It's A Girl!!!!

1 Samuel 1:27
I prayed for this child and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.

I don't believe there are words to describe how we are feeling.
Surprised. Thrilled. Grateful. Overwhelmed.

But mostly, In Love.

More details to follow when I can better put it all into words.
For now, her picture speaks for itself.
Meet our daughter.

Welcome Welcome

If you found me from Sarah's facebook-welcome.
I know blogs are completely 2007, but I'm not on facebook and I wanted a way to document our adoption journey. Hopefully this will be something our daughter and all of our kids can look back on someday.

Lots going on this week. Dexter had his last T Ball game.

His team was awesome-Dex, Harry, Zoey Michl, and Luke Farley. My guess is these boys will all fight over Zoey in years to come. She does T-Ball right. With a hair bow.

Sunday we took Gabe to football camp in Lake Forest. I had visions of taking him to college. Don't even want to think about that!

Tomorrow we go to Champaign to meet with our social worker. Can't wait for our home study to be finished. It feels like the stakes are getting higher.

Thursday it's back to Lake Forest to pick Gabe up from football camp. 

Friday-VACATION!!! Can't wait to head back to Anna Maria Island!

Why China?

So, why are we adopting from China?

The complicated answer- Sometimes you just know. We ARE supposed to do this.

There are many reasons China has so many orphans available for adoption.  A big reason is China's One Child Policy. In 1979, China started enforcing a "family planning policy" that amounts to couples only being able to legally have one child. This has resulted in thousands upon thousands of babies, mostly girls, being abandoned.
There is no way to legally give your baby up for adoption in China, so most babies are simply abandoned. Often times their mothers leave them somewhere they are very likely to be found-outside orphanage gates, on the steps of  a bank or a hospital.
Imagine going to a basketball game at NCHS on one of those cold winter nights. It's dark, you're rushing from your car (or your yard in our case) to get inside. If this were China, you may find a tiny baby wrapped in blankets lying out on the grass by the door to the school.
Hard to believe, but it's their truth.
Babies are picked up by the police. Once determined they are healthy enough, they are brought to the orphanage where they live till they are adopted or until they turn 14, at which point they "age out" and will never have a chance at having a family.

But Michelle, why don't you guys just have a baby??  I don't want to.

But Michelle, you might be thinking, aren't there kids here in the US that need homes?? Shouldn't we help kids here before going outside our borders?
Yes- there are. And yes, we did. Twice. If you're really worried about it-maybe God is trying to tell you it's your turn.

It comes down to this- We are not special or wonderful people for doing this. The truth of the matter is, we want another child. We want a daughter. China has a need for adoptive parents. Win Win.

We know from experience, adoption is NOT about us saving these kids. WE are the lucky ones. They're saving us. Every. Single. Day.

So why are we adopting from China?

The easy answer-Because that's where our daughter is.

Adoption Education-DONE

Last weekend Jason and I went to Chicago. Nothing fun or touristy, instead we went to an all day adoption class.

When I saw the sign on the church, I knew we were at the right place! 

 

 

Adoption, you see, is a different way of becoming a parent. It's not a given. Every part of adoption requires not just parents who desire to have a child, but the approval of someone else. Part of that approval process is parent education. It doesn't matter that we already have 3 kids or that we've adopted twice before. They don't care that Jason is a teacher or I'm a nurse practitioner. We needed that certificate of completion. BTW, this was AFTER we've already done a bunch of online adoption classes.

True Confession-I really did not want to go. We didn't have time. Didn't want to spend the money on a hotel. Didn't want to be away from the boys. Didn't want to sit in a class all day.

The verdict- it wasn't that bad. It was very cool to sit in a room with 17 other couples who were also on this journey.
People from all walks of life. Younger than us, older than us, gayer than us.
People on a journey to adopt from all sorts of places-China, Ethiopia, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Columbia, and right here in the good ole US.
From annoying know-it-alls who practically tried to teach the class, to the super cute couple that I hope to keep in touch with.

Not much of what we learned was new, but it was still good to hear it. Not just for our Mei Mei's sake, but for these 3 amazing boys we are already parenting. Because the truth is sometimes its easy for us to forget that our family is any different. To us, Dex and Q aren't our "adopted sons". They're our sons. They're not our "black kids" they're our kids. But the reality is our family is a little different. Not better, not worse, just a little different.
So having a refresher course on how to best support our kids, now and in the future, probably didn't hurt us a bit.

The Truth-This is nothing compared to what kids in orphanages are going through right this minute. It's nothing compared to the impossible decisions birth mothers make to give their babies the best chance at a good life. If this is what we need to do, we will do it. I will do my best to remember that this is the LEAST I can do.

Plus, we got to eat at Giordano's. Honestly, that pizza alone was probably worth the trip.

Happy Birthday Q!

Quincy had a fabulous birthday weekend! We went to Kendra Will's wedding. Q said Kendra looked like Cinderella! She did, talk about a beautiful bride!

Had some fun swimming at the hotel

They next day was off to Grant's farm with Mam & Bamp, YaYa, Jack and Harry.

Quinn is either hiding or photo bombing for pics.  

Jason and his mini me. Not so mini. 

We're so lucky these boys are growing up together! 

They're off to feed the goats. Notice no Jack. He doesn't bother much with animals. 

Quinn loved it 

We went to the bird show. Q was more interested in getting popcorn. Which was expensive and sucked. Fail. 

The bird lady was not amused when I screamed really loud when this bird flew right over my head. Scary. 

Mam getting Camel kisses.

                                 

Quinn's actual birthday morning. 

We had agreed that the weekend away meant no party. Quinn had other ideas so we did a last minute celebration.

One the the gift bags kept shaking and making dog noises. Q was convinced Nanny had gotten him a puppy. He was not quite as excited about his Fur Real dog, but she's pretty cute. He named her Cookie. He names EVERYTHING Cookie. 

Happy 4th Birthday Quincy Todd! We love you!

Home Study

To say the China process is different from our 2 previous adoptions is the understatement of the century. So so so much more complicated.

Yesterday was our first home study visit. We met with our social worker in Champaign for 2 hours to talk about why we wanted to adopt, why China, why why why why why.....

Luckily our social worker was super cool. She took it well when I realized our adoption petition- one of the super super official notarized documents we needed to turn in yesterday-had a really stupid mistake. I had typed my birth date wrong. Not Jason's. My. Own. Birthday. Stupid and embarrassing way to start. Nothing says "Please say I'm competent to raise someone else's child" like starting off with a dumb (fake) blonde moment.

Needless to say we survived round one. We got invited back for the individual interviews. I assume these are the ones where she asks how often we do it? Note to self, make sure we coordinate our answers.


In the meantime, I had been saying we were done with our part of the paperwork. Turns out, not so much. Fabulous social worker gave us a new stack.
Apparently we have one or 2 more pages to fill out....

Interesting trivia for our Mei Mei - One of your likely future BFFs Emery Wolf's dad is pitching for the Texas Rangers on TV in the background. Go Ross!!

Pitch Perfection

How oh how had I missed this till now? What a great movie. Turn on your iPad. Buy Pitch Perfect.

 I promise you won't regret it.