Adoption Talk

Isn't this one of the cutest faces you've ever seen?  Micah LOVES bath time and his sister thought it would be funny to give him a mohawk with his wet hair. :)  We just LOVE this little boy and what JOY he has brought to our lives!

I am loving all the opportunities I am having to talk about adoption with friends and total strangers.  I get asked questions in restaurants, at the grocery store, at the ball fields, etc.  Everyone who sees Micah falls in love with him and that contagious little smile and I promote adoption every chance I get with Micah as my visual aid. :)  What an incredible thing it would be to us if Micah's journey would encourage even just one family to adopt and change the life of even one more child!  That is our prayer!

Post Visits

Well, today the report for our second post-placement visit was due to Dillon, our adoption agency in Oklahoma.  We had our visit from our caseworker last week and everything went well.

Micah weighs 18 lbs. now.  I can't believe he has gained 3 lbs in the 2 1/2 months he's been home.  He is doing so much more than he did even at our first post-placement visit in March.  He is now walking everywhere!  He gives kisses and will say, "shhh," holding his finger up to his lips.  He now has 5 words in his vocabulary...mama, dada, uh-oh, hi, and ball!  He is also sleeping through the night in his own big boy bed in his room with his big brother!

Our last post visit will be in August and we are hoping to be able to finalize Micah's adoption at the end of August or the first of September!  Yeah!  

Blood:Water Mission

I found out yesterday about a mission project started by the Contemporary Christian Music group Jars of Clay.  It is called Blood:Water Mission.  Please check them out to find out more about what they do.  I think it is an amazing ministry, and they make it so easy to make a difference in someone's life.  The mission is building wells in villages in Africa so that the children there can have clean water.  This alone saves lives physically.  However, by building the wells, they gain access to the villages and can then help with HIV/AIDS education, medication, etc., and it gives them a chance to share the Gospel of Christ which REALLY saves lives!  They say that a $1 donation equals to clean water for 1 person for 1 year!  Isn't that amazing?  Just one more reason I'm a Jars of Clay fan! :)

Poster Child!

My husband took this photo on Sunday when he and Micah were walking around outside the restaurant waiting for the rest of us to finish.  I don't know what Micah was thinking, I do know he was tired.  He looks so sad, like the poster child for India Adoption or Compassion or some agency like that.  It is definitely not the norm.  Usually he is all smiles.  For some reason, when I look at this photo, I can't help but think about where Micah came from and how different his life could have been if we had not said, "YES," to adoption. 

We had a very smooth experience, but India was a very difficult place for me to be.  I was overwhelmed by the negatives to say the least.  The poverty, the hot weather, the smog and sulfur smell in the air, the frustration with the money differences, feeling out of place and always on our guard, and that is just the beginning.  At one point I had called our caseworker here in the states and was very discouraged.  She reminded me that this was my son's birth country, and for his sake and mine, I needed to focus on and remember the positives.  

Now that we are back home and I think back, there are some wonderful things I will remember...

• ANJU...our very precious orphanage director.  You could just sense her love for the children and her desire for their well-being.
• HOTEL STAFF...the gracious staff at the Hyatt in Kolkata who did everything to make us comfortable and who loved on Micah the whole time we were there.
• SNUGGLES...Micah falling asleep on me right after leaving the orphanage.  I got to just sit and love on him the whole way back to the hotel.
• COLORS...the beautiful colors of the the women's clothing and jewelry.
• THANKS...the random Indian couples who asked if Micah was ours and then thanked us for doing their country a great social service by adopting a baby from there.
• AIRPORT...our last look back over our shoulders at Micah's birth city before we got on the plane to leave.

I have a journal to record everything for Micah.  He will grow up an Indian American, but I hope that the little glimpse of his homeland and the time we spent there with him will be something he will cherish forever.

Mother's Day!

What a wonderful Mother's Day...I had all 4 of my children with me!  I feel so, so blessed.  I wouldn't trade being a mommy for anything in the world.  There are times I would like to fly them to their Nana's for a week so that I could get some sleep, but that's another story. :)

My children are so talented and wonderful!  Does every Mom feel that way? :)  Hallie wrote me a beautiful story about Mother's Day and Emma wrote me an interactive song and played it for me on the piano while I looked at my card.  Nathan made me some egg carton flowers at pre-school and last night and today Micah started holding my cheeks in his little hands and giving me kisses...open mouth, sound effects and all!  

Last night while I was lying down with Micah I couldn't help but think about his birth mom and what she is like.  I wonder where she is and what she looks like.  I touched Micah's soft curls and the small cleft in his chin and wondered if they come from her.  I am sad for her that she will never know the little treasure that her sacrifice has allowed me to gain.

My heart is full, and my husband would say our "quiver" is full. :)  Whatever the case, as my children are all asleep in their beds, I am saying a prayer of "thanks" to my heavenly Father for the amazing gift called "motherhood!"

"The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a great one."  Jill Churchill

India Bloggers

Just after we came home from India with Micah, Compassion International took a mission team to Kolkata.  I wish so desperately that I could have gone with them, but there was no way to leave Micah after just arriving home.  To be honest, I'm not sure I would have returned right away anyway.  The emotions and memories were still too near the surface for me.  

Recently, a friend of mine and fellow adoptive mom, let me know that Beth Moore's (an incredible Bible Teacher and speaker) daughter was in India on that trip with Compassion and that she was blogging about her trip on her mom's site.  I have checked out her posts and they are great!  Reading them brought back some memories and made me cry.  You can read about her experiences on the India trip at lproof.org.   

Sean Groves, a singer, songwriter, was also on the same India trip and is a huge supporter of Compassion's ministry.  I am very excited that he will be at our church this month doing a concert and promoting Compassion.  I can't wait!

Heat Wave

We got an e-mail this week from Dillon International, our adoption agency that both made me sad and glad at the same time.  They let us know that they were sending 4 air-conditioners to ISRC and Matre Sneha, Micah's orphanage in Kolkata.  Apparently they are having a very hard time with the extreme heat which has started very early this summer.  The e-mail said that it has been starting over 100 degrees each day.  I cannot even imagine.  When we were there in February it was around 88 each day.  I remember when we were at the orphanage being thankful for the ceiling fans and the small movement of air they provided, even if it was air from off the street from the open windows.  We were sweating just walking around taking pictures of all the precious children.  It makes me sad to think of the children there now in their cribs in the awful heat.  I look at Micah sitting on the floor in our living room, cool as a cucumber and I am so grateful.  

All that to say this...I am so thankful for our adoption agency.  As soon as they heard the need, they quickly sent the money for air conditioners to be put in the orphanage.  I know the Ayahs and the babies are going to be so grateful.  Our agency is able to do this only by contributions made by families around the country!  We now have an interest in their humanitarian work across the ocean. :) It makes it so much more personal that we were just there and got to experience the heat for ourselves.  We are going to try to get a couple of community groups at our church to join together to do a car wash with the donations going to help Dillon and the babies at Matre Sneha...an adoption agency in Oklahoma and a little orphanage on the other side of the world now very dear to our hearts!