Here Comes the Sun

Fast forward to present day..... We are in the process of adopting Abe, who we now call Luke. We will hopefully finalize on Aug.9, 2007!! yay! Terry also still lives here, but we won't find out about adoption possibilities until fall. And... We are also adopting a sweet little girl from Serbia who is almost 2 years old, and has Down Syndrome!! We are very excited. We should be going to Serbia this fall sometime. We did get a bit of bad news, though. We had wanted to adopt 2 DS children from Serbia at the same time, but we got news yesterday that they were not going to allow this. :( It is ridiculous. There is no reason not to let us, other than they just have never allowed it before, and why start now. So, we'll find our next child in a different country. Or maybe right here at home. you never know. anyway, her current name is Elena, and we will call her Aunika after she gets home. Such a pretty little girl! I can't wait to snuggle her. Jacob was so precious to us, that we knew we wanted to adopt another child with DS. And Luke did 2 adorable things today I wanted to record. He came in the bathroom just as I was getting out of the shower. I had the towel around me, but my legs and feet still had water on them. Luke grabbed a clean washrag and kneeled down and started drying my legs and feet. It was so sweet. It reminded me of when Jesus washed his disciples feet. It really touched me. He was so serious about it! Then later in the day, just he and I were in the van. we were singing Popcorn Popping. Well, it was mostly a solo by me, but when I finished, Luke said "Good boy, mommy! Good boy!" it was so cute. I thanked him appropriately. Terry has had a rough week. I can't wait until visits with bio dad are done! He bit Luke on the arm tonight. He has just been extra whiney and defiant lately. Poor kid doesn't know what is going on.

Hello, Goodbye

this will be my effort at wrapping up the past. We met precious Jacob on Tuesday, signed papers on Wednesday, and brought him home Thursday! How is that for 0-3 kids in two weeks! He was fed with an NG tube (from his nose to his stomach), so we quickly learned how to care for him, and the other babies. We had quite the routine down. Jacob was always the "easy one". So happy, and just content. He even slept through the night. I don't want to drag it all out too much and make it more painful than it already is. Sixteen days past his first birthday, our Sweet Jacob passed away. Look at that sweet face. I miss seeing him, holding him, hearing him babble. My arms still physically ache to hold him. I want to smell his sweet baby skin again. I never knew sorrow could cause such physical pain. What a ray of sunshine he was. This is much harder than I thought. I can't even write more about that right now.

Till There Was You

Hmmmm......where to begin. Clear at the beginning? Nah, too far back. how about a brief synopsis. After 9 fun yet childless years of marriage, my husband and I decided to be foster parents. First we got Terry, age 2.5, followed 2 days later by baby brother Abe, age 2 months. They were adorable and we loved them instantly. We were certain they would eventually go back to their birth mom, but we loved them like they were ours in the meantime. a short week and a half later, our licensing worker called and said they had a 1 month old baby boy with Down Syndrome available for adoption, and would we be interested. Uh, YEAH!!! My husband and I have a special place in our hearts for children with DS. Scott's baby brother has DS and we adore him. We were so excited about adopting such a special boy, and also a little frightened. We met the birth mom the next day. She felt comfortable with us immediately, and asked us to be precious little Jacob's family. Then we got to go to the hospital and meet our new SON!!! It was very exciting/scary/overwhelming/etc. We looked at that face, and saw those CHEEKS!! Oh, what a precious boy. So much for the BRIEF synopsis. This may take many days to finish, before I can even start writing about our current event. Oh, well. Stay tuned.....