YEAH we have his file!!

Ok our agency has found and received our littlest angels file.  I am so excited I could have just screamed from the mountain tops .  .  . but just worked out and a hike was out of the question LOL!!  Anyhow,  our LOI will wait upon whether or not anyone else can possibly get ahold of his file.  If they can we will submit the LOI on Monday.  If not then we will wait for the update we requested.  Our file was done when he was 16 mos old and he will be 3 this month.  Just like when we were pregnant we decided against the risk of an amniocentesis simply because it would never have made a difference whether we carried the pregnancy to term.

And our picture for the post -

Our sweet little FeiFei - she is such a darling little thing and watch out world cuz Felicity is on the way to being the queen!  Don't you love her red shoes!! Her referral picture also showed her wearing the same shoes and the first thing our big girl noticed.  He smile, her demeanor is so fabulous.  She is part of the Half the Sky program which helps us as we patiently go through the process until we can bring her home!

Searching, searching, searching

So funny, our little girl came in the email.  We did go through tons of the available child sites like Reeces Rainbow and Rainbowkids searching for a special needs child.  We actually were looking at several other children and each time they already had a family pursuing them.  Then our little girl came in my email!  She is so perfect for our family, spunky, outgoing and well her own girl.

We (as in I again) have been searching for a little guy.  We thought an estimated million kiddos up for adoption in China, how many provinces are there, and everyone is looking for girls.   I was sure that we would easily be able to find a little guy from Qingdao or atleast Shandong province.  Then we thought ok, maybe it's God's will for us to bring another child with dwarfism home.  So we searched, we went through the entire CCAA waiting child list.  We found that many of these little people are not always classified under dwarfism.  I found 10 possible little people.

THen I decided I better email or SW and find out exactly what our homestudy is approved for - good thing, it's only ages 0-6 years.  That cuts out a lot.  In addition, I will have a 5 and 4 year old with dwarfism in our home.  Can I really do this.  I am a normal person, I have come across some super people, and I know I am not one of them.  So, we are still searching.  If God really means for us to come home with two he will make it happen.  Have I mentioned that patience is NOT my best quality.

On the other hand, my husband came home from the weekend retreat and said his answer was 'not this one but another.'  It is so hard to turn down files, but I know I really need to make sure I am not putting a square peg into a round hole either.  So we continue to search!

Our journey with dwarfism

Where to begin!  I am the mom to three wonderful children currently 12, 8, and 4.  Although we have 3 biological children, we were told that we would never be able to have children.  My husband and I were in the process of foster adopt when we became pregnant with our first son.  What a surprise and delight!   Prior to our last child we were given a 1/4 of 1% chance of getting pregnant.  Yep a miracle happened and our little guy was conceived.  I have terrible pregnancies with severe hyperemesis (PICC line, zofran everything.)  but I would go through anything to add to our family.

Everyone was so excited for little B to get here but things just felt off.  I had an overwhelming feeling that something wasn't right, although I thought he would be stillborn.  My fabulous Dr did 3x weekly BPP just to keep tabs on everything.  On Aug 2 he also did an ultrasound.  The wonderful US tech said that his limbs were showing 6 weeks short and his head was 2 weeks oversized.  As a nurse I knew that those were signs of dwarfism.  Due to the decreasing BPP they decided to deliver him that day.  I had 5 hours to deal with the news before he was born.  I was crying and distraught to say the least.   My 6'3" husband simply said we will deal with whatever comes, we can't change this and he is our son.  What a man, it brings tears to my eyes to think about it even now.  Our little guy looked so perfect when he was born.  I had only know of achondroplasia type dwarfism - later I would find out there were over 350 different types.

Little B was never really on the growth charts, and steadily fell below any curve.  I finally contacted the LPA (little People of America) when he was about 2 months old.  They were wonderful and sent me the following poem in the packet.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this…


When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.


After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."


"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.


But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.


The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.


So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.


It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.


But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."


The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.


But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland. 


We never thought that this would be our journey, but I would not change it for anything.  During our lives with little B we learned that America is one of the only countries that these children have any hope. And their begins our next journey... of adoption.

We have been very blessed, and we feel that we have room in our home for one more child with dwarfism.  It has taken 3 months to figure out what company to go with, and how to start the process of adopting a specific child.  I think we finally have the answer and so we begin!  Please keep our future child in your prayers.