15 Miles From Nowhere

I have sat down a million times to explain WHY we would specifically adopt a child with special needs & what special needs parenting means to me. But I just can't explain it without the back story. So here it is... the beginning of our journey in special needs parenting. I remember vividly when I was pregnant with our baby girl and we were choosing names.  My husband liked a lot of cutesy little girl names, and I kept saying that we need something strong.  Something suitable for a strong, fierce woman who could someday be a doctor, lawyer, or President of the United States!  She needed something that would look good on her PhD diploma.  At the time I worked for a university, and one of my tasks was printing diplomas, and my argument was that you rarely see a "cutesy" name on a doctoral diploma.  We settled on a "cutesy" name, with a long version. You know, for her PhD diploma some day.  We settled on a name that to me, spoke of kindness, gentleness, b...

I think in this case, adoption is like the longest, most annoying pregnancy ever! Haha We are still waiting. It seems like everything is one step forward, two steps back. Our homestudy needed edits, so we have to re-send it to her country. There goes another $30 in apostilles. Our medical forms were done in April for the homestudy, but have to be less than 5 months old, so need to be done again... there goes another $300. Our USCIS fingerprint appointments are the farthest out date imaginable and our local office (which is 300 miles away, so not exactly local) doesn't take walk ins. It feels like we've been hit with a lot of negative lately. Please say a prayer for us that we can move through these obstacles quickly, and maybe even cheaply. Once we get through these delays, things should move quickly (we hope). On the other side, we have experienced an awesome group of friends and family that have stepped up to help us along the way. They have prayed, encouraged us, and ...

***HUGE DISCLAIMER*** Newborn adoption, where a biological mom immediately gives the child to an adoptive family is NOT what I'm talking about here! That is a very loving, selfless act, and is beautiful for all who are involved. Older child adoption and foster care adoption, these things are a little more messy... please read on... Okay, so the title of this post is probably a little shocking. You see, I LOVE ADOPTION! I really, truly do. Our family has been blessed by a child through adoption, and I couldn't imagine my life without him. Adoption has without a doubt made my life richer, fuller, more amazing. Adoption is a beautiful way to take a child from the depths of a tragic situation, and show them a new life. Adoption quite literally saves the lives of orphans in many cases. It gives them hope. It gives them a future with possibilities that could never have happened. But this weekend, we saw the hint of scars left behind, and I was reminded of how much I hate the other ...

SO, last week was a big week.  It's been crazy, but I've finally found a few minutes to update... After what felt like a million delays, our homestudy was FINALLY ready, so last Monday (8/17) I went to pick it up. Since the homestudy agency is in the OKC metro I took the bulk of our dossier to be apostilled at the same time.  An apostille is a state seal, where the state verifies that the notary is valid.  Anyway, we live about 4 1/2 hours from the homestudy agency & state capitol, so we drove up to take care of it in one day.  We saved probably about 2 weeks of mail time that way.  My mom went with me (BLESS HER!), which was awesome because it was a very stressful day.  We had a couple of hiccups, a lot of driving across the OKC metro, and a crazy day, but at the end of the day, this is where we are at: Our completed homestudy was overnighted to USCIS to catch up with the application that we filed last March.  They have had it over a week no...

So... I haven't blogged in a VERY long time.  Here's what has been going on with the adoption process since last summer... Last summer we had to put the adoption on hold for a little bit while we sold our house in Yukon.  It had been a rental property, and when the tenants moved out, we decided to put it on the market and use the proceeds toward the adoption.  Well, it didn't sell for several months.  And by the time we repaired things for sale, paid the mortgage for several months, and lowered the price we ended up basically breaking even.  So that plan failed.  Oh well, that's life!  But while paying two mortgages, having to do necessary repairs to this house (which we had just bought the prior winter & needed quite a bit more than we thought), we were financially drained. So we put everything on pause.  Then last August I went back to work.  I'd say that was a mistake for our family, but it gave us a big boost financially, so I can...

Mommy wars - What a dumb term.   Seriously, so dumb.   But the worst part is that this warring between women actually exists.   Sure, you can deny its’ existence, because it’s not always apparent – it usually doesn't even involve heated conversations.   Mommy wars exist in the form of judgmental looks, gossip behind closed doors, and breaking ourselves off into cliques.   It is a much subtler way of warring against each other, but the effect is the same – shattered self esteem, doubt over our every step, fear of judgment if we shake up the status quo.   These wars exist.   They exist between homeschoolers and public schoolers, big families and small families, SAHMs and working moms, single moms and married moms, and any other dividing line.   These lines exist and crossing them is tantamount to treason.   Once you cross a line, there’s a good chance your social circle will be altered.   Maybe our good friends will stay the sam...

Wanted to take a minute and update you on how the adoption is going and what are prayer needs are. First of all, we are SO BLESSED by the outpouring of love that we have received.  I honestly expected at least a little bit of negativity, simply because we are doing something so out of the ordinary.  Something this big and crazy tends to welcome criticism. I have also been so HUMBLED by the outpouring of help.  I hate asking for help, I really do.  I knew from the beginning that by asking us to do this, God was asking us to put ourselves out there and ask for help.  We are in the early stages and haven't needed a ton of help yet, but I'm already BLOWN AWAY by the love that has been showered on us.  Our cinnamon roll fundraiser was the perfect example.  We set up to sell at a local consignment sale.  We had no idea what to expect, so we baked a bunch.  We had people buy like crazy and got a few cash donations.  We had friends spreading...