because some day

mine

2012-01-28T15:28:00.000-05:00

it has been a year since we brought sarahjoy home and as we mark that anniversary with krispy kreme donuts (i mean what else would you mark it with?) i have found myself remembering the journey. why is it that we forget the past so quickly? forget how MUCH God did to bring her home! really, folks, he did above and beyond what we could have ever thought or imagined and i am embarrassed to say that i have rarely reflected on that reality in the past year. the present fullness of life so often edges out the past stories of the miraculous. and yet, we must remember. we must reflect on God's faithfulness lest we forget.

i went back and was looking at the list of people who invested in sarahjoy's little life. i was completely overwhelmed. i didn't count them, but they took up two pages when i printed them out. so many people who came together to bring her home. i can't really wrap my mind around it actually. there were even people on that list that i didn't know. friends of friends who were prompted to give to a little girl's journey. over $30,000. a miracle. God moving individuals to come together for a greater cause. i stand amazed.

and that's just the people who financially supported sarahjoy. if i tried to make a list of people who prayed for her it would have to remain unfinished. i don't even know many of them. it is not uncommon for me to meet someone at church who tells me they have prayed for sarahjoy. i don't know them, but they knew my baby and prayed her home. they prayed for someone they didn't even a know. an "unknown" little girl in a faraway country. why? why were so many prompted to do so? the only answer i have...the miraculous hand of God. the hand that brings families together across continents and moves people's hearts to come together and plead for God's blessings on a faraway little life, on our life.

i remain undeniably indebted to so many people. they brought my baby home. they brought my baby into my arms, out of death's grip, and back to life. i am so thankful. i shout to the world, my God is great, he is greatly to be praised. he looks upon the orphan with compassion and cares for them. he uses each of us to bring his will to fruition. he blesses those who follow him. he is a God of the miraculous and completely unfathomable.

and here i sit, as the recipient of so many blessings. not the least of which is a precious little girl, full of spunk and feisty energy. who has been given a new chance at life. who brings joy to our days. who is mine. and who is a product of hundreds, if not thousands, of people's prayers and gifts. a picture of the true nature of God.

because of you, she's mine.

may God use her story for his glory.

why?

2012-01-21T15:18:00.004-05:00

over the years i have had a number of people ask me, "why don't you adopt from the U.S.?" i actually hate that question. because behind it, whether they are willing to admit it or not, is the assumption that a child from the usa is more important than a child elsewhere. for some reason we feel like a child in our own country deserves adoption more than a child somewhere else. and of course, that assumption is simply symptomatic of the great american mindset that we are God's greatest gift to this earth. that there is no other country who could rival us, even their PEOPLE are less than ours. their HUMAN BEINGS are of less significance than our population.

i know that most people who ask that question are not even conscious of this mindset. at least, i will give them that benefit. but truly, it is an arrogant, arrogant thought process that questions why someone would adopt anywhere other than the usa. and it really bothers me.

recently i came across this video. it will make you sick to your stomach if you have any sense of compassion. it is truly unbelievable to many americans, those who haven't been exposed to the realities of the world in which we live. i challenge you to watch it. to open your eyes to the horrors going on in other countries. and maybe you will have the opportunity to bring a little light to that question that i hate.

www.itsagirlmovie.com

thank you, part B

2011-05-26T14:43:00.003-04:00

Baby Chic Pink Thank You 3x5 folded card

Elegant thank you cards and notes by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

y'all get to look at my cute card so i can get a $10 credit to shutterfly! but it is cute, if i do say so myself. and fits perfectly into my plan to write thank you notes to those who were instrumental in bringing little SJ home. yes, mom, i have already written thank you notes once. but you know, i feel like people need to see and hear again just how much their gifts to us helped perform a miracle. God is so gracious to have given us little SJ.

editor's letters

2011-05-23T23:31:00.000-04:00

reading the 'letters to the editor' in wheaton's alumni magazine tonight...

the place God calls you to is the place where your gladness and the world's hunger meet. Frederick Buechner

thought provoking...

burning bush

2011-05-23T19:21:00.000-04:00

eric and i celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary the other day. and over a scrumptious lunch we said to each other, 'you know, our life really isn't any different than we would have imagined it would be.'

true. in lots of ways. in most ways. and yet as i've thought about that conversation i've realized there is something that isn't so much what i envisioned. adoption. yes, we had always thought about adopting a little chinese girl. but i don't think i ever thought about adopting two. and i never imagined being so in love with the adoption cause. i think if you would have asked me about it i would have simply explained our desire for an adoption and it would have ended there. not this heart-pulling desire to help the chinese orphan. it has caught me by surprise and i am still processing what it exactly means in my life.

on several occasions lately i have been asked questions like, "if you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?" or something along those lines. and the first thing in my mind, without any hesitation, is to go back to china to help in an orphanage. not only would i love to do that but i want that for all my children. i want them to see the plight of the orphan, to see where God rescued lydia and sarahjoy from. to be able to touch and smell and taste china (however gross that may be...) i don't care about luxury vacations or even exposing my kids to the great US of A. what i really care about is the orphan, specifically china's orphans, and providing an opportunity for my kids to become passionate about caring for God's precious children. and if you had talked to me 14 years ago, that is not where i would have placed my heart.

i probably would have told you i would have a great ministry with teenage girls. and well, that's not so much happening these days. nor do i have any desire for that to happen. at least not for another 7 or so years when i have a small group of teenage girls under my own roof!

and to be honest, i have no idea what to do with this relatively newly discovered, unexpected passion. yes, we have adopted two kids. but i don't feel like it ends there. what's next? do we actively seek to encourage other families to adopt? we've certainly been approached by some who are interested but no one seems to really be interested. maybe they need a gentle push from someone who has been there, who has the fire in their belly. do we save our pennies and seek to expose our children to china's orphans? i would love to take them on a trip with 'show hope' or some other organization that does orphan work. does our influence need to be focused on the next generation, and not necessarily those outside our familial boundaries? (wouldn't that be incredible for God to give our kids a passion for adoption and we could have grandchildren who were adopted from all around the world?)

or does it involve us personally taking the dive again to bring home another orphan? let's talk unexpected...this, my friends, is a thought that was completely unexpected 6 months ago, much less 14 years ago. if you had asked me before traveling to get sarahjoy if we would even ponder doing it again i would have given you an adamant no. and yet again i find myself in a swirl of emotion wondering if God is calling our family to something that is so crazy and unsettling it makes my stomach turn.

i don't know. in reading mary beth chapman's book, 'choosing to see', she talks about their decision to adopt and how she asked God for a burning bush. i fell asleep the other night with that as my prayer. please, lord, send me a burning bush. i need to know if this is from you. i need to know where to go with my passions. i need you to be clear. really clear God.

i have no idea where we are going on this journey. i would like to know. really would like to know.

God, burning bush. burning. bush. really. clear. i NEED a really clear burning bush! k?

changed

2011-04-03T21:19:00.000-04:00

i realize an update is long overdue. gracious.

sarahjoy is doing spendidly (love that word!) we were at the cardiologist's and the pediatrician's office last week and both gave her superb reports of good health. it's not an exaggeration to say that they were giddy at how well she was doing. i have to remind myself, because things have gone so well, that when we brought this sweet thing home she was SICK. as in REALLY sick. like doctors freaking out sick. i remember sitting in the heart surgeon's office and going through what was going to happen with the surgery. eric kept saying, "and what if that doesn't work...and what if that isn't successful..." until the doctor said, "well, then we would be looking at a double lung transplant which generally children are not candidates for so we would just need to make her as comfortable as possible."

upon which i took a deep breath and said, "okay, can we stop talking now?"

all that to say, our little girl was really sick and there realistically could be severe long term health implications for her heart not being repaired until much later. however........................she appears to be completely healthy!

she is growing like a weed. she has gained 3 pounds in the past month - that's just about 15% of her body weight. she has grown in height. and her two-year-old-ness is off the charts. all of which are indicative of a healthy little girl. as much as i frown upon fits and getting in to everything, it is a nice reminder that we are being a normal two year old. in fact, i was thinking on the way home from church today that she is always wanting to walk everywhere, little miss indepedent. which, one would argue, is pretty typical of the age. however, in china, she didn't want to walk anywhere. she wanted us to carry her all the time. at that point, i chalked it up to stubborness and/or adoption related issues. but i was thinking this afternoon that maybe a lot of that had to do with the fact that she was exhausted! her poor little body barely had enough energy for her to breathe, much less have energy to walk. i remember she would go a few steps and then stop. she didn't climb on anything and she certainly couldn't be described as being 'all over the place'. really, i think we were witnessing a miracle. our little girl shouldn't have been alive. but there she was, hanging on until mommy and daddy could come bring her home and get her healthy.

sarahjoy is doing great. she is a bundle of energy, into everything. she adores her brothers and sisters and her stuffed panda. she eats anything in sight. she wants to put her purple converse on and go out the door at any opportunity. she loves to play chase (inside or out!) she has particular amounts of fun when she finds a crayon or marker and no one is looking. i am fully expecting to have at least one piece of furniture ruined by her and am fairly sure i can count on her giving herself a haircut at some point. it is a different kind of challenge to have a two year old who hasn't been in my care except for a short time. things that i most certainly would have disciplined and taken care of by this age with the others are new experiences for her. surprisingly, i never felt that with lydia - she is my very compliant, soft-spoken, quiet little girl. she would and still does go off and play quietly with her dolls. she did get into some mischief but she wasn't as fiesty as the ol' sj. sarahjoy...not so compliant, soft-spoken or quiet. she is a maniac! into everything, constantly. most definitely keeps me on my toes and regularly reminds me - in case i forget - that we have a two year old in our house now. i would be willing to bet my house on the fact that sarahjoy is going to be our firecracker and there will be some significant explosions under this roof! a fighter, that kid. in more ways than one.

we are so thankful. this morning while i was getting ready and listening to all the kids scurry around i was marveling at how completely normal it seems to have sj in our family. she fits. it doesn't even seem weird anymore to have such a little one. it is our family. and i love it. you know, i would love to adopt a treasure trove more. because adoption is an amazing blessing, a miracle, a God thing. and i love being a part of that. i love having miracles staring back at me everyday. i love having a world perspective right under my own roof. ~~i love getting a stomachache when i see money being spent lavishly because i have two little treasures that are pictures of how that money could truly do something to change the world.~~ i love that i do have two little treasures and they have changed me.

i am pondering what to do with that change. it's like going on a trip to see the third world, how the 'others' live, and coming back to the comforts of home and feeling a bit, or more than a bit, uncomfortable. and you don't quite know what to do with what you've seen. how to process that you have a closet full of shoes and so many have a pair of shoes, or none at all. except, my trip lives with me. the memories don't fade and i can't forget what i saw. i see their precious faces every morning. and when i see them, i see thousands of other little treasures who need families. and what do i do? we can't keep adopting. we don't have the resources - financial or emotional. and quite obviously, even if God were to lay it on our hearts for another one (which he hasn't at this point, don't y'all go freaking out on me, ~~although i'm not ruling it out~~) that doesn't begin to touch the thousands of orphans i can't bring to my home. but maybe i can do something bigger. be a part of the adoption journey for others. be an advocate for those sweet faces.

The Butterfly Foundation. makiah loved butterflies. and butterflies symbolize new life. hope. ......in the very beginning stages of thought. but it's there, rumbling in the back of my head.

so, back to what this post was supposed to be about. sarahjoy!!! she's fabulous. your prayers, God's mercies, and a few amazing doctors. from all that we can tell, she is 100% healthy. she will continue on her medication; the doctor will keep her dose steady while she grows so she will essentially be weaning herself off in the next few months. and then after 4-6 months they will completely stop it. all the while monitoring her heart and lung pressures. after that, we're done! of course, we will continue a regimen with the cardiologist to keep an eye on things but will be done with any treatment of a heart condition.

God has been very merciful to us. he is always good, but life does not always go the way we would like for it to. even still, God is good. so i refuse to say, "sj is healthy! God is good!" because truly, even if she were not healthy, God is still good. but for now, he has bestowed his mercies on us and we have been the recipients of a great gift. we are immensely thankful. and we are enormously indebted to those of you who have faithfully prayed for sarahjoy and have given to her little life. you truly have been part of a miracle.

she is all we dreamed of.

this girl loves to be outside!

super big sisters annaclaire and lydia

sj's three favorite things - the doctor, chickfila, and panda

thankful, part II

2011-03-11T14:53:00.000-05:00

and to finish our list of 60...

i am thankful for mrs. whaley's english classes who have prayed faithfully over the last few months
i am thankful for a dad who has thoroughly embraced our crazy adoption adventures (after a bit of a pause...)
i am thankful for little tiny rocking chairs for little tiny girls
i am thankful for pajama pants
i am thankful for a person in florida who i have never met who sent us a check
i am thankful for a loving birthmother who placed sarahjoy in a safe place before saying goodbye forever
i am thankful that i can walk in the room and sarahjoy instantly stops crying
i am thankful for chili's (english classes...why is there an apostrophe there?)
i am thankful for a heart that kept going despite being twice its normal size and completely overworked
i am thankful for xrays so we know what's going on in her lungs
i am thankful for pizza gift cards
i am thankful for people who i meet for lunch and hand me money
i am thankful for a one pound weight gain in one week! (for sarahjoy that is, not me, although i'm running a close second...)
i am thankful for antibiotics
i am thankful for great friends who invite themselves over for dinner
i am thankful for hot showers
i am thankful for college kids who love our family and babysit for free over spring break
i am thankful for sarahjoy's cries, even if they do last for way too long at naptime
i am thankful for disposable diapers
i am thankful for full nights of sleep (what are those again?)
i am thankful for consignment stores that give me money to pad my clothing budget
i am thankful for weekends
i am thankful for PBS kids
i am thankful for sweet tea
i am thankful for PICUS and IV's and breathing monitors
i am thankful for family reunions
i am thankful for a praying, God-fearing Mimi who has lived to see an enormous return on her investments in her children
i am thankful for two little twin sisters of Makiah that fill their mom and dad's arms again
i am thankful for josiah, annaclaire, micah, lydia and sarahjoy for being the cutest and most amazing kids any mom could ask for
i am thankful for eric who hands down is the best father and husband a woman could ever imagine

missing our little itsy...a new family pic is coming soon! but dang aren't those kids the cutest!

thankful

2011-03-09T20:55:00.000-05:00

so many things about sarahjoy's journey are reasons to be thankful and proclaim God's faithfulness. in honor of the 60 days she has been with us here are 30 things i am thankful for (people, i cannot think of 60 good ones tonight, operating on about 4 hours of sleep!)

i am thankful for God pricking our hearts for adoption.
i am thankful for God providing every penny for us to travel to china.
i am thankful for a brood of loving children who have embraced their new little sister like she has been here forever.
i am thankful for friends who have been spoiling us with delicious meals.
i am thankful for a pediatrician who noticed the need to get us to a cardiologist.
i am thankful for an amazing surgeon who i think would take sarahjoy home if he could.
i am thankful for a children's hospital that is literally 20 minutes from my door.
i am thankful for nurses and doctors who don't freak out when a child quits breathing.
i am thankful for a mother in law who went above and beyond in caring for our kids for three weeks.
i am thankful for a husband who has set aside getting to work early and instead has been going in a bit later in order to get the kids breakfast every morning.
i am thankful for naps.
i am thankful for a little girl who loves to kiss me and give me hugs, even though she's only known me for 2 months.
i am thankful for a mom who could be beside me during the most harrowing 30 minutes of my life.
i am thankful for a comfortable home and plenty of stuff to make life easy.
i am thankful for the multitude of people who gave sacrificially to bring our little girl home.
i am thankful for china who allows us to adopt their precious princesses.
i am thankful for a church family who has prayed faithfully for sarahjoy and loves her to death when she walks in the door.
i am thankful for health insurance.
i am thankful for a government that allows me to heat my home if i so choose (which i do, to a nice comfy 70 degrees)
i am thankful for warm cozy blankets to snuggle with while i'm laying on the floor of sarahjoy's room.
i am thankful for a little girl who loves to nestle right up to me when we're in bed together (which currently is way too often, but i'll still be thankful.)
i am thankful for the family who has lent us their car for the past few weeks while my mother in law was here.
i am thankful for our adoption agency who provided a seamless adoption process.
i am thankful for president obama and his new laws about adoption expenses and tax refunds.
i am thankful for completely unexpected gifts towards sarahjoy's medical expenses.
i am thankful for babygap gift cards so sarahjoy can at least have a couple of things to call her own.
i am thankful for husbands who love me in spite of an ever increasing waistline thanks to a plethora of stress lately.
i am thankful for cameron and rachel who allowed us to name our little one sarahjoy makiah so we can always remember that little blond angel.
i am thankful for people who gave us change from their piggy bank and people who gave us $10,000 and every one in between.
i am thankful for sarahjoy.

pointing fingers

2011-03-05T16:02:00.000-05:00

i have been avoiding writing a post. i suppose because i feel like there is nothing dramatic going on. no one has stopped breathing. we aren't teetering between life and death. we are doing the daily routines. figuring out life.

and it is hard. i know that a lot of you are silently saying, "i told you so!" but i am ignoring you. and i have many things to say to that sentiment but i need to be thinking a bit more clearly.

we knew it would be hard. it is no surprise. i have welcomed four children into our family and every time it is a big adjustment. the fifth is no different. for those people who say, "once you have three, another one is no big deal," well, i just don't think they have actually done it. or they're lying. because with every new child comes more work and more responsibility and less time and less energy. and with every child there is more 'MOMMY!!!! I NEED YOU!!!!' and less time to give to each call for attention. it's a balancing act and it takes time to figure it all out. but it's hard.

sarahjoy is a miracle, let's not forget that! but she is also two. and quite spoiled - given that she has had my undivided attention essentially since we first held her in china. barring a few days of regular family life before surgery, she has been my primary focus. and she is really not happy when she doesn't have me all to herself. she does not like me doing anything that doesn't involve her being within 12 inches of me (including sleeping) and she certainly doesn't like me snuggling with her brothers and sisters! she obviously doesn't speak english, and i don't know that she really speaks chinese either. i think most of it is baby babble. but she refuses to point or gesture and instead stands and whines. a pointing finger would seriously be the best gift from st. patrick i could possibly imagine (if in fact ol' pat gave gifts.) meanwhile, i get to play the game of figuring out what in the world she wants. hungry, thirsty, a toy maybe? does your incision hurt? is there something else going on medically?or maybe your two year molars? do you need something else i'm not thinking of? or...do you just need me. thankfully, my mother-in-law has been here and has been a LIFE SAVER. but she leaves tuesday and i have this crazy life all to myself. help!!!!! how do i do a whiny two year old, four other kids, a husband, and a household?

so come tuesday, i may be a puddle on the floor. and if you can't find me there, check the closets. or the local chocolate shop. i may have run away. i'll come back, though. cause i have to have a chat with all you i-told-you-so peeps.

almonds, cashews, pecans

2011-03-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

on behalf of all the people who have said it before, either to our face or quietly discussing it when we're out of earshot (and there's a lot of you.)

WE ARE CRAZY!!!!!!!!!

WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE WE THINKING!?!??!?!?!

i love that little girl, love her to bits, but she's is driving me nuts. currently, we're going on hour 3 of trying to get her to sleep. driving me nuts.

and that's about all i have to say today. driving me nuts.

treasure

2011-02-28T20:17:00.001-05:00

good news from the cardiologist today!!

sarahjoy's heart looks great. the surgery was successful in closing the hole. we will continue to monitor every month to keep an eye on the pressures. which is the big question mark because her defect was not corrected until she was 2. right now, the pressure on one side of her heart is 3 times higher than the other side. over time, with a healthy heart, that pressure will hopefully subside as the lungs recover from being overworked the last two years. she is on medication currently to help with this, and will continue for the forseeable future. but all of that is no surprise to anyone and is 'normal' for her situation. overall, things are good.

her left lung is still a bit junky. we will have a chest x-ray next week before our surgical follow up and they will take a look at the lungs. again, not a surprise there but they want to keep an eye on it.

i did ask about her non-silent, non-rhythmic breathing while she is sleeping. there may be some sleep apnea going on which we can address after we get through this initial heart stuff. i asked the doc generally about what i was hearing. eric cut to the chase for me and said, "basically ashleigh is wanting to know if sarahjoy is going to die in the middle of the night." nothing like being totally forthright and getting right down to my fears! the doctor's response, "well, we don't tend to see that sort of thing happen." not exactly what i wanted to hear but eric reminded me that a doctor is never going to say never. true, good point. we are going to try and get her on videotape during the night to bring to our next appointment. and if he feels like it would be a good thing, we will do a sleep study and see what's going on. i don't think this has anything to do with her heart issue, but i am not sure on that one.

her incision is looking fabulous. i'll have to take some pictures and post them. it is pretty amazing. obviously it is major scar, but it is looking really good. and speaking of pictures, our camera decided to quit working but as soon as i get that worked out i have got to get some pics up here of our beautiful smiley little girl!

God has chosen to give us a great blessing in bringing sarahjoy home (debt free) and allowing her to be healed by modern medicine. why he has chosen to bestow on us tremendous favor, i don't know. but i want to be clear. he has done this for us. this whole sarahjoy journey is not of our own doing. this is a God story. he alone could have orchestrated all of these events. he alone could take an abandoned baby girl in the middle of rural china and place her in a loving family on the other side of the world at just the right time for successful medical intervention. and he alone could provide every dollar that was needed. and he alone could give her breath again. and he alone has her life in his hands. we are thankful and we treasure her with everything we have. but ultimately, she is God's and her story is about Him.

she is beautiful. her eyes light up when she sees her daddy. and disappear when she smiles. her grin would melt the hardest of hearts. she is our treasure and tonight we thank God for his gift to us. for our treasure.

six sets of hands

2011-02-27T21:36:00.000-05:00

every once in a while life brings you an event that changes your perspective, gives you a new outlook on things you otherwise might pass over. maybe even changes who you are. rarely is it anticipated. it comes. and the days tick by. and it may go. but life is never again the same.

i was watching as my baby lay lifeless on the bed. moments ago she had been fine. we were a day out from surgery and i was stroking her midnight hair as she lay peacefully recovering. all her monitors said she was doing great. and then in an instant there was nothing. no movement. the nurse began to shake her. 'breathe, sarahjoy, breathe!' there was no response. i watched in horror as my baby slipped away. there was no warning, no indication anything was wrong. her body simply stopped. 'sarahjoy! mommy is here! BREATHE!' as they swarmed the bed i moved to the corner. by this time my mouth screamed and my cheeks were flooded as i watched. i could still see my little girl, in between the bodies of the nurses and doctors attending to her, but there was no life. no breath.

i cried out. 'this isn't supposed to happen! she's dying! she's gone! we should have never done the surgery! my baby!!!!'

i don't know how long they worked on her. maybe 30 minutes before the medical staff began to disperse. before my cries subsided and i began to sense that this wasn't the end. i remember walking out of the PICU, down the hall and wondering what in the world had just happened. i took my sweatshirt off and put on a tshirt. i was sweating. my body felt like i had run a marathon. i was exhausted.

and now those minutes haunt me. i close my eyes and there she is again. laying there breathless. six sets of hands working to bring my princess back to life. i can't sleep. i walk into her bedroom, trying not to panic, but scared that my nightmare is reality. i check for her breathing. i lay beside her and watch her chest go up and down. i listen. it all sounds good. but it sounded good before. and then it was bad. really bad. i'm scared.

those 30 minutes have changed my perspective. they have changed me. and not the least of those changes has been my renewed and incredibly deep sympathies for my sweet cousin rachel and her husband cameron. who can never open their eyes and wake up from their nightmare. they will never walk into their little makiah's room and be able to see that she is okay. my heart breaks for you in a whole new way.

we see the cardiologist tomorrow for our first follow up visit. maybe then i can gain some peace.

***for those who have been following rachel and cameron's journey, their baby girls were born last tuesday! abigail kaitlyn (6 lbs) and alena kaitlyn (4.13 lbs) were healthy and went home with mom and dad on friday! the family continues to grieve and miss makiah but is thankful for full arms once again.

sweetness

2011-02-23T22:13:00.000-05:00

home is surely sweet.

we are all back as a family. sarahjoy has now spent almost equal time with us in china, at our home, and in the hospital. so needless to say, she is still getting adjusted. poor kid doesn't know where she belongs. but she does know who loves her. and her little smile is bright and beautiful these days in my arms. i even got a few giggles today.

she is doing great. i have to admit it is a bit unnerving having her home and knowing that it is my responsibility to tell if something is wrong. last night she slept with me and i spent most of the night listening to her breathing. when it was loud, i wondered if i should call the doctor. when it was quiet, i worried she was gone. i didn't get much sleep. it's her heart for crying out loud! talk about stressful.

we will see the pediatrician tomorrow to check on her pneumonia. hopefully that's all that will happen. i am still so nervous about something going wrong and us ending back in the hospital. we see the cardiologist on monday and the surgeon the following week. i will be thankful when we get the all clear from the three of them. or at least i am hoping we get some sort of all clear or else i am going to need some blood pressure meds. although, we've maxed out our insurance deductible for sarahjoy for this whole year already, so i say bring on the doctors and all their expensive tests - they're free! : )

life will get back to normal. right? at least our new normal. i am anxious for that to come. i feel so out of sorts. with the holidays coming right before we left for china i feel like i haven't really been in a good routine since the fall. because of us 'sequestering' sarahjoy prior to her surgery, i haven't even been to church since christmas eve i don't think. even this introvert is ready to see some of the outside world! trying to take one day at a time knowing that one plus one equals two and then four and then maybe a new normal.

thank you so much for your continued support. we are incredibly blessed.

yippee yahoo!

2011-02-21T23:39:00.000-05:00

tomorrow is going to be a fabulous day!

sarahjoy is slated to walk out the doors around lunchtime. she is doing great, they even took her off oxygen tonight. the only thing left is one measly IV in her hand. she will get an xray and an echocardiogram on her heart tomorrow morning. assuming all of those things are good, we are driving home!!!! (and lord help me if they are not good) she has not had a fever at all today or tonight and everything points to her moving along to complete healing. we will go home with a bag full of drugs and innumerable follow up visits but hopefully no more PICU!

she is definitely feeling so much better. she was a bear today - wanting to get down, arching her back, throwing fits. you know, acting like a 2 year old cooped up in a hospital room. they took the oxygen out of her nose around 7:00 and from then until 11:00 she did not stop babbling. i don't know what it was about the oxygen but it must have had some affect on her talking because she had been almost silent until tonight. and then the kid would not be quiet! carrying on like crazy. FINALLY, around 11:00 she fell asleep. but she was so happy and talking away - as much as i wanted her to fall asleep it was pure joy to hear her and her cute little voice babbling on about who knows what. i wish i knew what her little mind was thinking.

and............my sweet cousin rachel is having her babies tomorrow!!!!!! alena and abby will enter the world around 1:00 tomorrow afternoon. we are expecting them to be tiny but healthy. and i am so excited i can hardly stand it. God has certainly allowed them to bear a tremendous burden of tragedy and grief these last few months; i am praying that joy would come again when they see those little girls. please pray for an uncomplicated delivery and healthy little girls!

come on tomorrow!!!!

@$#@% FEVER

2011-02-20T22:53:00.002-05:00

sweet day with sarahjoy. She has been feeling good and keeping me busy (yay for needing to entertain her!) Thank goodness they have a nice playroom. And she of course does not have tons of energy so a few laps around the unit and 30 minutes in the playroom and she is ready for snuggles. We even took a nap together this afternoon. Right now she is cuddled up with her daddy. He is really into the basketball game on tv, she is more interested in her sock.

Sj is doing great. She is only connected to two things. Oxygen – and she will remain on that until we go home. The best medicine to lower her lung pressures (the really bad side effect that we are trying to avoid from having a VSD go uncorrected) is oxygen. So since we are in the hospital and it is easy to do, she is hooked up. but it is solely for medicinal purposes, she does not need it to function. Her other connection is an IV antibiotic that she gets twice a day. This is a super heavy hitting medicine that is hopefully attacking whatever is causing her fevers. Other than those two things, we are totally healthy!

The big question mark remains the fever. The last two days she has not had a fever during the day and then it starts to creep up around 7:00. they are still working with the theory that it is pneumonia causing it but that is not 100% certain. So there is a bit of a guessing game going on. Which has entered into the debate about when to head home. There is a school of thought that says we might go home on Tuesday, after the IV antibiotic is finished and continue an oral antibiotic. There is another school of thought that says because of everything that has gone on the last two weeks, she needs to stay under careful watch (in the hospital) until she is fever free.

To be honest, I can’t even really enter in to the conversation. On one hand I look at my child and see that she is seemingly feeling good and the fever is easily controlled with Tylenol and I want to go home. But there is another part of me that would be perfectly content staying in the hospital until we can say 100% that she is ready to go home. I will ask lots of questions and talk to the doctors but ultimately it will be their decision. And we will deal with whatever it is. I am certainly not counting on going home, that’s for sure!

I did a first tonight. I left her while she was still awake…not sure if I am proud of myself or horrified. She was so tired and would not settle down. Some of it could have been the baby on the other side of the curtain that would not stop crying or the constant suctioning of a child on the other side of us (gross)….so about 9:00 I kissed her goodbye. I had been there since 7:30 this morning and was exhausted. And since we have been there so LONG - sj is now perfectly comfortable in her little cubicle. I left her laying in her bed happily playing with her iv’s. the kid isn’t going to know what to do when she doesn’t having something stuck in her hands and up her nose! I called up to the nurse about an hour later and she said sarahjoy was still laying there calmly but not going to sleep. I don’t know what’s up with that – I was hoping if I got out of the way she would crash.

We will talk to some more doctors tomorrow. Thankfully many of them were home with their families for the weekend. Those guys work a ridiculous amount of hours – I feel like I need to send all of their wives a big bouquet. Maybe sj will not run a fever tonight – I left her with a low grade one but maybe, just maybe, it will go away. We could really use prayers for a clear, wise decision on when to go home.

We have been so overwhelmed with the generosity and care shown to us. it is amazing to me to watch people’s love in action. meals being delivered, phone calls, checks in the mail, gift cards given to us, visitors to the hospital. I want to make sure that you know how much that means to us. it is those acts of kindness that assure us that we are loved and cared for and we are not alone in this journey. I know that they take time and energy and money and it is oftentimes inconvenient. But please know that your kindness means so much to us. it is in times like these that actions truly speak louder than words.

Keep praying for our little princess. Hopefully some day soon I can announce that we’re outta here! And possibly even show my face somewhere other than a medical establishment!

(to mrs. whaley's class......this really stresses me out. do you guys read this blog and find all of my grammatical errors? you know i think about that when i am writing. wondering if i have a comma or an apostrophe in the wrong place. i know mrs. whaley has talked about my writing with you guys. but here is my best talent....acing the AP english test when i never read the books. i am so good at making things up in essays. maybe this summer at our sarahjoy party i can teach you my skills...until then, treasure your time with mrs. whaley. she is an AMAZING person. and when this sj drama is over, i am going to write about her. trust me, you have no idea what a gift you have in your teacher. AND...a special thank you to the person(s) who sent sj the little bible. i am blessed beyond words and have stored it away in her little box filled with things for when she gets older. i promise when i tell her story, she will know about mrs. whaley's english class. truly, thank you. )

getting some good snuggles with daddy (and look how long my hair is getting!)

day 11...

2011-02-19T22:45:00.000-05:00

quick update...

okay day today. sarahjoy spiked a fever in the middle of the night which is not good. however, she did not have a fever during the day and then about 7:00 tonight it was slightly elevated so that is possibly a step in the right direction. she was fairly cranky most of the day - i think she was probably in some discomfort and after finally figuring that out we gave her ibuprofen after which she was perky. i suppose the girl has a right to be in some pain after having her chest cracked open 10 days ago. i also think she is really tired of being there which shows up in some two year old fits every now and then. sometimes it's hard to discern what's a fit and what's true pain/sickness.

at this point the fever is the big question mark. no one knows exactly what is causing it. they are continuing to do blood cultures and nothing is showing anything. they have tested her urine and no infection is there. there is no sign of infection at her wound site. their best guess is pneumonia but for reasons i don't fully understand they are unable to say an absolute yes or no to the pneumonia theory. bottom line, there continues to be junk in her lungs that needs to clear up. and everyone's best guess is that is what is causing the fever. she is on heavy duty IV antibiotics so we are hoping we see some improvement in the next few days.

please continue to pray. we really want to see our china princess come home soon.

long

2011-02-18T22:59:00.000-05:00

i am exhausted.

today is the first day i felt like i cannot do this anymore. i cannot take another week of this.

ironically, today was also sj's best day ever. but she has been so bad that even though she had her best day ever, there is still a long way to go. and i suppose that hit me like a ton of bricks today. she is so much better. but she still needs to be way better than today to go home.

her xray was improved this morning. not great. but improved. her fever was not as bad today as it has been. i begged them to give her tylenol because she is such a different kid when she has a fever - completely lethargic and blah. which they did this morning. but then they came back and said they would not do that again because they want to see how high the fever goes. which was thoroughly discouraging. on one hand they tell me she needs to be up and walking and eating to get better. but they won't give her tylenol and so she is not interested in any of the above! i thought about getting in their face and wagging my finger and giving them a piece of this mama bear mind, HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE PROGRESSING IF YOU WON'T GIVE HER STUPID TYLENOL????? but i refrained. i did get a little testy with eric regarding the tylenol because he has so much power over the doctors and their decisions. okay, he doesn't. but i needed to get mad at someone! (i think this is why they say kids' illnesses are really stressful on marriages...)

so we are taking steps forward. even if sometimes it feels like the doctors are working against me!

today also was a realization for me of how long term this thing is. i wish i could say we have done the heart surgery and we are done. put the jammie pants in the wash and say goodbye to the hospital. but there is so much else. and if i am honest, i let myself go to the place today where i thought i cannot do this. this is not what we signed up for. this was supposed to be a 'minor' special need. not only are there innumerable follow up visits over the next 12-18 months but there is also a real risk to her heart and lungs if she should even get a cold in the next year while recovering. bottom line, her heart and lungs need to stay away from any additional stress. so i am looking at trying to keep her well for the next year which is so completely overwhelming i cannot even think about what that looks like.

and, the biggest reality of today. because of sarahjoy's enlarged heart over the last two years (it was TWICE the size of a normal heart) her breastbone has grown in a domed shape in order to accommodate it. i was hoping that it would just go away with the surgery but we were told by the doctors today that it won't. in all likelihood what will happen, although her heart will eventually go back to a regular size, is the breastbone will continue to grow abnormally and cause a somewhat disfigured looking chest. once sj hits the tween years when her body starts developing and breast tissue comes into the picture it may be disguised some. and as the muscles enlarge and pull on the breast bone the body may flatten it out a bit. however, there is a very good likelihood that she will have to have another chest opening surgery where they insert a metal rod to reshape the breast bone. when that surgery happens, i don't really know. the good news is that there is a world-renowned clinic here at this hospital that operates on that deformity, known as 'pectus.' the bad news is that truly our little girl will not be completely normal looking. does she care when she is two? no. but her mama cares. and she will care. in fact, i really care. i can't lie. it really bothers me (insert major tears here.) people can tell me all they want about how wonderful we are and that sj is a miracle and all that true stuff. but this mama doesn't like it any more than any other mama that her little girl is going to have to deal with something that makes her look different. at this point i don't even care about the surgery. i just care about my little girl's heart and how she is going to have to deal with being different. and how bad is it going to look and will people constantly ask about it and what will it do to her self-esteem............

i am exhausted. i am physically and emotionally wiped.

maybe?

2011-02-17T22:52:00.001-05:00

i am scared to hope, but maybe today we turned a corner.

sarahjoy was doing great this morning. during the night they took all of her monitors off except her oxygen so she is almost wire free. when i got there she was up walking around, playing and looked wonderful. she did throw up which we still don't know what that is related to - i.e. food, medicine, vests of torture or all of the above. but overall she was looking much better than she has been. her xray from this morning wasn't super; it looked about the same as yesterday - i am choosing to take that as a good sign that at least we aren't getting worse!

around lunch her fever went up again and she was miserable. they have now ordered tylenol to be administered more often which i think will help us to stay ahead of the fever. it seems that once it comes on (with a vengeance) it takes awhile for her body to get rid of it. and she is completely mopey and miserable when she is feverish, which she was for the whole afternoon.

however............this evening her fever subsided and she was amazing! she ate dinner like a champ (and kept it down) and she was acting like an ornery two year old. which although it was wearing me out (ornery two year olds and hospital rooms are not a good combination), i was glad to see! when it came time to put her to sleep i cradled her and assumed she would lay down like every other night. but oh no, she wanted to play. so i let her get down off the bed and she played on the little mat for awhile. it was a bit surreal for me to be watching her refuse to be held and not want to go to sleep! eventually she settled down and i rocked her to dream land. but for a few hours tonight i could actually picture us taking her home.

the two things that need to happen are a) her xray to clear up (and thus her fever to disappear) and b) her to eat and keep it down. i will be really curious to see what her xray shows tomorrow because it sure seems like she has progressed a whole bunch. and maybe, just maybe, she will eat more tomorrow. the word today was hopefully we could be home at the beginning of next week. i am putting absolutely no stock in that guess, i even told the doctor to quit saying things like that. but we'll see.....of course, that's what they said last thursday too. : )

and for the record, she was a royal pain in the butt when it came to medicine taking today. hoping for a better day tomorrow on that front also!

keep praying.

feeling pretty good

medicine time!

"i am so OVER this hospital thing!"

nine

2011-02-16T22:49:00.001-05:00

not one day did i ever imagine us being in this scenario. i guess i thought that if things were going to go south, it would be during the surgery, not in recovery. but we are here - going on day 9 in the PICU.

sarahjoy is ever so slowly getting better. so far, we have not taken any super big steps backwards which is good news. we have taken a few steps in the wrong direction but overall we are moving forward, at a snail's pace but nevertheless, moving forward. she is up and about much more these last couple of days. about 3 times a day we get her up to walk around the unit (complete with IV pole, wires coming from everywhere, oxygen tank, and the army of people in takes to hold/watch all of that stuff) and then she will sit up and play for a bit. she is still wobbly on her legs (who wouldn't be when there is 75 pounds of stuff you are attached to) but getting much better. she is so tiny. whenever we walk the entire staff turns and looks and cheers her on. it's pretty cute. unfortunately, there are not a lot of kids in the PICU that they get to see walk around and actually get better so she is a bit of a favorite. plus she is so daggone cute. : )

we are still dealing with the lung issue. anytime there is heart surgery, the lungs are the thing that take the beating. add to that the reality that her lungs have been working overtime the last 2 years plus she had bronchitis 2 weeks before surgery. so those poor lungs, they are feeling abused. there is still a lot of junk down in there that is preventing them from fully expanding. and this afternoon, little princess spiked a super high fever which is a telltale sign of pneumonia. so they have put her on antibiotics for pneumonia and she is getting a bunch of chest therapy (which consists of a vest that's wrapped around her torso and shakes her like crazy so the mucus vibrates loose.) the fact that she is up and about is a huge step in the right direction. laying in the bed is the worst thing for lung issues.

her oxygen has been reduced. we are not quite off of it but we are getting there. one specific prayer request...she has several meds that have to be taken orally throughout the day. and she HATES it. she is normally a great medicine taker but she is over being stuck and poked and prodded so she puts up a major fight every time. the nurses try every trick in the book but sj is so stubborn. my best guess is that it is one area in which she can exert some control so she is going to take advantage, like any good two year old would. so please pray that she would take them easily. it is exhausting working for an hour trying to get her to unclench her teeth and take them only to have her store them in her cheek for a LONG time and spit them out. that kid. i am seriously going to have my hands full if she is this stubborn when she is sick.

speaking of being over it, sj is hilarious. every time a nurse walks in the room (which is a lot since there is one nurse to every patient and the kid has something going on every hour at least) sj gives them the evil eye. and then she closes her eyes and just stays really still hoping they will go away. she'll open them, see the nurse, and then quickly close them again. she does not like any of those people with stethoscopes around their neck. and she cries every time they put a finger on her, whether it hurts or not. she is so tired of being here. and it is getting very weary having to watch her be so sad.

a lot of people ask how i am doing. i suppose the answer is, okay. i am getting good sleep at night - most of the time i stay at the hospital in a sleep room that they have for PICU parents. but it is exhausting. i don't know how these families do it that have sick kids for lengthy periods of time. sj is pretty 'demanding' in that i am constantly entertaining or cuddling or consoling or ~~duct taping her so she'll take her medicine~~ doing something with her. and the emotional toll of one hour thinking we are making progress and the next hour going backwards is wearing. i just want her to be better. and i want someone to tell me how long this is going to take, how long we are going to be in PICU, what it's going to look like when we go home, how long before she is a healthy little two year old running around. but those aren't questions that anyone can answer. it is literally a different answer at any given time of the day. this morning when she was walking around it would have been a very different answer than this afternoon when she spiked a crazy fever and was completely listless. it is just a waiting, and praying, game.

as much as i get frustrated at our situation, i can't help but be thankful. there is a little boy next to us who just had surgery for a brain tumor today. there is a baby boy who will be heading to heaven any day now. yesterday you could hear his family wailing. there is a teenage girl who was hit by a car last week and is laying in bed with a million machines hooked up to her. and those are just the stories i know. there is so much pain and tragedy going on all around us. i have to block it out when i walk to the bathroom. i just can't go there right now. but i am pretty sure my mind will wander to those beds and to the PICU unit for the rest of my life. you can't help but be changed.

thank you so much for your continued prayers. we need them, constantly. i will continue to update as best i can. but know that we are immensely grateful for every prayer that goes to Jesus on our behalf.

sj and the vest of terror. i am not even going to comment on what i look like.

"seriously, mom? you told me my new life was going to be great. not exactly living up to my expectations."

my valentine

2011-02-14T22:34:00.000-05:00

grrrr, i am so annoyed. i just checked facebook and only half of my updates have posted from my phone and NONE of the pictures have posted. i am so sorry - i thought i was at least updating you via facebook.

happy valentine's day to me! i am home for the night...our little sweetheart had a good day and she was sleeping soundly by 7:00 so i decided to run home for a night in my own bed. but i have to say, i am so frustrated that i have not been able to update frequently because there is so much going on. i have got to figure something out.

here's the rundown...

sarahjoy is doing good. not great, but good. and that simply means that she is stable and we are seeing small improvements each day. she is still in ICU, she is still on oxygen, she is still a sick little girl. but we are moving in the right direction.

i feel like our goal is slowly shifting from keeping her alive to getting her home. hasn't shifted completely, but we are tipping the scales towards home. today she was more alert than she has been. we got her up twice to get out of bed. she took about 10ish steps and then promptly sat down in the floor. and there was no way she was budging. we picked her up and carried her to the beautiful playroom they have for her to be able to sit up for awhile. the first time she wasn't interested in anything. looked around for about 10 minutes before we brought her back to the room. the second time she did actually play with a couple of toys. watching her play reminds you of how frail she is. she slowly moves her little arm and shakes when she is trying to do something. she won't move her other arm because it is full of IV's. and she doesn't move except for her arm - the rest of her body is completely still. she hasn't really given us a smile yet and her eyes are still very sad. but i can tell that she is more comfortable and one day soon i am going to get a smile!

right now we have a few things that need to happen. she is still on oxygen. it was turned lower today and we will see what happens. when we have done this before that is when we go to crisis mode. and i can really go without another code blue baby not breathing episode. i think that took about 10 years off my life. they will try to slowly lower it over the next several days. this is a very specific prayer request....that she does not have to go home with oxygen. there is a good possibility right now that she will. but i am really not excited about having a two year old with an oxygen tank.

another specific is that she needs to be able to eat and drink. today was a start. she did keep some diluted apple juice down which we are giving her via a syringe. and late afternoon she ate a little cup of applesauce and some cheerios. we are moving in the right direction but we need to make sustained progress. the poor little thing is so skinny. she was skinny before all this and now she has had nothing to eat for almost a week. we are going to seriously need to work on her bird legs before bathing suit season.

she also needs to be weaned off of an IV heart medication (milronen for you medical people.) she cannot go home on this particular medication. she will certainly go home on plenty of things, but this can't be one of them. they have attempted to wean her previously but her left ventricle was not pumping properly so they put her back on it.

she also needs to have a clear xray. right now both of her lungs are pretty junky. they are much better than they were (her lungs are not fully collapsing, which is a great plus) but there is still a lot of stuff there that needs to disappear. having her up for a bit today will help. and having her feeling good enough to simply sit up will help too. which i think we may have reached the point today where she can sit without support. she did sit in my lap unsupported and watch almost all of toy story which is huge progress. xrays are done every morning (and more often if needed) so we should get a report tomorrow when we go in.

and last but not least, she needs to be up and moving around. we need to be able to get out of bed, walk to the playroom and be much more like a normal two year old. right now if you came to see her you would see that she is one sick little puppy. in fact, i forget to warn people when they come visit and it is pretty much instant tears when you walk in. i forget how alarming it is because i have been staring at it for a week. as much progress as she has made, we are nowhere close to being a normal little girl!

our little princess is in God's hands. and i am hopeful that his plan is for her to be a healthy little girl with a big huge story. we are praying.

i am simply sick about having all of you so out of the loop. you all have been praying so faithfully and i feel horrible that i have not kept you up to date. please forgive me and know that it is not because i have forgotten you. i am so thankful for your prayers. we need them desperately. our little princess still has some chapters to go in her miracle story!

here are a few pictures. progress is being made!

sJ post surgery. she had so many tubes coming out of her but she actually looked better than we imagined

seeing my baby on a ventilator was not fun. i was so thankful that she was off of that so soon.

fixing her hair. : ) the nurses were very concerned that she look beautiful. i mean if you are going to be laying for the whole world to see, you better have your hair looking good. by the time we are out and about her hair might be down to her waist!

a little perkier. no more ventilator and no more chest tube!

my miracle valentine

sitting up and playing...major progress!

one day at a time

2011-02-12T22:22:00.003-05:00

Let me first say that I am so thankful for the prayers on sarahjoy’s behalf. This is one of those times that I really need someone else doing that work for me. thank you. And please keep going.

This surgery stuff is not for the faint of heart (aren’t I hilarious?) essentially sarahjoy is stable, but there is lots of stuff that is stable because of things that are being regulated courtesy of modern medicine.

Her body is having to work really hard to breathe which is the essence of the challenges right now. She has been on oxygen since surgery, they had weaned her down to a very minimal amount, but then today she went back to really struggling and so her oxygen is back up. she continues to sleep 95% of the time but is much more peaceful than the first couple of days. and she is actually sleeping as opposed to simply being sedated. She has been awake for a few minutes today and she did drink some apple juice and ate some jello and thoroughly enjoyed it. And by ‘enjoy’ I mean that she barely opened her mouth and let me put it in as opposed to being completely out of it or clenching her teeth. Of course, she then threw it up so now we have another challenge…

When she has been mildly alert for a few minutes I have noticed that she has the same look in her eyes and on her face that she had at home when she was really scared. She wouldn’t cry, she would just get this look in her eyes, get flush in the face and her lip would quiver. It was as if she wasn’t allowing herself to cry, trying to be strong even though she was scared out of her mind. Which I am sure is a conditioned behavior based on the love and care (or lack there of) she has received over the past 2+ years. Not having told any of my thoughts to the doctor, he stated in rounds this morning that he felt like though she was in pain, instead of crying and letting us know she was being stoic - taking very shallow breaths trying to ‘splint’ herself against the pain and forcing her heart rate up and her respirations to increase (not good). He ordered pain medication whether she is acting like she is in pain or not to try and relax her and allow her breathe deeply and regularly. I know she is so scared.

There is no telling what reversals have taken place in the emotional process of transitioning to a new family. And I really believe some of that is playing into this whole healing thing as does the doctor. I tried to hold her today but her vitals were not tolerating it so she is back in bed. They have since changed some things so hopefully I can try again and she will tolerate it.

I think she’s going to be okay, eventually. But no one is saying that we are going home any time soon. Whether that is days or weeks, I have no idea. She has already shown us that one hour she can be doing great and seem to be really improving and the next hour her numbers are not good. Which, of course, is why we are in the ICU. She needs constant, vigilant care. And I am so thankful for where we are.

Thank you for your prayers. They are sustaining us. Truly.

one month

2011-02-11T20:14:00.002-05:00

Whew. Yesterday marked one month since we first held sarahjoy in our arms. And what a month we have had.

Let me first explain that there is no internet access at the hospital so that is why things on the blog have been quiet. I finally realized I could type something up and eric could send it when he goes home at night. I know, I am a little slow. I am going to blame it on the drugs. Not that I have had any. But sarahjoy has had enough for a Chinese army so I am claiming those. I can text in Facebook updates so if you are on Facebook, you can always look there.

There is so much that has gone on. And I know that most of you don’t want to know every last detail so here is the simple version…

the surgery went well. The hole in her heart was fixed (it was approximately 14 mm which is quite substantial given the size of her heart) and she should be a healthy little two year old within the next few months. Her heart was twice the size as it should have been, which makes me even more thankful that God gave her to us at just the right time. She is our little miracle. We are navigating the road of recovery in the PICU and will remain there for the next week or two.

******

As for the ins and outs of the last few days, it has not been easy. I have to constantly remind myself that this is a long road. It is full of potential complications, and it is a road that is traveled very differently by different kids. There are lots and lots of variables and many questions just can’t be answered; only time will tell. Just to give you an idea, when she came out of surgery she had a chest tube that went six inches into her torso to drain fluid. She had an iv in her neck. She had a catheter. in her left hand she had a regular iv and an arterial line (going in to the artery as opposed to a vein.) in her right hand she had another iv along with a blood pressure cuff on her arm and an oxygen sensor on her finger. And on her chest she had 5 patches with wire that read her heart rhythms. That’s a whole lot of stuff that is being monitored and a whole lot of stuff that can cause problems.

Essentially they have continued to keep her sedated because she becomes very agitated when she is even mildly aware of her surroundings. The goal is to give her time to heal and then be able to take out some of the stuff that is poked in her and get her more comfortable. So she has not been truly awake at all. occasionally she has opened her eyes and when the sedative is wearing off she begins to moan. But other than that, she is asleep. Which one would think would make for a calm situation. However, there is a reason why sarahjoy is now known as ‘gator’ to the medical staff. She is crazy. She thrashes her arms and legs and tries to flip onto her stomach and get up on her knees. And she is not slow about it. In less than a second she goes from perfectly calm to all of a sudden thrashing around doing her alligator roll. So we have spent hours and hours having to hold her down. There are restraints that could be used, but given her unknown history no one wants to use those.

And if she ever picks up a recreational drug habit, we are in trouble. she can tolerate them like nobody’s business. Every time a new nurse or doctor hears what they have given her they jump out of their skin. She is on so much medication to try and keep her sedated; her little body just does not respond to normal doses. So it has been quite the talk of the PICU as to what to do with the Chinese gator. When the cardiologist came in this morning he had heard about her antics. He was completely floored how much sedation she was needing and as we were talking about that by her bedside she went in to alligator mode and flipped herself over as he sat there wide-eyed and remarked, “I had heard about her but WOW! I have never seen anything like that before! That is unbelieveable.”

I knew sarahjoy was going to make her mark in the world.

Yesterday was a rough day. Not only was she extremely agitated but because of that a lot of her numbers were not great. She was having to really struggle to breathe, her heart rate was higher than they would like and she simply did not look or sound great. And then she gave me the scare of my life.

We had just wrestled with her to give her some more medication and all of a sudden she became completely motionless. Her chest stopped going up and down and she was not responding to anything. The nurse began shaking her leg saying, ‘come on sarahjoy, come on. Breathe baby, breathe!’ and after a few seconds of nothing all of sudden I was in a movie. she rushed to the other side of the bed, grabbed the green bag and started manually inflating sarahjoy’s lungs. The nurse yelled for respiratory and the doctor to come and within seconds there were 6 people around the bed, sarahjoy was flat and motionless and everyone was doing something to her. I sat in the corner of the room and stared. I could not believe what was happening. For what seemed like an eternity she was still not responding. I was absolutely positive I was watching a horrible ending to my love story.

But I wasn’t. God has another ending that hopefully is a long, long way away.

Thanks for all of your prayers. I realize I am ending this a bit abruptly but eric is going home to sleep (and post) so I got to finish up!

I’ll post more tomorrow.

ready

2011-02-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

i woke up in the middle of the night and thought, oh my gosh! we don't even have a picture of all of us together. not even one of all five kids! my mind was racing as i pondered the what if's and should the most awfulest of things happen. i wouldn't even have a picture of all of my kids together. and no family picture.

all day today i kept looking at sarahjoy and thinking, sweet baby you have no idea what tomorrow holds. it is a reality that is so hard for me to hold as her mother. to know that my little girl is getting ready to experience a tremendous amount of pain and i can't even warn her. i feel helpless. and sick to my stomach.

we are to be at the hospital at 5:30am. (big, loud boo. don't they know i need my beauty sleep?) surgery is scheduled for 7:30am. there is an ever so slight possibility that it will be shifted due to an emergency but we will not know that until the morning. we're banking on tomorrow. the surgery will last about 8 hours. but i believe it will be a bit longer than that before we get to actually see her. and actually, for the record, i have this thought that they are going to find something else and it is going to be longer and more complicated. i hope that i am wrong.

tonight about the only thing i want to do is crawl up in my bed, with my cuddly blanket that Mrs. Whaley the Diva introduced me to (english class, there will be more on this subject in a later post...), and be by myself. i want to know that people are praying and thinking of us, but i don't really want to talk to anyone. which is a fantastic idea except for the fact that i have a husband. and we are supposed to do things together. and adversity is supposed to make marriages stronger. but tonight, i don't want to be together. i don't want anyone touching me or talking to me. i just want to be with me.

i don't know what tomorrow will hold. i hope and pray that it will hold those long awaited words from the doctor detailing success and accomplishment. but there is no guarantee. people keep saying to me, "it's going to be alright. she will do great." and there is a part of me that appreciates the positivity. i certainly don't need everyone reminding me of all the things that are possibilities. but no one truly knows the end. just ask makiah's mom. she'll tell you all about endings.

none of us knows what tomorrow holds. we would like to think that we do. but we don't. sarahjoy ran around today as excited and happy as ever. her true spirit coming out as she has gotten more and more comfortable in her new environment (she is seriously fiesty and full of energy! sort of like Diva Whaley.) she had smiles and laughter for everyone. her childish innocence in full bloom. she has no idea. neither do you or i. we run around making plans and creating itineraries. we think months and years in advance and dream of things yet to come. but we don't know. God knows. and only God.

we bathed her and washed her hair. for the first time since we brought her home she endured a bath without screaming. i lotioned her up so she would have that clean baby smell and carefully put her fuzzy jammies on. i wanted her to be as beautiful as she could be for the night before her big day. we took pictures and some video. no one said anything but we both knew why. just in case. we then played and waited the required hour before we scrubbed her with some sort of medicinal antibacterial wipes. it took all the lotion off, and now she smells like a hospital, but she is still beautiful. she is ready for tomorrow.

the question that keeps pounding in my head is whether you and i are ready for tomorrow? i'm not talking about sarahjoy's surgery. i am talking about life's unknowns. the question marks of tomorrow. the reality that none us knows what the next sunrise will bring. you and i are running around with childish innocence in abundance not having a clue about what the next day will bring. are you ready? are you prepared for your world to be rocked? for pain and discomfort to overtake you? for the unexpected tragedy? where is your faith and what will you do with it?

God and i have a funny arrangement. he tells me he's going to do crazy things. i watch them happen. adopting a chubby little chinese 2 year old girl with sticky up ponytails? that's my lydia. adopting another little girl? that's my sarahjoy. watching $32,000 come in to send us to china debt free? check my bank account. doing something special with sarahjoy's story? that's yet to come. but maybe there is someone reading this blog who needs to figure out if they are ready for tomorrow.

sarahjoy's ready.

to do or not to do

2011-02-04T23:28:00.000-05:00

it's a good thing i've experienced a few social worker visits over the past few years. today was our first follow up visit. she was scheduled to come at 10:30. the last couple of weeks eric has taken morning duty and gotten everyone breakfast and off to school which has been such a help. i was exhausted this morning and so had been laying in bed playing with sarahjoy until about 9:45. at which time i decided i should probably get up and do something with myself. i was tempted to remain in my pajama pants but decided otherwise. mostly because i couldn't possibly admit to any outsiders that i had failed to get dressed to meet the social worker. i would have either had to lie to my mother or bury her. neither of which is an acceptable option.

so i pulled on a pair of jeans and headed downstairs. micah and lydia had been playing for a couple of hours without me so the place was a complete wreck. toys were strewn everywhere. blocks, tinkertoys, books, kitchen food, every toy you can imagine had been pulled out. but, you know, i didn't care. not sure that i shouldn't have cared, but, i didn't. (this might be a sign...)

it's 10:30.

i am dressed, with my hair pulled in a messy ponytail and not a stitch of make-up on. slurping on a bowl of cheerios. the kids are playing in a mound of toys that stretch far beyond the playroom. and it must have been "trailer park day" because the choice of outfits were amazingly similar to those you might see in such a place. micah had on sweatpants that were too big with his underwear hanging out. lydia had sweatpants and a shirt that looked like it had been balled up under her bed for a year. neither of them had brushed their hair so there was this matted mess in the back of their heads. sarahjoy was still in her pajamas (but had her purple converse on) and her hair was going in 107 different directions.

a knock on the door.

as if on cue, sarahjoy spills her bowl of cheerios she's been walking around with (note: walking around with food would never have happened with child #1-#4.) so now there are cheerios all over the floor when you first walk into the house. she starts to cry and i ask micah to please go pour her some more. he quickly obeys (with his pants hanging halfway off his butt) and poors some in her bowl . and pours the remainder of the box all over the kitchen floor. "MOM...i don't think i am a very good pourer."

enter mrs. jewel cooper, social worker lady.

toys everywhere. food covering the floor. sarahjoy is crying. kids are looking, shall we say, a bit questionable. in fact at that point i am fairly sure the stability of my mental state was questionable for the common observer. perfect for a reality show intervention. or maybe we could just be our own reality tv show.

but thank goodness that ~~i had enough dignity to apologize profusely and run around frantically for 3 minutes to pick up the mess~~ i have been worn down to just a hint of my former self and didn't waste a moment worrying about it. of course, i sort of felt bad, but not bad enough to do anything about it. i am not sure if that is a good thing or not. sometimes it scares me how much i just let go. stuff i would have never allowed to happen 5 or 10 years ago. even 2 years ago.

the social worker came and left and didn't appear to have a problem. she laughed. and wrote a bunch of notes. so i suppose we'll see what those notes had to say. maybe they say, "warning. mother in danger of complete loss of control."

but i kept thinking about the whole scenario. i wrestle with my desire to do things vs. my ability to get them done. i would love to have a spotless house, or even a mildly clean one. i would love to cook healthy meals and always have a refrigerator stocked full of healthy food options. i would love to exercise regularly and get back my old self. i would love to just have some self-control and self-discipline! i would love to get dressed everyday and look decent. i would love to spend quality time with the Lord. i would love to be prepared when the social worker comes. i would love to bake fun treats for community group and not just a pan of brownies. i would love to welcome in friends with a homecooked dinner and not digiorno pizza. you know what i would love? i would love to wake up at 6:30 every day ready feeling energized.

but i don't do any of those things. at times i feel like a big failure. sure, i have 5 great kids and in so many ways we have the 'perfect' family. and by that i mean we have the family that is the dream of so many - happy marriage, healthy kids (well, almost healthy), great job, beautiful house, fun place to live. but i am lacking in so many of the other things. so many of things that really don't matter, but they do matter. i am frustrated. i am trying to tell myself, "you have so much going on. don't worry about it."

but i don't like how things are right now. and i can't decide whether i just need to let it go, or whether it's time to stop letting it go and get my rear in gear.

grrr. i'm just frustrated.

date set

2011-02-03T19:52:00.001-05:00

i have only had the feeling two other times. once when i stepped off the plane with lydia. and once when i stepped off the plane with sarahjoy. it's like my body is going to collapse. as if my knees are going to buckle and i am going to crash to the floor. the strength is gone and it is all i can do to stand and take a step forward. the situation is so overwhelming my body can't quite handle all of the emotions and my adrenaline is going haywire. it's what i felt as i walked into the doctor's office today.

i wasn't expecting it. actually i have been feeling quite calm about the whole scenario and even driving to the hospital this morning i was not anxious. but as soon as i started walking down the hallway towards the door my body started screaming. 'this is too much.'

dr. mumtaz was wonderful. he walked in to the room and immediately crouched down to speak to sarahjoy who was playing around. he tickled her a bit and gave her a little plastic heart to play with. he was kind and gentle, which was a pleasant surprise. i had braced myself for a super smart surgeon who had less than ideal bedside manner. but i was wrong, thankfully. i'll take a great surgeon and great bedside manner any day!

the surgery is scheduled for 8:30am next thursday, february 10th. they will cut her from the top of her breast bone to the bottom, place her heart and lungs on a bypass machine (which takes over for the heart while it is being repaired), fix the hole, and then close her up. the surgery will be 7-8 hours. of course, there is a multitude of things going on in there that i can't even begin to innumerate but that's the basics. she will then go to the PICU where she will have more tubes coming out of her than she has fingers and toes. i am thankful i saw my mom after open heart surgery as i am at least a little bit braced for how awful she will look. as eric tells my mom, 'you were the deadest looking live person i have ever seen.' i am fully expecting to get that weak-kneed feeling again when i go see my baby girl.

sarahjoy will remain in the PICU her entire stay. they estimate discharge anywhere between 4 and 7 days. it varies depending of course on how she comes off the ventilator and all the other tube action going on and if there are any complications or scenarios that need further attention.

the doctor was a perfect blend of optimism and full disclosure. it is very rare in this country to see a two year old with an uncorrected VSD. so there is some anxiety among the heart doctors simply because her heart has worked so hard for this long. the anxiety stems from the reality that with a VSD there is too much blood being sent to the lungs, and thus sarahjoy could quite possibly have permanent lung damage ('pulmonary hypertension') which is a whole different, albeit related issue that we may or may not have to deal with. the good news is that right now they are not seeing any indicators of lung damage. but this is the big question mark. our doctor has decided that because of her age, he will aggressively treat her for pulmonary hypertension after the surgery, watch her lungs closely, and then make long term decisions once the body has settled into its new normal a few months from now. and consequently, the drug used to treat pulmonary hypertension is viagra. so i am going to have a good time sending eric to the pharmacy for that one. maybe i'll get him to pick up a pack of tampons too.

overall, dr. mumtaz was very positive. he said there was definitely a fair amount of robust conversation amongst the doctors regarding sarahjoy's case. bottom line, it isn't seen a lot. and quite honestly i think many of the doctors, who have not been exposed to third world realities, are thrown into a tailspin when they see her case. they cannot fathom why her VSD has not been fixed. dr. mumtaz is from pakistan and didn't seem to be at all confused as to why it hadn't been repaired. he gets that children (much less orphans) in the middle of nowhere china are not going to be high on the heart surgery list. and it's not that anyone has ever been critical of eric or me, they just seem to be dumbfounded that a fairly straight forward heart defect would not have been repaired. i wish i could take them all with me to see the realities of china's orphans, or just china for that matter. medical care is such an expectation in our country - we have no idea the blessing it is to live in america.

so that's the skinny (where in the world did that phrase come from?) we are praying, praying that sarahjoy will stay healthy. that's the #1 concern right now. i'll worry about the whole surgery thing on wednesday night. right now, we need all the germs to hang on to micah, lydia and josiah and not feel a need to jump ship.

thank you so much for your prayers. i know that so many of you are praying. please continue.

and i might add that there was an incident that included eric, a purple diaper bag, and intense words coming from his wife. that will be the topic of another blog post. i am afraid if i addressed the husband's absurdity tonight i might undue 13 good years of marriage...

details

2011-02-02T20:22:00.000-05:00

tomorrow is a big day for us. we will meet with the cardiac surgeon (separate doctor from the cardiologist) at 9:30 and then do all of the pre-op stuff after that. they tell us we'll be there until 1:00 with blood work, x-rays, etc. we are anxious to know more details, and the ultimate detail of when exactly the surgery is going to be.

thank you so much for all of your prayers. our big prayer right now is that we have 4 sick kids. so far, sarahjoy is standing strong, but there are germs ready to pounce! the other 4 are on the upswing i think, but they have all been feeling pretty nasty with a variety of pinkeye, stomach bug and bad congestion and cough. they will not do surgery if she has even the slightest sniffle. so we are praying for God to put protection around her little body and keep her healthy.

we'll update tomorrow when we know more!

and now for the cutest little kid on earth in her purple converse...(and i promise her tights match even though they look rather gnarly in this picture!)

real life

2011-02-01T21:19:00.000-05:00

i would like to mention that i had a piece of pizza for dinner. and am now snacking on conversation hearts (that were purchased for the kids' valentine's cards, because you can't just have a plain card these days.) eric, however, is eating a salad and an apple. and this is why sometimes it is really annoying living with another person. you know, your flaws and weaknesses completely in your face. i even have to wake up staring at the salad and apple man. geez. (but, i had a diet coke)

and now, for take 5. kids, that is. 5 kids. and dare i say that 5 kids is more than a few. we have exactly twice as many kids as the average american sized household. and for those that say after having 3 kids or 4 kids, adding another one is easy? i think those people don't actually have that many kids. or else i'm doing something really wrong.

sarahjoy is a delight. in a two year old sort of way. she's cute as pie (although my pies are not that cute, i make much cuter brownies) and giggles and runs her tiny diaper butt around in the most adorable fashion. she smiles and her deep brown eyes disappear. her two little hands squeeze my cheeks and she lays her face on mine and waits for kisses. she adores her purple converse and insists on wearing them at all times. and she has now mastered her first english word, "uh oh!"

and then there's the not so cute two year old thing. for one, she poops in a diaper. which is just gross. she needs help with her food. she has to be buckled into the car seat. and unbuckled. she wants to be carried everywhere. her outfits don't just jump on her, and she has a penchant for dumping and running (toys, that is.) she needs me. constantly. and this particular person really liked the somewhat independent life we had trained our 4 kids to lead. things like not bothering mommy on saturday mornings. or going to bed at 7:00 without a fit. or taking a shower by themselves.

i knew life would be different with an itsy bitsy around. i've had four two year olds already (which i think has to make me some sort of expert.) but i would be lying if i didn't say that it's a big adjustment. just this semester, for the first time in 10 years, i had a few hours to myself when the little kids went to preschool three days a week. and i LOVED it (trust me, i was not the mama walking back to the car crying.) but alas, i am never alone now...and this introvert gets really tired of people needing me all the time. and climbing on me. and calling my name. one day last week i was sitting on the sofa with the kids all piled around. it was a norman rockefeller moment, except for me saying through gritted teeth, "please. stop smothering me. mommy needs some space." (repeat 10 times nicely) (and i must add that just after i typed that sentence eric sat down on the sofa and leaned up against me and i had to repeat once again...)

so we are working it out. the new normal. i am no stranger to introducing new children to the family and so there does come perspective with experience. i know that in time we will settle in to what works for us and that each little and big person will figure out what 7 people in their family means for them. for now, i am exhausted, a bit irritable, and overwhelmed. doesn't that make you want to be my friend? i feel like a big slob - i haven't been to the gym in weeks. i barely remember what i look like in make-up and i am not sure if i could have a conversation with an adult or not. in the 12 days we have been home i think i have gotten dressed 4 or 5 times.

and because i just think it's sort of funny, here is our schedule of the last 12 days...

friday - come home
saturday - urgent care for me (pink eye)
sunday - pajamas
monday - pediatrician for sarahjoy
tuesday - pajamas
wednesday - cardiologist for sarahjoy
thursday - pajamas
friday - micah wakes up with a fever and throwing up (pajamas)
saturday - micah throwing up (pajamas)
sunday - annaclaire wakes up with pinkeye, lydia wakes up with a fever (pajamas)
monday - I RAN ERRANDS!!!!! (not in my pajamas)
tuesday - josiah throwing up (pajamas)
wednesday - ???

i think i might have to get dressed tomorrow. micah is hacking and we're going on day 6. i think it might be time to see a doctor. because, of course, we have itsy bitsy who needs to stay HEALTHY so she can have OPEN HEART SURGERY!!! just a minor detail which occasionally takes up some of my energies.

so here we are. in all of our glory. but she is the cutest thing on two purple chuck taylor feet. (which i should follow this post with an incredibly adorable picture of her and her shoes. and that would make me the perfect blogger. but i don't have one. tomorrow...)

updates

2011-01-28T08:43:00.000-05:00

micah woke up with a 102 degree fever this morning. not exactly what we needed for trying to keep sarahjoy healthy! please pray with us that she would not get whatever micah has and that his body would feel better soon. it is really hard to explain to a 5 year old why he has to be sequestered in his bedroom. and why mommy can't really be with him because i have a brand new 2 year old who needs me and cannot be near him! ack!

my precious cousin rachel is doing well! her babies are staying put and behaving. : ) she will be 33 weeks on monday. continue to pray that her body would hold on to the babies for a few more weeks. in addition, as you pray for her physically, pray also for her and cameron's hearts as they prepare to welcome two little girls into the world all the while continue to grieve the death of their sweet makiah who was so excited about her baby sisters. it is a hurricane of emotions right now as one might imagine. i would post the picture of her belly that she sent me last night but i think she might kill me. it is beautiful.

'so let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. there we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.' hebrews 4:16

answers

2011-01-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

the emotions have settled a bit and we are embracing what God has for us. certainly not what we would have chosen but nevertheless what has been chosen for us. we are forging ahead, focusing on what God has given us in our precious china princess, and determined to believe God is for us and God is good whether or not the outcome is what we would like for it to be.

lots of questions have come our way, so here are a few more details.

sarahjoy has what is called a VSD - ventricular septal defect. for those of you who want a medical description, you can click on the link. for the non-brainiacs in the crowd it is a hole in the wall that separates the blue blood from the red blood. so the heart then has to work super hard to get the blood where it's supposed to be going.

VSD does not cause sudden death. she is not going to drop dead from a heart attack (trust me, i asked.) her body is simply slowly deteriorating. knowing what we know now, we can see all of the signs of gradual heart failure in sarahjoy. she is less than 5th percentile in weight and 25th percentile in height - her body simply does not have enough energy to grow. she has rapid and heavy breathing, like you or i would have while we're running on a treadmill. she sweats like crazy - again, a sign of how hard her heart is working. and she is the slowest eater on the planet. something i just learned was a sign of VSD. imagine trying to eat a meal while running down the road. not only are you not really interested in food but it would take a long time to have enough energy to get it all down. which is why we have resorted to grazing...she eats a snack portion of food just about every 30 minutes all day long.

there has been a lot of speculation of whether china was forthcoming in their description of sarahjoy's special need. i would answer with a resounding yes. our baby is exactly how she was described - a child with a VSD. the reality is that special needs adoption is a big question mark. is VSD generally a 'minor heart condition' as categorized by china? yes. in the realm of heart conditions, VSD is minor. it is repairable, generally does not need a second repair, and sarahjoy should be able to live a completely full life. most children never even have to have medical intervention and of those that do, many times it can be corrected with a much more minimally invasive procedure. our little girl just happens to have the worst case scenario. i have known many, many families who have adopted children with VSD and no one has needed medical intervention. obviously, that is not our case. so did china deceive us? no. did we ever imagine we would fall in to the worst case bracket? no. please do not place the blame on china. that would be one of the worst things that could come out of this.

instead, sarahjoy's story is the very reason why adoption is compelling. there are children around the world who need our help. they need to be rescued not only from loveless environments but from environments that do not provide essential medical intervention. had God not brought sarahjoy to us, and had we not heeded his calling on our family, a precious little girl would have slowly deteriorated towards death. a senseless, wasted life. adoption brings life - emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

but let me be clear. no one should adopt to rescue. is it a wonderful secondary benefit, to know that we have been a part of bringing two little girls to a place where there is a hope and a future for them? yes, but that is not a good reason to adopt. trust me, the warm fuzzy feelings of rescue will wear off in no less than a few weeks. when that precious little person has no interest in thanking you and despite the loads of energy and money you have invested, she still is a sinful selfish little being. we adopted because that was God's calling on our family. he made it very clear that our place in the care of orphans was to have two become a part of our family. there is a responsibility for every person who calls themselves a Christian to care for the orphan. maybe it is supporting a family who is adopting, as so many of you have done for us. maybe it is regular monthly support of a compassion child. maybe it is living below your means to be able to make trips to love on orphans around the world. or maybe, it is adoption. and if it is adoption, may i be the first person to encourage you to use sarahjoy's story to see some of the wonderful blessings and hard realities of bringing a child into your family.

and now that i have wandered down an important but nevertheless off the subject rabbit trail........we spoke to the cardiologist today. we will meet with the heart surgeon next week (there are two different sets of doctors that work on hearts.) when i spoke with dr. vance today he said that the surgeon was leaning towards performing surgery in the next couple of weeks. they would like for sarahjoy to finish her antibiotics for bronchitis which will be next wednesday, give her a week to make sure she is infection-free, and then perform surgery. so that puts us around february 9th. the thing that i continue to realize is that our little girl is very sick. it is hard to believe when i look at her precious little face and hear her silly laugh. but she is.

as i have put the symptoms together, listened to the doctors and now are looking at surgery in two weeks i am continually reminded of the one word God gave to me at the beginning of this journey...faithful. God has been so incredibly faithful to us in this journey. and he will continue. but i feel compelled to add, that God's faithfulness does not equal perfect endings. i am hoping and praying for the best of outcomes but i am spending as much time praying for a perfect surgery as i am reminding myself that God is faithful, no matter what. that his plans are not always ours. and that should our life with sarahjoy be suddenly cut short, God will continue to be good.

we are desperate for your prayers. please continue. right now, the biggest prayer need is for sarahjoy to get over her bronchitis and avoid any other illness so that we can get her to surgery.

faithful. he was, he is, and he will be.

clues

2011-01-26T21:58:00.000-05:00

as i write, i am laying in bed in a dark room, listening to my precious baby girl snore like an old grandpa. she is in the pack 'n play, i in her bed. both of us together so that when she awakes every couple of hours i can whisper in her ear that mama is here, rub her belly, and send her back to dreamland. it is a sweetness between mom and baby that i haven't had in awhile. and one for which i am immeasurably more grateful for tonight.

the first clue should have been when our pediatrician mentioned on monday that she could find no signs that sarahjoy was in heart failure. heart failure??? the second clue should have been when i heard her on the phone with the cardiologist's office, 'i understand this is not your regular routine but she needs to be seen this week.' the third clue should have been when we were sitting in the cardiology office no less than 48 hours later.

open heart surgery is what the doctor has ordered. sooner rather than later. if sj were born in the states, her heart would have been fixed within the first 6 months of life. without being melodramatic, she is on borrowed time.

i knew something was wrong the minute i held her. i told eric i couldn't sleep because i was afraid she was going to die while we were in china. we laughed it off (as i regularly have crazy fears...think fiery plane crashes) but i knew in my gut that something was not right. at one point i looked up on the internet what a normal heart rate for a 2 year old was. my gut told me my baby's heart was sick. i was anxious to get home so that someone could tell me i was being irrational. after all, we had been told it was a small hole in her heart, probably would heal on its own and if not there would possibly be surgery before she entered school. open heart surgery was the worst case, super bad news scenario.

so i lay here listening to my baby breathe in and out. knowing now that her heart is working four times harder than it should be. knowing that in a few weeks her chest will be cracked open and her life will literally be in the hands of a doctor. but also knowing that she has been rescued from certain death in the orphanages of china. knowing and thanking God that he brought her home at just the right time. thankful that i was prompted in my heart to make an appointment with our pediatrician, before we even left for china, for the day after we came home. thankful that our pediatrician was gentle with us but aggressive on the phone and made sure we were sitting in the cardiology office. thankful for the gracious and compassionate cardiologist who knew he was dealing us a heavy blow and did it with great sensitivity and care. thankful that we have a renowned children's hospital 20 minutes from our house. and mostly thankful that God is with me and my baby girl.

tonight i am choosing to be thankful.

but i am scared.

Flight Delay

2011-01-21T18:21:00.000-05:00

Ash, Eric and SJ are delayed in Newark. They are now scheduled to arrive around 9:30ish. If you want to greet them at the airport please check Continental's website before you leave. Their flight is CO 3327.

almost there!

2011-01-20T19:46:00.001-05:00

we safely arrived in hong kong last evening. and safely would be the operative word. us and the other family we are with were in separate vans. the drivers were brothers and let's just say that sibling rivalry was at its best on the highway. unfortunately i had a direct view of the speedometer...

however, we got here and i would have made my father so proud! we checked in, changed a diaper and we were on our way for an adventure in hong kong. we took a taxi down to the waterfront and had a GLORIOUS dinner at outback steakhouse (that part my father would not have condoned; however, there were no street vendors selling chicken feet.) we walked around and had a lovely evening. it truly is a beautiful city and the weather here is unbelievable. i am not looking forward to having to bundle up again! unfortunately, our camera battery died about 30 minutes into our venture but we managed to get some pictures.

we are headed to the airport in about an hour. we can't wait to see all of you! our flight into norfolk is on continental from newark around 8:00pm. i am not sure about the flight number. if we are delayed, we'll post on the blog.

keep praying for my cousin rachel. the babies are still hanging out inside!

off to america!!!!!

adios and goodbye

2011-01-19T23:46:00.001-05:00

we are headed to hong kong in just about an hour. our (many) bags are packed and all of us are clean and looking great. i mention that only because by the time we see you we may be looking rather gnarly and stinking so know that we started our journey on the up and up.

sarahjoy is not as sick as she was but is definitely not feeling good. she has a nasty cough and is terribly congested in her chest. she started wheezing this morning which makes me nervous but there is absolutely nothing i can do about it except pray that God protects her until we can get to a doctor on monday.

our journey is coming to an end. at least the far east part of the journey. i would be remiss if i didn't thank so many you again for what you did to get us here. our little girl is in our arms because so many of you prayed and gave. i wish that i could bring you all to china and see the rescue efforts you have been involved in. i promise you would be overwhelmed. these little orphaned boys and girls simply have no hope. as eric and i have been here, we are very much in agreement that our family is complete (i said it, mom!) but our hearts are burdened for the chinese orphan and we are thinking and praying about what role God has for us to play.

please pray for us if you think about it. it would be great to start our 24 marathon flight with a good night sleep tonight - sarahjoy has been fairly fitful the past couple of nights. and this very sweet person has a difficult time being so sweet when she is without sleep! and please pray that her breathing does not get worse. other than that, fiery plane crashes are on the prayer list (the lack thereof, that is) and a happy, happy reunion with our families!

and one more most important thing. my sweet cousin rachel, who lost her little girl makiah in october, and for whom sarahjoy is named after, is pregnant with twins. i believe she is around 31ish weeks along but has been hospitilazed today with preterm labor. would you all please pray with us that the babies stay put for a little while longer? we are praying and believing God for one more month of time in the womb. the babies names are alena and abigail, and rachel and cameron are the mom and dad. pray, pray, pray for this family.

i'm not sure what tonight holds so you may or may not hear from me. if not, i'll see you on the other side of the water!

all rise

2011-01-19T09:00:00.001-05:00

I think they say, 'pictures speak louder than words.' These pictures are REALLY loud.

The emperess has arrived. In all of her 2 year old glory. Yesterday she was so sick and so I carried her around all day and snuggled with her. ALL DAY. So the night came and she still wanted to be carried around. I tried giving in and just holding her while we slept but I was not sleeping at all and she would wake up every 30 minutes and scream. She needed to sleep in her own bed. So we fought her for about 2 hours – her screaming and flailing and kicking in her bed. Us listening for 3 of 4 minutes, holding her for a minute or so, and then putting her back down in her bed. As soon as our finger would touch her, she would stop crying. But if we weren't touching her, all hell would break lose. And she was in rare two year old form. Thankfully eric's compassion began when mine ended and he took over. at some point around 1:00am she decided to give in and go to sleep (in her own bed!) as I type, I am sitting at the starbucks in the hotel and I left eric with a screaming little girl. As soon as you even get her pajamas out of the suitcase she starts into her fit. Apparently china doesn't create an easier version of the two year old.

So the sun rose on a new morning here in Guangzhou and we needed to go finish our shopping. We have not used a stroller while we have been here – I have a wrap thingy that she sits in and it was just too cold up north to put her in a stroller plus we weren't out that much to need one. But today we borrowed one from the hotel since we new we would be walking around a lot. Do you think that child would go in a stroller? Uh………no. she wanted to be carried. And today, she wouldn't even walk. Not one step. She wanted to be carried everywhere. At one point we got off the elevator in the hotel and she refused to walk to our room. So I grabbed her little hand and started walking which she did obligingly for awhile. Well, her legs were moving, but she was screaming to high heaven and her other little arm was flailing in anger. Then at one point in the hallway she plopped down, kicking and screaming. i bent down, looked her in the eye, and said, "stop right now. You walk to the room." Now I don't think she understood a word of what I said but tone of voice is universal. She got up, and marched down the hallway with all the attitude she could muster. Oh boy.

Tonight we had a lovely dinner with our guide, his wife and baby, and his mother-in-law. And by lovely I mean that it was wonderful to get to meet his family. This is the guide that we have kept in touch with over the years since we brought Lydia home. His wife was beautiful and his baby was a doll – and he even introduced us as auntie Ashleigh and uncle eric which is a huge honor. Lovely would not be my description of the food; however, eric and sarahjoy loved every bite. I carefully took my spot next to sarahjoy so I would put something on my plate, sometimes (rarely) take a bite, and then cut it up and give it to her. Excellent strategy if I do say so myself. Thus my need for a trip down to starbucks this evening to get something in my stomach. I love many things about china, especially their little girls, but the food is not something I will miss. At all.

Tomorrow we begin our journey home! We pick up sj's visa in the afternoon and then drive to hong kong – we should get there around 6:00 I think. Hoping to at least get some fun pictures. And then we spend the night and leave for the states on Friday afternoon. Yippee yahoo!!!!!!!!!!! This trip has gone really quickly – much quicker than the first. There are parts of me that are really sad to say good-bye. After all, it is the heritage, the birthplace, the country of our daughters. And I don't know that we'll ever be back. Sort of a surreal feeling to have to say goodbye forever to something that plays such a big role in your family. But I think that whole idea deserves its own blog post. For now, we'll just be excited that we have suitcases full of presents for 4 special little kids and I am really close to wrapping my arms around those little people. (and a whole lot more of you too)

Now to venture back up to the room and see what the emperess is up to.

sick babe

2011-01-18T09:11:00.001-05:00

it's been a long time since i have had such a sick little baby. thankfully, we didn't have much on the docket today. sarahjoy definitely took a turn for the worse - the entire day she just laid in my arms and was burning up, even with ibuprofen. this afternoon we decided we should take her to the doctor. so on our way to the consulate to take our oath as parents, our guide said that we could go see a 'western' doctor afterwards. however, turns out the family we are with had amoxicillan that they brought! i had just been thinking earlier in the day, 'i wish i just had some amoxicillan.' so that was a huge blessing from the Lord. we thought about taking her to the doctor anyway, but when they said it would cost at least $100, we opted for just taking the antibiotic. i am almost positive that she has some sort of sinus/ear/respiratory infection so amoxicillan should do the trick. i had never heard of bringing the powdered form of the antibiotic but i am so glad they did! (and would highly recommend that to any adoptive families who are reading this.) we were able to give it to her this evening and even within a couple of hours she was perkier. i literally held her from about 10:00 until 7:00 tonight with a bit of a respite this afternoon when she slept fitfully on our bed. but other than, she has been in our arms the whole day. which in some ways is really good. we are definitely bonding and she is learning that we will take care of her. but i was more than ready to lay her down tonight. of course, she didn't think that sleeping in her own bed was a good idea! after a few attempts we opted to just let her cry a bit to see what would happen as at this point it was obvious she just wanted to be held to sleep. so she cried for a couple of minutes but when she went from general crying to saying, 'MAMA! MAMA!' i had to go pick her up. sweet little babe. thankfully, i held her for a couple of minutes and laid her back down and she is asleep in her bed.

so we hung out in the room today. we had to say goodbye to austin and bethany this morning. that was sad for all of us. we thoroughly enjoyed our time with our friends - there is something about friendships that have passed the test of time and distance. and having them here certainly has made our trip even more special.

we did have to make a trip to the consulate today. which is just one more hoop we have to jump through. we were there with all the other adoptive families that are here in china - about 30 - and we all have to take an oath that what we have reported in our paperwork is true and correct and that we will raise our children properly. after that, sj was feeling miserable so we headed back to get the amoxicillan and then went to mcdonalds for dinner. the mcdonalds is right next to our hotel and i had not been there yet. after my first bit of fries i told eric that i want to eat the rest of our meals at mcd's!!! to me, the hamburger didn't taste so hot, although eric seemed to think it tasted the same. but the fries were amazing (and i don't normally like mcdonald's fries) and we got an oreo mcflurry for sj. and that was yummy!!! she downed almost the whole thing but i managed to get a few bites in. definitely going back for another one of those tomorrow. so dinner was fries and a mcflurry. nice. i know that it has been too long in china when i am excited about dinner consisting of mcdonalds food.

i am really ready to come home. hoping my baby feels better tomorrow and then we are on our way on thursday. can't wait!

the picture is our 'chinese picnic' that we had yesterday. she loves her noodles!

(and sj is crying now.....could be a long night............)

another day

2011-01-17T07:02:00.001-05:00

our days are getting more and more boring! not so much to write about tonight. we went out to get some diapers today at the big supermarket and then headed to the pearl market. i suppose because we have been here before the pearl market was not as overwhelming as it was before. nevertheless, it is amazing the millions and millions of jewels that are housed in one place.

sarahjoy is still not feeling great and was up a lot last night so mommy is not feeling so hot either today. we hung out in the room this afternoon and got a nap and then i put her to bed a bit earlier than normal. eric went out with austin and bethany and picked up some of the things we wanted to buy. i made him promise that he would actually buy them and not just keep bargaining! after checking in and dropping off the stuff, those 3 are out tonight to try and find the pizza place that we were looking for the other night. i am sure there will be an adventure. hopefully bethany will keep the 2 boys out of trouble. they tend to both act alarmingly like 16 year olds when they are together so i am counting on bethany's refining skills to keep the embarassment of the United States to a minimum.

i feel completely uninspired for blog writing. there really isn't much going on. today marks a week that we have had sarahjoy. it is hard to remember life without her. i don't know if it is her not feeling well or just time passing and her grieving but she is definitely a bit more fussy. nothing major, but noticeable. eric noted that the ultimate test in whether a child is your own is if you can change a poopy diaper without gagging. and i would have to say that both of us, despite our incredible lack of desire for the diaper thing again, have loved babying sj and changing her little diapers. so i guess she's really ours. : )

i reached the wall today - i'm ready to come home. we have thoroughly enjoyed our stay here and are still having a great time, especially with austin and bethany, but i definitely turned the corner and am ready to pack my bags. probably the biggest factor is the food. i am so tired of eating chinese and chinese-american. i just want to be able to eat normal (for me) food. and i think the lack of food is wearing on my body. i have been really tired today and not feeling great. i know not having a normal amount of food is taking its toll.

the good news is that we ARE almost ready to pack our bags! tuesday, wednesday, and then we start our journey home. we will take a bus to hong kong on thursday, spend the night there, and then fly out to newark on friday. so really, just a couple more days to wrap up a few loose ends on the shopping front and the adoption business front.

oh! a CRAZY thing happened yesterday. we were in a shop and all of a sudden i hear, "are you from virginia beach? do you go to grace?" turns out, there is a woman from our church who is here adopting also! how crazy is that? i can't say that i have ever seen her before but her name sounded familiar. she is an older single woman who is adopting her first child - talk about an adventure!!!! so her sarah and our sarahjoy will be in the nursery together! small world.

well, sj is asleep, eric is out on an adventure and i think i will try to get some food from the old room service. sooooooooooo ready for my own kitchen!

sorry for the lack of pictures. i promise i'll get some up tomorrow.

best price, best price

2011-01-16T09:20:00.002-05:00

oh my gosh. i wish that my father were here because he would be so proud of his son-in-law. we walked around this little island place that is full of souvenir shops for 5 HOURS and not once did eric let us buy anything. he bartered and bargained and negotiated until we had to leave (and sj and i had had it). i was so exhausted by the time we got home. the man is relentless. on second thought, i am glad my dad isn't here. or i might have had to go hide in a corner. eric tells me when we go back tomorrow we can actually get a few things. i am holding out hope! i don't think i can handle another 5 hours of endless negotiations. i mean really, at some point a woman has to shop! i mean, actually BUY something!

we hung out with austin and bethany again today. so fun. we are having a great time seeing them and i think they are enjoying being able to speak english and have time with some actual friends! i truly cannot imagine living in a little town in the middle of nowhere china. we told them last night as we were discussing their apprehension of starting a family that if their marriage can survive rural china, it can survive kids! we attempted a movie night in the hotel room tonight with them (complete with oreos and pizza flavored potato sticks for snacks) but the tv/computer hookup wasn't working and then sj wasn't cooperating so we just had a good time visiting instead.

sj was a bit feverish this afternoon. not sure what is going on - the other family we are with seems to have some sort of contagious virus so maybe it is that. i am hopeful it isn't an ear infection as flying with one of those could be disastrous. if she continues to run a fever i might ask our guide if we can see a doctor before we go home. but after hearing that a 4 year undergraduate degree allows you to be a doctor in china...i'm not so sure i want to go that route. she has been super congested since we got her - her sinuses are clearing up but she still has a pretty nasty cough. hopefully she will get a good night's sleep tonight and will perk up tomorrow although i can't say i was sad that all she wanted to do this afternoon was cuddle on my chest...

other than that, things are pretty quiet. enjoying what we believe will be our final days in china. (although i do have to report, under laws of full disclosure, that ERIC said the other day, 'you know, i think we could do this again'...to which i replied 'uh, no.')

can't wait to see everyone. we keep checking the weather in hopes of avoiding a snowy delay in newark. the thought of walking down the corridor at norfolk and having all my babies together makes me GIDDY!!!!!!

blessings

2011-01-15T10:02:00.003-05:00

oh my goodness. life is wonderful. we flew down to the southern part of china late last night (thus no blog post). this is where we will stay until we leave. and it is where we stayed for the whole two weeks on our last trip. so it's like coming home! (well, not quite, but closer...)

the weather is amazing. high 60's and sunny. we are soaking it up! our guide's name is david - he was our guide last time and we have kept in touch over the last two years. so when we saw him at the airport it was like seeing an old friend. not only is he an amazing guide but he is a gentleman, great with kids, and super fun to be around. so we are enjoying being with him again. he has gotten married and had a little boy since we were here last - we are hoping to be able to take him and his family out to dinner. we also brought a special gift for his baby (well, that's what we are telling him but it is really for all of them). we are giving him the 'jesus storybook bible' and accompanying cd's that read the storybook (in english). under the guise of gifts and continuing his english (which he is amazing at) we are hoping that the Lord will use it to bring david and his family to himself. the book is a children's bible storybook with beautiful pictures but it specifically points out the story of jesus throughout the entire bible. if you have little kids, it is a great resource for them. but anyway, we are having a great time with david, continuing our friendship and hoping to have some influence for the Lord.

as for that cute little girl of ours, she is a dream. we are having so much fun with her. she is absolutely the most perfect fit for our family - how God does that i don't know but he does. i look around at the multitude of adoptive families that are here (every american family has to come through this city on their way home) and there is no other child that i look at and think, 'gosh, she could be mine' in fact, we were at the 'doctor' today (i use that term VERY lightly) for the required medical check before leaving the country. there were so many adoptive kids there; almost all of them special needs kids. and i just had to stop for a minute and thank God for his amazing blessings to our family. almost every other child there, with the exception of maybe one or two, had pretty severe special needs - unrepaired cleft lips and palates, albinism with blindness, cerebal palsy, and lots of kids who just sort of looked like they probably had some mental disabilities. i know that some of those needs are truly a special calling on families; but i also know that we could have been given two little girls who needed much more medical attention. i truly believe God looked at our family, knew what we could handle, and gave us the perfect little girls to fit right in. i am so, so thankful.

sarahjoy LOVES her daddy. she completely freaks out if he is more than a few feet away from us. she is almost always happy for me to carry her (or 'sack' her as we say since we put her in this little sack thing) but then she will decide that she wants daddy and it is crying, crying until he holds her. it is pretty sweet to see. she certainly is attaching to both of us, but she seems to have a special affinity for her baba (chinese for daddy). and she is EXTREMELY intense when she wants her baba, or when she wants anything for that matter. sort of like her daddy, who is just a bit on the intense side! we get asked all the time if she is a boy or a girl (even though she is dressed in pink) because of her haircut. she and josiah have the same cut; actually, i think josiah's might be longer. it's going to take some time to grow it out but we'll get there. maybe by christmas we'll have a nice little bob. : ) i'll just have to dress her really girlie (or maybe get her ears pierced, heath!)

tonight we met up with two of our friends who actually live in china. they took a train overnight to come to guangzhou. austin was in our youth group back in kentucky and he and his wife bethany are teaching english here. it was so fun to see them. we hung out in the room a bit and then took the subway to go get some pizza from a little place they knew of. well, turns out we couldn't actually find the little restaurant but we did enjoy an amazing time walking around the downtown district. it was the first time i had truly been in a super modern part of china. i mean super modern - high fashion, upscale stores and malls, could have been straight out of new york city. it was beautiful - clean, gorgeous buildings and landscaping, lots of very western looking chinese people and things. a totally new experience. i guess we have experienced a lot of the lower and middle class but tonight was the high class china -the part that could rival any big city in america. it was super fun. i could have done without the body to body subway rides that almost put me over the edge (and did put sj over the edge) but other than that, what a fun night with friends. in the middle of china! (and we eventually landed at papa johns, and while waiting for a seat snuck a diet coke WITH ice from mcdonalds, which sj thoroughly enjoyed!)

the next few days are pretty quiet. we have a couple of business things to do to wrap up the adoption but mostly we get to hang out with austin and bethany, do some shopping, spend some great time with just our little babe, and enjoy gorgeous weather! and then come home to an incredible 5 star marriott hotel that is more beautiful than any place i'll ever stay again! what more could a girl ask for? well, i could ask for free wireless in our room. oh wait, we got that too thanks to the 'executive lounge' being directly above us! so we're able to get their signal. so hey, we are happy campers.

enjoy the pics! i have to say, our little girl is not the most photogenic. but i guarantee she is super cute!!!!!

panda bear, panda bear, what do you see?

2011-01-13T21:35:00.001-05:00

i see a purple bear looking at me!

out of the mouths of babes

2011-01-13T02:51:00.000-05:00

Sarahjoy, what is your favorite toy?

Well, I love the toy that has a light that goes on and off. It folds up like a phone so I use it to talk to people too. I love to open and close it and watch the light. Daddy says that it is really for him to read his book when I go to bed but I think that is silly. It is much more fun for me to play with.

What do you think about your new daddy?

Well, he is very funny looking. He has a humongous nose and eyes and no hair on his head. but he has hair on his arms which I think is silly. But he seems really nice. Today he told me something that sounded like 'I love you' but he doesn't sound the same as my old daddy. But I think he does love me. i always yell for him when he disappears.

How about your new mommy?

She is funny looking too. Especially because she has this really shiny thing in her nose. I keep touching it and looking for one on the other side of her nose. I don't know why there is only one! She holds me a lot and I really like when she puts me in this piece of fabric and carries me around. Well, as long as I can see daddy I like it. When I can't see daddy then I want to get down and go find him. And sometimes, I just want daddy to hold me. but most of the time, I'm okay with mommy. Of course, the first morning I still wasn't so sure about that guy with no hair so I REALLY wanted mommy. There was no way that funny looking man was taking me to breakfast without mommy along. Thankfully, I just screamed really loud and they figured it out.

What has been your favorite thing to do?

Hmmm, I like to do a lot of things and daddy is really good at playing with me. mommy is too but daddy is a little crazy which I like. He throws me in the air. And he tickles me a lot. He is sort of hyper. I think mommy must get worn out trying to keep up with him. He puts this machine up to his eye a lot and walks around talking. I don't know what he is doing. But sometimes I can see myself on the machine which is super fun, because I am super cute. And I love to look at myself.

How are mommy and daddy doing so far?

They seem a little tired. Maybe I am wearing them out. but I am so cute, I don't know why I would make them tired. I am being so good and sleeping every night so I think they should wake up ready to play with me! I did hear them talking after our adventure last night. Mommy said she was really worn out and something about all the people make her tired. She even said that she wanted just to be by herself which I think is ridiculous. Why would anyone ever want to be by themselves. daddy says that the people make him excited. He wants to go on more adventures. I guess mommy decided to obey daddy because we went on more adventures today.

Where did you go today?

First we went to a temple. It was built by an emperor a really long time ago so he could worship his mother. I don't know if I can build a temple but I do really like my mommy. Mommy and daddy keep telling me that there are a lot of children who live in the house in America. Sounds like an orphanage to me but they tell me it is just my new family. I have never heard of having so many people in one family. Anyway, maybe I can get those kids to help me build a temple. I hear they are really good at building things with legos. I don't know what that is but we might could make a temple. Anyway, we were at this temple and daddy decided to walk up some stairs. Mommy didn't want to go and since I was in that fabric thing I had to stick with her. Daddy was gone for so long. I kept crying for him and then I made a fist and told mommy that I was going hit daddy when he gets back. Well, i tried to tell mommy that but she can't understand me for some reason so I had to tell miss tracy and then she told mommy (seems very inefficient to me.) I think mommy agreed with me.

After we walked around the temple mommy and daddy took me to a really crowded and busy place. It had big letters with a smiley face beside them. They told me it was something about a wall and a mart. Anyway, I got a ball while I was there so I was happy.

Is there anything else you want to tell us sarahjoy?

First, I am very cute. They tell me I need to eat more but I eat everything so I don't know what they are talking about. Plus, those Americans need to stop eating I think. They are way too big. And I have been on my best behavior for 4 days. but pretty soon I am going to have to see if mommy and daddy will always love me so I am going to have to throw some fits in every once in a while. And this going to bed without crying thing. That's for the birds. Who doesn't want to be snuggled before bedtime? I have started to cry so they pick me up. Works like a charm. Eventually I go to sleep but I have to get my snuggles in first.

Any messages for your family at home?

Yes. I want all those children to know that mommy and daddy are mine and I am not sharing. I will play with them, maybe, after I check them out. mommy and daddy tell me they are nice. I do really like that Chinese little girl in the book. She seems like she might be a good big sister. But those other funny looking children, I'm not so sure about. As long as they know I am not sharing mommy and daddy then things will be okay. And as long as they know I am cute. Things should be good. Anyway, we got a week before I have to see them. So I'm not going to worry about it. Right now, I'm hanging with mommy and daddy.

amazing race

2011-01-12T08:59:00.000-05:00

What a night.

The hotel bellboy gets a taxi for our solo (aka no guide) adventure. But alas, as we are stepping into the taxi we realize we have forgotten our camera. So we try and communicate that eric is going to run back to the room and then we will go. Not a big deal, except the language thing. Our taxi guy wasn't too happy. Nor was the bellboy who flagged him down. We're off to a running start.

But we were off. And when I say that traffic in china is horrendous I am not talking about the numbers of cars. There are a lot but that's not the issue. The issue is the suggestatory (is that a word?) nature of all traffic signs and laws. Make that the suggestatory nature of everything. Sidewalks? Well, those are what we drive on when the street is too crowded. Lines? Purely for looks. Stop lights? Well, we may or may not stop. Probably not. Basically everyone travels at 25 mph and weaves in and out to get where they are going. Our taxi guy wasn't feeling patient this evening I guess, so when we hit some stopped traffic he did a u-turn, drove on the sidewalk, went down a one-way road (the wrong way, of course), wound through some alley and after narrowly missing several pedestrians, landed us where we needed to go. If you are a rule-follower, I would suggest not moving to china.

So we're at the shopping center. Which we were told was 'upscale.' Well, beings that most of china is way low scale we didn't quite know what to expect. Think louis vuitton and cartier. I did spot a purse I would have liked, but eric said I wasn't allowed to spend $2000. meanie. Who buys the stuff at this mall I have no idea. Not so much louis vitton going on in the population that I have observed. Meandered amongst the stares of all the employees who were gawking at the Americans with the Chinese baby and decided we would move on in our adventure.

Off to pizza hut. Eric hails a taxi (he's got a gift) and we get in. we show him the card where 'pizza hut' is written in Chinese. He shoos us out. Second taxi, he shoos us out too. Now we are smart and eric checks with the driver before me, sj, diaper bag, camera, coats, etc. all pile in. third taxi, nope. We give up and decide we're going back to the hotel and see if maybe what is written down on the card says something other than 'pizza hut.' Maybe, it says 'leave me in the middle of china' or something along those lines. Get in the taxi, show him the card and point to the hotel's name. end up at pizza hut. How? I'm not sure. Maybe it was divine intervention.

Pizza hut. Manage to sit down but it is obvious that no one speaks a word of English. We take a look at the menu (our options included seafood fruit salad…) and decide we are going for the Hawaiian pizza. Eric says, "pepperoni and pineapple" to the waitress. Now really, I love my husband, but we're in the middle of china. Not so much 'pepperoni and pineapple' going on in the vocabulary around these parts. So after an intervention by the wife which involved pointing and hand motions, we managed to get a pizza. Personal pan size. But nevertheless it was a Hawaiian pizza. And it was good. I applauded eric that at least he didn't keep saying 'pepperoni and pineapple' louder and louder. Good job, babe. Entertainment: trying to get a picture of me without 4 chins. I am seriously getting a complex people.

Off to the hotel. Oh wait, we must go in the bookstore next to pizza hut. Seriously? I know you like books, honey, but we are in CHINA. Their books are in CHINESE. But, beings that I am a most submissive wife, we go. We have to check our bag at the front. Which means we yank out our passports and money in front of everyone before handing them our bag. And then we go wandering around the bookstore. Felt like we were in barnes and noble. Except for the Chinese part. And no sofas, or coffee. And lots of smoking. I did find 'twilight,' in Chinese. BUT…………I have to say, we bought our first souvenir in the Chinese bookstore. A globe. In Chinese. So I take back all the mean things I was thinking (and may or may not have been communicating. With or without words.)

And now, to get home. At this point it is 7:00ish, dark, and everyone and their brother (except that Chinese people don't have brothers. You know, the one child thing) are trying to get home. Oh, and it's cold. Butt. Cold. Frazisimo cold. Bundled up like an Eskimo cold. We stand on one corner. And another. And decide to walk down the street a little. At this point eric turns to me and says, "why don't you start yelling at me and then it will be just like Amazing Race!" but I did NOT do that. Did. Not.

We finally get a taxi and find ourselves back at our home away from home. Our very warm, English speaking home.

And we are living happily ever after.

mama come

2011-01-12T02:33:00.000-05:00

we are moving right along!

we began yesterday with a trip to the office where we received her. we stayed there for about 2 hours waiting for some piece of paper that i have no idea why it took two hours to get. they asked us some questions like our address, etc. of course, that info is listed about 276 times in our paperwork but for whatever reason they wanted to know it again. i started to just make a new one up to see what happened. at one point, we were completely alone in an empty room in an office building in the middle of china. that was not the most comfortable feeling. thankfully, our guide and the official returned shortly and we were on our way.

then we set out on our trip to datong, sj's hometown. she was a champ on the 4 hour ride. she took a nap in our arms and ate her way through the remainder of the time. that kid can put away some food and she is not picky. the trip from where we are up to her hometown is through desolate, desolate countryside. there is nothing in sight except beautiful mountains in the distance and miles and miles of nothing. obviously it is winter here and so there is nothing even growing. it is a barren frozen tundra. we did pass one of the oldest sections of the great wall weaving through the mountains and tried to see it out the window; however, you couldn't see out the window very well because there was a layer of ice INSIDE the car. yep, inside. need i say more?

nevertheless, we got there. went into this little office. the lady looked at our passports and made sure it was our picture and then we were done. all in all, about 5 minutes. eric asked if we could go then to KFC (very popular in china). which, the guide and driver obliged and so we got some chicken. make that THEY got some chicken. there was no way i was going to eat anything in that place. pretty much i have subsisted on dried bananas, clif bars and diet coke. thankfully the bananas and coke are in abundance here. the clif bars are running low.

lest i forget, by the time we got to KFC sj was soaked from her diaper. and by the way, there is NO place to change a diaper in china, not even a counter in a bathroom. so while we are sitting at our table i strip her down because i had to get her wet onesie off. then i change her diaper standing up and redress her, all while the entire restaurant is staring at me. i am sure i was the subject of many a dinner conversation.

we got home around 8:00. sj was great on the way home too. i don't know what these people do with their kids but i have never seen 2 kids who could sit as calmly as lydia and sj. amazing. maybe i should send my other 3 to china for awhile.......... we dressed her in her pj's, kissed her goodnight and laid her down and she was out in 2 minutes. so far, she hasn't given us any fight about sleeping!

there was a super highlight to all of yesterday's travels. we brought a shutterfly book with us - it has pictures of all the kids and she absolutely loves looking at it. but she is completely transfixed with the page that has lydia on it. in fact, it's pretty much all she looks at. and she talks and talks and talks. well yesterday she was doing this on the ride up and our guide was able to translate and tell us that she was pointing at lydia and saying "chinese sister, chinese sister." she obviously had been prepared by her foster family and shown pictures that we sent. she LOVES lydia already!!!!

and then the coolest............she pointed to my picture and kept saying "mama come, mama come." she knew i was her mama and she knew that i was coming! so sweet and such a HUGE blessing to know that the foster family had prepared her.

she is the cutest thing in town. i am growing more in love by the minute. she is definitely sad when she wakes up but she quickly warms up and is so animated and active. she is going to have so much fun with all her brothers and sisters!

and last but not least, eric has us venturing out on our own this evening. we are headed to some sort of shopping area and then to track down a pizza hut. so, if you don't hear from me again, please send a search party to taiyuan, china. he tells me he knows what he's doing.....

two

2011-01-11T07:54:00.000-05:00

today was a ridiculously long day. we left at 9:00 this morning and finally arrived back at the hotel at 8:00 tonight. sarahjoy did great - she slept a lot of the way and was happy to sit in our laps (and eat) the rest of the time. huge, huge gift from God.

so i will update with pics and details tomorrow but tonight i will leave you with two very important things...

WAR EAGLE!!!!!!!

and http://nextstepoffaith.com/#/pivotal-circumstances/adoption to see our first day with SarahJoy (we can't upload to youtube or vimeo thanks to china's censorship issues...)

introducing

2011-01-10T06:54:00.001-05:00

she's here!!!!! our miracle, sarahjoy makiah, is in our arms and she is everything we prayed for.

after waiting for what seemed like an eternity today, we drove to the civil affairs office, walked up a flight of stairs, into an empty room and there she was, sitting on the bench with her nannies waiting for us. she was with several other children from the orphanage but I knew just who she was. and of course, she was by far the cutest one! we didn't notice till later but of all things, what was on her little pants? GUNS! she'll fit right in with our family.

we learned that in fact she has been in foster care for 2 years. which is a huge blessing and completely unexpected. she appears to be a happy, active little girl. so different than lydia who didn't say a word to us, sarahjoy has not stopped talking since we got her. and she wiggles and squirms just like a good old fashioned 2 year old! this afternoon it was almost like she was frantic and couldn't stop moving – i don't know if that is her way of grieving or if she is just going to keep us hopping!

she is really, really tiny. not necessarily short, but super tiny. we put on her 6-12 month tights and they fit perfectly on her little 2 year old body. the first few hours i felt like I was going to break her if I touched her. she reminds me of a newborn in that she just doesn't have any fat on her. she also appears to have something going on in her rib cavity around her heart. i am not sure if that is just because she is so skinny that you see things you don't normally see on a little body, or if it is heart related, or something new that we don't know about. at any rate, she is ours and we love her and we will weather whatever storms we have to.

we went to dinner tonight at the hotel's chinese restaurant (as opposed to the western food restaurant which was less than edible). she ate and ate and ate and ate. and then it was bath time which she was not terribly fond of. i have to be honest, it is a bit frightening how tiny she is. the mommy in me is worried about her. we knew that she was going to be tiny, but when you see her naked little body it is alarming. after bath time, she ate some more. she loves her some goldfish.

tomorrow we go to her orphanage to get her passport. if she is as active as she was today, it could be an interesting trip! i told eric that at times, i feel like a new mom – it has been so long since I chased after a 2 year old, fed someone dinner, changed diapers, and dressed a little person. but hey, it will keep me young, right?

enjoy the pictures!

a letter

2011-01-09T21:19:00.001-05:00

to my sweet sarahjoy,

in just a few hours, you will be in our arms. we have prayed for you for so long, it is hard to believe that our prayers will be realized today. you will be our little girl. you will have brothers and sisters, and a mommy and daddy. you will have a family and you will discover love.

it's our wedding day. we have prepared for you and you have prepared for us. we will come together and become one. and we will promise to love you no matter what. you will be ours and we will be yours, when life brings hardship and pain and when it is filled with joy and laughter. God is our witness and today, we will be bound together as one family. though we come from opposite ends of this world, after today, nothing will separate us. we are together. you are our princess. you are no longer alone in this world.

i know that there may come a day when you wonder about your journey, when you question its rightness. and when that day comes i will remind you of the miracle it took to get you here. i will remind you of God's faithfulness to provide what we needed. i will remind you of God's mercies to bring us together and his perfect plan for us to be your family. we will discover again, that God created us to be together.

i will also remind you of your sweet cousin makiah. and why your name is like hers. i will tell you stories that will make us all laugh and stories of how God works in the hearts of little girls. i will tell you the story of how she lives with Jesus now but will always be a special part of who you are. i will tell you the story of how her mommy and daddy, in the middle of their pain and sorrow, gave us the rest of what we needed to bring you home. that pain and sorrow will come but in the midst, God's grace and love shines brighter.

you are almost ours. in just a few hours the journey will have come to an end. and yet it is just the beginning. of new life, of new love, of new hope.

we love you. and we can't wait to hold you in our arms.

love,

mommy

tomorrow, tomorrow, i love you, tomorrow

2011-01-09T03:05:00.003-05:00

so. we're here! taiyuan (tie-u-an), china - the capital city of sarahjoy's province.

we flew in this morning (note: NO extra baggage fee!) and have spent the day hanging around and preparing for our little girl. the hotel rooms is, well, a bit miniature. so we have had to be creative in how to get all of our stuff in here and also be able to walk. however, it does have a huge mirror that takes up the entire wall of the shower - not quite sure what that is for but it might make for some fun bath time with itsy bitsy.

taiyuan is a smaller city than beijing, a mere 15 million people. we will receive sarahjoy tomorrow afternoon and officially 'register' the adoption. then we will take her to datong (dah-tohng), her hometown, on tuesday to get her passport. makes sense, except that datong is a 4 hour ride from here. so she will come to us tomorrow via a 4 hour ride, and then we will turn around on tuesday and take her back (4 hours) and then return (4 hours) the same day. our guide said the business we need to take care of in datong will take about 10 minutes. seems seriously inefficient to me and downright tortuous for sj but oh well, we got to do what they tell us! let's hope itsy bitsy likes sitting on laps and looking at books.

eric and i are both feeling a lot different this time around. i can't really put my finger on it - maybe it is simply that ignorance is bliss and so there was not nearly the aprehension with lydia as there is with sj. we know a lot more of what the possible difficulties are, and beings that lydia was the absolute most perfect and easy adoption, i suppose we are anticipating that at least a few of those difficulties will come our way this go round.

we are also all alone in taiyuan. there are no other families with us - just me and the lover staring into each other's eyes all.day.long. i am afraid come wednesday we will have run out of things to talk about! it is freezing outside so we are sort of sequestered in the (miniature) hotel room. we feel a bit isolated. lonely. disconnected from the outside world (NOTE: we love comments on the blog!!!!!) unlike last time when we were with 2 other families adopting from the same city as us, this time we are it. no one to talk to, no one to share experiences with, no one to video or take pictures while we are getting sj, no other little girls to play with (or note how much cuter our little girl is than them...) i feel a bit like a caged zoo animal with throngs of visitors staring at me. so far they aren't throwing me anything good to eat (HELP!!! get me out of here! i need a diet coke with ice and fajitas from chili's!!!!!!)

however........................WE ARE GETTING SARAHJOY TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!! we are so excited. a new daughter, tomorrow!!!!!!! a new little sister, tomorrow!!!!!!! we have been talking, praying, waiting for her for two years and tomorrow it will all culminate in being handed the little miracle we have been given by God. it is a bit surreal but as i sit in our (miniature) hotel room and the (miniature) metal crib is right next to our bed it is becoming more and more real. we have her toys set aside, her snacks put away. her blanket folded in the crib and her dollies ready to receive some love. tomorrow, exactly 24 hours from now, she will be in our arms. wow.

i know i have said it before, but we are so thankful for all of you. so many of you have contributed financially to this journey and for that we are eternally grateful. we absolutely could not have done this without your help. tomorrow, your investment will be realized. i hope that in some sense you can feel the excitement. and many, many of you have prayed for this moment. your prayers are what have brought this miracle to fruition. thank you, thank you, thank you. i cannot wait to let you see our miracle in our arms.

(and please note the serious lack of people in the pictures as well as the flag blowing straight out...did i mention it is FREEZING!!!!!!! even 20 million people in beijing know better than to be outside.)

you may be in china if...

2011-01-09T01:40:00.002-05:00

.....there are continual horns honking at all hours of the day and night

.....being violently shoved doesn't even phase you

.....the smoking section in the restaurant is larger than the non-smoking section

.....the parking garage has a polished concrete floor and is immaculately clean

.....there are noodles and red beans at the breakfast bar

.....you ride a bike weaving in and out of 5 lanes of highway traffic

.....every third car is a volkswagon

.....high rise apartment buildings surround you as far as the eye can see

.....you are from a small city, population 10 million

.....the government controls whether you heat your house

summertime!

2011-01-08T05:10:00.001-05:00

10 words to describe today…

freezing

frozen

chilly

bone-numbing

sub-zero

icy

frosty

bitter

wintry

arctic

so forgive the typos. my fingers are still recovering from hypothermia. as are my thighs and nose. a full body snowsuit would have been appropriate for today. our best educated guess was the temperature was around 10 degrees with the windchill well below zero.

however, we are strong, tough, and willing to sacrifice our appendages for a few good pictures and some memories. so we ventured onward to the forbidden city, tiananmen square and the great wall with a stop at the olympic park. i was thankful we had been to all three sites before as i was not exactly in the frame of mind to meander around enjoying the wonder of it all. and we took far less pictures as my finger had a hard time even pressing the button. eric forgot his gloves at the hotel so he bought some from a street vendor – i believe the word she used to describe him was 'stingy.' pops would be proud of his bargaining skills. and it gave our group a good laugh.

we fly out tomorrow morning to the capital of sarahjoy's province. i met an adoption guide today who was from sj's city. her description...'much colder than here.' o yeah baby. the long underwear and i are becoming fast friends. in fact, they might be permanently stuck to me after the next 6 days. should look great under a bathing suit this summer. speaking of summer………….i could really use some about now.

**pictures are being very slow in their cooperation (probably because they are freezing) so i will figure that out and have some more for you tomorrow!

china!

2011-01-07T05:43:00.001-05:00

well...we're here!!!!! we arrived safe and sound. and boy, let me tell you that video monitors in the back of every seat is God's gift to the international traveler. let's see, i watched 'little miss sunshine' and 'dinner with the schmucks', a few episodes of 'the office' a couple of 'hoarders', a biography of beyonce, and made it through half of 'eat, pray, love' before i decided i didn't need to follow julia on her quest to find herself. a few naps thrown in there and some (uneaten and completely disgusting) meals served and we were here!

the trip truly was night and day from last time. flying direct from newark was wonderful. wondering if 14 hours on one flight is the longest around. i suppose i could ask the jovial cast of pilots that are sitting with me in the wireless cafe, eating and drinking themselves into oblivion (lest we think gas prices are why airline prices are going up!) but alas, they are deep in discussion of where the best bars are around the world. so comforting knowing these guys are flying our friendly skies.

being in china is not nearly as 'weird' as it seemed on our first trip. it almost seems downright normal. like we belong here. and..................make sure you are sitting down........................i ate a chinese meal for dinner. or at least i did until i had something crunchy going on in my mouth and then the chopsticks were down for the count. but until then, i was enjoying some minced garlic/pork thing and pineapple rice. i'll admit, it was actually pretty tasty. and in case it had any calories in it, i am fairly sure they were all burned by me trying to use chopsticks. no wonder the chinese are so small - who the heck wants to work so hard to get food in your mouth! give me a fork for crying out loud!

eric is checking out the treadmills in the hotel. we won't talk about how obnoxious that is that he would even think about exercising while we are halfway around the world. i think that puts him in some sort of freak category.

tonight we are gunnnig for a good night's sleep. i am hoping to make it till 8:00 before i hit the pillow and instantaneously go to dreamland. tomorrow brings some sightseeing in beijing - great wall, olympic venues, tiannamen square, forbidden city. we will be donning our long underwear and all other outerwear items we brought - highs in the 20's. perfect weather for this beach girl spending all day outside! : )

thank you so much for your prayers. i was truly at peace while flying and we are here safely. eric and i are enjoying our time alone before we meet sweet sarahjoy. of course, we are super excited and getting moreso by the hour, but i suppose the advantage to having 4 young ones at home is that we can savor the couple of days we have just the two of us.

so thankful for all of you. we'll update tomorrow with some pictures!

and to my sweet kiddos..............mommy and daddy love you to pieces and miss you!!!!!!! we went to a store today and saw a chinese wooden spoon but decided you all probably wouldn't want that for a souvenir. : ) be good and have fun with grammy and pops and grandma!

test

2011-01-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

just checkin' to see if this works!

one week

2010-12-30T20:44:00.002-05:00

one week from TODAY we will be flying over siberia - making our way to china (no joshin' here, they actually fly 'over' the globe because that's the shortest route!) even with all the suitcases laying around, it hardly seems real.

we are busy packing, running errands, writing instructions for the kiddos and all the other stuff that has to be done (and if i am honest, i want done) the holiday season has been a huge blessing in the fact that the time has flown by and i cannot believe we are staring at less than a week before we walk out the door for the final time as a family of 6.

which brings me to how i am feeling about this whole adventure. well, let's go back to the final sentence of the last paragraph and play ashleigh. as i type that, i think, "well, i think we will come back as a family of 7. but maybe that is foreshadowing that we are going to die in a fiery plane crash and there will only be left a family of 4. and then they will read this blog and think how incredible it is that i wrote that as part of my final blog entry..."

welcome to my insides.

it's not a secret to those who know me that i have a propensity for thinking about an untimely death. and sweet makiah has not done anything except confirm my (somewhat) irrational fears about an early exit from this world. it does happen. so yes, i am scared out of my mind that we are going down in a plane. i would feel a whole lot better if there had been a major air catastrophe in the last year or so. given that, the odds that there would be a second would be low. however, there hasn't been. so i am stuck with battling serious fear that my kids will grow up without parents.

you think i am kidding. i'm not.

so how am i feeling about this adventure? i think scared is a good word. nervous. anxious. out of my mind petrified.

and it's not just flying. there's a whole lot more to be nervous about. there are so many unknowns with this adoption, more so than even with lydia. and before you tell me that there are always unknowns with children, let me try and describe the difference.

sarahjoy is 2. we have NO IDEA what her first two years of life held. biological children...you know. even most adoptions you have an idea. sarahjoy...has she been held and loved and had proper stimulation or been stuck in a crib for two years? we know she is super tiny, has she gone hungry and is she malnourished? has she been in an abusive environment - physically, emotionally, sexually? has she had proper medical care or do we know only the tip of the iceberg? has she been cold for long lengths of time for lack of clothing and blankets? have they loved her and are sad to see her go, or have they punished her because she is being adopted and has had packages sent from the US? we know she has been in an orphanage, how will that affect her, being institutionalized for those critical first two years of life? there are SO MANY unknowns that you simply take for granted with your biological children.

and then there are the relatively minor unknowns...is she potty trained? what does she eat? does she still take a bottle? does she like a pacifier? what is her bedtime routine? does she take a nap? what makes her smile? do vacuums scare her? does she like to be held close? or maybe she likes to run around? what does she like to play with? and on and on and on and on....

here is how it goes. we take a bus to a government office (think DMVish). someone from the orphanage is there. they hand sarahjoy to us. just sarahjoy. no clothes, no toys, no blankets, no bottles, no nothing. we may have 10 minutes of time to ask questions (which have to be translated so make that about 5 minutes). and then she is ours. that's it. we turn around and begin the adventure of figuring out just who sarahjoy is (without the benefit of language comprehension.)

so how do i feel? i'm scared! i'm nervous! i don't know what in the world the next few weeks/months/years hold (including whether i am going down in a fiery plane crash.) undergirding that fear is the belief that God has led us on this journey. and i know that in the deepest places of my heart. but just because God leads you there doesn't mean it is full of rainbows and a pot of gold. some would say that's pessimistic, i say it's realistic.

am i excited? yes! i can't wait to hold sarahjoy, i can't wait to whisper in her ear 1000 times that i love her so that on the 1001st time she can know what it means. i can't wait to give her a bath and dress her in beautiful clean clothes. i can't wait to unpack the toys we brought and watch her play. i can't wait to give her the dolls and hear her talk to them in chinese. i can't wait to feed her and let her eat as much as her little belly can possibly hold. i can't wait to hold her close and love her, day after day after day until she never remembers what it's like to not be loved. i can't wait! but i am scared too. the unknown.

we will be updating this blog as we journey. my understanding is that 'blogger' is banned in china so we will not be able to actually see what we are uploading to the blog (or read comments on the blog). but we should be able to get text and pictures up there in some way, shape or form. and we hope to upload a video to youtube of when we first get to meet sarahjoy.

we will have access to email so please email us! we would LOVE to hear from you - i can promise being on the other side of the world with no 'outside' contact for 17 days is not for the faint of heart. you can email us at eric(at)vbgrace(dot)com or ashleighsanzone(at)verizon(dot)net.

i don't know that i will make it back on here until we are in the land of the dragons so i leave you with a few specific prayer requests:

1. pray for peace for me especially. i am truly filled with fear about flying together with eric.

2. pray for our reunion with sarahjoy that we would have wisdom on how to love her best. that we would communicate security and peace and comfort through our actions and tone of voice (words are a bit pointless here in the first few days)

3. pray for a special time for eric and me. there is great opportunity to face together the unknowns and there is also great opportunity to take our stress out on one another.

thank you for being a part of sarahjoy's life! we absolutely cannot wait to post pictures for you to see God's miracle in our arms.

for a preview...go here.

my christmas wish

2010-12-21T23:14:00.004-05:00

i have decided that most people don't like dwelling in the reality of difficult circumstances. we want things to be better, in relatively short order. maybe it's a consequence of our instant society, maybe it's human nature. i am not sure. but we are uncomfortable with discomfort. we want the bad to pass quickly or not at all. we downplay the reality of heartache or just plain don't enter in to the heartache. oftentimes we pretend it's not there, we certainly don't ask questions about it, or even worse, excuse it away with trite phrases of sentiment or just plain stupid comments.

makiah is gone. she will never be home again. she will never snuggle up to mommy or run into daddy's arms again. yes, she is in heaven. and that works great for her. we are thankful for that. very thankful. but that does not change what is the reality here on earth. that doesn't change the silent house and empty hearts of cameron and rachel. their family has been broken. and it is horrible, awful, gut-wrenching anguish. it is. and it will be. and it will be some more.

as christians i wonder if we are worried to embrace the hard stuff. that maybe if we admit to ourselves that people are hurting and life is painful that we in some way are demeaning our God. that we are creating him to be less than he is. we want things to be better because we want God to have done something, to fix the problem, to shew away the pain. we are uncomfortable with a God who allows heartache and not only allows it, but let's us sit in it. we believe that if we are 'right' with God, we will stand tall, look at pain between it's two deviled eyeballs and give it a suckerpunch for a TKO. after all, weakness and misery, emptiness and pain are for the population that refuses God. fullness and joy are for his followers.

so i hear questions like, 'how are cameron and rachel? are they doing okay?' or 'gosh, her blog is awful. i can't stand to read it.' or 'man, it just seems like they are really struggling.'

and because i thankfully have a filter on my mouth a majority of the time (there are advantages to aging...) i do not respond how i would like to. however, i claim no filter on my typing, so let me just say for all to read,

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO FEEL LIKE? THEY HAVE LOST THEIR BABY GIRL! CHRISTMAS IS HERE AND THERE IS NO ONE TO SIT ON SANTA'S LAP, NO ONE TO TRY AND STAY AWAKE ON CHRISTMAS EVE, NO ONE TO ROLL MOMMY AND DADDY OUT OF BED AT AN UNGODLY HOUR. THERE IS NO ONE TO BUY PRESENTS FOR, NO ONE TO BAKE COOKIES WITH, NO ONE TO DRESS IN THEIR CHRISTMAS OUTFIT. THERE IS NOTHING. EXCEPT QUIET. SILENCE. SHE IS GONE. HERE THAT, GONE. AND THEY WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER BE THE SAME. THEY WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER HEAR HER, SMELL HER, TOUCH HER AGAIN. OF COURSE THEY ARE 'STRUGGLING' AND OF COURSE IT IS 'AWFUL'. AND WHILE I'M AT IT, QUIT BEING SO ASININE."

what's that? God heals and restores?

yes, that's true. God does promise to walk us through to the other side. but have you ever seen someone who has been attacked by a shark? they don't exactly look the same when the healing is done. the scars are deep, sometimes obvious and sometimes hidden, but the wound is always there. there is a limp in their step and a change to their body. they may have an incredible story of survival on the other side, but they will never be whole again. there is residual pain. there are days when life is not much different than before, but there are many more days when life is completely different. accommodations must be made. the injury must be accounted for. as time passes, the scars become more and more a part of their body. less interfering as it were. but that's only with time. lots of it. lots and lots of it. there is much healing to be done before 'normal' is even a concept that can be entertained.

so yes, will cameron and rachel be okay? i do believe that someday they will have learned to walk with their scars. but right now, there are gaping wounds. bone-crushing, life-altering wounds. it's hard to watch, difficult to just stand by and observe the pain. but that's reality.

so here's what i want for christmas...i want people to think and enter into other's painful realities. and i am not just speaking to cameron and rachel's circumstances. maybe it is another of life's tragedies that you are watching unfold - infertility, miscarriage, wayward family, terminal illness, divorce, consequences of poor decisions. there are a multitude of circumstances that involve varying degrees of pain. i want people to stop being impatient and realize that life often involves months and years of heartache. i want people to stop saying stupid things to try and gloss over the traumas and tragedies. i want people to try and just sit their humble selves in the circumstances of another and feel. shove away the need to say something 'helpful', or do something to make it better. instead, just think. meditate on life in their shoes and be sad. God guarantees us difficulty, pain, trials, death. it's okay to acknowledge. tragedy doesn't mean God isn't there. it only means that we are in fact living on earth.

makiah, maybe your life will touch 1000's of others. i'm fairly sure it already has. but we will always miss YOUR life. no one, even 1000's, can replace you. we are thankful that you are with jesus. but we are horrifyingly empty without you here. we know that life must be lived. but we long to be with you. for time to hurry up. you will never know your sisters and that is a reality that is too painful to dwell on. but we promise they will know you. they will know your story. they will know your face. they will know your name and your heart. i wish they could know you. but that will have to wait. that whole wishing time would hurry up idea.

and you will never know your cousin, who will bear your name. but sarahjoy will know you. she will know your face and your heart, your story. and she will always bear 'makiah' as part of her identity. because if there was ever a little girl who was burdened for the hurting of this world, it was you. she will know that you helped bring her home. she will know your mommy and daddy. and she will know their hearts and their story. she will know your sisters. and when they play, they will know someone is missing. they will not be sad. for childish innocence is the picture of joy. we'll leave the sadness for the grown ups. but they will know.

christ entered into our pain. my hope this christmas is that we can enter into one another's. that we wouldn't be afraid to sit together with broken hearts, whatever the circumstances are that have done the breaking.

i don't know what our future is. i can tell you that i wake up every day and wonder if it's my last with someone i love. or maybe my last. i don't know what sarahjoy will bring to our family. it is nice to think that the answer is smiles and joy, but the realities of a special needs adoption are not always pretty and certainly not easy. so i am guarded. forgive me if i seem unenthusiastic. that is not the case, i am merely feeling the weight of life's difficulties a bit more as we enter into this new season of our family. and realizing that maybe, just maybe, we're not in for a picnic.

two weeks and counting.

faithful

2010-12-18T11:00:00.002-05:00

our holidays are as busy as ever with one small change...we are preparing to welcome home our little girl in just a few weeks! our plane tickets are bought and we are scheduled to fly out of virginia beach early on january 6. 'january' sounds far away...3 weeks, not so much...

we received our final price quotes today and i am so unbelievably excited to tell you that our adoption will be 100% paid for. i was holding my breath a bit before the final numbers came in, but we are ready to fully embrace the miracle. thank you so much for the part you all have played. we are so, so thankful. when i first began to pray about sarahjoy coming home, God led me to the word 'faithful'. he has certainly shown himself to be just that. our hope and prayer is that you all have been able to witness God's faithfulness too as you have followed our journey.

we fly in just about 3 weeks. let's be honest, i am scared out of my mind. the thought of a 5th child, a toddler (we are most definitely out of the toddler stage in our house!), a child who doesn't know english, a child who has been institutionalized for 2 years, a question mark about her health - it all is definitely causing my stomach some serious knots. i have to keep reminding myself that God has promised to be faithful. it will probably not be easy, dare i say ROUGH for who knows how long, but He is faithful. easy for me to write to you. not so easy for me to fully embrace.

a few specific prayers as we spend the last few weeks as a family of 6:

***we have asked for updated measurements. the only ones we have are from july. please pray that we can get these (her orphanage is being very difficult). it would be good for one, so that we have more of an accurate idea about clothes. but more importantly, it would give me some direction about what we are facing with her health.

***good health for our family. i don't want to leave behind sick kids and i certainly don't want to be sick when traveling. and we need grammy and pops and grandma to be 100% healthy too!!!

***wisdom for packing. the reality is that they just hand sarahjoy to us. the only thing she comes with are the clothes on her back (and in lydia's case, not even a pair of underwear or shoes that fit). so we have to bring not only clothes and shoes, but toys, diapers, formula, snacks (we have no idea what she eats or if she is still on a bottle), and everything else it takes to have a toddler for 2 weeks. yes, we can go shopping in china. but it doesn't happen until a couple of days after we get her so we have to carry most of the stuff with us. and all 3 of us have to pack in 2 suitcases, no heavier than 44 pounds.

***and lastly, pray for sarahjoy. she is about to be unbelievably traumatized. handed to people who look different, smell different, talk different. just imagine taking a 2 year old from the US and dropping them in china. it is a terribly stressful transition for her. pray for her little heart and mind to somehow understand that we love her and are her mommy and daddy, that the orphanage would be preparing her in these final weeks. pray that we would be wise in identifying her grieving and comforting her. and pray for her health. i am expecting a fairly malnourished, underweight child, something we did not experience with lydia.

thank you so much for your prayers and walking together with us. we absolutely could not be doing this without you. i will touch base before we leave, but in the meantime have a beautiful Christmas with your families. and for those of you who are hurting this season - as my sweet cousins are in their loss of Makiah - may God's peace envelop you and his strength help you to get to the other side.

the secret

2010-11-28T19:16:00.005-05:00

there was a man, his wife, and their son. he worked the coal mines, she tended a shop. the boy went to school.

life was peaceful. they worked, they studied, they loved.

the secret came unexpectedly. the wife buried it. it needed to go away. to be lost in the coal mines as it were. deep underground. silence prevailed. the secret would be hers. alone.

time passed. she held the secret close. but she could not silence her body. the husband questioned her. it was her secret. he became angry. he demanded to know. her body announced. the secret was theirs. together.

he loved his wife. but this could not be. no one could know. no job could be kept. no schooling could be continued. prolific fines would be levied. they would lose their home. their possessions. he cried. she cried. the Secret kicked.

the wife no longer worked at the market. no one could know. he went to the mines. no one could know. he kept quiet. she hid. both a prisoner of the secret. months passed. life was solemn. no one spoke. the pain was too great. the day arrived. her body worked to bring forth the Secret. she endured the pain. silently. no one must know.

her head was perfectly round, her eyes a deep brown, her hair as black as the night that welcomed her. her skin like porcelain. she was perfect. he cried, she cried, the Secret cried. blankets held back the sound. silence. no one must know. the time would pass too quickly. they must remember everything. her smell, her sounds, her tender toes and graceful fingers. they touched her. they must feel her and never forget. they bathed her. they adored her. they prepared.

it had been two days. she held their Secret. she wept. she bundled her for the winter air. she loved her. she screamed. she pounded the ground. silence. no one must know. she caught her breath and screamed again. this was too much. she could not do this. this was more than could be asked of anyone. she squeezed the Secret close to her chest. she felt her heart beat. she muffled her screams in the warm blankets. silence. no one could know.

they walked quietly. out of the warmth of their home and into the cold, bitter night. she turned around. she turned around again. her mind was confused. grief does that. was this really happening? she was shaking. the cold air. the depth of heartache. her tears ran like ice cubes down her cheeks. where was she going? what was she doing? grief clouded her. she couldn't make out the familiar streets. she wandered. the Secret was quiet. she must be too. her feet kept walking. she would walk forever. she would disappear. her and her Secret. she began to run. to where, she did not know.

run.
run.
run.

the husband, the boy. she loved them too. this was a dream. no, a nightmare. a horrible, horrible nightmare. her body was wet. tears, sweat, the agony of grief. the Secret was getting restless.

here. before the light of day. silence. no one must know. she tightened the blankets, pulled them up around her face. how many kisses must she give to make up for a lifetime? she picked her up. she put her down. she picked her up. she ran. no. she must. she must what? confusion. panic. the sun was coming. she placed her on the sidewalk. she took one last look. she ran. empty arms. she ran. she wept. silently. no one must know.

the secret had been kept. the Secret could not be kept.

a miracle.

2010-11-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

november 28, 2009
i honestly have no idea how we are going to pay for this. $30,000. that ain't no chump change! but i do have a confidence in God and i feel like he has spoken as clearly to me about sarahjoy's expenses as he did about lydia's person (remember the vision of a chubby two year old with pony tails on top of her head?) that He will provide. and yet i strongly sense that it is going to be one bit at a time. not a huge chunk that would tempt us to minimize our dependence on Him, but a little piece here and there so that HE is proven faithful. so that sarahjoy's story becomes just as miraculous as lydia's.

well folks....november 6, 2010
sarahjoy's adoption is 100% paid for!!!!! last night a very dear family paid the remaining balance and we are now 100% ready to go debt-free to china. a miracle. even more of a miracle than i can explain in this email. suffice it to say, God has provided, $31,752.49. according to all reasonable estimations of plane tickets and in-country expenses, we are 100% funded. a miracle, a miracle, a miracle. $31,752.49 that people gave to us. that's not normal. that's a miracle. if you have ever doubted that God could do the miraculous, doubt no more. he's done it.

there is not a doubt in my mind that we are going to fly to china with not a dime of debt. there are still some 'ifs' as we will not get the exact amount of our plane tickets or in-country expenses until 2 weeks before departure, but i am quite assured that God will take care of any difference that shows up there. for now, we are rejoicing that we are 100% ready to go!!!!! now for the second miracle, a MASSIVE heat wave to hit inner mongolia in january. start praying........

we thank each and every one of you who has walked this journey with us! it is not over, but we have seen the miraculous. we are so thankful and rejoicing in God's amazing provisions for our family.

makiah

2010-11-04T22:13:00.003-04:00

A SarahJoy update is far overdue. However, life has sent tidal waves my way and all efforts have gone towards staying alive. The oceans of grief and sadness have been sweeping over me as the past few weeks have held tragedy that I have always feared but never encountered so closely.

October 8th marked the final day of Makiah King’s life. She was the daughter of my precious cousin Rachel and her husband Cameron. At 4 years old, she was a light for Jesus beyond her years - she radiated joy and love, her untimely death continuing to shake me to my core. The family was driving home from a week’s vacation when a teenage driver smoking marijuana hit them broadside and instantly killed Makiah. One minute Makiah was chattering about rainbow toenails, the next minute Rachel and Cameron were burying those precious little feet.

As I have cried and grieved the death of Makiah and the horror of what Rachel and Cameron must now face, I have found myself holding SarahJoy at arms length. I am unable to rejoice when someone I love so dearly is in the throws of endless grief. How can I celebrate or look forward to anything in the midst of such hurting? How can I think about bringing a fifth child home when someone so dear to me has lost their only child? I am almost panicked with the need to cherish my children; the thought of adding yet another child that demands my attention is frightening to me. Overwhelming. And my heart is so sad. So, so sad. For now, the excitement of SarahJoy has been put on hold.

To honor Makiah, we will name our new daughter SarahJoy Makiah Sanzone (her Chinese name will be in there somewhere also.) We are praying that she would exude Makiah’s love for Jesus, her passion for life, and her playful, giving heart. Makiah means, “Who is like Yahweh?” and we hope and pray that SarahJoy will grow to be, as Makiah was, a powerful witness to that question.

In the midst of tragedy, God continues to bless us. Why we are sitting on top of a mountain witnessing God’s goodness and precious Rachel and Cameron are weeping in the valley of the shadow of death, I cannot understand. There is a part of me that just can’t bear to celebrate His provision. But…I think I need to. If for no other reason than many of you have had a part in it and I need to honor that. Our adoption expenses sit at about $32,000 (they have increased a bit now that we are getting closer) and yet we have less than $1000 to raise. What an incredible testimony to God’s ability to do the miraculous.

We are scheduled to depart Norfolk on January 6th. I am so thankful that God knew better than me and did not allow us to travel in December. The thought of packing up and getting ready to welcome another child is too much for me right now. I need some more time. December will also include a long weekend with my cousin Rachel. So, so thankful for God’s big picture and his perfect timing. And even as I say that my body tenses and my stomach churns and I think about Makiah – God’s bigger picture and His perfect timing???? I can’t reconcile it and it tears at me. How can God take away a precious little life and at the same time bring hope to another? I wrestle, and I have found no answers, no peace. Just sadness and heartache.

So we march on. SarahJoy will be here soon. In the meantime, please pray for her little body and heart - that she would be healthy and loved. And more than anything please pray for Rachel and Cameron that they would somehow feel God holding them in their emptiness.

Go here to read more about sweet Makiah.

from LA to VB

2010-10-17T22:54:00.003-04:00

okay, honesty here. i am REALLY tired of trying to raise money. i wish it was not part of this adoption process. but, it is. so i am doing my best to think of creative ways to fundraise without burdening people! so far, all of our fundraising efforts have been focused on people who live locally. but for monday, october 18th, we have a fundraiser that everyone can be involved in - young and old, california or virginia!

without futher ado...(and husbands, you can stop reading and forward this to your wives)

go to etsy and for each necklace sold MONDAY AND MONDAY ONLY we will receive $5.00.

the necklaces are simple, unique and inexpensive. there are lots of different ones (super cute) maybe something you would like or maybe there is something that would be perfect for a christmas gift for that random person on your list (teachers, bus drivers, crossing guards, gas station attendants...). our goal is to sell 200 - equaling $1000 to bring our little girl home!

but...in order to have that many bought i am hoping you all will forward this opportunity on. family, friends, co-workers, lifelong enemies. whomever you can think of. it is only for MONDAY. midnight to midnight.

in addition, we have another fundraiser going on the whole month of october but since we are in fundraising mode today, let's throw that one out there too! go to hip mom jewelry and 30% of the proceeds of their ADOPTION jewelry goes to our family. at first, i only sent this to adoptive moms. but then i realized that within their adoption jewelry line, there are several beautiful pieces that everyone could enjoy. detail...in order for us to get credit you have to enter in the code SANZONE1010.

okay, so...happy shopping!!!!! if you feel comfortable, please pass this on.

as of tonight, our remaining need is $2954. we are almost there!!!!!

(and please don't put me in a category with those obnoxious TV preachers who are always asking for your money!)

opportunity

2010-10-03T21:08:00.003-04:00

there is no one who could look at our adoption journey and not say that God has been abundantly faithful to us. he has provided almost $27,000 thus far to bring sarahjoy home. and i know he is going to finish off the remaining portion. i know that. i don't always feel that..but i know.

we have been given several opportunities along the way to do some creative fundraising. and one of them is here the entire month of october.

the sweet lady who creates hip mom jewelry has generously offered to give us 30% of the sales of her adoption jewelry for the whole month!!! it is jewelry that is specifically geared towards adoptive moms and i find it quite beautiful. it is not particularly inexpensive, but would make a wonderful gift for christmas or something special.

if you are interested, you can click on the button below or simply go here. to be clear, the fundraiser only includes her adoptive jewelry (of course, you can buy whatever you want but the 30% only is for the adoptive pieces). and, you must enter code sanzone1010 for us to get the funds.

thank you for all of your support! God has brought us this far - using many of you along the way - and i can't wait to see how he is going to bring us the rest of the way.

anything to do with anything

2010-09-30T08:55:00.002-04:00

there is a lot about God that i don't understand. a lot. especially since i choose dishes over table theology conversations any day of the week. but sometimes, i wish i could understand just a bit more.

here's where we stand...our estimated travel departure date is january 6. that's right. definitely not before christmas! and the general response has been, "that's okay, you can celebrate twice, it's only a few weeks difference, etc., etc." and i get all that. in fact, i could make a decent list on why january would be better for us.

however, i am not ready to write God's miraculous hand out of the picture. i mean, we have been praying for a miracle, right? so wouldn't it make sense that our estimated travel dates would be in january? if the agency had told us we were traveling in december, there would be nothing miraculous. i have been able to sleep on it and i still feel the same - God is burdening me to keep praying for a miracle. it is clear that he is saying, "keep asking, keep asking, keep asking and expecting."

and here's where it all gets confusing for me. the more i pray, the more he hears? can i influence him with my prayers? it seems like he knows what he is going to do, and he knows my prayer, so why keep praying? and yet i know the stories of the Bible where men and women of God keep asking over and over and over. and it seems like God hears those prayers. so i don't know - i clearly cannot explain it all (although i am quite sure that the men in my life could discuss it for hours after thanksgiving dinner though they get absolutely nowhere...whatever...i'll take the dishes)

it's a vulnerable place to me. sticking myself out on a limb (when clearly other people are not even climbing the tree!) asking for something so ridiculous. my mind shifts from "this is going to be so awesome because God is going to do something huge and no one is going to be able to deny it!" to "i can't believe i am still talking about a miracle. how foolish am i going to look in a couple of months." i don't know, i am just not ready to settle for january yet. maybe that is God's plan for us, and if so i will embrace that and look forward to january! but what a mistake for me to simply assume God doesn't want to do something miraculous.

so, i'm still praying for december. more than that, i'm praying for God's best. but if my prayers have anything to do with anything, then i am going to keep praying for a miracle.

faith

2010-09-25T19:51:00.002-04:00

we were discussing in our small group last week what brings us to greater faith - relationships, circumstances, private disciplines, or service opportunities. without even having to put much thought into it, my answer was circumstances. pivotal circumstances that God uses to grow my faith.

we are in the middle of one of those.

faith. believing that God is going to do something.

money...we started with NOTHING for this adoption. God has provided and continues to provide. as we get closer and closer to traveling the big chunks of money are coming due and some of the estimations we have been working with look like they are going to be low. do i think God knew that? yes. do i think God is going to provide? yes. i would have to agree with eric, "i can say with almost more faith than i have ever had before, God is going to provide the money."

a little girl...we started into this special needs adoption knowing that we could not
adequately care for a child with huge medical needs. we knew God was leading us to pursue a special needs adoption but were stepping out in faith, believing God would choose the perfect little girl for our family. no, we haven't had sarahjoy all checked out by the doctors in america, but we are trusting that God knows every little thing in her body and he has not sent us more than we can handle. in our imaginings we dreamed of a little girl who was two years old, had a minor heart defect, was potty trained and sleeping through the night! nothing like asking for specifics. well, i think God might have seen fit to give us our heart's desire.

timing...we're still holding on to faith for this one. we desperately want to have our little girl home for christmas. is it a big deal? well, no, not in the scope of terrorist attacks and earthquakes. but she is our little girl. and i can't imagine celebrating without her. just imagine if you had to send one of your kids away for christmas (which i realize some of you know this pain far more personally due to family situations). it hurts and no one would ever wish that on someone else. bottom line, we are holding on to faith that God would bring us our little girl soon.

when we started this journey the word 'faithful' kept ringing in my head. in fact, i tried to find the chinese word for faithful as i thought we might name our little girl that. clearly God had a plan, which he knew far before we mailed the first set of documents. he has used this journey to build in us a faith far greater than what we had when we started. and hopefully, he is using it to build a faith in others. maybe even using sarahjoy's story to bring someone to a saving faith.

we're holding on. we have our first phone conference with our agency and our traveling partners (2 other couples) on wednesday. we should find out all sorts of fun stuff including...............our estimated travel dates.

sweet sarahjoy,
we love you more than you can even dream of.
your room is ready.
your clothes are laid out.
your sisters can hardly stand themselves.
your brothers are loading their guns to protect you.
your daddy can't wait to love you.
and i, think about you every minute of the day.

you are our daughter, our sister, our niece, our granddaughter.

we can't wait to celebrate God's faithfulness on christmas eve.
with tears running down our cheeks.
holding the very evidence of God's faithfulness.

i love you.

mommy

woo hoo!!!!!

2010-09-22T21:10:00.003-04:00

a very quick update...WE HEARD FROM CHINA TODAY!!!!!

what does this mean? we have officially been approved by the chinese government. just a couple more hoops and we will be there holding sarahjoy. the time estimate given to us for travel is 3 - 3 1/2 months from today. which puts us squarely in the MIRACLE category for being home before christmas! and, well, i sort of like being in the need-a-miracle category!

please pray with us for a christmas miracle!!!!! (and a massive, unbelievable heat wave for inner mongolia!)

it's off to bed with happy hearts and more prayers than ever to hold our little girl during the christmas eve service!

finally

2010-09-19T16:05:00.002-04:00

a note

2010-09-19T16:02:00.001-04:00

eric and i wanted to take a minute to try and communicate to you our incredible gratitude for traveling this adoption journey with us. no, the journey isn't over - and in many ways we are in the hardest part - but we are so thankful for you. the last few weeks have brought a flurry of generous giving to us and we now stand just a mere $2655 from our goal. it is absolutely unbelievable how God has used you to bring home our little girl. and more than the practical side of paying the bills to get her home, you all have spoken God's heart to us and assured us beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are walking His path for our family.

thank you so much. our prayers have been that each of you who have given to us would be blessed 100-fold. that you would be able to experience the joy that God promises when we give sacrificially. you all have been the picture of the gospel to us.

we are still waiting for sarahjoy. we are "supposed to" hear from china before september 23rd. of course, that "supposed to" is merely based on past averages and not on anything guaranteed. so we are praying fervently and all the while trying to hold loosely to expectations. once we hear from china, we file with U.S. immigration (this time to bring a specific orphan home as opposed to the last time we filed to just bring an orphan home!), and then we receive yet another approval from china to travel. all of that is "supposed to" go rather quickly but again...there's that phrase that means almost nothing in international adoption.

my heart is aching these days. my little girl is so close to being home, and yet so far away. there is absolutely nothing i can do to get her here. it is between a bunch of people sitting in a government office in china, another bunch of people sitting in an office in the U.S. and our big and mighty God who i know is in charge of both of those offices - although these past few weeks it has been hard to embrace God's sovereignty over it all. if i am honest, the mama bear has come alive and i. want. my. baby. home.

if God lays it on your heart, please pray fervently for our little girl to come home. we are still praying for a miracle for her to be with our family for Christmas. we need God to move. my little girl is being loved on by someone other than me - for which i am grateful - but i want to hold her so bad my body hurts. she needs to be with her mommy and daddy.

thank you for being our friends. your generosity to us has been astounding. your support is unbelievable. thank you, thank you from the deepest part of our hearts. we absolutely could not do this without you.

balance

2010-09-16T21:01:00.004-04:00

well, the time keeps marching on and we have not heard from china yet. we were told we could expect to hear from them before september 23rd...which is one week from today. i, of course, had hoped it would not be the DAY before september 23rd. maybe like a few WEEKS before the 23rd.

and hearing from china is one of the final steps before travel dates get set. so everyday that my inbox is lonely...is one day that makes travel farther away.

BUT...i think maybe God is just going to make this a miracle that no one can argue with. it would be easy to travel in december if we got our LOA (china's paper) a month ago. but now...it's going to be close. so why not take 'close' and make it 'miraculous'. that would go along with our theme. and lord knows my mother-in-law is seriously into themes.

so we are still waiting. nothing has changed. EXCEPT.....................

we are $3600 from our goal!!!!!

seriously. with the exception of about $1000 coming in from our fundraisers at chili's and our garage sale, we have been handed almost $25,000 from friends and family. THAT IS A MIRACLE.

and while i want to be frustrated at the wait, and i would by lying if i didn't admit that i am frustrated at times i can't deny that God is in the midst of this. he has got sarahjoy in the palm of his hand and he will bring us to her at the perfect time. of course, i think that flying home on december 23rd would be awesome (hmmmmmmmmm...maybe i need to get a christmas dress for the little pea! ooohhh....matching christmas dresses for all the girls!!!), who knows what God wants.

the balance between being open to God's plan and praying with faith for what seems like is a promise from God. it's hard to comprehend, much less carry out. where's that wheaton education when i need it?

please keep praying.
pray for a peace in my heart that is not there right now as i type this. i am saying truth to you and truth to myself, but i don't feel it.

pray for sweet sarahjoy (aka barbara quincy...i.e. mongolian bbq...) pray that she is getting miraculous food portions and miraculous love

pray for china's government. that God would move them to get our file up and out of there!!!!

pray for the remaining $3600 we need. God is going to provide.

and i am realizing now that i don't think i have ever posted pictures. could that be right? horrors. i need to do that. cause she is super cute. : )

the completed miracle

2010-08-17T14:57:00.000-04:00

Our journey to SarahJoy is coming closer and closer to its culmination and she is becoming more and more a part of our lives. It is hard to believe that we are just a few months away from holding her in our arms and bringing her home!!!

So what’s next? We are waiting for a Letter of Approval from the Chinese government which will give us a better idea of when we will travel. We continue to pray that we could bring her home before Christmas! In the meantime we are gearing up for another child and continuing to pray for our miracle, that God would provide 100% for our journey.

I think it is safe to say that we are a bundle of emotions. Our hearts are full as we can now look at our little girl and imagine her home. The miracle of adoption is at work - I can see that sweet face and love her to pieces and know that she is mine. If I am honest, I am also freaking out. Not sure what five kids are going to look like. I do know that oftentimes four kids looks a little out of control! (How often do children need a bath??? Do they really need three meals a day??? And besides, shoes are completely overrated.)

And well, if I am brutally honest, I am beyond weary. We have been on this journey for the last 9 months. And we have been pleading with God to provide. He has done miraculous things – crazy generous gifts to our family, people I don’t even know giving us money, anonymous piles of cash left on Eric’s desk. It really is truly miraculous. And yet, it is not yet the completed miracle we are praying for. We still need a bit over $6000. I had (unwisely) set my hopes on receiving a couple of grants and those doors have almost completely closed. So I am just tired. I am tired of waiting on God. I am tired of relying on others. I am tired of asking people to give or to participate in a fundraiser. It is so not a comfortable place to be. It is humbling (dare I say, humiliating?), it is exhausting, it is frustrating.

So there’s the ugly. I am still holding the banner high that God is going to provide and he is going to use SarahJoy’s story to encourage and empower other families to take the leap of faith into international adoption. But my shoulders are burning and my hands are shaking and everything in me wants to let that banner fall.

So as you pray for our family, please pray for strength to keep pleading with God for his provisions. We have no doubt there is a spiritual battle going on. SarahJoy’s story has the potential to shout God’s name to a lot of people and we know there are powers working against that. Please pray against discouragement, frustration and exhaustion. We cannot finish well without the prayers of those around us.

And pray for sweet SarahJoy. From her pictures, it would appear she is in a very caring environment. But who knows… And she is super tiny (the average size of a 10 month old and she will be 2 in November). So continue to pray for her nutrition and health.

We could not walk this adventure without you. Thank you, from the deepest part of our hearts.

trying to believe

2010-08-12T23:43:00.003-04:00

if you are here from a place called simplicity, welcome! we are a family of six, almost seven!!!! well, actually we are already seven but one of us happens to be waiting in china.

in honor of sweet linny, our story is simple. : ) we have been called by God to care for the orphan in the most intimate of ways and that is to bring them to our family. we adopted lydia in july 2008 from china as a special needs child (failure to thrive) and she has done nothing but thrive since! she is a joy to our family.

and since then, we have pressed on to God's calling and are in the process of bringing home sarahjoy. she is waiting in china, will celebrate her birthday in november when she will turn 2, and will be in our arms in december (we are praying!!!)

our first journey was miraculous. God brought us a 'special needs' child that had no special need and he did it lightening fast. he knew just who would fit in our family.

this journey has been a different kind of miraculous. we started with $0. that's right. we had just finished paying off the loan we took out for lydia's adoption and immediately felt God calling us to jump back in the game. we had nothing in the way of savings. so this adventure has been one miracle after another, laying it on God's heart for people to give to bring sarahjoy home.

we have $7000 to go. we are praying and believing that God is going to provide that. we have no debt, we live frugally, we are doing everything 'right'. but in this case, God is going to have to show up in a miraculous way because we just can't do it ourselves. at times i feel like i am anticipating a surprise party - sometime, when i am least expecting it, something big is going to happen. i rush to the mailbox, i look at strange people. i wonder how God is going to make this thing work.

other times...i am so tired of believing. we have been in this journey since november 2009 and i am weary of waiting. i have always been the person who could get a project done. this time, it's not anything i can get done. i look around, i try and figure out what i can do to produce some more money. and nothing. God just repeatedly says to me, "let me do it. this is my story."

we do not have any fundraisers going on right now. to be honest, i am not creative, i can't make things, and we have 4 little kids that take up 125% of our time. we are doing this the old fashioned way and believing that God will lay it on hearts to give to his most precious of causes, the orphan.

we have an account set up at lifesong for orphans so that gifts are tax-deductible. talk about crazy love - now that's crazy to just give money away. but maybe this is how God wants to provide. who knows. i am trying to do my part and then watch him do his.

the info is below if God would lead you to give as part of the crazy love challenge. we stand believing that we will take off in that plane to china with 100% of our funds paid for. and what a story that will be. the miraculous work of God in a real, tangible, no-doubt-about-it way.

lifesong for orphans
p.o. box 40 / 202 n. ford street
gridley, il 61744

make checks payable to 'lifesong for orphans' and write 'sanzone #1284' in the memo line.

here she is!

2010-08-12T13:52:00.005-04:00

we have received our preapproval and so now we can post our sweet sarahjoy's picture!!!

and without further ado...

isn't she the cutest thing you have ever seen? i mean, she needs some good mcdonalds food to fatten her up but seriously, could she get any sweeter? actually, these are photos from last december so who knows what she looks like now but we'll take anything we can get!

we can't wait to get her in our arms!!!! please pray for us. we are weary and feeling the spiritual battle of trusting in God for his provisions. more on that in another post...

thanks for walking this road with us. i could not do this if i thought i was alone.

true confessions

2010-08-11T23:53:00.006-04:00

well, i have a confession to make. i did a really stupid thing and now i am reaping the consequences. let me start from the beginning...

we are adopting sarahjoy and we are counting on God to provide the funds.

we have been incredibly blessed by generous donations to our family through many of you.

and now we are at the end. almost.

and here is where my huge mistake comes in. as i have been reporting to you our need, in the back of my mind i just knew God was going to provide through a grant from Show Hope (steven curtis chapman's organization). after all, we received one for our last adoption and we certainly are in far more strenuous financial circumstances than we were then. and let's just be honest, we were in the magazine and on the website - there's no way they can deny us!

yeah, well, evidently they can. cause we received the letter the other day and we are receiving exactly $0 from them.

so that total i gave you? well, it just went up $2000. i know it was stupid. i know i shouldn't have counted on it. come on, you learn that in 1st grade. but i did.

so i am finding myself thinking about how i could possibly get a job and work a few hours. or enter the essay contest at Real Simple and win $3000. or find some money in a coat at the thrift store. SOMETHING! anxiety is setting in and the temperature is moving towards frantic.

and honestly, i am weary of this journey. i know God is going to provide. BUT...it is no longer a long way away! we are headed to get our little girl in just a few months and we still need $7000! i feel frustrated and discouraged. i feel like we are doing everything we can do and there still seems to be a huge chasm. which, of course is where God reminds me...it is not about doing everything YOU can. it is about watching ME.

got it. but i am really tired and my faith is about as small as a mustard seed ground up in my pampered chef chopper.

so pray with us. pray specifically that i would not grow weary of trusting God. pray that we would continue to hold fast to the truth that God will provide. and pray for a miraculous movement of God that we would travel debt free to China.

miracles

2010-08-04T21:02:00.001-04:00

i am writing to ask you to join us in praying for two big miracles. we have seen God do HUGE stuff when he brought lydia home and he is no less able to do the same with sarahjoy. he has already started for sure! and now, eric and i are feeling the weight to urgently pray for the miracles to continue until she comes through our front door.

two things.

1. we would be home before christmas with sarahjoy in our arms. that is the absolute earliest we have been told we could travel but we believe God can do it!!!!

2. our adoption would be 100% paid. we are a week away from the unofficial deadline (august 12) for raising money through lifesong for orphans. we have about $5000 to go (this takes into account the airfare reduction due to estimated travel times). many of you have been incredibly generous. thank you Jesus and thank YOU!!!!!

we could not do this without you - our friends and family who have walked for a long time with us down this adoption road. many, many thank yous. i wish that i could adequately express to you how thankful we are for each of you. however, not only do i not see many of you, but i am horrible in expressing my gratefulness when i am looking at your face! i am much better with the written word! you will just have to believe me, that God has used you in mighty ways to encourage us to take this road that at times i would certainly describe as not so easy. you are an unimaginable blessing to this faith-weary soul.

we covet your prayers.

our mongolian miracle

2010-07-31T21:16:00.001-04:00

i am incredibly sorry for not updating sooner. so many of you are fully engaged in this journey with us and i have not kept you up to speed these past couple of weeks. so here goes!

we DID receive some new measurements for our sweet girl. her head (the problem area, if you remember) did follow the growth curve, albeit way below the growth curve. that is good news. we'll take tiny but growing.

she is tiny. really small. 20 months old and about the size of an average 10 month old. it is pretty much guaranteed that she isn't getting enough nutrition. that is the biggest thing on my heart right now. i am pleading with God to somehow allow her to get some good food. noodles and milk just don't cut it for a baby.

she is in an orphanage, as opposed to foster care which lydia was blessed to be in. i did find a website for her orphanage although i don't put too much stock in it. china is famous for being great at outward appearances. but no doubt she is getting orphanage care - which can be loving at best and horrendous at worst.

we are now waiting for china to officially approve us to be her parents and then grant us travel approval. the time line we have been given to travel is december - february.

items for prayer...
nutrition. please pray for the orphanage to have an abundant supply of protein and for sarahjoy to eat a whole bunch! she is from the inner mongolian portion of china so i can't imagine a whole lot grows up there during the winter. maybe some yak or something yummy like that!

love. please pray for sarahjoy to receive affection and love from her caregivers. that she would be attached to someone special. her attachment now is what makes for a healthy attachment later so the care she is receiving during these months is incredibly crucial.

speed. we want our little girl. please pray for a super quick approval from china. what if we could even bring her home for christmas? would that be a cherry on top of our sarahjoy miracle or what?

money. our friends and family are clearly being the hands and feet of jesus. we are overwhelmed (as evidenced by my serious lack of up-to-date thank you notes!) please pray that God would provide 100% for sarahjoy's homecoming.

praises to jesus!...
sarahjoy. she is so precious and we can't wait to get our hands on her. lydia is SO EXCITED she can hardly stand it.

money. we are so thankful. wow. God is showing himself through some of the most unlikely of sources. one practical thing that is almost guaranteed - not many people are flying to inner mongolia in the winter. go figure! so it looks like we will have a substantial reduction from the estimated cost of our plane tickets! then again, we may have to pay for hypothermia and frostbite treatment.

thank you guys so much for your support. we could not do this journey without you. well, we could. but we would be a mess. so thanks. we can't wait to introduce you to our sweet mongolian miracle!

ashleigh

**i have had several people ask me about the info to donate. so here it is.
lifesong for orphans
po box 40 / 202 n. ford street
gridley, il 61744

make checks payable to 'lifesong for orphans' and write 'sanzone #1284' in the memo line.

we want her!

2010-07-21T21:20:00.000-04:00

so, we have officially accepted sarahjoy as our new daughter!!!!!

the synopsis...the hole in her heart is "not a big deal. we know how to fix that," as stated by the international adoption pediatrician. now obviously it has to do with the heart and so i don't want to minimize that. but her congenital defect is very, very common and there are routine procedures to fix it, if it evens needs to be fixed. many children simply grow out of the condition. the rest of her heart looks very healthy.

so the question becomes is there anything else going on, which is where the smaller head circumference comes into play. we asked about getting additional measurements but we are not able to until we step thorough another hoop which will be in a few months. so that idea is null and void. which left us looking at all of the circumstantial evidence, so to speak. she looks healthy (the pediatrician did not see any facial features that would alert us to a certain syndrome or disorder), according to her records she is developmentally on target, and overall she is small (5th percentile). which is a much better scenario than being an average or larger child with the smaller head circumference.

to be clear, if we were to receive additional medical evidence later on in the wait that would alert us to something else going on besides the hole in her heart, we could change course. obviously, we don't foresee that happening and don't want it to happen. but essentially, we are accepting a child whose special need has been identified as CHD (congenital heart defect), not anything else. so if there is evidence of something else, china would allow us break our commitment.

what brought us to this point more than anything was our reciting of all of the miraculous ways God has been with us on this journey. the finances are the foremost that everyone sees. but in our 'secret' prayers (that i wish we hadn't kept so secret so everyone could see God's hand), we asked God for a 2 year old (she will be 2 on november 15), with a minor heart defect (hello!), who would come quickly (we just logged in last monday!) voila! both of us feel like God has answered our prayers and plopped her down in our lap and she is ours to love. i fully believe that the head circumference issue is not going to be given a second thought as soon as we get additional measurements.

what's next? lots of paper trails...and then we should be in china in 5-7 months which means decemberish-februaryish. good thing she is from the north, which has an average high of 22 degrees and low of 2 degrees in january and good thing i LOVE cold weather!!! : ) (for those who don't know, i am SERIOUSLY grumpy with anything under 55 degrees!!!)

we can't wait to get there!!!!! by the time she comes, i know God will have provided 100% of the expenses, have given us additional peace about her health, and provided northern china with a massive heat wave.

holy batman!

2010-07-20T21:22:00.000-04:00

wow!!!! we received the file of a little girl this morning! we had no idea that it was coming so needless to say, we have been in shock all day! we have 72 hours to decide so i am writing to request your prayers!

she is a 20 month old little girl who has a congenital heart defect, the commonly heard of 'hole in your heart'. it very often closes itself as the child grows and if not, then there is a 'minor' heart procedure to be done. bottom line, not a big deal for american doctors.

the more concerning thing is her small head circumference. this could be nothing, or it could be indicative of something major. ironically, this is the same issue we had with lydia. and here's where international adoption gets fun. we have one measurement. it is from december 2009. so there is no point of reference. has her head always been small, but is growing steadily? or is it getting smaller? or has it leveled out and not growing at all? huge questions and not so many answers right now. there is nothing else to indicate that she has any sort of abnormality or syndrome but it's one of those things where you just don't know 100%.

we have spoken with an international adoption pediatrician in michigan (which is where i got the above info), we have an appt at the children's hospital tomorrow, and i have sent the file to my uncle who is a cardiologist. and i have also requested updated measurements from our agency. whether we get them or not, we will have to wait and see. we were able to get that with lydia and it made our decision much easier, but it is up to the orphanage and so we just don't know. we have to make the decision in the next 72 hours.

please pray with us for wisdom. specifically pray that we could receive one or more additional measurements so we could have a better idea about this head thing. and of course, if there is more to the heart issue, pray that the multiple sets of eyes looking at her files would be able to see that.

thanks so much for walking this journey with us! i will let you know more as soon as we know!

the arms that hold the universe

2010-07-12T20:54:00.004-04:00

i know it seems like this could be
the darkest day you've known
but believe you me
the God of strength will never let you go
he will overcome, i know

and the arms that hold the universe
are holding you tonight
you can rest inside, it's gonna be alright
and the voice that calmed the raging sea
is calling you his child
so be still and know he's in control
he will never let you go

through many dangers, toils and snares
you have already come
his grace has brought you safe this far
his grace will lead you home
you can hope, you can rise, you can stand
he has still got the whole world in his hands

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JITAFqZjYGk

i heard this song for the zillioneth time the other day. and yet, in that moment my heart was instantly transported - to a faraway place, across the ocean. a mom, a dad. having given their baby girl away. to whom, they do not know. they have simply left her on a busy street corner and walked away, forced by their government to secretly abandon their own blood, the child of their womb. they can only hope that her life will be of some worth. they grieve for a little girl that remains only in their dreams. they wake up to heartache day after day, imagining the worst, praying for the best. pressing on under a government regime that has caused them the greatest heartache one could ever imagine. a wound that will never heal, that will be ripped open every time they see pigtails and wedding dresses. one of the greatest unrecognized tragedies of the modern world.

on this side of the ocean i pray. i listen to that song and pray. that somehow they will know God. that they will know his strength. that his arms hold the universe and he will never let them go. at the same time that we anticipate meeting our little girl (at least on paper) in just a few short weeks, i am keenly aware of the heartache that follows her. sometimes it almost overshadows my joy. the thought of walking in those shoes is gut-wrenching to me. almost nauseating.

and the arms that hold the universe
are holding you tonight
you can rest inside, it's gonna be alright
and the voice that calmed the raging sea
is calling you his child
so be still and know he's in control
he will never let you go

sweet sarahjoy. God is moving to bring her home. we have $8220.99 to go to reach our goal of $30,000. incredible. the generosity of those around us is astounding - even more so if you could know the stories of those who are sacrificing to bring sarahjoy home.

a new list is expected to be released towards the end of this month. we are ready and waiting and certainly anticipating being matched with our little girl. it is by no means guaranteed, but i would be lying if i said we weren't expecting to be. and after matching, there is a 4-6 month wait before travel. so we're looking at wintertime...if we get matched...

to those of you who have given so generously, thank you. your financial gifts mean more to us than you can know. they speak volumes.

to those who are praying, please pray for favor with this next list. we would obviously love to be matched. but if we are really honest, we would love to be matched with a little girl with very minor special needs and who 'fits' in our family. you know, how lydia just fits. we hear it all the time, "i know this sounds weird, but she just looks like she goes with your family. she's just a chinese version of the sanzones!" it does sound weird, until you see it for yourself. and then it's sort of, well, a bit uncanny.

and pray for God's provision. we have $8220.99 more to go. maybe God will provide with additional donations. maybe a grant from Show Hope (which we are waiting to hear from in august). maybe in lower airfare than we are expecting. maybe in some crazy way we can't even imagine. who knows, but we are praying for 100% provision.

sweet sarahjoy - your mommy and daddy are coming. eat your veggies, smile for your pictures, and get lots of lovin's from your orphanage nannies. we can't wait to hold you. and there are 4 little people here who are already plotting the menagerie of stuffed animals that you need to fill up your bed. so don't grow too big. someday soon, we will be in each other's arms.

we're ripe...for a miracle

2010-06-15T23:31:00.003-04:00

oh boy. i never thought we'd do this. that's what i've said after a whole bunch of things in life. you would think i could learn something through the years.

Dear friends and family,

The honest to goodness truth is that we do not want to write this letter. It goes against every grain of human nature in our bodies, and yet in this adoption journey we have learned that God often has far different plans than we do. With that said, the simple point of this letter is to ask you to consider participating with us in our adoption journey in a very tangible way.

The price to bring SarahJoy home is $30,000. That’s a lot for any family, a whole lot for this one. We do not know why God has led us to have $60,000 worth of children in our family. But we can tell you that Lydia’s life is priceless as is SarahJoy’s. Adoption expenses were once described to us as simply the ransom money to bring our daughter home. We’ve never forgotten that – we wouldn’t think a second about paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring our biological children back from harm, and so it is with our adopted children. They need to be rescued and brought home, and there is a big price tag.

We currently have paid $13,500 towards the adoption, all of which has been miraculously provided by God. And as much as we rejoice over that provision, we still have $16,500 left to pay. We want so badly to be able to write a check and not ask for help. It has been humbling to have to say aloud that we simply do not have the money; a test of how much we believe this to be God’s plan for our lives and how much we trust that he will provide.

We fully realize that some may disagree with asking for help in bringing our child home, or may question the wisdom of our decision to add to our family. We embrace those feelings and invite anyone to ask us more about our journey. Our story is one of blind obedience to what our hearts feel is the leading of God. Scary, exhilarating, not without pain or without joy. It is a story that we never tire of sharing.

We also realize that there may be those out there whose heart is generous towards the needs of the orphan and would like to help in a very practical way to give SarahJoy a family. To that end, we have been offered the opportunity to establish a fundraising account, through Lifesong for Orphans, which will allow all gifts to be tax-deductible. Donations may be made in our name, and 100% of the funds will be forwarded to our adoption agency to pay for our remaining expenses. The goal date to receive funds is August 12, 2010.

We don’t know how God is going to provide for SarahJoy’s journey home. We do know it will be a miracle and that He will be faithful. Maybe, he will use some of our friends and family to be a part of that miracle, he certainly has done so already. We would treasure an opportunity for you to join our hearts in falling in love with our little girl across the ocean, and our efforts in paying the ‘ransom’ to bring her home.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you. May God’s presence be as real and tangible to you as it has been to us these past few months. If you are interested in following our adoption journey more closely, you can find our story at www.lettersforlydia.blogspot.com

Sincerely,
Eric and Ashleigh

Donations can be mailed to:
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford Street
Gridley, IL 61744

Checks made payable to: Lifesong for Orphans (Sanzone #1284 on the memo)

Donations online (via paypal):
www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation

In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.

plateau

2010-06-13T21:31:00.004-04:00

i am in a funk tonight. which i hate because i know in my head that i shouldn't be. that i have no reason to be discouraged, no reason to be doubting goodness and truth. and yet my heart is struggling to hold on to that faith that has been our lifeline in this journey. i hate that my belief is so tenuous, that it can so easily be rocked. which makes me dislike where i'm at even more, that i'm not good enough, not steady enough for God. that somehow he is going to abandon me here because i didn't make the cut.

our papers have been mailed to china. and we should be ready in the next couple of weeks to officially begin the search for sarahjoy. that part is exciting. the not so exciting part is that we received a call this week from an adoption foundation informing us that we were not chosen to be given a matching grant. not the first place which had turned us down, but this foundation happened to be one i was really counting on. i thought for sure we would qualify and it had the potential to bring in a lot of money. they supply matching funds so that if we were able to raise $4000 from our friends and family, they would have matched that and we would be recipients of quite a bit of financial assistance.

but that is not the case.

and it has sort of rocked my world. i think the hard, cold truth is that i had put a lot of faith into that specific foundation, and had taken it away from God himself. moved my confidence from the Giver to the giver. and so when it fell through......it gave me a good punch to the gut.

so i am fighting hard to hold on to what we believe to be God's promise to us - that he will provide 100% for this adoption. it seems so far away. so impossible. and yet - here we sit with almost $19,000 that has been given to us. so why do i doubt he could come up with another $15,000? .........because i feel like he's done his part. that it's my job now. that somehow i have to come up with the rest. God's finished with his end of the deal. he drove me as far as he could - now it's my turn to hitchhike the rest of the way home.

so how does God want to provide? does he want to use those around us? i feel guilty asking people for money. there are so many people who need money. so many worthy causes. why do i think i should be the recipient? it seems so selfish. and i feel foolish. that there are those who look at us and think, "well, why the heck are they adopting another one when they can't even afford to get her here?" i'm self-conscious. i am worried about what other people think of me, of our family (big surprise there, i've been worried about what people think of me since the day i entered this world) i worry that if i walk into church with my kids dressed in babygap that someone is going to raise their eyebrows at our apparent need for financial help and call me a fraud. and no, i didn't pay full price, and yes, i do shop clearance, and someone gave me those shoes, and the rest i used a giftcard, and those are actually the only nice shorts the boys have and....

as a friend described, we are on a plateau and we need God to pull us up to the mountain top. he's gotten us halfway up the trail, a lot of hard work is under our belt. but now we find ourselves waiting for some more help. and that waiting is hard. that's the only way to put it. it just is hard.

so for those of you who pray, i would covet your prayers in the next few days. we are going to be making some fundraising decisions and i truly want them to be what God wants. i don't want to be trying to manipulate the situation through my human endeavors, on the other hand, if God is asking us to do something, i don't want to sit around and ignore that leading. so we need wisdom. and we need faith.

from the beginning, the word God gave me for this adoption was 'faithfulness'. my heart knew that God would prove himself faithful through sarahjoy's story. my head still knows that, but my heart is waffling.

God, draw near to this discouraged heart.

and when the time is right, bring us our little girl. provide the ransom for her life. she belongs to you first, and you have paid for her soul with your son. now help us to pay for her to be ours. to love and cherish. to bring to the knowledge of your saving grace. you know her. you have created her. keep her safe and warm. comfort her heart and bring us to her soon.

so close

2010-05-28T15:00:00.003-04:00

well, well, well, summer is almost here and we are ready to meet our sarahjoy!!! i just received word from our social worker that our papers should be in china in the next couple of weeks and then soon after we will be officially LOGGED IN. which means, in normal people language, that we are then eligible to be matched with a child. theoretically, there is a list coming out in july that will have available children so hopefully we will be ready to go by the time that list comes out and maybe, just maybe, we will meet our sweet SJ. or at least get to see her picture and her medical files! only God knows how long the matching process is going to take but we are praying really hard that it is quick. i want my baby home (speaking of, lydia insists that SJ is going to be a baby and i keep having dreams. people, if this child is truly a baby, you are going to have to pick me up off the floor)

God continues to provide financially for us. we have received $1000 more in the last few days and we have had several positive interactions with granting agencies. we should know something from a few of them in the next couple of months. please continue to pray with us that God would do a miracle and we would fly to china debt free.

and for some humor...i recently was explaining to lydia some details of the adoption journey (which she is VERY curious about) and told her that china would tell us when they were ready for us to come pick up SJ. mom, she says, but china doesn't talk. oh right, smarty pants, a PERSON in china will tell us.

sweet sarahjoy, your family is so close. hang on and we are coming for you. stay strong, eat your veggies, and dream of love. we can't wait to hold you in our arms.

joy

2010-04-18T21:42:00.004-04:00

wow. i am humbled. amazed at the outpouring of support for our adoption. amazed at the love people have shown us and sarahjoy. i can't quite get my arms wrapped around it. one minute i am silently shocked. the next i don't even stop to notice because it has become so normal. someone handing me a check. slipping an envelope into my hand. it happens almost weekly and from the unlikeliest of people.

i never want to get used to it. never. people are giving their hard-earned money to our baby girl! i had one young boy give me money that he had earned from his report card and some chores. we have a son the same age and i know what it means to hand over your cash! what a precious gift and a reminder to me that God is providing! through the most unlikely of means. but every dollar that is handed to us reminds me that God is listening. that he is watching. and he is fulfilling his promise to both us and sarahjoy - that he will never leave us nor forsake us.

it is amazing to me. i can only hope and pray that they would be blessed. that somehow i can convey in an earthly way their blessing to our family and that God would bring them a heavenly joy because of their generosity. and that maybe, God can use our story to further his heart for the orphan. not everyone is called to adopt. but everyone is called to care for the fatherless.

for the record, God has provided - through the generosity of his people - financial gifts over and above what we could have ever imagined.
$1000 (K)
$2000 (Z)
$10,000 (P)
$2000 (C)
$500 (G)
$50 (L)
$50 (H)
$25 (H)
$300 (J)
$500 (A)
$250 (D)
$250 (C)
$11.40 (K)

a total of $16,936.40. that's over 50% of our adoption expenses! of course, the temptation even now is to see the 50% that isn't there. or the strain we are feeling in our daily financial life apart from adoption. but please, please God don't let me go there! don't let me cover your radiance with the black cloud of doubt and fear. every time we encounter a medical bill, a school bill, something 'out of the ordinary' and beyond our budget, it is a reminder to me of God's voice saying loud and clear,

"I am going to make this adoption happen. YOU are going to sit and watch. it is not going to be from your efforts. it is going to be ME, bringing myself glory. announcing to the world that I am the lover of orphans. that I long to create families. and that I will provide."

we continue to pray that God would send us to china debt free. that our adoption would be 100% paid for. what a testimony to the miraculous. what a story to encourage others - that you CAN adopt and you CAN be a part of the miracle of adoption. that it IS what God wants us all to be a part of, whatever that looks like for our own families.

sarah means 'princess'.
joy means, well, 'joy'.

i dream of our princess. bringing joy to our family, to those around us, and specifically to those who have become a part of her history by sacrificing to bring her home.

to those who have been a part of this journey thus far, thank you. may you experience the joy of God's blessing.

breathe

2010-03-30T22:58:00.004-04:00

the story begins nine and a half years ago in a land far, far away. a land of horses and basketball and a young couple ready to enter into the world of parenthood.

kentucky
october 20, 2000

eric and i were at the doctor's office for a routine check-up, awaiting the arrival of our first born. he was due october 24th - i was measuring small (those were the days - would never be accused of that here lately!) so the doctor wanted to do an ultrasound just to make sure everything was looking good.

and then..................our world was quickly put into a frenzy! baby josiah was not where he needed to be! suddenly what was a quiet and peaceful day turned into the final 18 hours before we were going to have a baby! c-section scheduled for the next morning, 6:00a.m. i went home and finished painting our guest room (yes, i was perched on a ladder painting when i was 9 months pregnant), my mom booked a ticket to fly out that night, eric wrapped up things at work. WE WERE HAVING A BABY IN THE MORNING!

it was a restless night. i didn't sleep much - i was excited, nervous, oh my gosh are you kidding me we are having a baby! we were at the hospital at 6:00a.m., eric and my mom were there and i remember sitting in the prep room while all the nurses told me how wonderful c-sections were. it didn't really occur to me to not want one - my mom had all her babies via c-section so it was sort of all i knew. but they went on about how wonderful it would be and i couldn't wait to hold our little boy in my arms. i was prepped for surgery, our dear friend jamie was my head nurse, the surgeon was there, we were counting down the minutes until sweet josiah would enter this world. all we were waiting for was the anesthesiologist to come and do his thing (which i later learned during a c-section with micah is a VERY important part of the procedure. turns out c-sections without proper anesthesia are not a pleasant experience).

in comes the anesthesiologist who requests one more ultrasound before we head into the operating room. we couldn't wait. this would be the last time we would need one of those things - in just a few minutes josiah would be outside of that warm cozy womb.

and then...

it happened.

josiah had turned around sometime between the appointment the morning before (which evidently is unheard of) and suddenly all bets were off. pull the tubes. get dressed. no c-section. no baby. we would have to go home.

i was speechless. a minute ago i was preparing to see my first baby and now i was getting dressed to go home and plant flowers. i felt like my sweet boy had been ripped away from me. he was stolen. of course, i knew that he would be here in a matter of days but at that moment i was crying the tears of a mother whose child had been taken. (add in the small detail that i was in the SAME room as someone preparing for infertility surgery so i am trying to quell my emotions from the woman who really and truly may never see her child. seriously bad planning on the operating room schedule!)

i got over it. i went to lowe's. and i planted flowers. i made cookies. i made 100 cinnamon christmas ornaments. i did a whole lot of things cause it was a very long 11 days before i would finally be induced and we would hold baby josiah.

virginia
march 30, 2010

my baby was ripped away from me again. i received a phone call that we would have to complete 14 credit hours of parent education before our home study would be released. what was supposed to be a document to be picked up today and the adoption process was to take a huge step forward, turned into our social worker telling me to go home, work on our online courses and then we could have our home study released. seriously? this hellish document that we have been waiting on for months now has a new requirement? you have got to be kidding me. never mind we could have been working on this for the two freaking months we have been waiting - no, don't worry, just give me another hoop to jump through that will take more time, because there is no way i want this process to move forward. that would just be too much to ask. that we would actually stop and think about the fact that there is MY BABY INVOLVED HERE! AND SHE NEEDS TO COME HOME!!!

and every stinkin' day is one day longer that our family is without her and she is without us.

i was so angry. really angry. to those who have not walked the adoption journey, i get that it makes no sense at all. but that is the miracle of adoption! that somehow God gives me the ability, without a second thought, to love sarahjoy as much as i loved baby josiah in my belly. i want to hold her just as bad as i wanted to hold every one of my belly babies and every delay is excruciating.

josiah came at just the right time (i got my guest bedroom painted, my flower beds looking good, spent a week and a half hanging out with my mom...) and i know sarahjoy will too.

but boy, sometimes it just doesn't feel that way.

the adoption journey is not for the faint of heart or the weak in spirit. it will test every fiber of your being, have you questioning every truth of God. today, i will make a conscious choice not to question. i will grab hold of truth, despite the emotions.

God's timing is perfect. God knows all. God is even in charge of home studies and parent education credits.

i think. and actually, i am still really angry. and brownies are not helping.

UPDATE: after discussions with eric, i decided to be a bit of a squeeky wheel. to make a long story short, we were able to come to an agreement and we should be able to pick up the home study tomorrow. should. i'll not believe it until i have it in my hand. we still have to fulfill the requirements but can do it in the next little while like we originally had planned.

ache

2010-03-24T19:01:00.004-04:00

spring has sprung here in our parts and whether it is the season or something intuitive, i can't stop thinking about our baby girl. i had not been feeling attached to her like i was with lydia - maybe it just seemed so far off or it was the 2nd time around. i don't know, but nevertheless, that distance is all but gone and not a day goes by that i am not thinking about sweet sarahjoy. that ache is there in my gut and its presence will no doubt be felt until the day i hold her. it's the miracle of adoption; that somehow God weaves in you a bold and vulnerable love for a child that is yet a stranger. how that is i don't know, but i am experiencing it for the second time and it is no less real than my three pregnancies.

i dream about the princess. what she looks like, when we will get to hold her. how old will she be and what her special needs will be. should her room be pink or yellow, what will lydia think, how will the boys react to being WAY outnumbered! : )

and so it goes. this part is the hardest. i feel like i am in my last month of pregnancy when you can't wait to get your little hands on that baby and every day you wake up and think, "what if this is the day!" but alas, there is no 'day' anytime soon. we wait and we wait and we wait. and sometime, hopefully before the end of 2010 we will see our baby (and God help us all if she is actually a baby)

so what's going on? our first set of paperwork (the 'homestudy') should have been done a month ago. in typical adoption form, there has been one setback after another and so we are hoping to have it in our hands by april 1st. if we don't, i may be found on the front page of the paper (or the local jail). then we go to our second set of paperwork, 'USCIS' (aka immigration). then the 3rd set of paperwork, the 'dossier'. the dossier's documents have all been notarized before we turn them in. then they must be certified by the state. then they must be certified by the federal government. just in case i am a terrorist and the FBI fingerprints, the police checks, and the child protective service checks missed it.

once obama has met behind closed doors and debated the pile of papers with a completely democratic committee, they will be flown to china and we will be 'logged in'. AT THIS POINT...we will be eligible to lay claim to the file of our sweet sarahjoy. at which time we see medical files and pictures and are able to officially accept a child as our own. currently, there is no waiting list at our agency so theoretically once those papers are all sent to china we could know who our sarahjoy is pretty quickly. theoretically...if there are no filibusters or castaway reruns.

so...based on the fact that everything important in our journeys to lydia and sarahjoy has happened while we were vacationing in the outer banks, i am banking on us knowing our little girl the last week of august. : )

so we continue to pray for sarahjoy and for God's provision to get us there debt free. we know this is His will and we are so excited to be in the midst of his blessing. we have currently received $16,000 towards our adoption - people handing us money in the most generous of ways. we have about $14,000 more and we are actively sending out grant applications and praying that we have favor.

to you who walk besides us and faithfully pray for us...thank you. you hold my heart in your hands as it aches for a little girl across the ocean. and you provide encouragement when the circumstances seem endlessly bleak.

to those who have given so generously...your tangible encouragement quiets me. the hearts from which your gifts come are amazing and inspiring. my hope and prayer is that you will be blessed tenfold for your sacrifice.

and to those who are watching...keep doing so. God is moving and our miracle is not over. may you be encouraged and brought hope by sarahjoy, even as she plays across the ocean, oblivious to her influence in the world.

and to sweet sarahjoy...we love you already. we are your mommy and your daddy. we can't wait to hold you, to kiss you, to give you a bath, to dress you in clean clothes and shoes that fit. to bring you to a home where you will be smothered with love and affection. hold on, sweetie. soon, we will cry together.

glory

2010-03-06T12:59:00.003-05:00

i am trying to type. but i can't quite get the words to come out on paper that i feel need to be written. which is rare - usually i am pretty good at getting my feelings on paper. but once again we find ourselves in the grip of the miraculous and as moses stood speechless at the sight of God, so i stand as i see him in his glory and splendor. i knew this was going to be a miraculous ride but the lack of predictability is stunning. or at least i feel like it is. i suppose someday i will grow to expect God's miraculous. not there quite yet. still shocked that he would smile on this family, this sweet sarahjoy, these needs - which are so minimum in the scope of the world. why?

his glory. proclaiming his glory. everyone needs to see his glory. every single person who hears our adoption story is going to be able to say nothing else except..."God.....is......amazing."

we drive two cars. a 2000 sienna minivan and a 1993 tercel. not exactly the newest cars although they have been gloriously reliable. until thursday. when for the third time in recent memory we had the tercel in the shop. i mean, it is 17 years old and there comes a point where you have to decide whether to replace the thing or keep fixing it. i was pretty convinced we had come to the time of replacement. not exactly great timing if you ask me. yay, we are staring at adoption expenses and now we get to replace a car! i even stopped by the toyota dealer and took a look at the used selection. in my heart, i knew that if this was how God was making it all come down he was going after some huge glory. so bring it on!

i woke up on saturday and checked email. one from a friend who asked if she and her husband could come over for a few minutes today. that was a bit odd - i mean i like them a lot but it's not exactly a typical thing to ask. beings the pastor family that we are, eric immediately went into "the husband is having an affair" mode and i went into "she is going to stop volunteering" mode. not that we said that. but that's where our minds were. they came. they waited for eric to get out of the shower. they sat down. they said they had been really blessed and wanted to share. they said they had a check for us.

$10,000
ten......thousand......dollars
a one. and four zeros.
five figures
10, times a thousand

speechless.

God is bringing himself glory. God is SHOUTING to the world, through sarahjoy's story that he is glorious. he is the provider of all. he is in charge of this world and when he wants something done, just step aside and watch as he makes it happen.

after they left, eric and i just stared at each other. what in the world? who does that? who gives away that kind of money? who receives that kind of money? and what God works in such obviously miraculous ways that we should call him Father?

the story wouldn't be complete if i didn't include the voicemail that eric had on his phone after all was said and done. the car, the one i thought for sure was dying - well, turns out it was a faulty oil filter that the mechanic put in a couple of weeks ago when he changed the oil. he replaced it, no charge, and we get to keep driving Old Faithful.

and about that prayer we have had - that we would have our adoption 100% paid for when we stepped on the plane to China - well, it sure seems like we have heard the voice of God and are going to watch the miraculous happen right before our eyes. let me never forget that we started this adoption with $0. that's right. a big fat goose egg. (we won't take the time right now to say how CRAZY it is to walk into something that is going to cost you $30,000 when you have NOTHING!)

and now, God has given us $15,500. with more to come. i know.

God is doing a miracle. sweet sarahjoy is coming home.

big blue signs

2010-02-26T13:54:00.003-05:00

it had been a late night - i think a pool party or something like that. i can't remember the details. after all, it was high school and unfortunately that was a pretty long time ago! but we aren't dwelling on that detail...i was driving back home and sort of sensed that i was going the wrong way but didn't do anything about it. i just kept driving and figured i would eventually get to a place where i could figure out where exactly i was. i did.

when i saw the sign that read, "welcome to north carolina!" i knew i was headed the wrong way. not that north carolina is that far away from my house, but it is a different state. and generally when you find yourself in a different state on the way home, you need to turn around. thank goodness for big blue signs that pepper state lines.

God has been gracious to plant a few big blue signs in my path over the past week. i knew i wasn't in a good place but i kept on down the road. i was angry, frustrated, doubting his provisions. it didn't seem like where i should be going but i didn't turn around. not until God, in his everlasting love for me and patience for my selfishness, reminded me...

this is for MY glory, not for yours.

God is all about himself. he is about one thing. he is single minded. his glory. that's it, that's what life is all about. and as he paints the huge canvas the we try and define as the 'universe' he sees all, he knows all, he is in charge of every.single.thing.

how foolish of me to even entertain the thought that he doesn't know what's going on with our adoption. that somehow in his busyness he forgot our family. he is God. and he is out for his glory. not my glory, not our family's glory. but his own. he's not going to screw up. after all, he is the one who created sarahjoy. he is the one who has allowed china to have the governing bodies that they do. he is the one who has willingly given them the choice to make a one-child policy. he has created sarahjoy's birthparents and allowed them to get pregnant. he knows the people in the adoption offices. he gets it. and he doesn't just get it, he knows every single detail and how everything is going to play out and he will bring us sarahjoy EXACTLY when she should be home. and his glory is going to be seen. because, that is what he cares about. more than anything else, he wants to show himself glorious.

so yes, do i get discouraged about finances and start staring at bank statements wondering how this is going to work? i do. do i get exhausted with the unending paperwork that always seems to have a glitch in it? i do. am i just ready to be done with this whole process? yes, i am. but wouldn't it be sad if i made this adoption all about me. about our family. about sarahjoy. because that's not what it's about. it is about God's glory. about him getting the credit for great and mighty things. about eyes wide open at what he can do. the miracles that he can perform. the promises that he has made.

i am holding on to that truth. God's glory. here, now, forever and ever.

seriously?

2010-02-17T09:38:00.003-05:00

i have had a rough couple of days with this whole adoption thing. i found myself actually angry with God yesterday. and, well, i might not quite be over that yet. i was already feeling discouraged with our finances due to the always badly timed car repair and then we get an email from our accountant (we have VERY complicated taxes) that read something like this,

"yay! you get a federal tax refund. but, you owe virginia taxes and, you have to pay me, so not so much refund. oh, and by the way, you need to take an additional $110 out each month for taxes."

seriously God? are you kidding me? not only do we get next to nothing back, but now we are making less money than we were five minutes ago. at this point i go into split personalities. the nice pastor's wife brain says, "that's ok. all the more room for God to show us his miraculous power for provision." the less sanctified part of me melts into tears and screams, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING GOD? WE CANNOT DO THIS IF YOU KEEP PULLING THIS CRAP ON US!!!"

and here's where i really battle anger. there is a federal tax credit of $11,000 for adoption. that's right - 99.9% of people who adopt internationally essentially get $11,000 of their money back. not such a bad deal. however, we don't. as referenced above, we fall into an extremely complicated tax situation being "ordained clergy". and part of that complexity is that we do not qualify for the adoption tax credit. so not only are we out $11,000 more than any other family trying to do this (x2,so make that $22,000), but we don't even get anything back in general! oh, and then there's the let's take out more thing. it just doesn't seem like this can possibly be right.

i am struggling. i have to admit that the last 48 hours i have been wrestling with God asking him what in the world he is thinking. give me something to hang my faith on. or maybe, that is what faith is. believing when there is nothing to go on.

i read this in oswald chambers yeserday,
"when God sends his inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to "arise from the dead" and do the impossible. the remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we "get up and get going." God does not give us overcoming life - He gives us life as we overcome. If we will take the initiative to overcome we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately give us the power of life."

so i guess i am trying to get myself up and overcome, waiting for God's inspiration and power of life. in my head i know He is there. i KNOW he has called us on this journey. and i KNOW he will provide, somehow. but today, my heart is a long way from my head. it is weary. and scared.

14 months pregnant

2010-02-13T21:28:00.002-05:00

i am ready to be off this train. i find myself longing to be finished with acquiring children! i am anxious to be done, to move on knowing that our family is complete. but...we aren't there yet.

our homestudy should be ready to go next week. that is a big step in the process because as soon as that happens, we can be officially in the waiting pool for our little girl. there is still paperwork to do (OH MY GOSH I AM TIRED OF PAPERWORK!) but that can be done while we are waiting.

and, the big question, how long will we have to wait? i have no idea. no one has any idea. it is completely up to china and what files get sent to our agency. so, if you happen to find yourself in the office of the China Center for Adoption Affairs you could let them know that we would like her soon. i am ready. let's go. i am hopeful that we will have a referral before the end of the year. but who knows.

God is still providing. i am still praying. and wishing it were done. let's just be real. sometimes i am so tired of the stress of adopting - the finances, the when's, the who's, the unknowns. tired of the mounds of paperwork - once we finish the 'adoption' part we start the applications for financial help. it seems like it never ends. i feel like the expectant mom who is 8 months pregnant. i am ready to get this little girl in my hands! only, there are months left. and actually, we have no idea how long is left. just imagine the woman who is endlessly pregnant with no due date in sight. yeah...she's grumpy. and so am i every now and then.

if you are praying, here are some points to ponder:

1. smooth finish to our homestudy - the all important group of papers that get us to the waiting pool

2. wisdom in how to fill out our 'medical checklist' form. this is the form where we have to indicate what special needs we will accept. so hard to fill out and try to guess at what God would want for our family

3. financial provisions. i don't know how. i'll just leave it at that.

sarahjoy, we wait for you. a bit impatiently right now. but i am choosing to turn my impatience into prayers for you sweet girl. that you would be loved and cherished in whatever family you find yourself in right now. that God would shine brightly and protect you from hurt. that he would be preparing you, and us, to be family. we love you and can't wait to cover you with kisses.

provisions

2010-01-25T21:50:00.003-05:00

we have come to the end of month #1 of the year 2010 and i would be failing in my promise to proclaim God's faithfulness if i did not publicly acknowledge his incredible provisions for us this month. sometimes (okay, a lot of times) i wish that God would provide in one big massive lottery win. of course, that would require me playing the lottery......which i have thought about doing.....but have yet to follow through on.

but instead i truly believe he has us on the game board of small, faithful provision. every single month he pulls us through and i have to admit, it's sort of fun to watch (sort of. i think it would be really fun to watch myself accept a lottery check too.)

i do feel like i need to add a disclaimer. we don't live paycheck to paycheck as some would define it. we are not starving or wondering how the next bill is going to be paid. but we are actively trying to plan for our future (investments), be smart about building up a nest egg (savings), prepare for the unpredictable (life insurance and disability insurance), etc. so by the time all the money is divided up each month, there isn't much left. but i would never want anyone to think we are spending every last penny on the electricity and water.

anyway...given our division of money and wanting to be wise with our finances both in the present and in the future, each month presents us with an opportunity to trust God to see how he is going to provide for the unbudgeted expenses. whether it's a car repair, the dentist, family pictures, a trip for eric to perform a wedding, a family trip to D.C., whatever it is i have finally realized after 12 years of budgets that no matter what, each month there is going to be something. as much as we try to plan, it just seems like God has us in a place where we are forced to do our part to be frugal, and then watch him provide.

so here is the story of january.

#1. God provided an opportunity to babysit for a sweet friend. she paid me what she would have normally paid her childcare provider who was out of town. $65 for us!

#2. somehow we managed to spend less than $500 on groceries! God has provided a way for me to become more and more savvy at shopping with coupons and i think it is really helping our monthly grocery expenses. $100 saved!

#3. i had strep, which was a trip to the doctor. but no one else got it! so only one co-pay when we could have easily had 6. God provided by giving us good health! $125 we didn't have to spend!

#4. God provided for eric's plane fare for his final trip to minnesota before he graduates with his masters. we were able to pool miles and pay only $100 instead of close to $400 for his ticket. wow! close to $300 God kept us from having to spend.

#5. josiah and annaclaire needed to go to the dentist. God provided by giving us a free dentist visit for both of them. $150 saved!

#6. and last but not least...a couple of days ago our washer soaked the floor of our garage. after some investigation i figured out it wasn't the washer itself but the drainage pipes that were gushing water back into the garage as opposed to draining out wherever the heck they are supposed to drain. so eric borrowed a plumber's snake from a friend and worked for about an hour and voila! our washer is working wonderfully! so instead of paying out at least $150 for a plumber to come out, God provided a new friend of ours who had a snake and eric was able to fix the problem! thank you jesus!!!!

so i would say God is showing himself. sometimes it is hard to see amongst the checkbook figures that crowd my vision. but when i go back through and open my eyes, His hand is everywhere. and i should add, our church came out right on budget (actually over a little bit) and so we were given a very generous year-end bonus that helped us significantly. God is faithful to provide.

we ended 2009 in a decent hole due to several pretty large expenses we had the last quarter. but through God's provision of extra income and His provisions that kept us from having to spend, we have started 2010 just where we should be.

so where do we find ourselves now?

we have about $25,000 more in adoption expenses. none of that is due imminently. we are in a lull in terms of paying out money. that's the good news. the more challenging news is that after the lull the money comes due pretty much all at once. that will happen once we have a little girl that we have agreed to adopt and then when we travel.

we also have (i forgot about this until it was due this month...) the final semester of eric's masters program to pay for. our church has been unbelievably generous and paid for his program up until this point. but it is on our shoulders for this last semester. i made one payment of $1500 this month and another one will come due in a couple of months. ah yes, one of those unbudgeted expenses i was talking about!

so yes, i want to remind myself as much as i recount to you that God is providing for us! but if i am honest, it can also be overwhelming to look at what we still need to come out of this season debt-free. which is the prayer we are asking God to answer. we envision happy hearts as we fly to china free of financial burden. and we can bring home sarahjoy, who in all likelihood will require some significant medical care, to a home that has seen and tasted the goodness of God's faithfulness in the area of financial provision.

we continue to plead with God that he would give us grace in finances. and that he would show his power to provide, miraculously, through ways that we cannot even imagine. i can't wait to see. thanks for being an audience to the Almighty Jehovah Jireh.

speeding along

2010-01-12T23:06:00.004-05:00

things are moving right along in this adoption journey. it is sort of weird how we went from 0 to 100 mph. all our preliminary paperwork has been sent off and now each day feels like christmas as i anxiously check the mail box to see if we have anything returned!

we had to get criminal checks in arizona, illinois, kentucky and virginia. hopefully eric isn't hiding anything from his past! oh wait, arizona doesn't make criminal records public - doesn't that make you feel safe? we had to send off our fingerprints to the FBI, just to make sure we aren't serial killers. and we have to list every dollar that belongs to our name, so we can see on paper just how absurd this journey is! we had to go to the doctor and get tested for hepatitis, HIV, TB, and some other stuff. and have the doctor sign that we have a normal life expectancy. never mind that he isn't exactly in charge of that kind of stuff. but we'll let that go. we have to sign a paper that says even though i am unemployed now i have the capability of getting a job based on my college degree. i am sure that a christian ministry degree would get a great job in this economy. and we had to have eric's boss sign that his chance of continued employment is excellent. so if eric does something stupid anytime soon, i'm holding gbc to that statement. we had to get passport pictures. the lady at wal-mart told me she couldn't do it because she had to go to lunch. so i went to rite-aid. much nicer and cleaner. and no one had to go to lunch. and i think passport pictures are worse than driver's license. have you ever seen a good passport picture? i didn't think so.

so we are moving right along. and God is leading the way. we have a peace beyond understanding that we are doing the right thing. not that it isn't really scary at times. just yesterday i was imagining another child in the mix and wondering what in the world that was going to look like...ayayayay. but i remember thinking that before micah and lydia both. i know it comes with the territory and i just have to keep walking and pray that God will give us the perfect child for our busy family.

we are continuing to pray for a miracle - that we would have a debt-free adoption. we are confident that this is the prayer God wants from us and so we are following his leading. i don't know how he is going to pull it off but it should be fun to watch! and we are working to do our part. cutting down on spending and trying to limit expenses. not that we have a ton of flexibility in our budget but i don't think God cares about how much - i think he just cares that we are doing our part. maybe i should play the lottery!

lydia asks every day when sarahjoy is coming home. i wish i had an answer for her.

please God, bring her home to us! her perfect little self belongs in our family. protect her until we see her. be preparing sarahjoy and us to be together, forever. and perform a miracle for us. we are waiting and anticipating.

thankfulness

2010-01-07T22:27:00.002-05:00

not sure what to say here. once again, we have been the recipients of a wonderful $500 gift from a family that is so special to us and so not full of money. i am incredibly thankful. i just am in awe of God providing for us.

and at the same time, there is doubt that creeps in and reminds me that we are a long way from $30,000. the doubt screams to me that $1000 here and $1000 there is not even close to what we need. BUT I WILL NOT LET SATAN GET IN MY HEAD!

God is providing. and he is doing it in the exact way that i felt like he was telling me was going to happen - little by little, a bit at a time. and hear me loud and clear, we will take off from norfolk international airport and be in awe of his ability to do the miraculous.

so thank you to those who are praying and watching. i am hoping your faith is being as encouraged as mine.

and for those who are counting...$3,500 out of $30,000.

his part

2009-12-31T23:02:00.003-05:00

about that huge God and him miraculously providing...

i was sitting on the sofa in a quiet house this morning. still in my pj's and minding my own business (aka watching price is right) while eric had the kids at the doctor for their tb screening (check that off the list!) the phone rang and i debated about whether to answer it. but i walked on over and said hello and was startled to hear a voice on the other end that i am sure has never called our house before. my first thought was that someone had died. when else does a random friend/acquaintance call you and say, "i wanted to call and tell you something."

no one died. but someone will be getting a better life in part because of that phone call! this wonderful friend went on to tell me that they had sent in $2000 to our adoption agency to help with our expenses.

$2000. that's a lot of money.

that's a nice vacation. a really cool TV. some great furniture. that's a whole lot of things i can think of and instead they gave it to us.

thank you.

that's about all that could come out of my mouth. i didn't know what else to say. we had prayed for God's provision of $2000 as that is the amount of money we have to give to the agency at this point in time. and here it was. God provided. in the most unusual of ways. from someone i would never have imagined. God's ideas are fabulous!

i found it interesting that our friend mentioned he had meant to give it in the summer but had put it off until the last minute. you know what? i'm so glad he did - because it allowed us the opportunity to pray for a specific request from God and see him answer it as specifically as we prayed for it. and that is a gift. it is those situations that prompt great leaps in our faith and i treasure every one i can get my hands on. this journey is taking every piece of faith i have!

and there is no doubt in my mind that the conversation i had with God last night about my target storage cube was perfect timing.

"you take care of your part and i'll take care of mine."

got it. i hear you loud and clear God. i'm taking care of my part and watching in wonder as you take care of yours.

happy new year! may 2010 be a year when we see God's faithfulness in new ways as he brings home our sweet sarahjoy. (so i really wanted her name to be sarahleigh, you know...ashLEIGH...but i thought that might be a bit much. we'll stick with sarahjoy!)

thanks for praying with us and walking this journey with us. i can't wait to see what happens next. as for the next prayer item, we are looking at another $2000 bill here in a couple of months. may God's provisions be bright and bold!!!