God is Good!

So, the month of November didn't quite start out how I intended. Let's see - Monday November 3 - spent the day doing normal SAHM stuff - basically, busy all day. It was my hubby's first day back at work after a month off. I spent the morning at the eye doctor with Daniel - what should have been no more than an hour appointment lasted two hours! Then I picked up the other two kids from my Gram's and all four of us headed to a friend's house for a craft project. Then it was back home for lunch, naps, cleaning, etc. We got the computer table and computer stuff all moved into the new office. Busy, busy day.

Fast forward to 11:30 pm. I'm in my jammies, crawling into bed. Hubby has been sleeping for a couple of hours already. Suddenly my head explodes - the worst headache I've ever gotten, and it came on out of nowhere. I was seeing stars, and circles, and blood was pulsing through my head. The pain was horrendous. I even woke James, and said "something is not right here". But we both decided I had probably done too much that day, and pulled a neck muscle, and in a couple of days I would be ok.

However, the headache wouldn't go away. Tuesday I was so sick from it, couldn't keep anything down. Wednesday I went to the chiropractor, thinking he could snap my neck back into place and I would be fine. Thursday I still couldn't get rid of it, so called my family doctor for an appointment. He didn't like the sound of how the headache had come on, so he booked me an MRI/MRA appointment for 3:30 that afternoon. Friday, I still had not heard the results, so I called my doctor's office. I went to my foster parent/adoptive parent Donation Station event, and had stopped at my church first to drop off the items for our Silent Auction that night. My gram was watching the kids until 3 pm, when hubby was to get home, and I would be gone all day at two different events.

However, at 11:30 my doctor's office called, and gave me some not great news. The MRI showed two brain aneurysms, and the one behind my left eye had burst, which was why I was in so much pain that week. I was to go to the ER of the hospital ASAP, and the neurosurgeon would be waiting for me. I was in shock, and scared to death. I took care of things at Donation Station, had a friend drive me across the street to my church to tell them I wouldn't be able to run the auction that night, and hubby met me there to take me to the hospital. I made a dozen phone calls on the way down - family, friends - to let them know what was up.

I got to the hospital, and you know your case is important when they rush you past the 20 people in the waiting room to start preparing you for surgery. I was just so dumbfounded - apparently, the death rate for burst aneurysms is 85%, and the neurosurgeon was pretty amazed that I was functioning as highly as I was on Friday. He said my case was already pretty miraculous, but you know, I serve a Big God, and He must have some pretty Big Plans for me, because He kept me very protected!

I had a CAT scan and cerebral angiogram on Friday, then consulted with two surgeons about the best way to take care of my issue. I had one aneurysm behind my left eye that had burst, and a second one elsewhere in my brain that had not done anything yet. After hearing our two options - clipping or coiling - we chose the clipping. Even thought it was more invasive - they would have to cut through my skull - it had a higher success rate and more control during the surgery. I had the surgery Saturday morning, and pretty much don't remember from late Friday night until I think Monday afternoon. I was in ICU from the 7th to the 14th, then in a regular hospital room until the 17th.

I have some amazing family and friends - they really took care of my kids and husband while I was in the hospital. My MOMS Club made and delivered lunches and dinners for the entire time I was in the hospital. Friends and family came and stayed at the house with the kids so hubby could be in the hospital with me. Family, friends and pastoral staff came to the hospital to pray and visit. I have received three deliveries of flowers at the house, two beautiful Christmas Cactuses while in the hospital, gift baskets and numerous cards and notes. I have never felt so blessed and loved!

And now, I am home. I'm tired, and I seem to have caught a little cold bug that had been in the house. But I'm glad to be here, home from hospital, and alive and kicking! The only real problem I'm having is going to sleep at night - I have this fear that if I go to sleep, I won't wake up. I'm praying against that fear, but it lingers.

So to those that helped our family out during this time - thank you! And for those that prayed - thank you! You are all such a blessing to me!

Here are some photos from the ordeal:

On Thursday, before my second angiogram to check the surgery.

Lovely bruising from the surgery.

At one point, my whole left eye was swollen shut.

The stitches that go halfway across my head.

My lovely welcome home signs from my kids!

The Official Family!!!

It is official - all our children are now really ours!! We completed the adoption today, and it's just amazing! So many years of waiting, and now Austin, Daniel, and Gretchen are really our children legally. Even though the proceedings went very quickly, it was a joyous occassion, and tearful too. Here are some photos of the fun event!

The Courtroom Scene

With the judge

With our Lawyer

The Future Lawyer!

Gretchen & Mommy

Daniel & Mommy

With Grandpa & Grandma

The Official Family!

With Grandpa, Grandma & Great Grandma (Gram)

Celebrating in the Ball Pit!

We finally got our court date!!!

Our attorney called us Friday afternoon, and he has our paperwork on his desk waiting for our signature and has a court date for the adoption of all three kids! September 22 at 3pm is going to be our Adoption Finalization!!! We are so excited!!! We were praying to be done by October 1, and God has really answered our prayer!

Here is a photo of the three kids on Austin's first day of Preschool. Of course, Daniel thought he should go too, so both boys are wearing backpacks. Poor Daniel cried and cried when I dropped Austin off and Daniel had to stay with me. He asks every day if he can go with Austin, and I have to keep telling him to wait one more year.

Oh, the waiting game!

Well, we've got everything done on our end that we can get done. Our adoption support paperwork is in the hands of our social worker's office, and we are just waiting for the adoption support team to call us to go over the fine print. And then we will be assigned a court date for the finalization of the adoptions. I remember back in March, when we first started talking to our adoption caseworker. She said, oh, we'll have these kids adopted by June, July at the latest. We just nodded our heads and said, yea, right - we've heard that before. And don't you know, here it is almost September, and they are still not officially ours. Did we call it or what?

And in the meantime, since they are still technically foster children, we have no open beds, and cannot take any more in, even for respite care. So we wait, and wait, and wait some more. At this point, it looks like we probably won't have any new kiddos in our home until after the holidays. Which, according to my hubby, is just fine!

It's been a while!

Hi all! Wow! It's been way too long since I posted anything to this blog. Can you tell that life has gotten crazy busy!!

Now that all three kids are legally free - Yippee! - we are just waiting for all the final paperwork to be done and our adoption court date to be set. We received a large box full of paperwork to read on Daniel & Gretchen. Five volumes, each about 2" thick. It is ours to keep, and there is lots of info in it. Some heart breaking stuff, but important nonetheless. Now we are waiting to get Austin's file. Since he has been in the system longer, I'm imagining that his paperwork will probably fill two if not three boxes. Yikes! All the homestudy stuff is done, and once Austin's paperwork gets delivered, we can then start negotiating the adoption support. And once that is done, it's time to set a court date. We are thinking that it will be sometime in July. At least, that is what we are praying for, and what our adoption worker seems to think will happen.

Other than that, life in the foster care world has been quiet. We are not taking in any new kiddos until we can get our three adopted officially, and even then, we may wait for just a while. We will probably start out with emergency short-term care, but as most of you foster parents know, "short-term" to the state usually means "long-term" to the foster parents. The child that comes "only for a week or two" ends up being a six-month placement, and you fall in love! If we are not careful, we'll have adopted a dozen kids before you can blink. Something my husband is not all that cool with! I would like at least six, but he thinks I'm nuts! But I have this funny feeling we are not stopping with three. Who knows what God has planned for us!

So there's the latest. I'll try and back date some posts with pictures to let you know what we've been up to for the last couple of months, but I don't promise how long it will take. Right now, all three kids are down for naps, but I don't guarantee that will last long, since Gretchen went down half an hour before the boys!

Hope you are all having a good day! Happy Monday! I'd love to hear how you are doing!!

When Love Takes You In

This is a great video, and a really touching story about adoption. If you are not familiar with Steven Curtis Chapman, he is a Christian musican/singer and is both a biological father and an adoptive father. He has an organization that helps people adopt children. My friend dedicated this song to our family, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Report on Adoption Shower

The adoption shower was really fun, and we were extremely blessed with gifts for our family. They all truly "showered" us with love! Here are a few pictures to share:
Our lovely cake!
Sharing the story.
A friend's adopt devotion.
All our fun gifts!
Getting a little help opening gifts!

Adoption Shower

Our church has decided to throw us an adoption shower. I'm looking forward to it! I think it will be lots of fun, but I'm trying to decide whether or not to take the kids - it starts at 7 pm - or just get a sitter for them. 7 pm is their bedtime, so I'm sure the kids will be cranky if they come. I'm still weighing my options.

I'm trying to put together a slide show of various pictures throughout the last 2+ years that we've had the kids. I take a huge amount of photos - it's a good thing it's from a digital camera and I don't print all of them, or I would be bankrupt! But I have a ton of photos on my hard drive to choose from.

We also just got some great photos done professionally of the kids, so I'll bring those to display. That way, if the kids stay home, at least their images will be there!

It's a different thing registering for gifts now that the kids are older. Not as easy to do, but I think I've given everyone a wide variety of things to choose from.

Our Adoption Caseworker

We have been assigned our adoption caseworker! How exciting! Daniel & Gretchen's case has been forwarded on to her, and we are just waiting for Austin's case to be forwarded - it is from a different social worker than the other two.

Our ACW came by on Monday afternoon and spent a little over 2 hours with us, asking questions, taking in information, observing our interactions with the kids. We were told several months ago that once the kids were legally free, it would still take 6-9 months for the adoptions to be finalized. But when we asked our ACW for the timeline, she said that she thinks she'll be able to finalize by the end of May or mid-June at the latest!! How totally cool is that!! We are so very excited - we'll be throwing a huge celebration this summer!!

She comes back next Thursday for another visit, and then she'll come back again when she has everything from the kids' files redacted that needs to be. Then we'll get all their information - most of which we know, but there may be some court related stuff that we haven't seen yet.

It's hard to believe that we can actually see a very close timeframe for all of this. We have been waiting for so long to legally call these kids our own, and it has finally come! Yippee!!

Menu Plan Monday

I've decided to join Laura with her Menu Plan Monday. This will be my first post, so forgive me if it's a little simple and plain.

Monday - Ham Leftovers with Potatoes and Veggies

Tuesday - Meatloaf with Rice Pilaf

Wednesday - Crockpot Chicken

Thursday - Pork Chop Casserole

Friday - Homemade Pizza

Saturday - Spaghetti & Garlic Bread (and mom's night out with the girls, so daddy gets to cook!)

Sunday - Pork Roast

Maybe next week when my head cold is all gone I can jazz this up a bit!

Is night really for sleeping??

Well, it's almost 4 am, and I've been up since 1:30 am. First, it was with Daniel. I think he's having some growing pains. He woke up twice tonight, rubbing his legs and saying "owie". I spent 30 minutes each time with him, rubbing his legs until he could fall back to sleep. The second time he wanted new jammies on - not quite sure what that was all about. As soon as I changed his diaper and put him in new jammies, he settled right down. Maybe they other jammies are itchy - I'll have to check that out later. At 2 am Gretchen decided she needed a bottle, so wwe cuddled in the rocking chair while she drank her bottle. I really need to break her of this waking up in the middle of the night for 2 ounces! She's 14 months old, and it's high time she slept through the night. But I'm a softie! I got her back to sleep, and went back to bed myself, and while trying to fall asleep I kept thinking of e-mails I needed to send out. So, I got up, sent the e-mails, and now, almost 2 hours later, I'm still sitting here at the computer. It just sucks you in sometimes! As soon as I post this, I'm headed back to bed. Hope you all were able to sleep better tonight than I was!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here are our little Leprechaun's, wishing you all the best for St. Patty's Day!

A Cup of Sunshine

I took these pictures on Feb. 17, when Gretchen was still sick with the flu. I caught her playing in the sunshine streaming through our living room window, and it looked just like she had caught a cup of sunshine in her little green cup. You can see by her eyes that she's not feeling good - poor little thing! She lost 2 pounds while she was sick with the flu. But she's much better now, and eating normally again.

Introducing Austin!

Just a few fun photos of our Little Man!

Little Man is...

….Legally Free!! The contested termination trial began on January 28, and finally today, at around 5 pm, the judge handed down her decision that he is legally free and that parental rights will be terminated. It has been a long time coming, and we are so thankful for the outcome! We especially want to thank all of you for your support and prayers during this last year and half. It has been a long haul, but we really feel blessed that God has worked through it all.

Little Man's new name will be Austin Charles – and we are going to slowly start integrating his new name into our daily lives. We think it will be pretty easy – we’ve hinted around for a few months now with him about the name.

The next step, just like with Daniel & Gretchen, is to be assigned an adoption case worker. Then we have a few months of waiting for all the paperwork to go through. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait! Hopefully, we’ll be assigned the same case worker for all three kids, and be able to adopt all three on the same day. That’s the next thing you can pray with us about. They tell us it will take about 6 months to do all the adoption paperwork and bureaucratic red tape, so perhaps late summer, early fall it can all be finalized. We will be planning a rather large celebration party at that time, and we are hoping the weather will still be good so we can have it at a local park.

Thank you again for all your love and prayers and support for our family. We feel very blessed to be able to adopt these kids – they have definitely made our lives richer!

Want to win an IPod?

Head on over to this blog - Baggage that goes with mine - and find the IPod post to sign up to win. This is a great blog to read, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Little Man's Trial...

...is almost over! What started out to be a 4 day trial has really drug on. This morning the state finished their cross-exam of birth mom. Feb. 20 the two lawyers will do their closing arguments, and on Feb. 22 the judge will render her verdict. So far, all state parties are confident that the judge will sign termination. But until we see the ink on the paper, we are still nervous. And now we have another couple of weeks to wait. It's been a crazy week and a half, and I've never had so many headaches in one week as this past one. But we are done for a while, and can finally get back into a normal routine with our kids. I'll keep you posted!

Gretchen's 1st birthday photos

Friday night we took Gretchen for her 1st Birthday photos. Here are a few we took at home before heading to the studio. Isn't she a cutie?!?

Little Guy & Baby Girl are.....

….Legally Free!! The termination hearing was held Friday afternoon. It was scheduled for 1:30, and we all waited until 2:15 for the parents to show up, and they never did, nor did any of their family members. The judge heard the testimony from the social worker regarding the details of the case, and decided it was in the kids’ best interest to sever parental ties and sign the termination orders. It was a relief for us, that is for sure, although very sad that no one from their bio family cared enough to show up. Little Guy and Baby Girl are now going to be officially known as Daniel and Gretchen! And finally, here is a photo of the two little ones!

The next step is to be assigned an adoption case worker. Then we have a few months of waiting for all the paperwork to go through. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait!

And we’ll be back in court on Monday and Tuesday for Little Man’s case, and hopefully we’ll be able to send out an e-mail on Tuesday or Wednesday announcing the same thing for him – that he is legally free.

Readers - Hello!

After my last post, I got some comments from people I didn't know were reading my blog. And now, I'm curious! If you are reading my blog, and if you don't mind doing so, would you post a quick comment as to how you found me? I started this blog as just an outlet for me, and have quickly found many people in my situation that I can connect with, and it's wonderful! I have some absolutely fantastic friends here in my town, but only a few of them truly understand this "foster world". It's been so nice to connect with other people through this blog who are in the trenches of fostering.

So, drop me a line, I'd love to meet you! Even if you are not a foster parent, and are just reading my blog for kicks and giggles, drop me a line! Please????

Naming Help Needed, please

I have an issue that I need some advice on. Our oldest foster child, Little Man, should be legally free very soon, and we will be starting the adoption process with him. We have been calling him is birth name since he came to us, mostly because his visits with birth mom have continued twice a week. He will be three in March, and has been a foster child since 9 days of age, and has been in our home since he was 14 months old.

We had always talked about changing his name, and even have one picked out. I'm still pretty sure we will be doing this. However, my dilemma comes to the scrapbooking part. Of course, I am very behind in scrapbooking, so there are hardly any pages done of any of my kiddos. But when it comes to scrapbooking him, do I use his birth name on the pages up until we get to adopt him, or do we use his permanent name on anything pre-adoption? I don't know why I struggle with this, but I do.

Our other two kiddos - full siblings - have not seen their birth parents in almost a year, and so we have been calling them their permanent names since April '07. We will be faced with the same kind of dilemma with some of their pictures as well.

Does anyone have any experience or wisdom in this for me???? Please????

I scrapbooked today!!

This was a huge accomplishment for me! I love to scrapbook, but ever since we moved into this new house - March '07 - I have not been able to get my craft room set back up like it was in our old house. Right now, the craft room has one worktable, and it is covered with random stamping and scrapbooking things. It also has a sewing table, and I keep that pretty accessible, but otherwise the whole room is filled with boxes of craft stuff - and other crap - that I just can't find time to go through or move! The room is right above the boys' bedroom, and it seems that the only time I really have to go through it is when the boys are sleeping, and I hate to make the noise it takes to clean out that room. My goal is to have my craft room all set up by the end of February. I know it seems like a strange prayer request - but please pray that I get that goal accomplished. I really need a room that I can retreat to every once in a while and get back to my stamping, scrapbooking and quilting.

I got a double page spread done today - at a friend's house for a CTMH workshop - and it was of Little Guy's first haircut. Of course, he got this haircut over a year ago! But better late than never I suppose! Now I am really itching to do more scrapbooking, especially since Baby Girl's 1st birthday (did I just SAY that?) is next Thursday, and the party is next Saturday, and I want to have a small scrapbook on display of pictures of her throughout her first year. We'll see.......

Done with Speech Therapy!!

Little Guy is officially done with speech therapy. His therapist re-tested him today, and he is doing remarkable well considering how he started. She is really pleased with his progress, as are we, and has decided to let the therapy go for 6 months and re-evaluate him at the end of July. This is good news - first, because he is doing so well, and second, because now we don't have to have bad Friday afternoons. His ST was on Fridays at 1 pm - which was really bad for napping. He normally goes down for a nap around 12:30 or 1:00, and Fridays really threw him off. And he's my one kid that desperately needs to adhere to a schedule. Little Man is fine when our schedule gets wonky, but Little Guy really doesn't do well.

So, hats of to our wonderful therapist - she really got him talking well! Now, if I can just end his little temper tantrums......

Yikes!!!

Court Updates

I just wanted to give a quick – and positive – update on Little Man’s case. We had asked for prayer this month because there were some issues coming forth that might delay the termination trial yet again. But praise God – it is going on as scheduled!! The judge did get changed, but the case will be heard at the same time as the last judge. And the birth mom’s request to have in-home visits with Little Man has been denied. So we just want to thank you for praying with us – God is Good All the Time!!! The next step is the actual Termination Trial, and that will take place January 28-31. We have been told that the decision on the termination will be handed down soon after the end of the trial, possibly the same day or the day after. Our prayer now is that the termination of parental rights be done, and that would mean we could start the actual adoption of Little Man. So please continue to pray with us.

Also, the termination hearing for Little Guy & Baby Girl’s case will be on February 1st at 1:30 pm. We are not anticipating any problems with that one, however, as the birth parents have not been heard from for almost a year now. Can you believe that Baby Girl will be one year old shortly? Wow! Time does fly! So soon, very soon, all three of these beautiful children will officially be our children – thanks to God! He is so faithful to us!

Term Trial for Siblings

We have been waiting for the publishing of the termination trial notice in our local paper, and it finally happened. The social worker was not able to serve Little Guy and Baby Girl's birthparents, so it had to be published. The trial date has been set for February 1 at 1:30 pm - it's such a relief to now have a date to look forward to. I really doubt that the bp will show up, and even if they do, I doubt that the courts would find in their favor. Baby Girl is almost a year old now, and they haven't seen her since she was two days old.

Little Man's term trial is set for January 28 & 29 - so that last week of Jan/first week of Feb is going to be very busy and very stressful for us. Please, please - keep our family in your prayers! Rumor has it that Little Man's bmom is going to petition the court for a new judge to be assigned the term trial. The judge currently assigned has already heard one of her appeals and did not find in her favor, so now she wants him off the case. I have also heard rumor that she is going to petition the court for overnight in-home visits with Little Man! She has not ever been allowed unsupervised visits with him, so I don't see how they would allow this, but I am not surprised anymore by what the system does. I'm just praying hard that this does not get allowed.

I'll update more as I have time.