The reason I never get anything done...

Rach loves her food. All the time. Every second of the day. i think she eats more than me...which isn't saying much because I hardly have the time to think these days...

But I wouldn't change a thing. I get great joy out of watching her do new things.

And our girl has come a long way in the three months she's been home.

~Sunday Snapshot~ Results

If you have been reading along for awhile here, you know what we've been dealing with....as far as testing and research for Rachel.







It's been a long road, with appointments and specialists galore.





With no results. Me, being me, I researched on my own. I didn't feel the need to keep driving all over creation for the specialists to tell me to come back again and again.


Simply, I felt to keep billing our insurance. When I knew from my research, just one thing, one simple blood test would be all it took.


I went to my regular doctor and I requested this . She is amazing and will listen without judgement and then if I have a good suggestion, go with it.



What Rachel needed was this, a chromosomal karatype. Something very simple. Something that would save time, energy, money and needless other testing. A simple order from our doctor for a bood test. Something that would test our precious angel for over 130 different syndromes.







We have waited three weeks for the results. We have done research and looked into the two specific special needs we thought she may have. We were prepared. Nothing they could say would change how we feel for our beautiful girl though, regardless of the outcome.




After all, we had prayed for her and waited over a year to bring her home. She is ours, it didn't matter to us if she had some silly syndrome. What result on a piece of paper would change our love for her, our commitment or our passion to see that she gets everything out of life that she deserves?

Nothing

not a single thing. We are her parents. Period. We will love her to the ends of earth and fight for our girl. End of story.

So, when I heard the phone ring on Friday and saw it was the doctor, I won't lie, I was nervous and scared, because with the two special needs we were told she may have, it would mean life changing things, but the one single sentence she said just made me break down and cry and fall on my knees.

"You have a 100% normal geneticly female girl."

And we do. Even if the results had been different, even if we had to make changes and adjust our lifestyle she would still be our child. One of our precious angel babies.

She will still need several surgeries throughout her life for her special needs that we did know about but we will get through that with prayer and patience. And now we are educated about other special needs for whatever else may happen along .....

"Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes. " ~Anonymous~

Meet Bella and the rest of the waiting kids...update ~

She is 13 years old and in Shanghai. She is an orphan living in an orphanage. Bella has six months to find a family. If this doesn't happen by February, she no longer be eligible for adoption. AT ALL, EVER.

Let's not let that happen. Let's spread the word, give her a chance at a mother, a father, siblings, and an education.

She is listed with my agency. We have used them twice and would not hesitate to use them again. For more info please leave a coment or email me. The CCAA is willing to make exceptions for those over age 55 and that do not meet certain requirements for the China program.

Here are the rest of the special focus kids.

Renee'

3/23/1999

Hep b+

Guangdong

Elizabeth 12/26/2000
Healthy
Guangdong






Rose
3/12/2001
CHD
Beijing





Bree
1/4/2007
Limb Deformity
Guangdong





Alice (sibling to Angie)
10/13/2000
Hep b +
Heilongjiang




Angie (sibling to Alice)
10/14/2004
healthy
Heilongjiang




Jasper
1/16/2009
Repaired cleft lip (bilateral)
Guangdong

Edward
11/14/2004
Healthy
Beijing

For more info on any of these kids contact me or Kathy at Kathy@wiaa.org

We went a walking...

and ended up somewhere in western Virgina. It was unexpected and unplanned but so much fun.

The farm was a great stopping point and had homemade ice cream. Even for me being lactose intolerant the lemon chiffon was a dream...you could actually taste the lemon oils and pulp. So yummy.

Rachel enjoyed just bopping around and exploring. But she did taste every one's ice cream and chips and licorice and....



Hannah had the strawberry, it was even better than the lemon, if that is possible..

Grace of course is my chocolate girl.




Jake, he's our big boy. He had a super scoop of peppermint in a waffle cone. Pure yummyness with pieces of candy chunks.

The Little's enjoyed stopping every few feet to pick flowers and leaves with their mama.

And Rachel? She enjoyed stopping every step and just enjoying everything. She is my explorer, a girl after my own heart, just taking in EVERYTHING.

Isn't it gorgeous??

My princess, who didn't like the woods. She kept saying mama it's dirty and my shoes are getting ruined.

But she did like sitting on the rocks, as long as she didn't get sand, dirt or leaves in her shoes.

My three Little's all holding hands. Looking out for each other.






And the leader of the pack Hannah, showing us the way...

Tried to get a pose of the whole fam, but it didn't really work. With six kids, you just can't get them to all look or sit still at the same time.

Hope's Caterpillar. She wouldn't touch it though and Rachel wanted to eat it. LOL

My little poser. Every time he sees a camera he puts on the pose. I think he is destined for Hollywood. And his teacher's keep telling him that being an actor isn't a good career aspiration...sigh

All in all a great Sunday afternoon. Hope yours was relaxing as well. Here's to a good week!!

~ Four Years ~ Sunday Snapshot

It started simply, maybe when I was 20 or so and Kerry and I were talking marriage, kids, you know the whole plan.

We knew that it may not happen the usual way, us having children. God surprised us though and after two years of trying Hannah was born. So we put adoption and China on the back burner for a while as life kind of happened. Fast forward to 2004 and a surprise surgery meaning no more children born to us.....

But, I had a vision of four kids and so did Kerry. So we prayed and prayed some more. And then we just knew, knew that somewhere across the ocean there was a baby girl that was meant to be ours.

We began paper chasing in 2005, at the time the wait was 6 months from the time your dossier was submitted to China until you received a referral. But God was again trying to tell us something. That maybe our daughter was on the agency's special needs list, that just maybe we were meant to go that route. So I asked the agency and a couple days later they received a list. I was emailed all three files of the girls....

I opened one, just one and knew. She was ours. There was just a connection, something in her eyes. And she was beautiful.

She was our Hope. Our sweet plum flower.

We waited quite some time from referral to DTC. There were ups and downs. We had our dossier misplaced somewhere in Alaska and also had our home study eaten by a dog. (true story, according to our social worker)

We received updates. And watched our girl grow from an infant to a toddler via pictures. Longing for the day we received our travel approval.

And then it came, I didn't expect it, was actually grocery shopping when Michelle from Villa Hope called. I think I might have even hung up on her in my excitement.

We hopped a flight two weeked later to Xian. Kerry, myself and Hannah who was 10 at the time. We met her at the Xian Civil Affairs office on September 18 2006. She was 22 months old and terrified.

Everthing she had ever know was changing and she didn't like it, at all. But she slowly warmed up to us. Slowly...

She was a tiny itty bitty little thing. Barely 14 pounds, wearing size 6 month clothing. Never had solid food and was plain scared.

But the love I felt for her...it was instant. The dream I had of adopting since I was a teenager, had finally come true. And I had my husband and my oldest daughter to share in the experience.



Here is what my husband wrote in our travel journal from that day.

"I cried a bit this morning as I was holding Hope and thinking about all we had gone through to get here. It was never a question of whether it was the right or wrong thing to do. It has been clear from the beginning that adopting Hope was God's plan for our lives, Desiree had the vision placed in her heart and we followed the call. It's amazing what can happen if you listen to that still small voice that can be heard now and then."

Now look at our girl, four years later. She is growing up before my eyes. She is a strong, outgoing girl who loves life. She always looks at things with a glass half full kind of way.

We love you Hopey!! You have blessed us.

A little all over the place ~

So many things going on this week...Hope is adjusting to kindergarten ok. She seems to really like it and enjoys riding the bus, but we have had a stressful week and she got her first yellow slip this week.

Now, my thoughts are she was pretty upset on Wednesday and hadn't slept well. She will sometimes talk to herself when upset. This is something she has always done and I had explained it to the teacher. Not sure what exactly happened as it wasn't explained very well, but she got her yellow slip. I felt terrible for her, she was so upset she actually threw up when telling me about it.


We've had many doctors appointments this week and last. I finally just asked our regular doctor to do all the genetics testing, otherwise we would be waiting until March of next year to even be seen. Which is just not an option.

The tests were last Friday...one long week ago and still no results. Nothing. I have called and they are sure to let me know when it all comes in. I am anxiously waiting. The longer it takes the more scenarios go through my mind....

It really won't make a difference what the tests say, but it would be nice to know. Just so we know how to proceed with treating her special needs.

Now, just look at that smile!!It's only been a little over two months but goodness, Rachel seems to have been a part of me forever. She and I are pretty tight. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Why is it...

that the first question people ask me after meeting the girls is "are they biological sisters?"

I mean seriously, does it matter? Is it any one's business? Do you really feel the need to ask me such a personal question when I really don't know you?

This is usually followed by, "do they have siblings back in China?" and then the very offensive, "How much did they cost?"

Seriously??

Anyone have any idea how to answer this in a nice way?

And while I am venting I will also say I am SERIOUSLY disappointed in the FCC activities in our area. There is nothing...we are in one of the biggest metropolitan area's and there is no FCC group active...AT ALL.

This is a huge disappointment to me. Doesn't anyone understand the importance of keeping China alive for our children?? It's not like I haven't tried getting other's together or starting a yahoo group for the area. No one seems interested. It's such a shame. So now what do we do???