Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Referral Picture
This is the only referral picture that I could find on this computer, but isn't she sweet. Sunday, April 27, 2008
Seventh Birthday
On Wednesday, Allison will be 7. We had her birthday party yesterday and she had such a good time. I can't believe my baby is going to be 7. I remember that little tiny thing that we brought home from Vietnam 6 1/2 years ago.
Our journey started right away when we got married. We decided not to prevent pregnancy because we knew we wanted to have children and suspected that I would have issues because my sister's did. Among the 3 sisters there is only 1 biological child. My oldest sister and I were never able to get pregnant. We got married in 1996. In 1999, we went to see an infertility specialist. I went through 3 months of clomid and it was horrid. I have never experienced the emotions that I experienced on those pills. We then chose to move on to injectibles. Well, in that time we had an insurance change and no more coverage for infertility and there we stopped.
In Jan. 2000, I ended up in the hospital for hemorrhaging. I had to get blood transfusions and had to have a D&C and still ended up being in there for almost 3 days because I wouldn't stop bleeding. I felt my body had betrayed me. I just wanted a hysterectomy, but my Dr. wouldn't hear anything about that. I had been thinking about going back into treatment in June of that year but after that happened, I couldn't bring myself to it.
By the end of 2000, we had pretty much decided we were going to adopt and we wanted to adopt from Vietnam. We started gathering some paperwork and I was checking out agencies and emailing them questions. One night we went to an information meeting of an agency that was only about 45 minutes away from us and we decided we would use them. It really turned out to be a good choice. We applied in Feb.
We started all the paperwork and attending the required classes and we were DTV by April 25th. We requested either gender and that pretty much assured us that we would be referred a boy. At that time, we were told that it would probably be around 10 months for a referral, but it could be longer. So, we went on with our lives.
In August, we decided to take a vacation one last time before becoming parents. I emailed our agency and just said that I knew we were no where near getting a referral, but here is where we will be. Well, when we got back to the hotel room Friday night after being out all day there was a note to call our agency. We couldn't figure out what they wanted, there was no way we had a referral already. But, why else would they call our hotel when we were on vacation. I called our agency numerous times and left messages over the weekend. I am sure when they checked the answering machine Monday morning they thought I was a complete nut. I then called back as soon as I knew they would be in on Monday morning. They were all in a meeting. Ugh!!!! I had to be in a meeting at 9, this was really starting to bug me. At our meeting, they served breakfast first and just as I was finishing eating, my cell phone rang. I ran out of that building so fast.
When I answered the phone, she told me that we had a referral. What, it had been less than 4 months!?!?! And guess what???? It was a girl. She was born premature and because we had marked a little box on our paper saying that we would consider a child born prematurely (and no one on the girl only list had marked that), we got her referral. She gave me all the details and said she would send the pictures by email. She was then going to call Brad and give him all of the details, but I got to him first and told him that the call was coming. We agreed to meet at home later when my meeting would be over to view the email together.
When we opened that email, there was the most beautiful face we had ever seen. We consulted our family Dr., who said bring her home and we'll deal with any medical issues and we consulted and IA Dr. who said she could have a million things wrong with her and I wouldn't accept her referral. We knew when we saw her picture that she was our daughter, but we prayed about it and we made the agency wait until Friday until we gave them our answer.
Then things changed with the processing of adoptions. We all of a sudden had to make 2 trips. So, we hurried up and we were scheduled to leave on our first trip on September 14th, 2001. Well, we all know what happened there. I was so scared. I thought I would never get to hold my baby. Our flights were rescheduled for the 21st. We were going. I had a friend say to me that I was nuts for getting on a plane and going over there. I wanted to tell her that if her daughter was on the other side of the world and the only way for her to get her was to get on that plane, she would have been on that plane so fast. So, we went.
I will finish this in another post. I love telling the story of my Baby Boo.
Our journey started right away when we got married. We decided not to prevent pregnancy because we knew we wanted to have children and suspected that I would have issues because my sister's did. Among the 3 sisters there is only 1 biological child. My oldest sister and I were never able to get pregnant. We got married in 1996. In 1999, we went to see an infertility specialist. I went through 3 months of clomid and it was horrid. I have never experienced the emotions that I experienced on those pills. We then chose to move on to injectibles. Well, in that time we had an insurance change and no more coverage for infertility and there we stopped.
In Jan. 2000, I ended up in the hospital for hemorrhaging. I had to get blood transfusions and had to have a D&C and still ended up being in there for almost 3 days because I wouldn't stop bleeding. I felt my body had betrayed me. I just wanted a hysterectomy, but my Dr. wouldn't hear anything about that. I had been thinking about going back into treatment in June of that year but after that happened, I couldn't bring myself to it.
By the end of 2000, we had pretty much decided we were going to adopt and we wanted to adopt from Vietnam. We started gathering some paperwork and I was checking out agencies and emailing them questions. One night we went to an information meeting of an agency that was only about 45 minutes away from us and we decided we would use them. It really turned out to be a good choice. We applied in Feb.
We started all the paperwork and attending the required classes and we were DTV by April 25th. We requested either gender and that pretty much assured us that we would be referred a boy. At that time, we were told that it would probably be around 10 months for a referral, but it could be longer. So, we went on with our lives.
In August, we decided to take a vacation one last time before becoming parents. I emailed our agency and just said that I knew we were no where near getting a referral, but here is where we will be. Well, when we got back to the hotel room Friday night after being out all day there was a note to call our agency. We couldn't figure out what they wanted, there was no way we had a referral already. But, why else would they call our hotel when we were on vacation. I called our agency numerous times and left messages over the weekend. I am sure when they checked the answering machine Monday morning they thought I was a complete nut. I then called back as soon as I knew they would be in on Monday morning. They were all in a meeting. Ugh!!!! I had to be in a meeting at 9, this was really starting to bug me. At our meeting, they served breakfast first and just as I was finishing eating, my cell phone rang. I ran out of that building so fast.
When I answered the phone, she told me that we had a referral. What, it had been less than 4 months!?!?! And guess what???? It was a girl. She was born premature and because we had marked a little box on our paper saying that we would consider a child born prematurely (and no one on the girl only list had marked that), we got her referral. She gave me all the details and said she would send the pictures by email. She was then going to call Brad and give him all of the details, but I got to him first and told him that the call was coming. We agreed to meet at home later when my meeting would be over to view the email together.
When we opened that email, there was the most beautiful face we had ever seen. We consulted our family Dr., who said bring her home and we'll deal with any medical issues and we consulted and IA Dr. who said she could have a million things wrong with her and I wouldn't accept her referral. We knew when we saw her picture that she was our daughter, but we prayed about it and we made the agency wait until Friday until we gave them our answer.
Then things changed with the processing of adoptions. We all of a sudden had to make 2 trips. So, we hurried up and we were scheduled to leave on our first trip on September 14th, 2001. Well, we all know what happened there. I was so scared. I thought I would never get to hold my baby. Our flights were rescheduled for the 21st. We were going. I had a friend say to me that I was nuts for getting on a plane and going over there. I wanted to tell her that if her daughter was on the other side of the world and the only way for her to get her was to get on that plane, she would have been on that plane so fast. So, we went.
I will finish this in another post. I love telling the story of my Baby Boo.
Death
I am just so broken tonight. There has been 4 deaths of what we consider young people in my "life" in the past 13 months. I am praying that I will see all 4 of them in Heaven, but I am not sure if all 4 of them had a personal relationship with my Lord and Saviour.
It all started last March. My "girl", my friend's daughter, was killed in a car accident at the age of 18. It was so devastating. I started working with her Mom when she was 2 and babysitting her when she was 3. Her mom was a single mom and she worked a lot. My sister babysat her for years after I started babysitting her and the two of them became very much a part of our family. When R was in her early teens her mom got married and moved about an hour away. I didn't get to see them much after that, but we still saw each other 1 or 2 times a year. I love that girl so much and I look at her picture every day and can't imagine that I will never see her again on this earth.
Then last June, a 46 year old coworker of mine passed away. He battled cancer for 18 months. He actually had some good months in there, but when it came back, it came back with a vengeance. He left behind a wife and a daughter in high school and a son in middle school. I was close to his family because I work with his wife, dad, mother-in-law, father-in-law, cousin and his sister has been my supervisor for about 15 years.
Last month, a 10 year old boy that rode my bus last year was hit by a car and he died from his injuries. It was devastating for a lot of people and I cried with some of my students because it was heartbreaking to see the grief they were experiencing. When you are in 5th grade you don't expect one of your classmates to die and they were devastated.
Then last Saturday, I got an email from my best friend from high school asking for prayer for her younger sister who was in the hospital. Her sister ended up having surgery on Sat. and the last I had heard from her was Tues. morning and things were looking up. Well, I sent her an email Friday, just to see how things were going and letting her know that I was still praying , she told me that her sister passed away that morning. She was 33. I am so sad for my friend. I wish we lived closer so that I could just drop everything and go spend some time with her, but it is just not possible. I will be trying tomorrow to get off of work on Tuesday to attend the services. I just am so sad for her family. I have known them for over 25 years and I see them at least once a year.
I guess on this earth we will never understand why things happen. We need to just trust God and ask Him to bring us through.
It all started last March. My "girl", my friend's daughter, was killed in a car accident at the age of 18. It was so devastating. I started working with her Mom when she was 2 and babysitting her when she was 3. Her mom was a single mom and she worked a lot. My sister babysat her for years after I started babysitting her and the two of them became very much a part of our family. When R was in her early teens her mom got married and moved about an hour away. I didn't get to see them much after that, but we still saw each other 1 or 2 times a year. I love that girl so much and I look at her picture every day and can't imagine that I will never see her again on this earth.
Then last June, a 46 year old coworker of mine passed away. He battled cancer for 18 months. He actually had some good months in there, but when it came back, it came back with a vengeance. He left behind a wife and a daughter in high school and a son in middle school. I was close to his family because I work with his wife, dad, mother-in-law, father-in-law, cousin and his sister has been my supervisor for about 15 years.
Last month, a 10 year old boy that rode my bus last year was hit by a car and he died from his injuries. It was devastating for a lot of people and I cried with some of my students because it was heartbreaking to see the grief they were experiencing. When you are in 5th grade you don't expect one of your classmates to die and they were devastated.
Then last Saturday, I got an email from my best friend from high school asking for prayer for her younger sister who was in the hospital. Her sister ended up having surgery on Sat. and the last I had heard from her was Tues. morning and things were looking up. Well, I sent her an email Friday, just to see how things were going and letting her know that I was still praying , she told me that her sister passed away that morning. She was 33. I am so sad for my friend. I wish we lived closer so that I could just drop everything and go spend some time with her, but it is just not possible. I will be trying tomorrow to get off of work on Tuesday to attend the services. I just am so sad for her family. I have known them for over 25 years and I see them at least once a year.
I guess on this earth we will never understand why things happen. We need to just trust God and ask Him to bring us through.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Pictures!!!
Sisters hugging each other!!!! We enjoy this when we see it because it doesn't happen very often.
Ally posing in one of her favorite shirts. This girl loves to pose for pictures. Any time the camera is out, she's there.
The girls love their bunk beds. 
Jon before church. Isn't he so cute????
Libby came out of children's church with this. She loved it. She wore the belt all day. 
We have had a couple of really nice days and the kids got to play outside. Here is Jon on the ground where he usually ends up. I really think his walking is becoming more steady by walking on the uneven ground outside.
Ally posing again!!!
Libby doing what she loves to do the most, digging and playing with rocks.
I love this shirt he got from my niece for Christmas. I wanted to get a good picture of it before it gets too warm to wear it anymore. Of course, he's not so happy about the picture, obviously.
Just a cute smile.
I found these little "crocs" (not really, they are a very cheap version of them), but I think he looks so cute in them.Well, Jon had his 18 month appointment today. He is 30 inches tall and weighs 21 lbs. 2 oz. He is only in the 3rd -5th percentile for his weight and height. And the poor thing got 3 shots today.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
18 months old
I can't believe my baby is 18 months old today. He is the sweetest little boy and I can't believe how much joy he has brought into our lives. I love you Jonathan!!!!!
Unfortunately, I can't share any pictures of him today because our desktop crashed on Sunday and we are still working on retrieving things. I am so thankful that we have the laptop.
Unfortunately, I can't share any pictures of him today because our desktop crashed on Sunday and we are still working on retrieving things. I am so thankful that we have the laptop.
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