A new name

A new title now graces our blog. We feel it accurately reflects our journey and the development of our faith through this entire process. We have been led by God throughout this entire journey. He has carried us and our children through every trial and set back. We are forever thankful for his love and grace.

You may remember...(part 1)

that in this post here, number 9 mentioned we had other news to share. As of today, we are now able to share our glorious news!!

WE HAVE A DAUGHTER!!!!

Introducing Sophia Senait who was born in Ethiopia.

We do understand that this is a shock to some. Last year, God made it clear to us that our daughter would not be coming from China. Our sons would be from China, but our daughter...well, she would be from somewhere else in the world. Where we still did not know but we felt a tug in our hearts from Africa.

When my mom had her stroke in July, we were certain her time on Earth would soon be coming to an end. She continued to pray that she be allowed to see all of her grandchildren that God had planned for us at least once. She would jokingly say many times - especially each time we told her of her newest grandson - "when are you going to adopt a girl?". But, once she saw the faces of our little men, she would immediately say we have to get them home as soon as possible because they were a part of our family. During an especially difficult time with her health, I knelt and prayed that God complete our family as soon as possible so my children would have the opportunity to know there Memaw. Later that day I spoke with my mom on the phone. After hanging up I heard God's voice say "Ok Sheila, it's time to find your daughter".

Admittedly, this both thrilled and freaked me out. What God was asking...no telling was for us to begin concurrent adoptions...that means adopting from China and "somewhere else" at.the.same.time. Are you kidding me?? We were already stretched adopting Sawyer so close on the heels of Simon. (For those of you keeping up with the timeline, yes, this is before God chose us to adopt Shepherd!) But, we had already learned through this adoption process that the very act of faith was one of jumping off a cliff with no idea what lay below. God, however, has caught us each and every time.
All of this praying and freaking out led to us doing a lot and I mean a lot of research on other adoption programs. Each and every time, however, we would come back to Africa and then to Ethiopia. There is a lot of controversy in the international adoption world right now. Controversy which centers around baby stealing, selling children, marketing children for profit, etc. We are not oblivious to this and no country is immune, even ours. To that end, we pledged to research our agency options thoroughly before diving headlong into an Ethiopian adoption. Our China agency had a program, but we did not feel led to adopt with them in any other program but China. We interviewed several agencies and spoke with several families across the US who had adopted from these agencies. We settled on our current agency with a Christian base and real people who had adopted internationally so truly understood the process.
We updated our homestudy and filed additional paperwork with USCIS. Then Mom had open heart surgery, the slowdown in Ethiopia hit and God sent us on the road to Shepherd and we thought, hmmmm, did we take the wrong "call" and misread God's intentions for our life? We resigned ourselves to waiting it out. We were strapped financially trying to pay for 3 adoptions at the same time and thought maybe God was giving us a breather...and He did. Until the day before we left for China.
I still remember our agency director calling, asking how I was, asking how things were going and then saying a bunch of stuff I don't remember because all I heard was "Are you interested in seeing the file of a baby girl?" My heart stopped. Was I, really? We were about to leave for China to get not one, but TWO boys. Are we really ready to see/take on/fall in love with a daughter at the same time? YEP!!! Oh, and by the way, did you notice her Ethiopian name begins with an "S"? Talk about a God wink!! But, there was a catch...of course. If we accepted the referral one of us may have to be in Ethiopia for court on June 17th. I looked at the calendar. We weren't coming back until June 10th. Holy macaroni! So, I talked to Scott and he said in his silver lining, trusting in God relaxed manner, "If this is our daughter, God will help us figure it out". And He did.

New addition...

As if our house wasn't full enough....



Introducing Sugar...or as Paula Dean would say "Suga". Sugar is an American Staffy mix from the McKamey Animal Shelter in Chattanooga. Most of you know we lost our German Shepherd, Ginger, in June to complications from old age. Our house has been quiet since then. We really miss having a dog in the house, well, Samuel and I do anyway. We just intended to "look" and see how the littles did but Sugar stole Samuel's heart. Simon and Sawyer really liked her too. Shepherd? Not so much but she is growing on him. She is not overly hyper but the biguns run her around the house and down to the barn which is exercising all of them!

My only saving grace is I don't have to share the bathroom with her too!!!

S6

Fun pics for your viewing pleasure

Some truths about adopting older children

Most people, who don't know us, assume we adopted our children as babies. Their limited knowledge allows them to safely assume that ALL adoptions are of babies/toddlers. This, of course, isn't the case as children as old as 18 can be adopted nationally. Internationally, the maximum age can range from 14 to 17 depending on the country. What this means for the adopting parent varies but one truth is constant; after a certain age, you are no longer adopting a child, you are adopting a fully formed person with his/her own attitudes and idiosyncrasies.

For us, each of our children has presented a different set of challenges. Simon was our first adoption. We like to think we were on a learning curve with him. Some things we did well, some things...not so well. He attached fairly quickly and took to his new name and home with gusto. Simon wanted to be American in every sense of the word so there was no convincing to learn English. He shied away from Chinese/Asian people and clung to us for dear life. In 1.5 years, he has grown 5 inches (from a size 5 to a size 8!) and gone from being a non reader to reading on a 2nd grade level. He loves sports and trying new things. I think he loves school the most which totally baffles his older brother. Challenges with him included is refusal to cry or show any emotion and his fear of disappointing us to the point it sometimes paralyzes his ability to speak or act. The last challenge was/has caused the most difficult adjustment for all of us. It can be very frustrating to be ask your child a question and have him stammer or stand at attention even though there is nothing to worry about. Overall, given the things we are trained to expect, our first adoption was more than we could have hoped.

Our 2nd and 3rd adoptions still provide us with interesting insights into our children and the lives they led before us. Having completely different stories and backgrounds, Sawyer and Shepherd each have their own set of challenges. Sawyer is still struggling with trust issues and showing affection freely/spontaneously. Telling him "No" when he is doing something which could harm him can cause him to breakdown sobbing uncontrollably or he can look at you and say "yes, mama/baba". We are still trying to figure out his triggers. He does not read Chinese so there is a limit to our communication with him. We have utilized sign language and pictures. He is very much like Simon in that he wants to learn English. He continually points to everything asking us what it is. Sawyer is quiet, however, and tends to blend into the background. We have to make a conscious effort to acknowledge him because of this. His self esteem is something we are always working on so that we can continue to build him up.

Shepherd....ahhh Shepherd, our little firecracker. Our over-the-top, spoiled rotten bundle of energy and mischief. Shepherd does not want to let go of his Chinese and we have respected that. He is totally full of himself - confidence is definitely not an issue for him. He hates to take a nap but we hate it when he doesn't :) He's a fiddler and nosey, thinks everything is his or his business and loves to be loved. He gives affection freely and has the most adorable faces and expressions. Shepherd and Samuel have similar personalities which means they both love and irritate each other at the same time! We have to make a conscious effort to not dote on Shepherd too much. I know that may cause people to judge us negatively as parents but it is human nature to gravitate to what is easy. Shepherd is easy but that doesn't mean we love our other children less. We are just aware that being young, little, and cute can sometimes cause us to play or love on him more.

Adopting two also presents challenges. First, language acquisition is slower because they have each other to speak with. Scott causes it their "twin language" as our guide said he sometimes did not understand what they were saying even though he knows it was Chinese. The interesting thing about that is the boys are not only from two different provinces but two completely different parts of China. This means the boys speak Mandarin but the dialects should be very different but they seem to have made up for that and have no problems communicating. Adopting two also means you have to work harder on the adjustment process because each child will have different needs. This can be exhausting but no less fulfilling. It is also important to not leave out your children who may already be in the home. We try to give alone time to each of our children. This can be as simple as reading a book or walking with them outside. With four children and with us both working full time, whole days are difficult but a few hours here and there are doable and necessary. We also have to find time for ourselves which, admittedly, often happens after the brood goes to bed. Going from 1 to 4 in less than 2 years has been a lot for our family but God has brought us the children we need and taught us how to not only be better parents, but better people. We are so blessed to understand the true meaning of FAMILY and plan to continue to grow our family in the way we have been LED.

S6

Mystery

The first day as brothers....



Finally...all together in Guangzhou...

Blogger is officially a mystery to me. It stopped working for me while we were in China which is why the updates stopped. After several attempts to work with blogger, I haven't been able to reconnect. I can type my posts here but then must log on to my iPad in order to post. A pain to say the least but it is working for now. So, here are the highlights....

1. Enjoyed Safari Park in Guangzhou.

2. Bought the Little Emperor (aka Shepherd) a stroller in Guangzhou because carrying him was a little to much.

3. Medical was a breeze, no crying and no bad results or info.

4. Flight home was ok. Love Korean Air if only because they totally dote on the children. I think Shepherd would cry sometimes just to be totally surrounded by lovely flight attendants.

5. Transition, for the most part has been great. Shepherd still has issues sleeping through the night and is a picky eater but he is a delight and lots of fun. He also told me he loved me, unsolicited, in Chinese last week which melted my heart. He is trying to hold on to his Chinese which we are encouraging and will be enrolled in a Pre K program which has a native Mandarin speaker. He is my lovely dovey and is very much like Samuel. Sawyer is doing well, especially given his history, but is still working through his attachment issues. He does not spontaneously tell us he loves us, but he has a ready smile and gives hugs and kisses freely. He wants to learn English badly and is constantly asking us to tell him what something is. He will be going to Kindergarten in the same early elementary Simon attended so they are accustomed to my children. Sawyer is very much like Simon. He likes to play alone sometimes, loves puzzles and wants to learn. God knew, of course, what he was doing when he gave us these boys.

6. Samuel is doing well with the transition. He loves that the littles are little and he can help take care of them. He also likes that they are short!! Simon is still trying to figure out where he fits in this family now but loves his little brothers. Although, the other day, he did say he wasn't sure if he could handle 2 little brothers :)

7. Scott is in hog heaven of course. He is surrounded by testosterone and little boys who like to fiddle. I think he hated going back to work but loves coming home to choruses of "Daddy" and "Baba".

8. I'm tired... :) Going from 2 to 4 has been a transition from cooking to laundry to dishes. Bathroom time is always interesting given we only have the one. We are still trying to sell our house so if you know someone who would love a small, lovely farmhouse in Georgia, please send them our way! For the first time in 5 years, I have taken the summer off (with the exception of about 5 days). It has been great spending time with the boys.

9. We have other news but can't share for a bit yet. Never a dull moment in our house!!

10. The boys have been to their first minor league baseball game, swimming in a pool, birthday party, and children's museum. Haven't tried the movies yet because Shepherd can't sit still.

So, I hope that updates you to date. I will say God has truly blessed our lives. I have said before on this blog that I never considered myself the "mom" type and I still stand by that self assessment. I will say, however, that God gives us what we need and what He gave me in my late 30's has been patience and an abundance of love for these beautiful children - all of them.

Blessings,

S6