After 2 Weeks.......

The babies have been home for 2 weeks now and they are already making so much progress. The first few days were home, the just sat in the playroom. They didn't want to play, didn't want to be held, and they hardly moved. They would just sit there and rock to the music we had playing the background. Today is a totally different story. They've all discovered the excitement of exploration. They love playing in the playroom (formally our formal dining room), but they've also figured out that other parts of the house are exciting as well.

Vanessa likes to crawl on top of the other kids. If you lay down in the room she will usually crawl on top of you and get as close to your face as possible. She loves to explore our faces with her eyes and her hands and she always wants to kiss..... big slobbery kisses! When she wanders outside of the playroom she usually ends up in the kitchen. She's so much fun......

Elijah has discovered the cabinets and, of course, the pots and pans. He would spend hours banging pots and pans together. He also like to find the dog water and tip it over. Then he gets himself soaked by playing in the water. When we bring him in our room he makes a b-line for our shower. It's a big walk-in double shower and he absolutely loves it. Of all of the kids, he explores the most.

Elisa has progressed the most though. She seemed so miserable the first few days, but she has come out of her shell. She is very attentive and is always looking for us. When we walk around the corner she immediately makes eye contact and then smiles the biggest most beautiful smile. Whenever we walk near her she reaches for us and gives us a huge hug. She doesn't wander around too much, but when she does, she finds the closed carpeted area that she can..... and then lays down face first on the carpet. It must feel soothing to her. She still loves her music also. We crank up the stereo in the house and she bobs her head and claps her hands. We're so happy with how much she's warmed up to us.

Oh and they all LOVE bath time now. At first they screamed and cried, but now we have trouble getting them to get out of the tub. They've also put on some weight. The girls have each gained 4 pounds since coming home and Elijah has gained 2 pounds. I guess that's what American food will do for you.

Overall, the transition has been much better than we expected. The kids sleep through the night, they go down for nap time, they eat well, and they've warmed up to all of the other kiddos. Although they've all had runny noses since we got home, they have been such a joy. We are sooooo blessed with these three angels and we are so thankful for how smooth this transition has been. Here are some recent pics of the kids playing:

About our Kids

I wanted to go back to a few of the questions that were asked in the comments. I know my husband is an awesome blogger and he should be the one to always write, but I had this on my mind today. Someone had asked before about how old all of our kids were. If you guys are just starting to read I understand that a lot of you don't really know all of this.

Our oldest daughter is Faith. She is 12 years old. Then we have Grace who is 9, and Noelle who is almost 7. After Noelle was born we decided to adopt domestically. We adopted Dylan (10), Christian (9), and Haily (almost 7). They were a sibling group available through the state. During this adoption we got pregnant with Emma. She is now almost 4. The babies we just adopted are Elisa (almost 3), Elijah (almost 2) and Vanessa (almost 2).

Our oldest daughter went with Tony to the Ukraine to bring the babies home. She is such an amazing person. She loves the babies and loves to help out. I know God has so many great things in store for her life. She is the first one to respond when the babies cry or need anything. She has been such a great help to me.

I am so happy with the progress of the babies. Yesterday we had a baby shower for them. They did so well with everyone holding them and picking them up. They love to sing and dance. This has truly been an amazing experience that I recommend anyone do if they feel called to do so. I am so excited every time I look at Reece's Rainbow and see more babies finding homes. I am really happy about Vivienne and Laura finding homes. I tried so hard to see them when I was there. I believe she was sleeping in the baby bed beside me because it was her room I was in. They had her laying in a bouncy seat in her crib. All the babies there looked well loved and well cared for. I hope everyone reading this knows that the babies where we adopted from were all loved so much by their caregivers!!

Here are some pictures of before we adopted since I do not have current ones of all of us. This way you can see our entire family before that new babies.

Leah and the kids on our cruise (top right is Laura, our French exchange student)

The Whole Family (before the babies)

All the kids on the beach......

Faith (The responsible one and the second mother of our house)

Dylan (our big hearted boy)

Grace (the spunky one)

Christian (Our boy with a million questions)

Noelle (the sensitive one)

Haily (all smiles or all tears)


Emma (The spoiled one)

Emma on the beach

The sun is always shining......

Since many of you who read our blog are either thinking about adopting or are already in the process, I thought I would share some of my general thoughts while they are still fresh on my mind. First let me point out that our adoption was not the smoothest or quickest process. We began the process in Feb-09 and had along year of ups and downs. As we announced our exciting news to friends and family, the responses were less than supportive. People questioned our motives, our logic and even our sanity (well I even question that sometimes). We thought everyone would be jumping up and down to support us, but they didn't seem to understand. Then, one month after committing to Elisa and Vanessa, Leah called me crying after her medical evaluation. Her doctor would not sign the paperwork because he was worried about her health (bad back, arthritis, 7 kids, etc). We were devastated, but did not give up.

During this same time period, we decided to put our house on the market as we knew we would need more room when the adoption was complete. This was a huge step of faith for us as we knew there was no guarantee that the adoption would go through (especially after the problem with Leah's doctor). Additionally, I was in line for a promotion that would force me to leave San Antonio. Who in their right mind wants to buy a new house right before being relocated? We knew the real estate market was weak and expected the sale to take at least 6 months. So we listed the house and the first people through the door made a full price offer. Our first thought was "praise God", but the very next thought was "oh no!". We would have to move in the middle of the adoption process causing us to redo our home study along with many other documents (including the USCIS paperwork). Oh and none of this could be done until we found and closed on a new house which we were hesitant to do until I found out about my possible promotion.

Oh.... And in the midst of selling our house, we were throwing our one and only fundraiser dinner. We had invited hundreds of people to a benefit to help raise money for our adoption. We were so stressed and overwhelmed at this point in the process. Everything was up in the air...... the adoption, my job, our house, etc. But we did not give up. God was with us and we had His peace and His presence throughout the process. The fundraiser was a huge success raising a little over $7000. We committed to buying a new house and had our home study and other documents modified to reflect our new address. Leah and I (and our 7 kids, 2 cats, and 3 dogs) actually lived with our good friends for about 2 weeks while we were between houses.

Then, the day before we were to close on our new house, we got a devastating call..... my dad had passed away suddenly. There was no warning, no signs, nothing. This event eclipsed everything else going on in our lives including the adoption. So we moved into our new house
while preparing for my father's funeral. As we prepared to grow our family, we lost someone so dear to us. It was so hard to move forward after this event, but we didn't give up. Despite the circumstances and the delays and the frustration, we knew God had called us on this mission and we knew that only He could close the door on this adoption.

So we finally got Leah's medical paperwork signed and in late September we began preparing our dossier. There were also many delays in this process, but those delays turned out to be a blessing. See when we first committed to Elisa and Vanessa, Leah and I really wanted to adopt Arthur (Elijah), but we never considered 3 children. All of the delays in our adoption process gave us more time to think and pray about Arthur and when we realized he was still available, we knew we needed to add a third child. So at the 11th hour, we changed one simple form and added Arthur. While all of this was happening, deadlines were quickly approaching. We needed everything submitted and approved by the end of November or we were going to have to wait until March and redo most of our paperwork. On the very last Monday possible, our paperwork was submitted and we received our approval and travel date.

Our first trip was in early December and most of you were reading our blog at that time, so I won't repeat the details other than mentioning that everything went well. On the second trip, everything went well until the passport office shut down. For a few days we were told that we would not get the babies passports for approximately 2 months which would mean leaving the country without our children. We prayed and prayed until we found out that we were going to be able to get our passports. We were one of the only families in the country to get passports at this time so we knew this was an answer to prayer. Everything went smooth from that point on which leads us to where we are today...... one BIG happy family.

In closing I want to encourage all of you who are adopting or thinking about adopting. Hopefully your process will not be as long and difficult as ours, but you will have your share of problems. You will run into people who just don't understand..... you will have paperwork that has to be re-done over and over again....... you will have concerns about finances...... and you will have doubts about what you are doing. With all of this trouble, always remember why you chose to adopt..... always remember the beautiful children who are counting on you....... and always remember that God is in control!

It all came together for me as we were leaving the Ukraine to travel back home with our children. Our entire adoption process wasn't this bright exciting event..... it was riddled with troubles and uncertainty...... with clouds that often overshadowed the bigger picture. For our entire 5 weeks in the Ukraine, I don't believe that the sun came out once. Every day was overcast with clouds covering the sky, making for dreary days. As we ascended in the airplane, we lifted above the clouds and we took the following pictures while the sun was rising:

It was beautiful to see the blue skies and bright shining sun. I forgot all about the cold dreary weather we were leaving. It was truly a metaphor for our entire adoption process. No matter how cloudy it may seem..... or how difficult the process may seem..... the sun is always shining when you rise above the clouds.

Good Luck and God Bless!!!!

A Few Pictures....

Daddy, Emma, and Nessie (Vanessa)

Elisa in her playroom

Eli's adventure on the front sidewalk!

Faith and Elisa!

Emma on her swing!

I love Nap Time!!!

I have never done nap time with any of my kids, and I have never understood why it was so important to moms. Now I do. I can not wait until nap time anymore. This seems to be the only time I am able to get any of the cleaning done. The kids are doing really well to the adjustments. Eli came home sick and it has been passed around now. Two of my kids have it now, and Nessie is just now getting it. She seems to cry all day long because she does not understand why she doesn't feel well.
We are so amazed by Elisa. She has so come out of her shell. She is a totally different child than she was in the Ukraine. She is spunky and so so happy. She loves to dance, and loves to clap her hands. We are so in love with these babies.
Eli still just stares at his hands. He is such a handsome boy. He weighs 30 pounds, big big boy. Elisa weighed 22 and Nessie weighed 20 pounds.
I agree with Tony, He said to me last night that he can not believe that these babies had not been adopted before now, and that people really missed out. They are just the most amazing kids!!
We have got a lot of pictures for you, but I'm not sure how to download them. Tony's knee swelled up last night double in size. He has been in so much pain that he had to go straight to the Dr, today. They are going to have to drain a lot of the fluid from his knee today. When he gets home he said he will post the pictures right away. They already look so much better than they did before.
I have so many people ever day asking me how can I do this, this is to much, but each time we adopt, we follow where God leads us, In return I know God finds me these children that God knows will be perfect for our family. They are just well behaved children, Its not as much work as people think.
All in all, We are the ones that are truly blessed. We will post pictures tonight. Thanks for reading our post, and following along with our adoption!! Leah

Adjustments for Everyone!

So we're home now, caught up on our sleep and it's time to get into a routine..... yeah right! The first day we were home, we took all 3 kiddos to their new pediatrician to get them checked out. Eli had a fever and cough, Vanessa had a very nasty rash on her backside (had it since birth according to the orphanage docs) and Elisa was very lethargic and not eating. In fact, Elisa has not been the same child we met in the orphanage. We weren't sure if she was sick or just having trouble adjusting. Needless to say, we were very worried about Elisa.

The pediatrician put Eli on an antibiotic and told us that Vanessa would have to have surgery to remove the inflamed area on her bottom. He was shocked that the orphanage doctors did not know what it was. We also showed the doctor some scarring that Vanessa had near her private area. He was puzzled by the scars and thought she may have had surgery to correct hip dislocations, but there was no record of this with the orphanage. When we got to Elisa, the doctor seemed concerned. She had been sleeping most of the time, wanted nothing to do with anyone and was not eating at all. He wanted to have her admitted to the hospital right away. After discussing our options, we decided that we didn't want Elisa's first weekend with us to be spent in the hospital.

We made it our goal to get Elisa to eat and get her to open up to us. On Friday morning, we had a breakthrough...... YOGURT. Elisa loves yogurt and ate and ate and ate. She ate so much food on Friday and this morning she was a different child. She was loving and playful and was smiling. We're still not sure if she had just been sick or needed food, but whatever it was is behind us now. The babies are adjusting well to their new home and the whole family is doing great. Our other children fight over who gets to hold, play with or feed the babies. I'm sure that will change in time, but for now, we are all closer than ever. As I sit here right now in the play room I am watching the babies play and am so grateful that we were able to adopt them. We picked them based on a picture and a feeling inside.... and a medical history that turned out to be mostly incorrect, but in the end, they are a perfect fit. They are perfect and they are ours! Praise God for choosing us to follow this path and to experience this kind of joy!

Oh and for those of you requesting pictures..... we are so sorry! We will post them as soon as we can, but honestly we just been enjoying the kids and have not taken many pics. We'll get some out soon. Thank you all for all of your encouragement......

Home Sweet Home!

Sorry for the delayed post, but we all had a little sleep to catch up on. We began our journey home at 2am on Wednesday which was 6pm Tuesday night in San Antonio. We had a short 3 hour flight from Kiev to Frankfurt and then a 2 hour layover in Germany. The kids did well on the flight, but when we got off the plane things got interesting. They all started screaming at once because they were hungry. We had food for them, but could not prepare it fast enough. As we weer struggling to get them all calm, we noticed people all over the airport staring at us. I wonder what they must have thought. After about 30 minutes, they were calm and so were we. We boarded the plane at 10am (2am in SA).

This next flight was the long one. It was a 10 hour flight from Germany to Chicago. Faith and Elisa sat in front of Brittany and I and the two babies (Vanessa and Elijah were sitting on our laps). One of the greatest delights of our trip home was watching Faith with Elisa. Faith is 12 years old and handled Elisa with such poise and patience. Elisa was the most difficult by far, but Faith had a way with handling her. Elisa definitely has some sensory issues, but Faith knew just how to work with her. She would pat her gently and help her get comfortable and even when she was screaming, Faith was calm. I was amazed at the maturity of my oldest daughter and she made me so proud to be her father. The kids all had their moments on this flight, but overall, they did very well. I got peed on twice and thrown up on 4 times (all by Vanessa), but that just helped us bond....

We were worried about what to do with our 5 hour layover in Chicago, but the long layover turned out to be necessary. We started at customs where the lines were long. We made it through relatively quickly and then picked up our baggage. At that point, we went to the Homeland Security area where we had to turn in our immigration paperwork. Although this process took about an hour, the people working there were great. Seeing us with all of the kids and baggage, they waved us through the customs security point and told us to have a nice day. After all of that, we had to recheck our bags and then take a train to another terminal. The Chicago airport is HUGE, so it took a while to get to our gate. By the time we got there, we had about an hour to get some food and feed the kids who were getting pretty fussy.

The last leg of the trip was a breeze. We left Chicago at 5:30pm (SA time) which was 1:30 am in Kiev. Needless to say, the kids were tired and they slept through the entire flight. We arrived home at 8:30 pm to end our 26 hour journey.At the airport we were greeted with yelling and cheering from our family and closest friends. I believe there were about 20 people there waiting for us. I was so tired at that point that I probably didn't look at excited as I was. We passed the babies around from person to person. They hardly woke up as people were kissing them and pinching their cheeks. This was just the start of all of the loving they are going to get from now on. We got home and went straight to bed.

It is such a relief to be home and to know that no one can take these babies away from us. Throughout the 2 trips to the Ukraine, there was always an underlying tension that something may go wrong; we may get denied, they may get sick, we may not get passports or may not get visas. There was always another step that we had to go through, but not anymore. When I laid them in their cribs I could finally breath a sigh of relief. We had completed the journey that we started almost a year ago and Elisa, Vanessa and Elijah are now home. Now it is time to begin the next phase of this journey.........