One year ago today I wrote these words: http://adamandshana.com/pretending/
I cannot help but weep when I read them. I can still feel the pain in that person but it is very distant. It is a memory now, not a way of life. I praise God for my new life, for the gift He sent to me:
It was a beautiful fall day and we met the photographer at a local winery for our first official family pictures. The plan was to take our pictures before we went to the court house with with her also accompanying us there.
We would be meeting our attorney at the courthouse before our hearing time, a woman we have only corresponded with over the phone and online. In the past ten months we have worked closely with two attorneys, both amazing women. She was just as I imagined.
While sitting in the court room she shared two things she learned through her journey of parenthood. First, rather than saying “no” when a child misbehaves she said she learned to tell her children, “we don’t do that“. When a child learns the word “no” they will quickly begin telling us “no“, which honestly becomes old very quickly! “We don’t do that” is a sentence and therefore is something they cannot repeat for quite some time. And, let me tell you, she is very correct. Even Adam and I don’t swim in the dog’s water dish, so we feel really good about saying “we don’t do that!“.
Next, she said when she got older she wished that she did not react as loudly when her children misbehaved…especially in public. We all know this to be beneficial. We know that if we speak quietly they will, themselves, be more likely (but certainly not guaranteed!) to quiet down to listen. The question is if I’ll have that self-control!
I have only ever gone to court for medical cases, for situations that I was not emotionally entangled with. To say that our emotions weren’t high would be false. We were excited for days before!
The five of us (our attorney, Lainey, Adam, myself and our photographer) went in to the courtroom shortly before our hearing time. We all stood when the judge came in. It was then that he asked for another case to be moved before us due to a translator being available at that moment for that person. It was surreal. This brief picture of this judge’s day reminded me of how family practice in medicine is on most days; it is so variable. The first case was a non-English speaking person with a large bill to a company that she did not pay and therefore was turned to collections. Her story was that she didn’t have enough money and had other bills to pay. You can imagine his verdict. Next on the docket: a nice young family adopting a child. #whocouldthathavebeen? And, then following us was a criminal case involving a sudanese gentleman. NOBOREDOMALLOWED.
The judge asked everyone to leave the court room except for us for our hearing. After being sworn in, all of the little details surrounding Lainey’s birth were discussed between our attorney and the judge. Lainey’s adoption is open….but kind of not (in a way) as there are details that are private and we want them that way for both her and her birth parents. I was so very thankful at that moment that he asked all of those people to leave that room. He asked us each what we see when we look at Lainey. He asked us each what we see when we look at each other. I saw my daughter. She is beautiful. I saw an amazing man. A wonderful father that is in love with this little girl that I was holding on my lap.
It felt much like our wedding day, some 19 years ago. We vowed to care for her physically, emotionally and financially. He came down off of the stand and congratulated us. He shook our hands. And, met the star of the show…
We literally had our two copies of the adoption decree within 15 minutes.
And within two weeks her birth certificate arrived, something we hadn’t seen yet! Adam took a picture and sent it to me at work as soon as the mail came.
364 nights ago I cried myself to sleep. Our alarm was set for 3:45 am so we could be sure to leave the house in time to be at the hospital in Kearney early enough for the D&C as our fourth child had passed, a daughter we later named Lainey Lynne’. We knew that was the last pregnancy I would ever have. We were at the lowest point of our life.
Tonight, my daughter is sleeping soundly in her room. She’s been sick this past week so I can hear a faint cough occasionally but quite honestly? It’s a beautiful sound. She’s freaking amazing. Everything about her is crazy amazing! She’s for real. It’s real. This is all real. It is December 1, 2015 everyone and Lainey Noelle is still here. At our home. She never left. No one ever came to take her away. It wasn’t a joke. She’s ours. We are her’s.
All of this, this whole journey that started on January 21st? It is forever.
Better late then never, amiright?
By far, Lainey’s favorite “toy” so far has been her noggin stik. I’m not even quite sure how I stumbled across this. It was probably one of those silly “how to make your baby smarter” pinterest articles that said to buy this thing called a noggin stik. Say wha? Anyways, we actually got it right around four months but the girl loved it and still does! So much so that it became the magic toy. You know the one. The one you hide when you are somewhere and save for when you really, really, really neeeeeeed them to make it just five more minutes. Yeah, that one. The noggin stik was that for us. So much so that we bought a 20-pack of batteries from Amazon. That is the only drawback to it, I would say. The battery life leaves a lot to be desired but is easy to replace!
While this wasn’t a favorite, I’m going to put this right here:
It feels like about (13) years ago that I put a what am I post out with a picture of this. This is a montessori interlocking disc. Great for teething, grasping (gross motor skill), etc. Adam and I are very interested in some of the montessori principles, not all of them, but many. We often discuss how to incorporate them into raising this little human we are responsible for. If any of you fine folks have any knowledge about montessori that you’d like to pass on to us, PLEASE DO!!!
This next favorite is very basic and is still a favorite!
A mirror! Just an el-cheapo from Walmart and she loves it! Now that she sits or stands most of the time we have moved it and have it anchored up higher on the wall.
This is how her mirror is currently set up:
Last but not least! Her ride! This girl can’t get enough walks. She absolutely loves to go on walks. She’ll grab on to the front tray with both fists and won’t let go the entire time.
Look back with me, would you, to June…
I’d love to write that she is a Daddy’s girl but she isn’t. She’s both a Mama’s and Daddy’s girl. She’s already figured us out and seems to know what she’ll get from each of us. There is something special, though in seeing the love of my life holding our child. It’s easy to fall in love with him all over again.
He sends silly pics of he and Lainey to me at work often!
Father’s Day was low-key but special just the same because Adam is a Daddy now! Again, the year of dreams coming true has continued! He loves his days with her. He says he is the happiest now that he ever remembers being in his life. I always taught in Lamaze that Father’s should try to come up with something special that is for just between them and their babe and Adam knew this. He took off with sign language from the very beginning with Lainey. Research has well proven the benefits of signing with infants and toddlers so I think this is amazing but he is doing it for entirely different reasons! During Lainey’s feedings he wears an ear piece and watches videos to learn how to sign. His goal is for the two of them to actually use sign as a second language. I was told (very early on) that if I want to know (someday) what they are talking about in a restaurant I better follow along! It’s hard! I can only handle about one word a day but I’ve got to keep going so I know when they are talking about me when Lainey gets older!
I’ve said it before and I’ll never stop saying it. Lainey and I are the luckiest girls on earth. Adam will never stop loving us, never stop doing, giving, caring…I love being on this journey called parenthood with him.
Lainey received an incredible gift shortly before Father’s Day. From her birth father. When she was born we did not know who he was and therefore had no information regarding her paternal side. He came forward, however wanting Lainey to be able to someday know where she came from if she so desires to know. How wonderful to have this final piece of information for her! We all want to know where we came from. We all want to know our story. We will forever be thankful to her birth parents for her amazing gift of life. There are simply no words. None. We still pinch ourselves most days to be sure this life we are living is real!
Oh! And, if you follow Adam on Instagram…this isn’t “spiderman”-it’s the sign for I love you and he has decided to capture shots like this throughout Lainey’s life to someday give her a book!
He was just a little boy when we chose him. The pictures he would send us were drawn from crayons and were your typical little kid drawings but over the years we could tell he grew up. His pictures turned to letters, instead and his writing matured. His face lengthened and he got tall. He wrote to tell us he loved soccer and that he wanted to be a doctor someday. He told us this many times. We even got a video from World Vision two years ago of him playing soccer for us and of him thanking us for his Birthday money. He got a new bed. This year he got new clothes. He is sixteen and graduated from high school. We thought/assumed he would continue on in school.
Last week I missed a call while seeing patients one afternoon. It was World Vision I think this is the ONLY time they have called us. They left a generic message that they had some important information for us regarding our child and that we should be sure to open the letter from them right away that would be arriving in the mail soon. I called the number right back and found out that Abdiel was no longer continuing his education and because of this, could no longer be in World Vision….and therefore, we could no longer sponsor him.
I was heartbroken. I wanted answers because just a few weeks ago in our last letter he still talked about going on in school. They were able to pull up the field report from El Salvador with a (few) more details stating that he either went to be with family to help them or his family moved. Either way, he had to move to an area where World Vision is not yet a part of, which is the reason we can no longer support him. We were very upset as we have a sincere desire in our heart for Abdiel and his family to succeed and to continue to have God in their lives. Furthermore, even if he is no longer in the World Vision “system” we would love to some how stay connected. I realize now that my thoughts that we may be able to be in contact with our sponsored child into his adult-hood were skewed and unrealistic all along. World Vision said we could try to reach out to him one last time and they could attempt to deliver a message to him and recommended we consider doing it through their email system as this would stand the chance to get there quickest. But, by that night, Abdiel wasn’t even in the World Vision system any longer for us to even email. It is amazing that within 24 hours we lost him. At least it feels like that. In a place where I am so very privileged (heck, my daughter is privileged and lacks for nothing!) we literally lost track of a person that holds a special place in our heart and will likely never have contact with him again.
We prayed for Abdiel and decided to write one last letter stating we wished to continue contact somehow and wanted to still support him and his family so that he can continue in school. We are hoping that one of the World Vision workers there in the field may be able to get it to one of his family members who may be able to get it to him…again, we realize this is unlikely.
“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it”. Proverbs 22:6 We pray for this truth for Abdiel and we know we want to adopt/sponsor another child but are unsure of whether or not we want to go through World Vision or another entity. Does anyone reading this have experience they can share with us to help us make our decision?
And, of course…no blog post would be complete with out a little Lainey love. This girl of ours, I tell you what-we love her more every day:
