Chapter 7 - still waiting

We are still waiting to hear back from the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice about our match with "Luke". Last week, I checked in with our adoption agency and they said the MOJ received the paperwork and just needed some clarification on a few things. It's hard not to get nervous about that, but we are staying positive.

I spoke with our home study agency today and even though we are waiting to pay until we have the match, they are letting us get started on some stuff. It's encouraging to feel that they are on our side and helping us through this. We gave them non-family that will give us recommendations and they will send them out letters. The training required by the CO home study will be satisfied by our Gladney training and our Hague training, so more good news!

Chapter 6 - Language Learning

We are attempting to learn Bulgarian. We are starting small with greetings. Bulgaria uses the Cryllic alphabet, and we are not sure if we'll ever be able to read or write it, but we will try to learn to speak it using the phonetic words.

First, to say hello, you would say "zdrasti". If you were speaking to just one person you would say "zdravei". These are both informal. If you were speaking formally, you could use greetings depending on the time of day. Good morning = dobro utro. Good day = dobyr den. Good evening = dobyr vecher. We are mostly going to be learning the informal to speak with "Luke", but we may need some formal when we go to Bulgaria to meet him.

Zdravei, az se kaz vam Kate. Priyatno mi e da se zapoznaem. Hi, my name is Kate. It's nice to meet you. I can't wait to say these words to "Luke"!

When saying goodbye informally, you can say "do skoro", which means "see you later". You can also say ciao which is one of the words Bulgaria has adopted as their own. If you are speaking formally, "goodbye" is "dovijdane".

A little bit of Bulgarian at a time is easy for us so far. Hopefully we can retain and build our vocabulary of relevant words for being in Bulgaria and for speaking with "Luke". 

Chapter 5 - still waiting

We are still waiting to hear from the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria if we are matched with "Luke" or not. We have decided to go with Nightlight Agency for our home study and have filled out the application and submitted it. We start the payments and the process after we hear about our match. It's tough to get the timing right on everything here. Once we find out we are a match, we have 6 months to get our home study, training, and dossier done and submitted for everything to be valid still. Plus we have to pay all of our fees and be ready to travel to Bulgaria to meet "Luke"!

It feel strange to be sitting around waiting for all this stuff to start. We have all the paperwork completed and ready to submit, but we can't go on any of it.

The craziest part is that "Luke" doesn't even know about us! He's just over there living his life and we already love him and think of him as our son. He won't know anything until we get the official referral from Bulgaria which won't be for another 4-6 months. When we meet him, after doing all the paperwork and preparations, he could decide he doesn't want to be with us. That is so scary and hard to think about.

Joe and Bella are as excited as ever about "Luke" joining our family. Hopefully we will hear soon about the match!

Chapter 4 March 1, 2015

The waiting is the hardest part.

There is so much to do and we can't do any of it yet.

We have to start our home study, but have questions about certain home study groups that we have to wait to have answered. There's a lot of hurry up and wait so far in the adoption process. We get a bunch of stuff to do, frantically finish, hand it in and wait... wait... wait...

Right now, we are waiting to hear back from the Bulgaria Ministry of Justice to see if they will match us with "Luke". If they give us the green light, we can start our home study. If they give us the green light, this blog goes live and fundraising begins! It's amazing the peace we all feel about this crazy ride we are on so far.

We have told some family members and close friends little by little what's going on. The support has been wonderful. Everyone wants to help us prayerfully, financially, or even by encouraging us in different ways. It's overwhelming.

We have training in a month in Fort Worth, which we are so excited about. It'll be great to have a lot of our questions answered and learn more about the process. 

Chapter 3 (2/24/15)

We have told our immediate family about "Luke" and our desire to adopt him. It has been overwhelming to see how supportive and encouraging everyone is! It's a blessing to have people in our corner who love us and will be "Luke's" family soon.

We have submitted the paperwork for the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria. They will review it when then get it all and then hopefully they will match us with "Luke" on their end of things. We have spoken to the home study agency "A Child in Bloom" based here in Colorado. They have a long list of things we need to get started on.

Chapter 2 (2-10-2015)

It's been a whirlwind since we found out about "Luke". We had a phone interview with the adoption agency, Gladney last week Friday. On Monday this week, we found out that Gladney was going to go ahead and match us with him! It's so wonderful to have the support of the agency and such a quick response.

We have some paperwork to fill out and notarize and then turn in, then we will have 6 months from that time to complete all our paperwork. We are in it and there's no turning back.

When we found out we were matched with him on our end, Joe and Bella were excited and happy. I was so proud of the way they responded and that they are all in too. They want him here and it makes my heart sing!

Dan and I have asked about "Luke"'s process in all this. When does he find out about us? Does he want to be adopted? Will he be presented with a choice? We want him to choose us. We don't want to take him away from something that makes him happy. We want what's best for him. There are so many complicated thoughts about this, but I think we'll be reassured when we find out more about his end of things.

Chapter 1 (1-28-2015)

When I was younger, I didn't think adoption would ever be for me. I wanted to have children of my own, but I didn't particularly like other people's kids. I babysat for one family that I loved, but I never connected with other kids besides them.

Dan and I got married and pregnant a month later. It was so easy, we didn't even try. A year after our son was born, we were surprised with another pregnancy. We made the choice to not have any more kids after our daughter was born, so we took measures to make that choice permanent.

Dan had talked before about his dream to be a foster family and to one day adopt one or more kids. I didn't share that dream before, so we never spoke about it much. Then, we started working with middle schoolers at our church. I connected with so many of them instantly. It surprised me. I could understand the unfairness of their stage in life and relate to them as a friend, but also as an adult who cared about them. I started to see the possibility of Dan's dream coming true.

My sister had her first child, a son, a few years later. I fell in love instantly. I became a baby hog and it didn't just stop with him. I wanted to hold everyone's babies. All my friends would bring their kids over while they would spend time with me, and I would spend more time with their kids than them! I liked other kids and it came out of nowhere.

Unfortunately, I hit my head and ended up with a concussion that wouldn't heal. Thoughts of fostering and adopting went out the window. We focused on how to get me better and manage the life we had. I saw many different doctors, all with none to minimal progress. Every day I struggled with headaches, nausea, fatigue, balance issues, and some cognitive loss. The only marked improvement I had was after a surgery to replace a disk in my neck, and that was only about a 10% improvement.

We had visited Denver, CO for a friend's wedding and became close with the couple. They had their daughter a few years later and we visited again to meet her. We not only fell in love with her, but left Denver feeling like we were supposed to live there for some reason.

A few months later, we moved in with Dan's parents and began the 6 month home renovation that would be necessary for us to sell. We pulled our kids out of school and began homeschooling so that we wouldn't have to switch schools mid-year. We searched for houses online and found one that seemed nice and was in our price range, so we bought it. We completed the renovation, Dan found a job in Denver and we moved only a year after we decided to!

We settled into our new home a few weeks after moving to Denver and staying with our friends who so graciously put us up. The house was great, the neighborhood was perfect, and we were pretty happy right away. I found a new type of treatment to try that was only available in the area and began to work on my brain injury again. The neuropsychology treatments seemed to be giving me improvement, but they really were just helping me manage my concussion symptoms rather than fixing them.

After 6 months of treatments, I decided to search for something new. I typed “concussion” and “neurologist” into google and called the first place that came up. It was Integrated Health Systems, with Dr. Shane Steadman. It was described as Chiropractic Neurology or Functional Neurology. I hadn't heard about it before, but after 5 years of concussion symptoms I was ready to try something new. They use combination of nutrition, chiropractic adjustments, and brain based therapy exercises to rehabilitate areas of the brain that aren't functioning properly. After the first visit, I had more hope than ever before.

I started seeing them in July 2014 and by February 2015 I was 70% improved. I was told by Dr. Steadman that my outer cerebellum was rehabilitated and that I just had to work to fine tune my midline cerebellum and frontal lobe. I still had fatigue, but he thought it was related to my adrenal glands and not the brain injury. I'm still undergoing testing on that. I am now going once a month to check on my therapy exercises, get chiropractic adjustments, and maintain my progress.

The day before I got this great news, a sad day was spent with my now 12 year old son, Joe. We had been living in Denver for a year and a half and he missed being back home. He had trouble expressing the problem he was having, but we finally got out of him that he saw us all making great connections here and that he wasn't. He has a great friend back home, but has not made any real lasting friendships here. We talked about him trying some new activities and getting more involved and really just listened. He felt better and we prepared to work on helping him find good connections.

The day after my great news at the doctor, I met with my very good friend, Jen. She and her husband Matt had been looking at adopting again. They have one birth daughter and a second adopted daughter. She found this 12 year old boy from Bulgaria: “Luke” who needed a home. She didn't think he was right for their family, because of having younger daughters, but she couldn't get him out of her head. She shared this with me, and I encouraged her own feelings, thinking he wasn't right for her family. Dan and I had always said if we were going to foster, the child would have to be younger than our daughter, Bella.

Later that day, Jen sent me a picture of “Luke” and his bio, telling me that she still couldn't shake him. I forwarded the picture to Dan with one line “How about us?” Dan knew what it was about and didn't open the email. I spoke with Dan and the kids about him again at dinner that evening and showed the kids a picture of “Luke”. Joe leaned over and showed it to Dan, and that's when it started. Dan was done for after seeing his picture. On the way to church we signed up on the adoption site, registering so that we could inquire about him.

Church was filled with worship, and feelings I had never felt stirred inside me. This is my son! Why is he all the way in Bulgaria! He should be here with us tonight! I want him, I don't want anyone else to have him! I imagined how he would fit in to our lives and how we would all love him. On the way home from church it was decided verbally. We would move forward with trying to adopt “Luke”.

We filled out the application and heard back the next day. We are waiting now to see if he is still available. If he is, it will be a 1-2 year process that will be expensive and exhaustive, but at the end of it, we will bring our son home.