Ultrasound Picture

Labor is Progressing!

I just received a call from our social worker and we aren't going to have to wait until Monday to see our precious baby's face. She is emailing me three pictures as we speak. Worst part is that I am going to have to wait until Matt gets back from Sam's to open the email . At the last minute he decided to go with my parent's to Sam's after our celebratory lunch at Red Lobster.

My heart is racing...My hands are shaking.

Labor Has Finally Begun!!!

Well, the call that we have been waiting for for nearly 6 years came this morning at 11:37. Our precious Emma will be making her way to her forever family. At this time all we know is her Chinese name, Gao, Jiana. In China the surname is first and is the same for all children in the orphanage and then Jiana is her first name. She was born on 4/27/10, which is almost one month older than Ethan. She is currently at the Gaozhou Social Welfare Institute in the Guangdong Provence.

We will be receiving a UPS package on Monday which will have pictures and more information. We will post more then, so check back and check often to keep up with how our labor progresses.

Blessed be the name of the Lord God Almighty! He is faithful!!!

A Humble Heart

I sit here before my computer now kind of in a state of shock. I don't really know why I should be shocked by God's goodness or His faithfulness. Well, maybe it's not that I'm shocked about the character of my God but rather by the love and generosity of our friends.

Before I explain, let me say that I feel a little apprehensive about sharing this personal event in such an open platform. However, when I think back as to why I even started this blog, my primary purpose was to journal about this incredible journey that the Lord has lead us on. I didn't want to forget the biggest of ups nor did I want to forget the lowest of lows. I want to remember what the Lord has brought us through and then to pass that story along to Emma someday. So... I choose to blog.

Right now I am so humbled by the love of our friends. I'm talking true friends. Friends who willingly take on our burdens as their own. Friends who have chosen to walk this hard road of adoption right along beside us. We are often so weak from this journey that we have been on for almost 6 years, so weak that it is all we can do to take the next step. I truly believe that the only way we have taken some of those steps has been because our precious friends have held us up, taking that very step with us. There just isn't enough words in the English language to tell how much they all me to us.

Our dear friends Kyle and Katie have such a heart for adoption and have recently really been praying about how they could obey God's call to care for the orphans. Come to find out, as they were praying about what their role could look like, Kyle received a call about a side job that would use his technological talents. As God opened this door they saw God calling them to care for one orphan especially, our Emma. They knew that God had opened this door as a way for them to give toward the ransom we need to bring Emma home to her forever family.

Let me just say that this has been no easy task. Thankfully though this task was made a little easier with the help of some extra willing hands. Thank you so much John for your role in this job, whether it was helping run wires or keeping Kyle sane. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed. But I have to stop and say a big "thank you" to Katie and Sherry. Thank you for giving up your husbands for this project. All the time they spent working was time spent away from you and the kids. You ladies had to pick up the slack at home while your husbands were unavailable and as a mom myself I say thank you, thank you, thank you.

Much has been sacrificed to get this side job done and praise God as of tonight, the job is finished! God has graciously chosen to bless financially more than I could have ever imagined. So tonight I want to stop and remember this moment and really take in just how good and how big my God is.

Daddy's Gift

My husband, Matt, has just been dying to buy Emma something to wear. He has been pestering me for the last several years to buy her some kind of outfit, however, with me being the realist in this relationship, I quickly pointed out that we have no idea what size, nor the season, we would be bringing Emma home. So, I would always convince him to hold off.

About a month ago I came across an adoption blog and the latest post had a picture of this beautiful little girl but I was drawn to the onesie that she was wearing. I quickly sent Matt the picture off the blog and told him that I would love to have one for Emma. Well, a couple of weeks ago I got a surprise package in the mail.
Matt had done his research and to my surprise…




Here’s Emma’s first official article of clothing, bought by her Daddy.

Worth the Wait

I’ve previously mentioned how I was beginning to see cracks in the protective fortress I’ve built around my heart by allowing myself to start feeling excited at the prospect of getting our referral soon. What I failed to mention was the pain that I’ve also exposed. It’s the pain of a mother’s heart that longs to rock her baby to sleep, to smother her with kisses each morning and to comfort her lonely heart. There is a pain so deep and so strong that has been caused by a hole in my heart, a hole that God himself has made in my heart, and it’s a hole that only Emma Katriel can fill.

We have recently been told by our adoption agency that our educational hours have now increased from 12 hours (already completely years ago) to 30 hours. That’s 18 more hours between now and the time we travel. Oh, my! This is a new policy and Bethany is graciously working with families, like us, that are close to receiving referrals and have asked that we simply make an honest effort to try and complete this requirement. We are currently reading an excellent book entitled “The Connected Child”.

Now as several of you know, Matt isn’t much into reading, unless it’s the Salt Water fishing magazine, so I usually just read out-loud to him. We also have to take every opportunity we can to read in order to try and finish this requirement, opportunities such as reading in the car as we go to church, our small group, or whatever outing we may be on.

Last Sunday, as we were driving to church, I began reading the chapter “Where Your Child Begins” and in this chapter it discussed the growing baby’s first home and the unseen risk associated with isolation and institutionalization and the importance of attachment. The authors discussed the importance of being held and how often children in institutions simply can’t be held as much as they may need, or want, to be held. They went on to point out that these babies no longer cry out with their request to be held because the need has gone unmet so often that they simply give up asking.

My heart simply broke and the tears came cascading down at the thought of my baby girl lying in a crib, crying out, and nobody to hold her. I prayed right then “Please God, please send someone to love on my baby until I can go and get her”.

I so long for the day that I can wrap my arms around Emma, kiss her little tear stained face and tell her that her Mommy will never leave her and will always love her, just as she is, unconditionally. I also know that in that very moment every tear that I have shed, every ache in my heart will be worth it all.

Let the Walls Come Down

As you can tell, it has been a long time since I've blogged and it feels kind of funny. I almost forgot how this thing works. So hang in there as I get into the groove once again.

So much has happened since I last posted. My husband was "temporarily" laid off from his new job. Praise God, he did start back this week after two years. During this lay off period he had to take a job in Tennessee in order to provide. What a hard time on all of us but with God's help we did survive the long distance thing. Let me tell you, I have so much more compassion for single mothers now.

Even during this hard dark time, God chose to bring us some sunshine. An eight pound bundle of sunshine came into our lives on May 25 by the name of Ethan Blaine. After Matt was laid off we really wrestled with how long the adoption wait was and we knew we wanted to have one more biological child and then there was the fact that I was 40, not a lot of time left, if you know what I mean. We felt we were living in bondage because everything in our lives seemed to be on hold because we didn't want to do anything that would affect the adoption or that would cause us to have to do any more paperwork, which also cost more money. We finally came to the realization that God did not call us to live a life of bondage, but rather an abundant life. We then decided that just as soon as he found a job and the insurance kicked in, we would start trying for another baby. God is so good, let me tell you.

We never really could understand why God opened the door for Matt to find a job in Chattanooga. I mean we needed him here with us. We are family and aren't families supposed to be together? Once again I'm reminded that God is all-knowing and I am not. Five weeks after our baby was born I was hit hard with postpartum depression. I was standing in the middle of Wal-Mart of all places. I called Matt sobbing and told him that he needed to come and get me. I'm sure it was an interesting sight for all the on-lookers at Wal-Mart that day. Anyway, Matt immediately hopped in his car and drove the 5 hours from Chattanooga to get me and take me back to where he was staying with his family. This was probably the darkest point in my life and I can't possibly explain it and one cannot understand it unless you have walk this dark valley yourself. The worst part to me was that I felt like who I was as a person was gone forever and that I had some stranger living in my body. Everyone would tell me to hang in there and that things would get better. I don't know that I believed it because every day I would ask Matt "Am I ever going to get any better?" Well, sure enough after getting the right medication and allowing weeks for it to kick in things did indeed start getting better. It then all became very clear to me why God had opened the door for Matt to be in Chattanooga, we needed to be in Chattanooga at that point in our lives for Matt's mom and sisters to be able to take over the care of our two boys. I couldn't even take care of myself, let alone to take care of the boys. I will always be grateful to Matt's family for loving and caring for my boys when I could not.

In September the boys and I headed back home to start settling into a routine and things have gone great. Now we get to get use to a "new normal" with Daddy being back home, but I don't mind. The boys are excited to have Daddy home too, especially Eli. For two years Eli and I would pray that Daddy would get the call to go back to work and so it was a special time for me to be able to tell Eli that God did hear and answer his prayer. Way cool!

As far as the adoption goes, we were put "on hold" because of the birth of our baby. You can be on hold for no longer than 6 months and come February 6 our time will expire. So, we had to write a letter to the CCAA (Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs) and request to be reinstated. Basically that means that we are still interested and want to proceed with the adoption process. Our home study also expired in December and so we had to go through all the paperwork to get that caught back up. Praise God, we received word today that this past Friday, January 21, our paperwork had been sent to China. We are told that it could take a week to get there and then it will have to be translated, which could take another week. The bad thing is that the Chinese New Year is February 3 and everything shuts down for a couple of weeks. I'm sure we will be affected by this holiday somehow. Now, the CCAA does have the right to say they will not take us off hold in order to continue in the program. However, Bethany, our agency, has said they have never seen that happen. What most likely will happen is that the CCAA will review our paperwork to verify that we still meet their criteria and that we are in good standing with Bethany, then they will place us in the next batch of referrals.

I feel like we are sooo close to getting a referral, closer than we have ever been for sure. I'm actually getting a little excited but yet I find I'm still guarding my heart. I've recently come to understand that I have build up walls around my heart to try and protect myself from all the hurt that this journey brings. Now I'm not talking thin walls made of particle board but thick ones made out of the biggest, heaviest boulders around. However, I do believe there is a big crack in my wall, it's starting to become a little unstable. I find myself dreaming about the first time I lay my eyes on the photo of my precious baby girl, or the first time that she is placed in my arms and when I think about these moments tears start to form in my eyes, another crack. Is it possible that we are indeed this close? That this part of the journey is almost over? I am so tired and weary, please God help me to place one foot in front of the other as we draw closer to Emma. God, bring her home and let the wall come crashing down.