Waiting is Tough

I'm sure I have said this before, but I have been awful when it comes to blogging this time around. When we adopted Milana in 2010 I blogged about EVERYTHING! I remember taking pictures of our dossier when I sent it off to Ukraine.

Maybe it's the same as having your first child. You take tons of pictures, you are extra careful, etc. When the next one (or in my case 2) comes along you don't take as many pictures and/or videos and careful has gone out the window because it isn't scary anymore.

I don't know if it is the same. I just know with Mila I feel like I blogged about anything and everything. This time around I feel like I can't keep up with blogging with work, the kids, and all the adoption stuff. Maybe that is just an excuse, but it is my excuse and I am sticking to it. I will try to be better.

At this point there isn't much to say. The only thing we are doing now is waiting. And waiting is TOUGH stuff! I am not good at waiting and that is simply because I have ZERO patience. I was doing well for awhile, but now I am just antsy. I just want our travel date to come. I want to know when Chris and I are heading out of the country to pick up our kids and bring them home! I think just knowing when will make things a little easier.

In the mean time I do have a ton of things to do. Like prepare for the kids arrival. We have a ton of stuff to get still - diapers, highchairs, carseats, etc. We also have to get rooms ready. We have to fundraise for the rest of the adoption as well. So there is enough to stay busy between all of that, work, and the daily things with the kids. Regardless of how much we have to do waiting is still TOUGH!

Court Today & Exciting News

Wow! I can not believe our court date FINALLY came. This has been such a long exhausting month. Our car broke down and was beyond repair. So here we are adopting two kiddos and we need a new car. We also had lots of sick - Milana had strep. I had bronchitis.Milana had surgery. (She had her tonsils and adenoids out and new tubes put in). Riley also got in on the sick action. As I said, it has been a long, exhausting month.

There was also the waiting. The day we found out our court date was amazing - other than that was also the day we found out we needed a new car. So through the sick and the car issues we continued to wait. We woke up this morning expecting an email about court. We waited for what seemed like forever. Finally the amazing Shelley emailed me around 12:30 to tell us our adoption was granted! Oh this was amazing news! Our little ones are finally ours!

Now we have some more waiting to do, but we are another HUGE step closer to our little ones! We hope to travel in 4-6 weeks to pick them up and bring them home FOREVER!!! We are all beyond excited.

The day got even better when we found out that Sevenly is once again supporting Reece's Rainbow. This time they are supporting families that meet a certain criteria. WE are lucky enough to be one of those families. Here is the link to this week's sevenly campaign:
http://www.sevenly.org/campaign/reeces-rainbow/

Here is a list of the families that will benefit from this campaign:
http://reecesrainbow.org/category/s14

Please consider supporting Sevenly and these families. Adoption is amazing. It truly is! It is also very expensive. It seems things always break when you are adopting. In addition to us having to get a new car we've had to replace our upstairs heat. Our upstairs AC has broken - fortunately we don't need it right now. We've also had a few other things break. You get the picture. It is always something. It is just the way.

If you are interested. Here is the link to the angel tree kids. Some have found their families and many, many others are still waiting. Maybe your little one is there. Or maybe there is a little one you want to put a little something in their grant fund. I know their future family would really appreciate it!
http://static.reecesrainbow.org/angeltree2013/

Counting My Blessings

I was sitting here drinking a cup of tea and enjoying the quiet - well quiet for my house. Chris is napping and Milana is loving life as she is playing upstairs with her sisters in their room. So here I sat sipping my tea and enjoying a piece of my friend Renee's delicious toffee. As I sipped my tea I got thinking about how blessed we have been in our adoption journey. 

I cried out for help a few weeks ago. Within minutes I had one friend start up a Damsel in Defense fundraiser for us. All I did was ask for fundraising ideas and she messaged me right away with this amazing fundraiser! A few minutes later another friend messaged me telling me that her adoption was almost fully funded and asked if I would like the items she was going to auction off. She mailed them to me the next day. Another friend started a chocolate fundraiser for us while she was still in her son's country picking him up. Not even done with her own adoption and here she was helping me with mine!

I've had a friend bid on the majority of my auction items when there were no other bids. I've had friends donate to our fundraisers, auctions, fsp, etc. I am just so grateful to all of those who have been helping us throughout this incredibly exhausting journey! I hope everyone knows how much I appreciate them for their roll in supporting us!

We still have such a long way to go. Right now we need about $11,000 to be fully funded. I know we will get there. I would like it to be sooner rather than later, but I know we will eventually get there.

Just last week as I was starting to stress a bit I had an unexpected surprise. A friend/co-worker started telling me how she wanted to help us raise money for our adoption. I was so caught off guard when she started to tell me all about her idea. Then of course I started to cry! (I'm pretty sure she thought I had lost my mind).

So today I am counting my blessings. Each and every person who has donated, prayed, listened, sent kind thoughts our way, or shared our story YOU have been a blessing to us!. Thank you for being such a blessing to us on this journey. It can be tiresome. In the end it is so very worth it! It helps to have you all along for the ride with us. Thank you all so much!

***The quiet did NOT last. As I typed I had children either talking to me or jumping on me. One was trying to climb through the tv. If I was rambling - and I usually am - I blame it on the kids and the dog too. He has now joyed the mayhem :)

This Is The Post Where I Beg For Help

First, I really have to thank everyone who prayed for things to start moving. Yesterday we got our I800 approval! This was a complete surprise to me because I called USCIS last week and our paperwork hadn't even made it to our Officer's desk after having been in the building for almost 3 weeks. So thank you! This was HUGE!!

I'm still a little confused about all that needs to happen next. Right now I am waiting on some information from the National Visa Center. We have to have our Article 5 Interview and then I believe Court. There is so much to keep track of!

What I do know is that we still have quite a bit of money to raise. I'm not good at all at asking for help. (If you don't believe me ask Chris. He will tell you). I was once told that if I don't ask for help, no one will know that I need it. So...with that said here goes...

We could really use your help! We still have the rest of our agency fees that we have to pay as well as all of our hotel, food, travel, some medical stuff, etc for our 2nd trip. Please continue to pray for our family - that we raise the rest of the funds we need (and fast) and that things continue to move quickly so that we can get our children home where they belong!

Feel free to share our story, pray, donate, whatever you feel you are able to do. We appreciate any and all help we can get!

If you are able to donate it is tax deductible through this link:

http://reecesrainbow.org/53171/sponsorwojcik

Thank you so much!

Down Syndrome Awareness

Our family and the Ferguson Family were recently interviewed about our adoptions as part of Down Syndrome Awareness Month. It was exciting to share our adoption stories.Here is the link to the pictures from the interview:

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/gallery?section=news/local&id=9282552&photo=1

Here is the link to the actual inteviews:

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=9282366

An update...sort of

It seems like a lifetime has gone by since I met our newest little ones. I can't believe I got to hold them and love on them and then had to leave them and come home. It seems a bit cruel to everyone involved. 

I did enjoy  my time with them more than you could imagine, but boy was leaving incredibly difficult! 

The time I had with them wasn't nearly enough. It is hard to get to know someone is such a short time so I can't really say what they will or won't be like when they come home. 

What I do know is that we are all anxiously waiting. 

We are waiting for our I800 approval. It has already been three weeks since we sent it. Hopefully it will be approved quickly. Right now it just feels like everything is moving in slow motion.

While we wait we are working on some fundraisers. We currently have an auction going on. 

Any fundraising ideas you have would be greatly appreciated! We still have quite a bit of money we need to raise in order to bring our littles home. 

If you are the praying type please say a prayer for our adoption - that things start moving quickly and that we raise all the funds we need quickly.

Thank you so much!

Special Guest Blogger - Gillian Marchenko

You guys are in for a special treat today! As part of Down Syndrome Awareness Month I have a VERY special Guest Blogger today. Please enjoy this post by Gillian Marchenko - Author of Sun Shine Down A Memoir.

It is an amazing book and I highly recommend it to anyone who has a child with Special Needs - biological or adopted. Even if you don't have a child with Special Needs I think you will enjoy it as well. This book is so well written. Gillian is completely honest in her feelings and holds nothing back. I love this about her!

Enough of me and my rambling.- I'd like to turn this over to Gillian now.

It’s supposed to rain later today.

My left arm aches.

I broke it in two places, two different times in my childhood, and now sometimes when the weather changes it aches, either up near my shoulder or in my wrist; the places it broke.

The aches remind me of those times; the agony and pain, the fear of being in an emergency room as a child, spending the night for the first time in a hospital, getting attention from classmates and extended family, people signing my cast, ‘Get well soon!’. Me trying to itch the inside of my cast with a hangar, not being able to swim for half of a summer because I couldn’t get my arm wet. Being a bit doped up on the medication to ease the hurt.

My broken arm became my whole world. How could it not be when the pain was great, instant, and overwhelming?

At the time there was no way of knowing that the pain wasn’t going to be my new normal.

For all I knew I could be in that kind of fear and pain for the rest of my life.

I went to the hospital and got help. The excruciating pain eventually turned into a dull ache and then only, a flimsy itch.

Life went back to normal. I was found splashing around in the kiddie pool within eight weeks.

But a dull ache returns now and then.

And I am reminded that at times in my life, I’ve been broken.

Recently I went to four parent-teacher conferences for my kids in two different schools.

I was prepared to discuss each kid, I thought. But when I sat down with Polly’s teacher (who has Down syndrome and stars in my recently published memoir, Sun Shine Down), I was surprised to read that she hadn’t met her goals. After a whole year at school Polly still couldn’t figure out classroom procedures. She struggled with transitions every day.

Polly was cute and everyone loved her, but basically she was still just walking around making messes in class.

And the dull ache, the fact that I had a child with a disability started up again.

Polly’s birth shattered me. I teamed up with Jesus and my husband Sergei to put myself back together, but much like that pesky jigsaw puzzle you’ve almost completed, a few pieces were lost in the mix, and now I walk around with empty spaces.

Most of the time the spaces are used for good.

I have more compassion for others.

I understand grace better.

I relate to others through my brokenness.

And sometimes it feels right.

But there are other times when it still breaks my heart that Polly is behind her peers.

I am OK with Down syndrome.

But there will always be days in my life where the rain will come.

And because I’ve been broken, I will ache sometimes.

It doesn’t mean I love my kids less or that I wish my life was different.

It just aches.

And that’s OK, I think.

Author bio:

Gillian Marchenko is an author and national speaker who lives in Chicago with her husband Sergei and four daughters. Her book, Sun Shine Down (http://goo.gl/3hFdH9), a memoir, published with T. S. Poetry Press in the fall of 2013.

She writes and speaks about parenting kids with Down syndrome, faith, depression, imperfection, and adoption. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Chicago Parent, Thriving Family, Gifted for Leadership, Literary Mama, Today's Christian Woman, MomSense Magazine, Charlottesville Family, EFCA Today, and the Tri-City Record.

Gillian says the world is full of people who seem to have it all together. She speaks for the rest of us.

Connect with Gillian on her website www.gillianmarchenko.com, on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/GillianMarchenkoPage) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/GillianMarchenk).

Amazon link for Sun Shine Down: http://goo.gl/3hFdH9