Saturday, August 14, 2010

The Beginning

It's a little misleading to say that today is the beginning.  It's the first day of my blog, this is true.  But the first day of this journey to adopt little Alice Faith from Eastern Europe began years ago.

I have always wanted to adopt, but my husband Erin felt that if we were able to have children there was no need to adopt.  He also felt it was way too expensive.  So, I prayed.  I prayed for the Lord to soften his heart towards adoption.  Watching Erin's heart do just that was so sweet!  What a gift the Lord gave me to watch that happen.  Around Christmas time of 2009 Erin said, "Let's do it!"  I jumped in with 2 feet (as I do most things) and found us an agency in Georgia.  When we had talked about adopting we agreed that it would be from this country (because there are plenty of orphans here and because we didn't like the idea of meeting the child and having to leave him/her and come back) and that it would be a newborn baby.  In February we completed most of the paperwork for our home study.  That was a blog post of it's own.  Let's just say it took us 2 months to finish the rest of our home study. So, by April we had a completed home study and I sent it off the agency in GA.  We received an email telling us that we'd hear back from them in 3-4 weeks.  6 weeks later I called them.  They had lost our application.  2 weeks later they found it.  We needed to send in more paperwork and more money.  Here's where our adoption path started to turn.

It's not that we didn't want to adopt.  We still did.  But, things started to happen that prevented us from sending in the money.  And our hearts were starting to open up to special needs.  Something we had never considered before.  We talked and talked and talked about special needs.  Maybe Down Syndrome.  We knew 2 couples in our church that had children with DS.  Those children are wonderful.  We had them over for dinner.  I talked the mom's ear off!  Asked questions.  I called the other mom on the phone.  More questions.  We talked as a couple.  We prayed.  We were nervous.  What about when we're "empty nesters"?  We won't ever be alone again?  What about when we die?  Most of our questions were about us.  Never about the child with DS.

So, our adoption looked as though it was stopped.  We didn't want that, but nothing was happening.  One day I was reading an article in Above Rubies magazine.  The author wrote about orphans in Eastern Europe that had DS and how unloved they were.  About how at around the age of 4 if they aren't adopted they are transferred to an asylum where 95% of them didn't make it to adulthood.  I went from the article to the website for Reece's Rainbow.  I was hooked.  I looked at all the sweet faces and fell in LOVE.

When I showed the website to Erin, he was worried about the money.  Because he's a good provider for our family he worries about these things.  He looked some more.  This was Thursday night.  Friday night we looked and talked some more.  By Sunday, he told me we should find out how to get the money and to get us one of those babies!

He felt that we should get a girl.  I wanted a boy.  We have 3 girls then 2 boys.  I wanted to even the numbers up.  He said that when the kids are grown and married, it would be nice for me to have a girl to be with in the house.  I love that he thinks of things like that.

So, we decided on a girl that Reece's Rainbow named "Valerie".  We will name her Alice Faith.  Alice means Noble, True.  Faith is because God said step and I'll build you a bridge.  Not, I'll build you a bridge and you can step.

Sorry this was sooooo long.  I wanted to get the story out from the beginning....sort of.

4 comments:

  1. I am so excited that you are my family! I am excited to be able to help Alice grow and be independent. I pray for her every day. Love you!

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  2. Brought tears to my eyes...thanks for posting!

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  3. I'm so excited for you guys! Thank you very much for sharing this part of your lives here. Your burden for adopting and the joy you show is a blessing and an encouragement to me! I will certainly be keeping you guys in prayer.

    Blessings,

    Love,

    Elena

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  4. I am so very excited for this journey the Lord is taking you guys on. As you well know I have an Uncle with DS. He has brought so much joy to our family and has taught us to have child-like faith. Jackie, age 40, is in the process of dying, and although it is a sad time, we have been so blessed to have had him as part of our family.
    I pray Alice will bring you as much joy as Uncle Jackie has to our family. I wish we were still down South and could witness this experience first hand with you all. We love you lots and miss you. Please know that many prayers will be lifted up to our Father here in Maryland for Alice and your precious family.
    Love,
    Leah

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