good reasons. They protect children from kidnapping, child trafficking, and slavery. But in my fantasy, I fight the good fight, siege the castle, and win my little prince.

In reality, the gate of the orphanage is not the sort that you storm… it is only guarded by a coffee vending machine. The workers there are not evil imprisoners of my child but women with hearts and souls that provide for my son’s needs… even if I don’t necessarily agree with their methods or their cultural mindset toward orphan care. If I stormed in and took my son, they would call the police and that would be the end of it. And probably end all chance of me ever adopting – and very rightly so. As such, I guess I won’t storm the castle.

In these days of waiting, I need to be careful to have a proper perspective on the situation. Ian is better at this than I am… he is always rephrasing my drastic statements, centering my emotions when they flare out, and giving me support when all the world seems to give way.

I need to choose my words with care – choosing life and victory. I need to express hope, patience, and quiet determination. I need to pray and be a blessing to others – focusing on their needs and not my own meager existence. I will fill my mind with happy thoughts, my heart with hope, and my hands with good works. This is how I will be able to endure the waiting.

A Few Days More…

We are waiting for our paperwork to come back from the apostillers… it will just be a few more days.

Each step ahead of us doesn’t take that long… just a few more days each.

If we did not have so many steps to go, it would not seem like such a long wait.

A few more days, a few more, and we are still talking months away before we see our little one again.

We miss him… our dear little son.

We love him… but our hearts ache because we must love him from afar.

If we look at the long journey still ahead – quite honestly – it is discouraging.

But we don’t look at the weeks and the months.

We look at the days… and they are flying by.

Will you pray for us? There are things that are heavy on our hearts and we need some help lifting them up to our Father in Heaven.

• Pray that our son remembers us – we hope and pray that he realized the significance of our visit to him in September and understands that we are coming back for him.
• Pray for favor with government officials… both here in the US and in our son’s homeland. If we could do each task in a couple of days instead of a few days we would be holding our little Victor in our arms in no time. But that would take the good will and favor of the countless hands through which our paperwork passes.
• Pray for his health… in past winters, he has had to go to hospital with various common colds and such that have become serious infections in his respiratory system. May God keep him strong and healthy!
• Pray for us and our families as we wait… his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and admirers are all eager for his homecoming. It is hard to wait – but it is worth it!

Enduring Joy!

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Ever had a dream come true?

It is glorious! But soon enough, the elation fades and life goes back to normal.

Ever had a dream be way past overdue?

To wait and wait and wait… and never see it come to past? Or maybe you have even had the horrible experience of watching a dream die and all possibility of it coming true pass away into oblivion?

If this dream is a dream of your heart, a long hoped for essential part of your life – part of your identity – part of you breaks. You are no longer whole, you have a wound that aches night and day. It makes you cry at others’ joy, and shrink from life. You are sick, and the longer you live without the dream, the sicker you get. Pain turns to despair, which then becomes bitterness. You become poisoned with your pain.

What happens when you watch your dream die?

 

Without it ever seeing the light of day, you have to bury that dream, grieve it with bitter tears, and then prepare to face the rest of your life – your empty arms a constant reminder of your broken heart. Can one even live a life like that?

This is a sickness that needs healing just like any other. If you let it go without treatment, the rot of bitterness with reach the very core of you and you will die even though you live.

Some time ago, this was me.

I clutched my dead dream to my heart and cried. And cried and cried. For years. Every day. Literally.

When I could not face the pain of it any longer, I went to go see my physician – my Heavenly Physician, as all the earthly ones had failed me.

“Your dream is not dead,” He told me.

I laughed a bitter laugh and held up my withered, blackened shadow of a dream to show Him. “See?” I said, “How can it be anything but dead?”

“Let me keep it for a while,” He said.

“No.” I would not give it up. I clutched it to me all the more… that carcass of a dream was all I had left to live for… the tears watered my wound, the bitterness gave me strength to face the empty hours. I somehow believed that if I did not let my wound heal, I could somehow hold on to the dream.

But then I remembered all the diseases and hurts that this Physician has healed me of already – how faithful He had been in all His promises to me. And I handed Him the last remnant of my dream and the pain, bitterness, and grief I was holding on to. I gave it up to Him who is able… not knowing what to expect. He could keep it forever and never return it.

And then I waited. I waited and waited. I walked around with a missing dream – which is a bit different than a dying dream. I let go of the grief and the pain and let my wound heal a bit. I added the balm of prayer and the healing of the Blood. Slowly, I was returning to life without the daily wash of tears – to life with potential, life with joy. Yes, I will always carry the scars of a broken heart – but my heart will be whole once more. My Physician knows best how to heal such hurts.

Ever had a dream come back to life?

It took me by surprise. I know it should not have – after all, I do know the nature of my Physician – He does impossible things all the time.

All of a sudden, He returned my dream to me – alive and healthy. But that is not all – this dream was not just alive – it was coming true!

I think, just perhaps, that when you have had a dream resurrected, the joy does not fade as quickly as it does for dreams that come true all on their own. This joy is alive and growing – a tree of life that does fade. Because it is not just that the dream came true… it is that the dream came true as a gift from God!

The little boy waiting so far away in that orphanage has no clue that he is the work of my Great Physician to fulfill my hopes, heal my heart – he is my dream come true. That little boy – my son (!!!) – is a gift from God!

What joy! What enduring joy!