danielle's blog

Momma: Miriam it's time to put on your pajamas.
Miriam in the middle of the weeping and whaling that ensued: I'm NOOOOOOT happy!!!
Really? I would never have guessed!

Heard over and over as Miriam circled the extension cord: It's not a toy, It's not a toy!!

The scene: Kitchen table, Momma has just scolded Miriam for smearing peanut butter all over the table.
Miriam: It's NOT funny!
Momma: Well, I am certainly not laughing!
Miriam: I'm not laughing either!

The scene: Miriam and Evan are playing with the train set
Evan: WAHHHHH! SISSY!! CHOOCHOO!!! WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
Momma: Miriam, why did you take Evan's train track when there is a whole pile here?
Miriam: Because Evan needs to share with me!
Oy!

I am so tired of roadblocks in this adoption. I am so tried of things going wrong. WHY is no one competent? WHY does everything have to be so hard????? I just want my baby!!!  Is that REALLY so much to ask??

I have learned that the child we were unable to accept has a family. I am very happy for both the child and the family.

Miriam joined our family, and I became a mother. It was one of the most wonderful days of my life. She was asleep, and they woke her up and handed her to me. She was so sweet and so beautiful.... and she still is! I could not have asked for a more wonderful or perfect daughter. I love you Pookie!

I've been photo tagged by my friend Stacy. I'm supposed to pull the fourth picture from the fourth file on my computer, so here it is.

This is Miriam "helping" me put together the little table and chair set she got from Mimmi and Grandma Katie for her second birthday.

I'll tag Jen, Cindy, Amy, and Sarah.

First a big thank you to all who have been so encouraging and have kept us in your thoughts and prayers. I'm doing ok... mostly. The right thing isn't always easy and it doesn't always *feel* right. So while I know we made the right decision I still feel really sad sometimes too.

However, I am very thankful for the two beautiful children I have. They are so sweet and WAY too cute, not that I'm bias or anything!  So in their honor a few recent funnies:

Momma was busy raking up leaves and Miriam was busy trying to play in them. A frustrated Miriam ask, "Momma, can you play somewhere else please?"

Miriam during a recent infestation of gnats: "Momma, I'm going to use the 'fly water' to hit the flies!"

I've been MIA recently with very good reason. First, I was really struggling with The Wait as illustrated by my last post.  I really didn't want to subject the blogsphere to my whining, but I also really had nothing else to say, nor did I feel much like writing anyway.

Emotionally, this has been an extremely hard week. The Wait had me in a bad place and then the USCIS struck *again*. Monday we received a letter requesting yet MORE info and an addendum to the freakin' addendum because our social work left out ONE word that was implied by everything else!! Seriously, I think they have it in for us! Our poor social worker is about ready to hurt them, but I *think* that will be taken care of soon.

Then it came. The Call. "A possible match. A child for your family. Are you interested? " "YES, YES, 100x YES!!!"
But as I watched the photos load on my email, I knew this child had a condition not listed in the file, one far more severe. So begin the emotional race to confirm with our doctor my suspicion and to try to research what this new diagnosis would mean for this child and our family. The answer: no way to know for sure until the child is here the true severity. Certainly years and years of therapy (some of them daily), possible surgeries, and no certainty of outcome. I have no doubt that this child will make a wonderful addition to some family. However with much soul searching we do not feel that we are the best family for this little one due to already have two young children in our home. We do not think it would be fair to this little one or to Miriam and Evan. So this AM, I made the difficult call to our agency.

All that said, this was a very hard decision and I write about it in part so that others who walk this road will know they are not alone. I doubted myself. We had always believed whatever referral God sent we would accept, certainly that is what we would do if we gave birth to this child. I looked at the pictures and did not see my child. But was that just my selfishness? Was that just me not wanting a child who would require SO much time and energy and change to our family life? Was God trying to tell me to stretch in a different direction than I had planned? Certainly, I felt for this child. I want this child to have a family. To have medical care and therapy. To be able to reach their full potential. It was so hard.

Finally, Brian said that if I was really convicted that this was what God wanted he was game, but otherwise he didn't think we were the best family. Then I realized that I felt different about this child than I did when I saw Miriam and Evan's referrals. With Miriam, I knew she was mine for the moment the phone rang. Never a doubt, never a question. With Evan, we were not even looking for his adoption... he was our miracle, fall-in-your-lap, never-happens-that-way adoption. I didn't *know* when I saw Evan's pictures and info that he WAS my son. But he pulled at my heart in a way this little one did not. And perhaps more importantly, I was ready for anything with Evan. We were told that he had been evaluated as mildly cognitively delayed, severely speech delayed, and severely physically delayed. But I KNEW without a doubt that he was fine and even if he wasn't, I KNEW we would be ok. I did not feel that with this little one.

But WHY would God send us this file? That question continued to bug me. This morning I received two possible answers.

1. I am perhaps the only waiting parent with our agency who could have looked at that photo and IMMEDIATELY knew the correct diagnosis.  I'm not sure our wonderful doctor would have known right away if I hadn't pointed her in the right direction (this is a very rare condition, one she has never even seen). How *I* came to be able to recognize it is completely a God thing. So perhaps we got this referral so that the correct diagnosis could be identified and our agency can find a family who is ready for that diagnosis. Perhaps we saved another family from the REAL pain of falling in love with this child and THEN learning the truth and having to say no. Or even worse, disrupting the adoption in China when they saw the truth.
2. Perhaps this is yet again God's way of buying time so our little one can make her way to our agency. I don't know. All I know is we are still looking for our little XinXin. Hang on baby, Momma is looking for you!

Another Friday come and gone, and other week is history without my phone ringing... well at least without it ringing with the *right* phone call. 22 months of waiting, and I'm really starting to feel it. I fear my patience is limited. Too much longer and I'm going to need a padded room.....

I've been tagged by my friend Sarah to share 7 random things about myself. So here goes.

1.) I "met" my husband in July 2001... we met online. :)
2.) I started reading the Harry Potter series years ago after I received one of those radical conservative emails about how "evil" the series is. I basically went right out and bought the first book and read it! Yeah, I'm kind of like that sometimes....
3.) I have an incredible memory. I remember many things from my first 2-3 years of life. I even have a memory from when I was 2 months old. It runs in my family... my mother also remembers things from her first year of life.
4.) In my professional life, I have had the privilege of giving many little human beings their very first bath. I have also given far to many their only bath.  And, yes, that was a privilege too.
5.) I wasn't allowed to go to the movies as a child. I think I was 21 the first time I stepped into a movie theater.
6.) I'm addicted to "LOST". Yeah, scary, I know.
7.) I'm a serious name nerd. Brian says that I'm part of the name Amish. :) I disagree, but if you've named your little girl Madisyn or Kennedee don't ask me what I think of the "name"!

So I'm suppose to "tag" seven other bloggers. But honestly, I'm not sure that seven people who have blogs and have not already been tagged actually read my blog. Heck, I'm not sure seven people read my blog! So I guess I'll tag Ruth, Spark, and Jen cause I know they read sometimes and haven't done this yet. And if you're a lurker and have never commented... consider yourself tagged! (How's that for punishment?? Well, if you exist....)

Evan reached another milestone tonight. One that touches close to a mother's heart. Tonight my son said "I love you, Momma" for the very first time. I love you too, baby boy.