I can't tell you how long I've dreamed of a different title to a post - "He said YES!". I've hoped, waited and prayed for this for over a year.
Last fall, while looking at the Reece's Rainbow site, Rebecca and I were looking for a little girl to sponsor. One that didn't have much, if any, money in her grant fund and one that needed support and prayers. We chose Tonya.
I loved the picture of this spunky-looking little girl. She was already past 3 years of age and could be sent to an institution to live when she turned 4. I really believed she needed someone to commit to her by Christmas. I began praying for her daily, faithfully.
I should mention that I've been interested in adopting for awhile and especially since we were blessed with Eliana. Even a year ago, I dreamed of adopting a little girl with Down syndrome. I must confess though that I probably wouldn't have picked Tonya because I though I'd like someone younger than Eliana. It's funny what prayer will do to your heart though. The more I prayed for Tonya, the more I began to fall in love with her. I know it must sound silly to some of you reading and I can't explain it. She feels like a daughter of my heart.
Last Christmas I so hoped that my gift might be a "yes" to adopting Tonya. As time passed, I continued to hope, and dream and pray. My prayers began in just wanting a family for her, but as time passed, I also greatly wanted the family to be ours. I can just imagine her here playing with Eliana, sharing toys, crawling up into my lap and just being loved.
Fast forward to this Christmas. There is a family adopting from the orphange in which Tonya lives. They took new photos of her.
This created a great interest in Tonya and much money has been donated to her grant fund. I knew in my heart that her huge grant would cause someone to come forward. I still hoped and prayed it might be us.
Roger has also been praying about this decision for a long while too. This week-end, we really committed to pray. We were both praying and asking for a sign from God to let us know what we should do. I was honestly scared that there would be no sign. I was frustrated that I'd been praying for over a year and He had done nothing! I was afraid of what would happen to my heart if nothing happened.
Over the week-end, we prayed and talked like we haven't done in a long time. It was much needed for our marriage and sweet as well. It was something that happened because of a little girl in a far away country that we have never seen. She was able to do for us something that all of the trials and tribulations we have faced with our children could never do - draw us closer to each other and to God.
On Sunday night, Roger thought we should adopt her. Almost immediatly I became sick and stayed that way through the night and much of the following morning. I felt better by afternoon after talking with a precious friend. We knew we needed to decide quickly if we wanted the decision to be ours. We decided to say yes! I was elated!
I emailed to tell of our decision and we began to talk details. We knew that Roger's age was a few months past the limit of the country's requirements. We'd been told that was something that could be worked around. Then I was asked if I had income and told that was also a requirement. I was devastated. Crushed. Of course, my answer was no, no income. I'm a stay at home mom. Was there anything that could be done? I was told that they would ask the officials in country and get back to us. Another night of many prayers.
I was confused (and in some ways still am). I didn't sleep much and just spent a lot of the night praying. I was also sick again. I begged God that if this was not to be the path for us (adoption) that He would close the door. It seemed an easy thing to me. He could not allow us to have a loophole and we would know what His will was in the matter. It seemed clear.
Again today, many prayers. Many. Early this evening, we heard back. They could work around the requirement! Hope! Is this the sign we had been asking for? I knew that a no would mean that the adoption could never happen. Was this the yes?
Time for more prayer. Asking God for peace, clarity and wisdom. Also asking for Him to give us the same heart. This has been my prayer for so very long. Years. During all of this time of praying, I also came to realize that I had to give my desire for Tonya to God. She is His. He loves her more than I can even fathom.
As we prayed we talked about things from all angles. I know all of the many reasons that we shouldn't adopt.
*We don't have the money - though the large grant would help so much!
*My/our plate is full with the many medical/special needs we are already dealing with.
*It would be hard for some of our family and friends and thus hard for us without their support.
As I prayed though, I was lead to a verse in 2 Timothy, where it states that God does not have a spirit of timidity, but one of love and power. I thought of our fears and wondered if this was truly God cautioning us.
This is a huge decision. A life-altering one. We both wanted to do His will. We both wanted to follow where He was leading. We both wanted peace and to have the same heart. I wish I could say that these prayers were all answered.
As we prayed, I came to think that the door was opened due to the answer we got when it looked so very closed. I know that God would bless us for stepping out in faith to follow. I knew this would test our faith and would teach us much. I was ready to commit.
When I turned and looked at Roger, I knew he was not feeling the same way. He just said "I'm sorry."
We told the children and Rebecca was also deeply saddened. She has been praying for this little girl a lot too. She has a heart much like mine.
I would be lying if I said everything was fine. I'm crushed and heartbroken. For a brief time, we said yes and she was going to be our daughter. I have hoped for this time for so long. Something to be excited about, to look forward to.
I'm thankful that there appears to be another family ready to adopt her. I've prayed for this for a long time. I'm not sure what God is going to do in our lives now. My heart is feeling battered once again. I feel crushed. I'm thankful for the things He has taught me through this beautiful little girl. My heart will never be the same for having prayed for and loved her.
God bless you precious Tonya! I know He loves you so much more than I do and that He has a plan for your life. I'm thankful to have been a part of it.
WOW! November was a C*R*A*Z*Y month at our house! I will give you a quick recap, so you will know why I was missing! The first weekend was Halloween, and we had church festivities and a FIRST birthday party on Nov 1. Then that next weekend was youth hunt. We spent a few days getting ready for that, and then a few days down there. Both of the kiddos went hunting, but neither got anything ~ Riley saw one, but he says he didn't have a good shot on it, so he let it walk. We returned from that weekend at deer camp to hurry up and get laundry done and repack so we could go back down for opening weekend. We spent opening weekend down there with Rog and his family ~ plus a good friend ~ 11 of us in the camper! ~ we had a great weekend! Once everyone else went home, we stuck around, went on with our school work, hung out and watched movies, and did some exploring out in the woods. We stayed til Wednesday, headed home that morning for our normal *which wasn't* routine!
That night, after the kiddos were in bed, my dog, Rascal seemed restless. I got up and sat with him in the floor until about 1:30am, until he died there beside me. I don't know why...he was 13 years old, and we had sorta been expecting it, but it was still hard. I called Rog at deer camp and told him ~ he loaded up to come home. We had a hard time telling the kiddos and they took it very hard. It was a very sad day around here and at that point, I decided we were officially on Thanksgiving break ~ we were all too emotional to focus.
From there, Friday night, I sent Ry around to his cousins house, then had a couple of Girl Scouts over to spend the night. I think there is nothing better than listening to a group of giggly girls! And I love that my GS Troop are friends besides scouts! Well, they were here because we had a scout thing the next morning, and it was just easier! They had a great time though! Their even the next morning ( an hour away) was CSI: Diamonds ~ really cute fake scene set up and the girls had to do some investigating to find out who forgot to sign the letter that said welcome to the event I have a surprise for you, come find me! The girls had a great time with it!
While we were an hour away having some Girl Scout fun, I got the call that Rog's grandpa had passed away. So, as soon as the girls finished up there, we hurried home so we could pack once again and head to Tennessee. We drove all day Saturday, spent Sun, Mon, Tues in TN and then drove all day Wednesday. The Tennessee trip was very emotional for me, as it has not been that long since I lost my grandpa. I had a really tough time with everything happening at once as well. It truly was a bittersweet trip ~ we had an awesome time visiting with and reconnecting with Rog's family, but would have wanted to do that under better circumstances.
On the way home we took a different route and went the Huntsville Alabama. We did take the opportunity to stop in and the space center. We did a super quick mini tour and decided it was definitely worth a trip to come back to!
Home barely in enough time to celebrate Thanksgiving ~ even though we really weren't in the mood to. We spent Thanksgiving Day with my family, had a good time visiting with everyone.
Rog spent the rest of Thanksgiving weekend in the deer woods, while the kiddos and I hung out here...
And that my friends was our C*R*A*Z*Y November! Praying December is a little more calm!
The wintry frost this morning was so pretty. As I got into the car, I was reflecting on the fact that my kids, raised in the South in a life of central heating, really don't know what authors are talking about when they talk about the patterns of frost on the window, and I was thinking how nice it was that they'd be able to see it this morning and how lovely it all was. That is, until I realized that I've only had this car 2 weeks and sure didn't have an ice scraper in it and I live in Alabama, for cryin' out loud, and couldn't really count on being able to find one in the garage or anything like that and how was I going to get all that decreasingly lovely frost off my window because I couldn't just wait around for the defroster and, hey! Dad always scrapes Mom's windshield, and why isn't my husband down here scraping mine off, huh? But at last I found an old CD case that did the job, as it was only thin Alabama frost, and got on my way about 5 minutes late for sound check. And then I enjoyed the lovely frost on the trees on the drive to church.
You can hardly read anything in English, or watch the news, without running into acronyms. They surround us, from R.S.V.P.'s on invitations, to the latest actions of the U.N. In Spanish, because the word order is different acronyms tend to look a little different. Here is an incomplete list of acronyms, or siglas, in Spanish:
NATO - OTAN
U.N. - O.N.U.
HIV/AIDS - VIH/SIDA
U.S.A. - E.U.A. or EE. UU.
RENFE - the acronym of Spain's national system of trains
B.C. - a.C. or a.J.C. or a. de C. or a. de J.C.
A.D. - d.C. or d.J.C. or d. de C. or d. de J.CO
OAS (Organization of American States) - OEA
P.S. - P.D.
R.I.P. - q.e.p.d.
U.F.O. - OVNI
Inc. (not really an acronym in English, but becomes one in Spanish)- S.A.
R.S.V.P.- there is no acronym for this in Spanish. To get the message across in Spanish, "Por favor confirmar su asistencia" may be written on an invitation.
And of course, there is always someone on the internet that has that definitive list, so here you go: more siglas than you will ever need in your lifetime!
It's to the right in the sidebar of my blog. I can't figure out how to do it in a post. (If anyone knows, I would love the help.) If you would like to donate money to help bring Tonya home, you can do it right there. All donations are tax deductible. Thank you for considering this! Any amount is truly appreciated.
If any of you want to post this chip-in on your blog, I'd love for you to do that. Or if you want to post about it on Facebook, twitter or your blog, please feel free to do that.
We have more coming - hopefully tomorrow - about a fundraising idea for Tonya. I'll give you a hint, my oldest daughter has made something beautiful that we hope will help raise some money!
It's been a long, long day. We started our morning early by doing a service project with our FIAR group. (More on that later.) We gots lots of hugs and encouragment there and several friends even brought things for Daniel to have during his appointment.
This one was a huge hit - thank you Savanna!
We left early, went by Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then home. I should clarify that this was Joshua, Christopher, Daniel and I. The other children stayed with a friend at the service project to continue helping and to have a potluck lunch. After giving Joshua his shot, Daniel and I headed to Duke.
We arrived a little before 12:30. It was after 5pm when we left. It was a long, long afternoon. We spent some time waiting - and more time in tests.
We met first with the doctor who was very, very nice! I explained about Daniel's sensory issues, being sure that it would come up. She thanked me for letting her know, but I still wondered if it would make a difference. She could not have been nicer or more patient. She did a number of visual tests on him including checking to see how he viewed colors. (He is colorblind.) After testing and collecting information, we went to a different room.
The next series of tests was looking at his peripheral (sp) vision. He had to press a buzzer whenever he saw the light. It didn't look good from my perspective. The doctor told me later that this test was worthless in terms of information as she could see in her tests that his vision was better than it showed up in this test. That was good to hear. All I could think was that he had already lost some of his vision.
Next came the drops. It was awful. He screamed and cried. I had to help hold him down while he was on my lap. He was distraught over this. :-(
We waited for the drops to take effect and then were back to see the dr. She looked at his eyes and asked if he had had the drops. His eyes weren't dilated. She had to do the drops again. :-( Again, not fun! More waiting. Looking at his eyes some more.
Another room for testing. I'm not even sure what this machine was doing. Some sort of imaging. He was looking at a blinking or moving green light. He had to be still. He is never still unless he is sleeping. It was hard too. After trying for awhile, the technician brought in someone else to take the pictures.
One more room for the last of the tests. In this one, she took a picture of his optic nerve. He screamed when the light went off. It hurt him. I know it makes no sense to other people his extreme sensitivities to things. It is real though and it makes me hurt for him. And then he had to do this a second time. He was again very upset and difficult to manage.
Back again to meet with the doctor. She pulled up the images of his optic nerve. There is no clearly defined area (as there should be). Also the nerves running to the nerve were showing signs of pressure. She showed me a normal eye so that I could see the difference. She said that this indicated that there was pressure behind the eye. What is behind the eye to cause pressure? The brain.
She said that the next step was another MRI (for a different series of scans than had been done last year). She said that she felt comfortable that there are no tumors! Praise God. She said this was based on last year's MRI. I wasn't sure if things could change in a year, but I'll just accept this as good news. She wants to find out what is causing the pressure on his eyes.
The next words just made my eyes tear up. She said that she also wanted Daniel to have a spinal tap. I know she could read my face and I didn't know what to say. Of course I want to know if there is something there, but all I could think of was the pain that I know this causes people with typical sensory needs and then to multiply what that would be for our sweet boy.
As we were talking about what could be causing the presseure and what each would mean for Daniel, the doctor said she wanted to do one more test. It's after 5 at this point and we head back to her office. Daniel is not cooperative at all. I am not surprised. It is a non-invasive test though basically just "massaging his eyelids" with a tool that helps her to look at his eye (looked like an ultrasound). I offer an incentive for cooperating and we convince him that he can do this while sitting on my lap. As she scans his eyes, she sees calcification behind one of the eyes.
She said this could be the cause of the pressure. She said that instead of going forward with the MRI and spinal tap, that we'll just wait 3-4 months and come back for a repeat of the tests. While I don't like the idea of another day like this, I'll take it over the other options! If things stay the same, there may be no action needed at that time. It does sound like this is something that will continue to be monitored though over his life.
If we see changes - in vision or having headaches, this could indicate other problems. The only risk she told me of related to this calcification was a type of stroke. She also said it was a fairly common type of stroke and shouldn't be a worry. (It seemed like this was something in adulthood too.)
I know this seems cut and dried. I'm worn-out. Daniel fell asleep before we were a few miles from Duke. It was a very draining day for both of us.
In the midst of it all, I find that I have reason to be thankful. I'm thankful that there is no cause to believe there is a tumor. I'm thankful that he will not have to have a spinal tap. I'm thankful that for now, we can just wait and see how things progress. I'm thankful that he has no other symptoms causing concern like headaches or vision issues. I'm thankful for an incredibly kind doctor and staff. VERY kind and compassionate! I'm thankful we didnt have to wait a month for answers! I wish I had all of this in writing. I wonder if I'm forgetting something or mixing things up. It's a lot to take in. She did give me a number and said I could call if I had questions.
I'm thankful for our little boy. I'm thankful for all he adds to our days and our lives. While we don't have all the answers, things for now look pretty good. We'll just wait and see how things look in 3-4 months and try not to worry about it until then.
Thank you for praying for us. It means a lot to all of us.
On Thursday of this week, Daniel will be going to the Duke Eye Center to meet with a neuro opthamologist. We have been told that he will be there for 3 hours of testing, though I don't know what any of the tests will be. I do know that his eyes will be dilated and that is really about it.
I think 3 hours of testing could be hard for anyone. I know that having your eyes dilated is no fun. For our sweet little boy with sensory processing issues though, it is all magnified and compounded. It's going to be a hard day for him. I'm going to be taking things with me to try to help, but it's hard to plan for something when you really have no idea what is going on. (If anyone has suggestions, I'm open to hearing them.)
For those who may have missed an earlier post on this, Daniel has "prominent optic nerve pallor". This was seen at his last routine eye appt in Oct. She has referred us to a specialist to see if there is something going on. I've googled a little bit to find out more of what we are dealing with. Pallor is also sometimes called "atrophy". It also appears a little more worrisome that it is in just one eye.
I have to be honest - I'm scared. I try not to think about it much and that is helpful. (The Scarlet O'Hara method of dealing with things.) There are times though when I have to face it. I'm not trying to borrow trouble and thus try not to think on the "what ifs". I still find that I am fearful of what the future my hold for our little boy. Scared that there will be something. Scared that it will be another something "big". Again though, I don't dwell on it.
I know God is holding our little boy. I know He loves us. I know He is with us. It is really all I can hold on to right now.
I've been told that it may take a month to get the results back. I'm really hoping that is not the case! I would love to know more on Thursday. I really just want to hear that he is fine.
Thank you for praying once again for our family.
With love,
Leslie
P.S. I've been trying last night and again today to post pictures and am having troubles with photobucket. Not sure what is going on there, but am hoping it is fixed soon. If not, I may be posting somewhere else and will certainly update here.
Ramblings on my Christian walk and my career as a wife and a home-discipling mother...
We are Set Free Academy, claiming Isaiah 42:6-8 as our Scripture.
Our Eclectic Home Education Recipe
*Before Five in a Row
*Mystery of History Volume 1
*Apologia Elementary Science
*Math U See
*ARTistic Pursuits
*Queen Language Lessons
*Cantering the Country geography
*PowerGlide Spanish
all mixed up with a little Charlotte Mason and frosted with carschooling and outside lessons.
ON THE NIGHTSTAND
I'm currently removing the dangerous tower of books from my nightstand before I end up like Flat Stanley. Check back for book recommendations later.
seashells
