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!

Provisional Approval!

We have been provisionally approved by the USCIS to bring our little boy home!

I know a bunch of you are wondering… didn’t this already happen?!?

Yes! But that was approval for a non-specific child as described by our home study and this is a specific provisional approval for a very particular little boy. And pending the legal proceedings months from now, this very particular little boy will be approved to come home… to his new home in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Hurrah!!!

But the receipt of this provisional approval doesn’t mean the end of paperwork… it was just a step that will lead to the next steps in the process. We have more paperwork to do for his visa! And a few new forms as well that I have yet to learn the purpose of.

So even though it is just a step closer, we are grateful for that step.

And now for a little explanation:

A few of you have noticed that we are no longer calling him Vanyo or even Vanya.

When we met our little bundle of joy, we realized that Vanya just did not fit him. He is 100% a Victor! To call him anything else just felt wrong.

In other exciting news, some of our dear friends are throwing us a baby shower this weekend! We are really looking forward to seeing our dear friends from far and wide that we met during Ian’s grad school and through various connections here in DC. These people are awesome and have been by our side through thick and thin!

No other news though… we will hear nothing of our little Victor until we go to pick him up. No updates, no new pictures, nothing.

We are allowed to send him a Christmas present though… we are still thinking on what to send to him. Some new clothes and a teddy bear? A musical toy with lots of replacement batteries? We can’t wait to send him a reminder of our love! It still makes my heart heavy to know that he will not be spending Christmas with us this year. I was so sure that he would be with us… but with the constantly changing requirements for bringing him home, we will be glad of travel dates in January… or even February. I just pray that it is not March or later. It just seems like too long to wait.

Diary of a Soon-to-be Daddy - All He Ever Does is Come Through

Diary of a Soon-to-be Daddy

All He Ever Does is Come Through

When I last posted in our blog way back in July, seeing our little Victor was still a long way’s off even though we were to be seeing him in only two short months. Since we didn’t know the dates we’d be travelling yet, the time between then and our first meeting seemed like an inestimable eternity. During that time I got to thinking about my life, my job, and what things I would have to rearrange once Victor gets here. I remember asking the Lord, “What should I do about my job? I commute four hours every day. That’s untenable with a new kid that I should be bonding with.” In response to my very important and urgent plea, the Lord simply said, “Wait.” Unafraid that the Lord of the universe, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, might react in righteous anger, I retorted flippantly, “All I ever do is wait!” It seemed like a fair response for such an important request, after all. But the Lord, full of grace and truth, before I could even finish my sentence, responded with, “And all I ever do is come through.”

He was right, of course. Despite the difficult things that I’ve lived through in my life (legal blindness, joblessness, penury, and the grievous delay in having kids to name a few), the Lord has always come through and heard my pleas for help. I’ve fended off total blindness all my life, I finally got a job at a company that treats me very well, I have enough money to live on and bless others with, and Mel and I now have the most awesome little son ever! I’ve waited, and waited, and waited, and He has always come through – usually just in the nick of time and always with a good lesson.

I bring this remembrance to light not because I simply wish to retell of God’s desire to reprimand my flippancy, but because the last time I posted in our blog, I asked the Lord to bless our son with growth, strength, wisdom, and grace while we waited to see Him. I made this request in our blog and Mel and I made a point of making the same request every day in prayer from that time until the day we first saw Victor. We prayed, and yes, we waited. And believe it or not, the Lord came through!

When we were in the orphanage’s waiting room eagerly expecting Victor to be brought in, we were both filled with lots of excitement and joy but also with a grain of hesitancy and uncertainty. We couldn’t wait to see our son, but we worried a little about what he would be like. I myself was expecting the orphanage workers to carry in this little blob of a kid, curled up, emaciated, and listless. I figured that since he had been eating gruel (no joke), that he would be practically half-dead. Despite the fact that we had both been praying for strength, growth, wisdom, and grace for our son, we expected little. But when Victor and his caregivers came bursting through the door, Victor walking and pulling on their arm of his caregiver the way a terrier pulls on its leash, we both saw that our prayers had been answered and the Lord had indeed “always come through.”

The first thing we had been praying for was that he would grow. Being fed nothing but gruel from a baby bottle is no way to live and it’s no way to grow. Victor should be puny and listless and without an ounce of strength. But he isn’t. He does have weaker lower legs, so when we walks, he has to have his hand held. But despite that, he pulls like a terrier on the very arm that is holding him up! Both Mel’s and my arms were practically out of their sockets by the end of the week. He also has much better eyesight than we’d thought. The orphanage had told us that he basically completely blind. They seemed to have given up on him ever seeing. But on our first day with him, we could tell he could see us. He looked at us, he made eye contact, he looked at other things, he looked for and found his toys. And when I played “seeing games” with him to test the level and breadth of his vision (the same types of games my mom used to play with me, like putting an orange toy on the orange linoleum floor just out of his field of vision to see if he can see it), he “passed” with flying colours. Yes, he still has problems – he is still visually impaired and may need surgeries and glasses. But he can see. His eyes are stronger than we were told, just like the Lord told us to pray.

We also prayed for him to grow in spirit. Growing up in an orphanage with no mom or dad is nigh unto a curse for one’s personality development. Again, we went in there expecting to find a kid that had either no personality whatsoever, or a personality that had been skewed by the lack of parental love and discipline. Again, we were proved wrong. Victor has not only a strong personality but also a very sweet and fun one! He smiled a lot, he liked cuddling, he laughed a lot, and while he didn’t talk using coherent words (since he hasn’t learned to yet), he was communicative. And beyond that, his personality was big and steadfast! He had definite preferences – when we rolled up his sleeves, he rolled them right back down again without barely a thought. He also didn’t care for the hood on his sweater being put up. When he wanted to stop walking, he plunked himself down on the ground and started to play with rocks (or broken glass, which wasn’t good!). He was the perfect three-year-old!

We also wanted him to be “wise to us” as his parents, so we prayed for him to grow in wisdom. Like the other two, this one was answered fully! When we first took him outside, I made a point of praying over him and telling him that I was his father. When I said this to him, he reached up out of his stroller and climbed into my arms. It was amazing! Over that week he and I bonded very closely. He also bonded with Mommy who sang him songs and cuddled him until he squirmed. He may not know exactly what parents are, but he definitely knows we’re supposed to be in his life, and he in ours. He is wise to us. The Lord came through.

Finally, we prayed for the grace of God to be on him. The grace of God, simply put, in God’s desire to see us, His children, beautified and made into the best people we can be. We wanted the Lord to make his favour on our little Victor evident to all those around him. And it was! The orphanage people loved him and wanted to see him adopted. They loved us and were pleased that we were the ones adopting him. They frequently told us, through our translators, how happy they were that he was finally getting adopted into a good family. We felt that they could have done some things better for sure, but their attitudes toward him were reflective of the Lord’s favour on him.

So the Lord always comes through. And He’s going to come through again when we bring Victor home in three to five months. This is not me presuming that God’s going to do something I want Him to do. It’s me acknowledging what He has done up until now and knowing that since He doesn’t change, He will continue to work His miracles and bring this adoption to its rightful and perfect conclusion. There’s still so much work to do, so much preparation to complete, so much money to raise. But we continue to rely on the Lord and wait on Him. Because just like He always has done, He will come through.

Third Trimester… Will This Baby Ever Come???

So here we are in the third trimester of our paper pregnancy!

  

The time when we wait and wait for our little one, all the while growing immense… in anticipation, at least.  The morning sickness of paperwork is done with… except for occasional bouts every now and then. We have found out that it’s a boy and that he has the cutest little face. We have felt him move and squirm. We are ready for him to start his new life with us… beyond ready!

And labor pains! Well, they are labor pains of the heart. How we miss our little boy! If I could do anything to bring him even a little sooner, then yes, I would. But just like a real pregnancy, we must wait. We don’t know when exactly in the next four to six months that our son will come to us... but that doesn’t stop us from counting the days, the hours, the very seconds!

However, there is a very real growth process that needs to happen during this time. We cannot rush this process… as much as we may want to. Just as a baby matures in the womb until the time comes for it to enter this world… this adoption must mature and go full term before our little boy legally becomes part of our family.

First, U.S. immigration must finalize his citizenship so that the moment he sets foot on U.S. soil, he will become an American. The paperwork to make this happen is already in their hands and they are working at all the necessary governmental paper pushing. Being a governmental paper pusher myself, I know that this can be a lot of work. Governments all over the world seem to love forms, documents, signatures, and the whatnot. So all of this is being done… while we sit here twiddling our thumbs. And praying… praying that the work goes swiftly and without errors.

When the U.S. finally gives their approval, then the Bulgarian government… who loves paperwork as much as ours does… will take their turn with the necessary paper pushing. I would love to fuss at the bureaucratic process – the hoops we have to jump through, the red tape we need to cut – but I know that each step is bringing this little man closer to being our very own son. Each signature signed, each box check… they are laboring to bring my little one into my arms and for that, I am eternally grateful. So while all of this is being done… we will sit here twiddling our thumbs. And doing some more praying….

 Once all of this is completed, our lawyers in Bulgaria will apply for a court date… sort of like our caesarean section date... and with the court's final decision and approval of our adoption, this little boy will be pulled out of fatherlessness and from being a ward of the state and breathe the air of sonship for the first time. Oh, what a day of rejoicing that will be for us! But he won’t even realize anything is different. He will still be in the orphanage. We will still be strangers that visited him months and months ago. We won’t even be there. He will not know that his life will be forever changed by this one day.

But the battle will be over. The labor finished. On that day, he will be ours. We will pack our bags (and one for him too!) and go and get him. All that will be left is the trip home from the hospital!

Language

Little did I know all those years ago in my language acquisition class, that I was learning material that I would be later using to bring the gift of speech to my own little child. Yes, Ian and I were linguistics majors in college – the few, the proud, the unemployed. (Hey, it’s in the top ten unemployable degrees in the nation!) As much as I enjoyed it, I have many times thought that it was a worthless degree. I never have and probably never will obtain employment because of it.

But now I have a little boy who, in spite of his three years on this earth, has only a handful of words. His development level in speech is about the age of a 12-15 month year old. But this doesn’t mean that he is lacking intelligence in any way – in fact, we found that it was quite the opposite – he was a little sponge – quickly soaking up new situations, information, sounds, experiences, etc.

He babbles – it is quite adorable – it sounds like a little language all his own. Really, it is a baby’s way of working out sound combinations within a language. Can the “sss” come before the “k” and can a word have a consonant and then a vowel and then a consonant or is it consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel? Who knew babies were such analysts? Of course, this is all in Bulgarian, so he will have the additional challenge of figuring it out for English too.

His language delays are probably the result of several factors.

First, he is visually impaired. Children who have sight problems from birth generally speak at a little latter than sighted kids. This is because part of the information in the equation is missing… yes, they hear all the words, but do not see what the words are referring to. Even coming to understand that language has the purpose of communication comes a little later. It is hard to work out one-on-one associations and fine tune definitions. Mommy calls a little toy a “car” and the big thing he sits in to go places is called a “car” too. How do you reconcile that when you don’t see that both are the same shape, with different sizes, having the same features like wheels and mobility? You would have to understand the concept of a toy too… which he doesn’t. It takes extra effort and insight to teach a visually impaired child these things.

Secondly, all children need lots of input to learn language. They need to be constantly surrounded by language from birth to acquire language. In normal childhood, this isn’t a problem. They get goo’ed and ga’ed over, sung silly songs to and are in constant conversation with their primary care providers – Mom and Dad. In an orphanage – even a “good” one like the one our little boy is in – this is just not the case. Lots of kids need care and speech is limited to “Stop wiggling” when clothes are being put on and “Go to sleep!” when a child wakes everyone up in the middle of the night screaming. Without the raw material to analyze, babies just don’t figure it out. Acquiring language is a little like creating a library – a room full of shelves is not a library. Babies are filling their language “shelves” with books (language/speech data obtained from listening to the language around them). If fewer “books” are available to put on the “shelves”, then it is going to take longer for them to fill up – and this needs to happen before they can start talking and become little fluent native speakers of a language.

Thirdly, our little boy may have had some brain damage at birth. We think that this is highly unlikely – we did not see any symptoms of it when we visited him. But it is possible that some of the shelves of his “library” of a speech center in his brain have been damaged and the “books” of speech data are just falling off them. Unlikely, yes, but it is common that adopted children sometimes have unknown special needs that become apparent over time. If so, we will cross that bridge if we come to it. But once again, this is not evident from our observations of him – it’s just a remote possibility. And even then, there are things one can do to bring a child to his or her full potential with language.

So how does one help a little child with a speech delay?

First of all – call in the professionals! Speech therapists really know what they are doing and can make a world of difference! Our little boy will have a special speech therapist friend for sure!

But there are other things that we will be doing to help him learn and grow in language.

We will talk and talk and talk. We will talk to him, we will talk around him. This is the best thing. We want to be sure that he has as much speech data as possible to fill up those little shelves in his brain.

We will talk out life – as we do everything, we will describe what we are doing out loud. What he cannot see, we will describe. If the wind is blowing, we will say, “O how the wind does blow!” and if we are cooking pancakes we are going to be talking about how we measure, stir, and flip! And eat! Mmmm… pancakes!

We are going to read to him. Not only do books capture the interest of a child with stories, pictures, and rhyme, they provide repetitive language. If you read the “Hop on Pop” every day for a year, soon enough, you will find your child not only hopping on pop (poor Ian!) but talking about hopping on pop.

We will also be teaching non-language thinking skills like association and anticipation. In order to grasp language, you have to understand how things can and do correlate to one another and with language. If your teddy bear has eyes, nose, and mouth, and you have eyes, nose, and mouth and mom has eyes, nose, and mouth… you make a connection that all eyes, even fake ones on a teddy bear, are all the same thing and can be called by one word… and that if you see a dog for the first time ever, you can recognize that he has eyes too!

We are really looking forward to helping our little one grow in his language… maybe he will even grown up to be a language lover and linguist like us… we would be so proud! But then again, maybe we should steer him towards a more, well… profitable area of study. I bet he would make a great nuclear physicist! But first, I think we will work on those language skills…

The Long Wait Ahead

Depending on the nature of things, four – six months is not a very long time. Six months at a job? You’re still a newbie. Six month married? You’re still a newlywed. Six months practicing a musical instrument? Amateur.

Six months waiting for your child to come home? Eternity.

We left him there. He is there without us, his mama and tati. We will have no contact until we pick him up to take him home. We will fade away in his memories – maybe we already have. He loved us yes – but most likely did not understand the significance of our visit – the significance of our hugs and kisses and love. They were just nice and then vanished. We pray that this is not so – that God revealed to him that we were his family and that we were coming back for him to free him forever from fatherlessness.

God imprinted on our hearts this little boy, with his little giggles and mischievous smile, as our son. We are missing him, longing for him, desperate for him.

We are eagerly working on all the paperwork that will enable us to bring him home.

Once that paperwork is done and we are just waiting for everyone else to complete their part, we will start working on our preparations... setting up his crib in our room so that we will be close when he cries in the night. Setting up his play space with toys and filling his closet with clothes (so excited that he wears a 3T - it means he is a big, healthy boy!). We will toddler proof our apartment. Once all of this is done, we will have a final homestudy visit. Even the State of Virginia wants to know that we are ready for him!

We are also starting to get together the homecoming plan - which doctors to see and figuring out maternity/paternity leave and adjusting our finances as much as possible to enable us to stay at home as long as possible with him to make sure we are bonding together as a family.

We will start preparing for our second trip - what we will bring, where we will stay, and all of those details. 

We are hoping that this will all keep us busy enough to not miss him too much. 

Quite honestly, I doubt it will work. I am going to miss him every day until I have him in my arms again. 

I did not think that it would be like this - I thought that the wait was going to be a breeze. I am not an emotional person. I thought that I could "handle" this. I used to read the blogs of other adoptive moms during their wait crying in the middle of the supermarket when a child reminded them of thier own far distant little one and think - "Not me, I'll be fine." 

I was wrong. I can't handle this. I am crying at the supermarket. I long for the smell of his hair (like puppy dog fur, strangely enough - the little nursery rhyme was right - What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails). I yearn for the sound of his voice. I have a gapping hole in my heart - in my life - and sometimes can barely function because of it. 

So if you ask me how I am, and I say I am fine - chances are I am not. If you find me wiping away a stray tear or staring at the little boy on the bus with a pained expression, bear with me. Have mercy and grace and patience with me - I will be ok - when he comes home, that is. If you ask Ian - he is not much better - he misses his son just as much as I do... except he wouldn't cry in the supermarket. So until he comes home... God have mercy on us.

We Met Our Son!

He is so wonderful and strong and handsome and smart and silly and fun and…

I could go on for a while and often do. But let me say just say that he is the perfect little boy for us and we love him very much! I will write in detail about our trip in the coming weeks but let me give you a quick summary of our week:

We met him one lovely morning in a little office filled with people… He walked in with his Baba (a very nice lady from the town that comes and plays with him almost every day) holding his hands! He was big too – a full sized three year old! And loud! He was so excited and babbled away… not shy at all. I had expected a cute, cuddly, quiet boy… and he is still cute, and sometimes cuddly, but not quiet, no way!

We went for a walk with him… he loved to prop his feet up on the front bar of the stroller – he is so flexible. We sat down on a bench and pulled the stroller in front of us. We spoke loving words to him though he wouldn’t understand, of course, as he does know English yet. We told him about how we loved and wanted him and how he would eat at our table and be our son. When we were finished, he reached for Ian – for his tati (Bulgarian for daddy) – to pick him up. Just like that. Like he understood all that we had been telling him and that he was eager to join our little family.

The next day we went back. We met in a spare room at the orphanage and were astounded at how well he could see… he proved again and again that the doctors were wrong about his sight. Yes, he still has a great deal of visual impairment, but he can see! We also learned that he hates the gruel they feed him – once again proving he could see by artfully avoiding the spoon! We spent the afternoon in the park with him, walking about, playing with his toys, and singing our favorite songs to him.

The next day, he was so sleepy… I don’t think he slept well the day before. We went to another park. He was extra cuddly and extra cranky... he had his own special way of being sweet and grumpy all at once. We bought him some clothes as the ones he was wearing were old, too small, and smelly. What a big improvement to have him dressed in clean clothes that fit. And we found out he is very particular about his clothes. No rolled up sleeves for him! He is stubborn and opinionated – he will fit right into our family!

The next day we went to take his picture for his visa – he had to sit all alone on a little stool and look up at the camera. He was so frightened and would not raise his head, so everyone started calling his name to make him look up. This made it worse. You could see him thinking on how to get away… he called for his Baba, but she did not come. Then he called for his Tati and Mama! Oh, to be called “Mama” for the first time! As he called out he looked up and the photographer took his picture and I was able to swoop him up and love on him! We then took him to a nearby church and played at the park next door.

The last day… so sad. We had to leave our little boy. We loved on him and snuggled him and sang cute little songs to him. He must have sensed our tension because he was more agitated. Soon the time came for goodbyes and then he was swept away by a nurse. We left him with a photo album, a recordable storybook with our voices telling him how much he was loved, a snuggly blanket, and our hearts.

We used to be a couple and it felt fine and normal. Now being a couple feels incomplete. During those short few visits, God joined our hearts together as a family and now it just feels wrong to be without him. We miss him terribly. I wonder if he is missing us…

We will travel to Bulgaria again in four – six months. We will pick him up and take him away and he will be our son forever. We will bathe and clothe him. We will try to give him all that he needs to nourish his body, mind, and spirit. We will love him and hold him close. We can’t wait!

Sorry – but no pictures of him will be seen until he is our own. The orphanage is very serious about this and we want to respect their rules. But let me reassure you he is a handsome little lad!

Toys, Toys, Toys!

We are running short on time… trying to get everything done before our trip. We don’t just have to get ready for it (and get ready to meet our little son!), we have to make sure plants are watered, mail stopped, and bills paid.

Who knew leaving for a week could be so stressful? We are using our vacation time to go visit our little one… vacations are supposed to be relaxing!

One of the fun things of getting ready has been toy shopping! Toys to occupy his hands while his heart gets to know us as MOM and DAD!

Toys that roll, toys that hum, toys that make noise! 

 

Toys that meet him where he is at developmentally, that will tickle his fancy – we hope.

What little boy doesn’t love cars? We know our little boy loves to go for rides! What little boy does not love to make noise? Or play ball?

Toys that flash and spin bright lights, that play tunes when you pinch their noses, books to read, balls to toss, and teddy bears to snuggle!

Not all at once though… we will give him the toys a couple at time over the course of a week. So we will play. And as we play, we will get to know each other. We will bond. We will pray blessings. As we love on him.

Don’t look for a blog next week… we have some serious playing to do!

Impossible

Ian and I have been busy… at work, at church, at home. We even seem busy in our sleep. What with the end of the fiscal year, a new season of teaching bible study and Sunday school, not to mention planning all the details of our first visit to meet our new little son, we are definitely burning the candle at both ends – perhaps in the center too, just for good measure.

But in the middle of the busy, busy, busy, I stop. I stop and find peace. I stop and give thanks. I stop and linger in the embrace of the One who makes the impossible possible.

The impossible…

Yes, I am talking about our adoption… and so much more.

I am talking about how He transformed a sad, silent little girl into vibrant and powerful woman (me!).

How He takes broken bodies and minds that are beyond a doctor’s help and makes them brand new (also me!)

How He loved the world so much, that He gave His own Son to death that we could have life.

Impossible love.

God defines love differently than we do.  Our definition of love is a deep feeling of devotion and adoration. And yes, that is awesome… but not impossible. Even evil people can love that way.

But impossible love is on a much bigger scale. It is more than a feeling – it’s an action plan that started before all time began. It involved thousands upon thousands of years to work it out, billions of people, and the most crushing loss ever – the death of the invincible on behalf of the fallible.

The goal? Simply to give me the most awesome existence ever– to make me the most Melanie-est Melanie ever in the best way possible. Take that goal and multiply it by billons. To somehow give everyone who has ever lived exactly what they need to be the most joyful, most awesome, most incredible version of themselves ever. 

“Impossible”, you say. “You can’t please all the people all the time.”

Someone did. God figured out a way to do it. There was only one way to do this and He found it. A way wherein everyone gets to win and everyone gets the prize.

“I don’t know”, you say, “I definitely don’t have the most wonderful existence ever. I am hot and bothered, I suffer and everything really is horrible. And I know I am not the only one… it seems this plan is failing.”

This plan is not done yet. We are not done yet. We don’t get to see the final end anymore than cake batter gets to see the wedding cake it becomes. Right now we are oozy, unformed versions of ourselves. But God is working out His plan in us – in our neighbors, in the guy on the street corner, in that obnoxious co-worker.  We are not done yet. We need a little heat, a little discomfort and maybe even searing pain to form us into that miraculous wedding cake version of ourselves. It’s yucky. It feels unfair. But in the end we will have our cake and eat it too.

We don’t know what is best for us… we try, we fail, and sometimes we succeed, but even our success is only a shadow of the success He has planned for us. We see glimpses of what is to come, but we don’t see it fully. Yes, it is a matter of belief and trust, but I have seen enough glimpses to know that the reality which is to come is good beyond my wildest of dreams. At the end of the plan, when it all comes together, we are left with impossible perfection.

This is what love means to Him. At all costs, even the highest cost, he arranged for each of us to have a happy ending – the best happy ending possible… which will turn out to be just the beginning of eternity.

My life has been hard. Ian’s life has been hard. My little son across the ocean, who has barely experienced any of his life – his life has been hard.

When life is impossibly busy, when life is impossibly hard… when I am going crazy with sorrow… crazy with fear… I stop and find peace. I stop and give thanks. I stop and linger in the embrace of the One who makes the impossible possible through His impossible love.