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!