Blessings!

Our adoption processes have brought a lot of blessings in my life. One of the huge ones being the online community of adoption folks. Through blogs and forums I have met some of the best people. One of them being my online friend Laurie. She volunteered to help us sell t-shirts. Through that one of her family members, Christine, was lead to our blog. Christine feels lead to help us with raising money for our adoption. How wonderful is that? That someone I don't even know will take the leap of faith to help us out, not only with our adoption, but with spreading the word about special needs adoption. She has become a consultant with the company 31, she will be donating all the proceeds she makes this month to Ella's adoption!
I ordered a skirt purse from there several years ago, and I got so many compliments on it. Let me tell you their stuff has gotten even cuter. If you are not familiar with 31, go check it out. It is a great place to get a gift for that hard to shop for person. I got my Grandma a travel bag from there, monogrammed with her name, several years ago. She still raves on about it!
So go to Christine's website and check it out!
http://www.mythirtyone.com/cwickline/
If you want to place an order make sure you email her and let her know it is for Ella cwickline1@sbcglobal.net

Blessings and Oops

You didn't think I was really going to be back to post today did you!
First of all my oops. I failed to notice that on the preview they sent of our shirts that our blog address is wrong on all of the grey shirts and all of the black shirts. Yep, I put together 17 packages of shirts to mail out without noticing. Attention to detail-NOT ME! Everyone loves the shirts, anyways! I have gotten nothing but rave reviews on them, they are super cute and very soft and comfy!! If you're interested in doing a fundraiser, you can have them done in almost any country even the United States!! For all those brave folks who do foster adoption or infant adoption!! Go to http://www.mycrazyadoption.com/ She sells the rights to use the design, 50.00 is really minimal for the great profit margin you get on the shirts, and she does great things, go support her! The printing company that sells the shirts at cost for these designs is http://www.creatordesigns.com/, if you purchase the 50.00 fundraiser kit from Kari then she will give you the contact information to contact the printing company. They will make a preview of what your shirt will look like. Make sure you read all the previews to make sure your design is correct::-)
We still have shirts available, I ordered extras. I will do my best to post the actual pictures of the shirts and what sizes we have available tonight!!

Blessing, Signs, and Oops

Adoption brings about huge God moments. I'm not joking, or trying to speak Christianese to you. God has sent me the most AWEsome signs while going through adoption, and anyone who has gone through this process knows that is the truth. I have felt so discouraged since finding out we have to wait till Feb to submit for Ella, and now there is an impending vote that has passed a preliminary vote and will be voted on again anytime as soon as this week through spring. It would stop adoptions from the country we are adopting from. Not permanently, but for months.
Since we won't submit till Feb, we have to redo most of our paperwork, nothing can be more than 6 months old.
I know that God's timing is perfect, but I have to remind myself of that everyday, sometimes every minute. I am not usually this down about things, I am usually a cup half full kind of person.
I prayed last week in church, not that I haven't prayed about the situation everyday, but prayer just seems so much more powerful when your standing in church. "Please Lord, I need a sign we are supposed to be doing this, some encouragement would be great. Not sure what kind of sign you could send, you have sent so many, but my heart feels desperate"
We were hopeful to recieve some new pictures of Ella, there was a family adopting from her orphanage, however upon arriving in the country, the girl they were supposed to adopt was not available. Things worked out for them and the child, but it was very hard on them at first. And that voided the possibility of anyone checking on Ella for us during this wait.
Last week Anastasia told me she had a dream about Ella. Usually Anastasia has bad dreams (sad I know) She said we had gotten Ella and she was sooo cute and we loved her sooo much. She said at the end of her dream her, Ella, and Jesus were in an elevator. I asked if she talked to Jesus. She said no, because in her dreams she can't control what happens. But she took a couple more bites of her cereal and turned to me over her shoulder and said, "I think Jesus was there to help Ella"
Enough said, right?
This post is long enough I will post about the rest tomorrow!

Moving on Up

Our Thermometer that is...
So far we have made 350.00 with T-shirt sales, but I ordered extras and intend to make more than that.
We had some generous people donate in addition to buying T-shirts, or donating instead of buying T-shirts, adding 160.00!
AND we were able to save 500.00 out of our paychecks this month.

All that narrows the gap by .... $1010.00!!

Making the amount we still need

8,679.00

I'd like to add that the 350.00 in T-shirts sales, reflects the fact that I already paid the bill to the T-shirt company. My goal on the T-shirt sales is 1,000.00 So we only need to sell 26 more shirts to make that happen. Because from here on out the T-shirts are all profit, since I paid the bill out of our sales.

Disappointing News....challenging myself

Ugh, our dossier should be arriving today in country. However last night we recieved some dissappointing news. When we committed to Ella it was though that she was already cleared for adoption. Then we were told that it was not until sometime in October. Well, now they (the SDA in her country) is saying not until Jan. Her country closes down for submittals sometime in November until sometime in February.
We are heartbroken. We are ready for her to be home, why should she sit in an orphanage parentless, when we are ready. That's 4+ months of her legs getting tighter and tighter, her not getting the proper nutrition, her not learning to bond with other people, her not having therapy. We are heartbroken, but we know everything will work out how it is supposed to. Thankfully we were extended at our base until summer, we were supposed to have to move in the spring.
I was just telling some AWESOME friends last night, that we were ready to take on the debt of another adoption. We would just pay it off once she was home, like we are doing with Anastasia. Well, we are 9,000 something short so far, and I am challenging myself to not have to go into debt for this, we have been given more time, wether we like it or not, and I intend to use it wisely.
Adoption is not easy. When Anastasia came out of her room this morning, I felt so thankful. So thankful, that what seemed like impossible, was possible, to bring her into our family.
I've added an expense thermometer. The money on it so far represents, the 8,000 we have saved ourselves so far, the money committed to us by some close friends, donations, etc... And as donations come in and as we are able to save money from our paychecks I will add to that thermometer. I love a challenge!!

This Is For Real..please do something

There are orphans in need, around 147 million, way too many. You don't need to adopt to make a difference. To make a huge difference, I mean, isn't saving 1 child's life a huge difference? When people say they admire me, there is one thing that goes through my head, and that is "don't". When we adopted our Anastasia (www.1moremakes5.blogspot.com) we were not out to adopt a special needs child, or to even save a child, or even to adopt internationally. Step, by shaky step God lead us that way. And I can tell you, these orphanages do not have the resources over there, it is scary to say the least. It is not right for a 5  year old to weigh 17 lbs. And this is not a rare occurrence. Time after time you can read about real families, families I know online, that within weeks of meeting their 2-3 year old child, the child has learned to sit up, make eye contact, reach for a toy, roll over, etc... This is not an exaggeration. I myself used to think it was, even after Anastasia's adoption I was ignorant.
This week, the RR community got a huge reminder of how real this is, one of their "healthy" waiting children passed away. Several families have seen her recently while picking up their own children from the same orphanage. Ann Marie, was about to get sent to the institution. 4 is the age in Ella's country where these babies are sent to an institution for a life of little hope. Ann Marie was a household name for all RR families. We all knew who she was and many families advocated for her and loved her.
It is not know why she passed away, she is not the first Reeces Rainbow child to pass away while being on the waiting child listing, and unfortunately she will not be the last.
I want to share a poem that Meredith Cornish wrote : www.cornishadoptionjourney.blogspot.com

While we were...






While we were eating…
… they were hungry
While we were playing…
… they were restrained
While we were tucking our kids into bed…
… they were alone
While we turned up the heat…
… they laid in the icy cold
While we wrapped our children in blanket sleepers…
… they laid in their own excrement
While we sang songs and listened to music…
… they listened to the screams and cries of those around them
While we rocked our babies…
… they silently rocked themselves
While we hugged our kids…
… they scratched at their own faces and pulled their own hair for stimulation
While we cried over scraped knees…
… they moaned in their loneliness
While we brushed our daughters’ beautiful hair…
… they had their heads shaven to stave off the lice
While we fought off the flu with love and nourishment…
… they got the flu and went Home.
No longer suffering… but so many more still are.
In memory of those that have never felt the love of a family, but have passed away alone.

 

Sending off the "Beast"

Haha, this is what RR families call our dossier (our official set of documents that get submitted to the country we are adopting from) Let me tell you the dossier for this country is nothing near as "beastly" as the one for Russia was. I drove to Atlanta this morning to get everything apostilled, then headed to FedEx to ship it off.
Feeling paper pregnant now!
What now?
We wait. Basically.
1. To see if she clear for international adoption yet
2. If she is our dossier will be submitted to the proper people over there
3. If not then we wait some more
4. If we are submitted then we wait to get a travel date, best case scenario would be late November, but it could be as late as February.