It's official

After a long interval between posts, this one might end up being a rambler.  I have three kids now, so it's excusable.

First things first, our little guy has officially been placed with us!  We are now his foster parents.  Our next step is to hire an attorney to begin the adoption process  (and name him!! Although, we'll likely keep his first name).  We will probably get a court date in September for adoption.  This six month waiting period after  placement is required because parents were giving their adopted children back.  That just makes me sick...  Come on people.

For those of you who don't know, it is literally free to adopt a child from the foster care system in the state of Arizona.  In fact, we will get paid until our little guy turns 18 years old (probably just over $20/day since he is "medically fragile") and he will have state health insurance until that time as well.  This was news to me.

While we're fostering him, we also get around $20/day.  Even the attorney for the adoption is covered.  This is just plain crazy.  When we first considered this little boy "with all of those needs," we certainly didn't expect an amazingly smart, handsome boy who obeys (for the most part... he is two) and is very happy.  You can't tell there's anything different about him unless you're very familiar with the exact physical capabilities of 2 year old.  He should be able to run a little faster and has some weird reactions to sensory things and that's pretty much it.  I would move mountains for this kid, so getting paid for my own child is a very strange feeling.

It also completely changes my view on "special needs" kids.  I think there's this mental image of a child with special needs and it's basically synonomous with severe autism.  It wasn't that I thought children with special needs didn't deserve a loving home, but I knew that I wasn't prepared to provide care with two other young children as well (it's very important to pray about and understand the needs of your family so you don't get in over your head).  Now I realize that special needs can vary a huge amount, from meth exposed as an infant (with no mental or physical delays) on up.  I'm so glad we didn't check the"no" box for all needs.

While I'm sure we're still transitioning, I finally feel like we have found our normal again.  Bed time routines, eating, getting in the car... we have routines that make life easier. It's been hard transitioning to three kids.  It's been really hard in a lot of ways, but boy are we in love.  My biggest fear is that something will happen and they'll take him away before we can finalize the adoption.

Our little man really feels like a Wegert now.  I feel like he's mine (Joseph said the same thing).  I think something we all fear is being incapable of loving an adopted child like a biological one.  Those fears were completely unfounded.  It doesn't feel any different than my bio kids except that I'm thankful in a different way.  With him, I'm thankful we found each other.

I was told by a friend the other day, that my posts make everything seem happy.  That's good, right?  In case you need reassurance, my home is not perfect nor are its residents residually happy.  Nobody's life is!  With 3 kids 4 and under, tantrums are not foreign ;-). But I wouldn't change our family for the world and I'm not going to blog about our failures.  That's depressing lol.

So on a side note, I've gotten a lot of questions on random relatives coming out of the woodwork after adoption and taking the kid away from the adoptive parents.  My understanding is that laws have changed and if family doesn't come forward during the appeals process, they have lost their chance.  They will not be able to take the child after adoption.

Anything else?  I'd love to hear any thoughts or questions.  My biggest prayer is that our openness inspires others to adopt.  We plan on having a big family, but even so, we can't take in all the kids who need homes.  My heart breaks when I realize that I can't help them all. My body aches when I see people raising money for dogs and I know that a child is dying with a curable disease.

I want to encourage you to stretch your boundaries.  It's not for everybody, but just because it is uncomfortable to think about it doesn't mean it's not for you.  Pray.  I'm begging you.  Please just pray about it.  There is a child who would be so lucky to have you cuddle them and hold them close.  But even more than that, I guarantee that you will feel like the luckiest person alive the first time he calls you mommy or falls asleep rocking with you.

Do I Love Him?

When we were transitioning little man to our home, everything was so new.  I didn't know what his screams meant or how to comfort him.  I didn't know how many words he could speak or what he liked to do for fun.  At that point I was in love with the idea of him.

Since I was very young, I've felt an overwhelming desire to adopt.  It wasn't a passing fancy; it was God's purpose for my life.  I could feel it.  I spent hours crying over pictures of orphans online.  I followed my mom around the house sobbing because she refused to house and cloth a child in need and I just didn't understand.  Adoption isn't a hasty decision for us, but comes from the very depths of who I am.  I was adopted by God.  Fellow heir of the promise with Christ Himself.  I feel this.  I am adopted.  I must adopt.

Fast forward to our first day visit with little man.  I couldn't wait.  Could. Not. Wait.  Time didn't seem to move.  I couldn't even sleep the night before.  When we finally picked him up and took him out to Toys R Us with Kai and Averi, I imagined fun days filled with laughter, homeschooling children with big grins who wanted nothing more than to learn from their perfect mother, cooking dinner for thankful mouths.  Rose-colored glasses, anyone?

That didn't last long.  His first overnight visit at our house was great.  Then came the weekend visit.  Everyone got sick.  Oh boy.  I thought it was hard to be sick in college.  I thought it was impossible to be sick when my baby was sick too.  Having two kids sick at once?  Hell.  My first day with three kids and I'm sick.  Kai's sick.  Averi and little man are sick.  Visions of perfection fled like a man when he smells a poopy diaper (squeamish?  read a different blog;-)

I had in front of me one very grumpy little boy who didn't want me.  He had so much diarrhea that night that there was a pile of poop in his bed when I came in.  I had to throw away his pajamas because they were soaked.  But the heartbreaking part for me was that he didn't even cry!  He didn't let me in on his misery.  I found the mess at 5:30 in the morning when Averi cried for a feeding.  I don't even know how long he was sitting in it.

My heart was broken and my hands were filled with poop.  Literally.  I don't know if you have kids or not, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret.  Excretions from your own kids are really no big deal.  I always wondered how moms could ignore the huge bubbles of snot coming out of their kid's nose or how they could hold a kid when he was puking all over the place.  Turns out, it's not so spectacular.  It simply doesn't seem so gross from your own kids (in my experience, this statement applies to moms only, not so much dads).  From other kids?  EWWWWW.  Get those bodily fluids away from me.  I'm sooo not hungry anymore.

SO back to changing little man's poop-exploded diaper.  My body revolted.  I gagged.  It was gross.  Averi and little man were going through the same stages of the sickness at the same time, but I had no problem changing her diaper.  She had no problem being comforted by me.  It was not like that with little man.  He wanted me to hold him, but his body was stiff.  I changed his diaper but was disgusted with myself for being so disgusted.  

But down there in the trenches, somehow my heart turned towards him and his toward me.  He's only lived with us for a little over a week, but I can say that I love him just as fully as my bio kids.  I know because when he had a snotty nose today at the park, I reached over and wiped it off with my bare hands.  No thinking involved.  That boy is my son and I am his mommy.  I know it's not going to be laughter and fun every moment of the day.  It wasn't before he came to us and it won't be after.  But I do know that I love that boy fully and that whatever comes, we're going to be okay. 

Wherever. Whenever.

Hey there readers.  We are not your typical family.  My husband and I aren't followers, but I wouldn't really call us leaders either.  Why?  Because we go where most people don't like looking, much less following.  We're committed to following God wherever he leads us whenever he speaks.  It's not always pretty.

We got married young, gave birth to our first child 10 months later, and followed God half way across the world to India when our little boy was only a year and a half old.  Because of the viral infections we got in India, Kai (our son) and I have struggled with food allergies, and other health problems, ever since.  Majorly.  We can't have gluten, dairy (or lactose), eggs, bananas, pepper.... and the list goes on.  When we left for India, Kai weighed 33 lbs and when we returned he was down to 27!  Yikes.  But if we could go back, would we?  Absolutely not.  We were following God.  There was nothing else to be done.  We were refined and learned so much.

Our daughter, Averi, was born in April of 2013 (she's almost a year now!).  When she was about 3 months old, we felt God tell us it was time to start the adoption process by going through the foster care system in Arizona.  People said we were crazy (most people, actually), but we began the process anyway.  We worried that we didn't make enough money.  We were worried we couldn't love another child like our biological ones.  We worried about so many things.

Finally, we were licensed in August of 2013 after 10 weeks of 3 hour classes through Agape Adoption Agency of Arizona.  the waiting game began.  Since we had decided that we wouldn't take a child older than Kai, but wouldn't be strict about birth order for Averi since she was still so young, our limits were that the child had to be 3 or under.  We were told that it would probably be a year, so we put it on the back burner and lived life.  In December 2013, an email came in.  "I just received this email. I know this child may be out of your comfort zone as he seems like he has a lot going on."


Boy was that a true statement.  This child was WAY out of our comfort zone.  So many medical problems.  Meth exposure, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, sensory processing disorder...  I clicked right past that one, thinking, "that was pretty soon to get an email, maybe we'll have a child soon!," never considering that this would be our child.

A couple hours later, my mind went back to the email.  "God," my heart whispered, "give us wisdom."  I read through it more slowly.  Cognitively, this little boy seemed on track.  Could we handle special needs if they weren't mental?  Could we entertain the possibility of a child in a wheelchair?  I would have to ask Joseph when he got home from work. 

By the end of the weekend, I knew we could handle these medical problems.  Completely separately, Joseph came to the exact same conclusion.  There was no doubt in my mind that this was our son, even though we would still have to be selected as the best candidates for adoptive parents.  His parental rights had already been terminated.

Patience has never been my strong suit.  It was time to wait for our licensing worker to meet with little man's CPS worker.  It.  Took.  Forever.  The CPS worker was having trouble finding other families interested since he had so many medical problems listed.  Eventually two other families were chosen, but one dropped out last minute.  We were finally chosen!

Once we met him, all of our fears were gone.  He was perfect.  He could walk and talk.  He was smart and sweet.  He looked just like Joseph.  He even started calling Joseph "daddy" on our very first outing.  See, every medical concern ever visited must be listed in the information sent to prospective adoptive parents.  Spina bifida turned out to be a small dimple in his back that wasn't anything.  Cerebral palsy was just a diagnoses given based on the stiffness from his prenatal exposure to meth.  He is "special needs" but he really isn't. 

What if we had ignored this email with the little boy out of our comfort zone?  This little boy with big brown eyes and a smile that melts my heart?  This little boy who has had a rough start but is so ready and willing to love?  That is why, no matter when it comes or what it says, I hope we always listen to God's still, small voice.  Because even when it means being willing to take in a child with special needs, and having three kids ages four and under, I want to be a part of God's plan.  I want to see where He leads me.  And when I get there, I want to look back and get chills.  Because it was only God who could've brought us that far.  His plans are hard, but his plans are good.  Always.