Life at the Hotel

This weekend we are at a hotel for the CSC adoptive families weekend. It's a great time for our kids to connect with other kids they knew and lived with before they came to us, and for the families to connect and share stories.
Our rooms are wonderful, and we share a courtyard area with several other CSC families, so kids were running across the grass in and out of each other's rooms. Later, we had dinner with a couple of the other families.


After dinner, all of the families got together and watched a silly video made by CSC staff, had some snacks, played a game, and then most of the kids hit the pool.Is it any wonder that no-one but the adoptive families came anywhere near the pool area with this many people????? Really, the kids were all very well-behaved and had a great time together (though not many of the adults, even the ones who didn't intend to get wet, actually managed to stay dry!)
It's a hopping place here tonight, with lots of smiles and good times being shared. And the party only continues tomorrow!

To My Son's Birthmother, on His Birthday

Dear Monkey's birthmom,

I am thinking of you today. Five years ago, sometime while we slept, completely unaware of the way our life was changing, you gave birth to a squalling, scrawny baby boy in a third world hospital on the other side of the world. Twenty one months later, I would stand outside that very hospital room and wonder what it was like for you to give birth in those conditions - beds shared with other laboring mothers, and in most cases, without sheets or blankets. I wonder who attended you, who saw our son enter into the world and take his first breath, and if those people realized what a very precious gift they were holding in their hands.

I know there were many different choices you could have made for him and for your life. No matter what else you have done right or wrong, I am so incredibly thankful that you made the choices you did - that you chose life when you wouldn't have had too, and that you chose to hand over his care to a wonderful, loving, and safe organization that would eventually deliver him into my arms.

I wonder what that day was like, when he was taken from the hospital to CSC. Were there tears in your eyes as you held him for that last time? Did you think of him as your body ached and healed from the effort of giving him birth? I wonder what he thought as he saw his very first Caucasian faces, as they picked him up, held him gently, fed him, and consoled him on the ride that would eventually lead him to me.

I think about all of the people at CSC who cared for him during the months that followed - that saw his first smile, comforted him after his surgery, saw him take his first steps, and celebrated his very first birthday....all before I was even aware that I had another son.

And I think of the day I finally held him in my arms. He didn't really like me much at first - I was a stranger, and he was quite happy with his familiar caregivers at CSC. His life was taking another huge turn, and he was too young to understand the significance.

And now, he can't imagine having ever lived without us. And we can't imagine life without him.

So, dear birthmother, I think of you today. And I thank you. It is our son's fifth birthday.

A Crazy Week and Crazier Day

It was a busy week.
On Tuesday, we celebrated Mango's 8th birthday. We always go out to eat at a restaurant of the birthday child's choice, and Mango chose Space Aliens - a space themed restaurant. The kids all got a few free game tokens, and Seely was even kind enough to give his to the birthday girl! She was given this "lovely" headband to wear and a free birthday sundae.

On Wednesday morning, I was the guest speaker for the group of Japanese students. I spoke about one of my great passions - adoption. Adoption is extremly uncommon in Japan, so they are always very good listeners; and for the second time in a row, I have made a good number of these young people cry simply by sharing our stories and travel videos. It's truly a privilege to be able to talk with them, and to see their hearts so moved.

On Saturday, we headed off to the Mall of America with Sae for some shopping and sight-seeing. And even though it's expensive, we always love to eat at the RainForest Cafe (which Monkey affectionately calls "The Monkey Restaurant" because of the robotic monkeys singing and swinging in the trees).

Yesterday, the girls had their family birthday party with their cousin. The three girls have birthdays within about 2 1/2 weeks of each other, so we have a party together every year. This year, I actually missed their party, because Monkey is having some pretty major asthma trouble and needed to take a trip to urgent care.

And the biggest excitement of this past week is not neccessarily a good one. Lily took off her prosthetic ear on Saturday night, and her post area was grossly infected and draining all sorts of really not lovely "stuff". We cleaned it up (I'll spare you the details), put on her strong, prescription antibiotic ointment, and sent her off to bed. By Sunday morning, the area was not at all improved, and was so red and swollen that the skin had started to cover over her top ear post. We immediately placed a call to her surgeon, who ordered more antibiotics, and we are to see them Tuesday morning for an evaluation. If the skin that's currently over the post does not recede, she will need surgery to re-expose the top post before she will be able to wear her prosthetic again. The surgeon's best guess is a 50/50 chance of needing further surgery or not. Please pray that this will clear up without it.

As this is on the side of her head, we've started taking pictures of what we are seeing, so Lily can actually get a look at it herself, rather than just listen to us talk about it. This picture was taken just this morning. Much of the redness and swelling is gone, but the posts are still draining quite a bit. The bottom post is what the posts are supposed to look like coming through her skin; you can see the top one is covered about half way with skin.

People ask us if it hurts her, but Lily really does not complain very much about it. I think after having several surgeries in the area, that most of the nerves are gone or damaged and she just really feels very little there. They have also found that children who experienced a lot of early neglect simply do not feel and process pain like the rest of us do...and she has an extremely high pain tolerance....which leads us to the next problem. We had her well-check visit this morning with our pediatrician (God bless him, he never freaks out over her ear post infections which are rare enough that most docs never even see one!), and discover that she has an ear infection in her hearing ear. She had told me there was some "popping" in that ear over the weekend, but said there was no pain/discomfort. I had told her to let me know right away if it hurt at all, and I'd get her in to a doctor, and she never said that it hurt. Whether she really didn't feel pain, or whether it just didn't "connect" in her brain, I don't really know. Anyways, her antibiotic was changed to one that will cover both skin and ear infections, and her ENT surgeon will take a look at that too tomorrow when we are there.

We'd certainly appreciate any and all prayers that she will heal up on her own (with God's help, of course) and without any further surgery. We'll keep you posted.

Mango's Story

One of Mango's assignments today was to write a story. What she wrote is too precious to not be recorded and published somewhere, so here it is (edited only for psuedonyms).
"Once there was 2 children who needed a family. There names were Mango and Monkey. They were waiting to be adopted by a wonderful family. The family was waiting to get two wonderful children. When Mango and Monkey found out they were geting a family one of our brothers let Monkey play with the camra. When Mia found out I was geting a family she took my lion."
The rather amusing sidenote to this story is that Mia (and her sister), who once shared a room with Mango when she lived at CSC, were later adopted by a great family who have become good friends of ours, and the girls are all still able to see each other and spend time together (though Mia does not steal her lion anymore!) Isn't it cool how God works things out?????

A Tribute to My Husband, and the Men who are Like Him

Someone passed just passed this on to me yesterday, and it is certainly worth the read.

The Men Who Brought the Children Safely Home - A Christmas tribute to adoptive fathers
Author Unknown

"My son Christian was searching the bookshelves yesterday, apparently frustrated by the dearth he saw there. Since we have well over 1,000 titles at his disposal, I wondered what was missing.

"There's hardly anything on Joseph here! I understand why we need so many Mary books, but nobody says much about Joseph, you know? And he was a hero … " he trailed off.

A hero indeed. Though I hadn't spoken it, I had been meditating lately about the heroic good of Joseph and the Nativity. Commonly, we look at the story of Christmas as a birth story: We have a round- bellied Madonna riding on a donkey until she gets to a cave where animals joyfully welcome a lovely baby. As a mother who has been nine months pregnant during Advent and a mother with a newborn on Christmas Day, it is easy for me to identify with the birth story.

But the Nativity story is also a story of adoption. A strong man heard the call of a God to take into his heart and home a baby that was not his biological child. Against the raised eyebrows of those around him, but because he dearly loved his wife and the God they served, he traveled a great distance. He wasn't sure what he'd find there; to say that the accommodations were less than what he was used to is to understate the case. And then, almost immediately, it was his job to rescue the baby, to save him from grave danger.

Once they were safely at home, he raised the child as his own. He shared the faith of his fathers; he taught him the family trade. Certainly, there were challenges in this family that related to the adoption. This child, at 12, left his adoptive father for three days to return to the home of his Father. How many children of adoption have experienced that same restlessness and caused the parents who have rescued them the grief that Mary and Joseph felt while they searched for their child?

Joseph was faithful. Perhaps he recognized that we are all children of adoption. We are all broken, disenfranchised, wounded and in grave danger. Our Savior makes us brothers and sisters, heirs to His throne. We become one family of faith, like that little family in Nazareth so many years ago.

When I look at the fathers in adoptive families, I am struck by their courage. Adoptive moms assure me that adoption is rarely ever a man's idea. And it is almost always an idea born in a woman's heart. The longing heart of a mother meets the sorrowful heart of a child and together they begin a new life. But how do they get to "together?" They become a family through the courageous actions of a man who sees the heart of his wife and listens to her as she tells him about the pain of the child. Rarely, do these women beg and plead. Rather, like Mary, they trust God. They pour out their hearts in prayer and God convicts their husbands. The program director for a Catholic adoption agency assures me that this is not the case of weak, badgered men who cave to whining women. Rather, they are tender, brave men who recognize the need and hear a distinct call.

The father who adopts is strong and faithful. He travels to places like Kazakhstan, Russia, China, Guatemala and even hostile Africa. He saves the baby — often from abject poverty, illness or death. He is the Joseph of our times.

There are literally millions of children in this world who need rescuing. We are called in James 1:27 to care for the widows and the orphans. What does that mean exactly? Do we toss a few coins in the poor box or wrap an extra gift at Christmastime or do we take a risk? Are there brave men out there with the heart of Joseph who will travel great distances to difficult places to rescue a baby and give it a home all because it's the will of God? It is the will of God. These are the weakest of us, the poorest, the most defenseless. In this country, we cannot fathom children who scurry along the murky puddles in Haiti scavenging for a few slender fish, only to come up without anything. These children are so malnourished that their hair turns orange and falls out in clumps. There are "dying rooms" in China where children who have cerebral palsy or missing hands or missing ears are left in the dark to starve to death.

And what will become of the children who grow up orphans if we do not have men like Joseph in our midst? According to Shaohannah's Hope, a foundation begun by Christian music legend Steven Curtis Chapman, who has adopted three daughters, "Statistics regarding the future prospects for children who emancipate from orphanages, the foster care system, or who grow up as street children are profoundly bleak … . Theft, prostitution, homelessness, substance abuse, incarceration and suicide affect the lives of the vast majority of those children who grow up as orphans and never find permanent, loving homes. In short, orphans by definition are children who for whatever reason have found themselves in need of permanent, safe, and loving families. And for such children, being taken in by a family through the "spirit of adoption" is their greatest need"(http://www.howtoadopt.org/).

They were going to stone the mother of God. Joseph knew the baby was not conceived by him. He didn't understand it. How could this baby be his to raise? How could he be asked to overcome the opinions of his community, the misgivings of his own mind, and listen to the call upon his soul? Where would he find the courage? How could he possibly provide for the childhood of the child of God Himself? Why couldn't this be simple? Why couldn't he marry Mary and just conceive a baby? Instead, he must set off on a two-year odyssey to distant and hostile lands to bring home a baby that didn't even look like him. And what of the future? This was an extraordinary way to build a family; how could he know what the future held, particularly with a beginning like this?

A hero? He was a hero. He was a strong, courageous, man of faith. And there are men like him today. They are Paul, and Joe, and Mark, and Chuck, and Scott, and Kevin, and Ed. They are ordinary men who are called to extraordinary measures for a humble, helpless child and the love of the woman who becomes the child's mother. They are the men of the Christmas story. God bless them!"

A Merry Christmas Homecoming

Three years ago today, we arrived home with Mango and Monkey, just in time for Christmas Eve. All of us being together that day was the best Christmas present I've ever received, and we are truly grateful for the two little lives that joined our family that year.

May all of you have a very blessed, and merry Christmas this year. Wherever you end up celebrating and whoever you celebrate with, may you take a moment to focus on the true reason for Christmas - Jesus.

A Coleman Christmas Party

Just over three years ago, we made a desperate call to Senator Norm Coleman's office when our immigration paperwork for Mango and Monkey hit a big snag. The embassy in Manila had misplaced some of the kids' paperwork, we were concerned about Mango's skull condition, and we desperately wanted our children home for Christmas. His office was wonderful to us, and after a fax or two on our behalf, the kids' visa paperwork was processed quickly, and we were able to travel just in time for Christmas.

Every year since, we have been invited to the "Home for the Holidays" party that Senator Coleman throws just before Christmas. All of the adoptive families his office has helped in the past are invited to come. It's a wonderful chance for him and his staff to see, in person, the children they have helped, and we enjoy the chance to thank them, with the hope that seeing the beautiful faces of our kids will give them the desire to continue to do this important work. He truly is a kind and caring man, and we are very grateful for what he and his office did for our family.

Enjoy the pictures of the party!

Snacking on some treats while waiting for the senator...


Senator Coleman, and the entire group sing "Happy Birthday", to Random.


Story time with the Senator.....

Monkey got an especially close view!These family pictures are hung in his office.

You've Come A Long Ways, Baby

Nine years ago today, we arrived home from China with baby Lily in our arms - finally a family of five. Those of you who knew us then, know exactly what a miracle that day was and what a miracle her life has continued to be. She arrived home at 18 months old barely able to sit on her own, and has amazed many with her ability to overcome. The damage that early neglect had on her life is still with her every day, but none the less, as we look back today, we can only admire how far she has come in these last nine years. We love you, Lily! Happy Homecoming Day!!!!