Friday, September 30, 2011

Happy 1st Birthday, Baby!

Our birthday miracle came true and here we are on September 30th, 2011 soaking in the joy of our daughter's birthday.  What an amazing feeling.  Completely indescribable.  It really isn't possible that just a week ago I was saying, "There's no way we'll have her referral in time for her birthday, but that's what I'm praying for anyway."  Then I'd back slide a little bit and pray, "Please Lord show us just a little bit more about where her paperwork is at in the process."

He looked at them intently and said, "Humanly speaking, it is impossible, But with God everything is possible!"  Matt 19:26


And here we are just a few days later and we have been reminded over and over that NOTHING is impossible to Him who loves us more than we could ever imagine.  I feel it tonight.  I feel love like its running through ever vein in my body.  Life is so very good, but there's that little twinge of "I want more...I want her here with us NOW! that's lingering today on her very special day.

We are just figuring out all the good stuff we need to know about China like geography, climate, time differences :) and because the time in China is 13 hours ahead of us here in the Central time zone Hope's birthday is already past (Boo).  However, last night we had a very special little celebration during what would've been just in time for Hope's party at her foster home.  Carl, the boys and I made two videos for Hope wishing her a happy birthday and telling her who we are and how very much we love her.  We got out the special birthday plate from the cupboard...

pulled out a banana cream pie (totally not homemade) and put a candle in the top...

and sang happy birthday to our daughter and new baby sister on her first birthday.  We quickly uploaded them to vimeo and ta-dah!  Hope was able to see her mommy and daddy for the first time on her 1st birthday.  Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.  It probably always will.  We weren't able to get a package to her in time for her celebration but we know that there will be pictures coming soon of her at her party in a special birthday dress bought for her on our behalf.  This girl is loved, I tell ya!  Her cup is overflowing :)  I'll share her special party as soon as I see or hear something.

As if it wasn't a miracle enough that we know that we will be Hope's forever family on her 1st birthday, God reminded me of the seed he planted in my heart to adopt years ago earlier this week.  It never even dawned on me while I was praying so hard for a birthday miracle that God had shown me the miracle was already in motion years ago.

Look at this book...


About four years ago while on a trip to Madison to get Lincoln's hair cut we made a stop at the local Pamida and I was browsing through the bargain books bin and stumbled upon this book, "Every Year On Your Birthday."  I was instantly struck by the beautiful little Asian girl on the cover and quickly opened it to find a beautiful story written by an adoptive mother of a Chinese little girl and the thoughts and prayers that she prayed for her daughter every year on her birthday.  I bought the book and put it in my sewing room (the girliest room in our house) and have kept it there ever since.  I didn't even remember I had the book until Wednesday night when I was thinking about all of the ways God moved to put Hope in our lives (I wasn't sleeping...)  So when I woke up for good Thursday morning I ran downstairs to find the book and sit and cry as I read the pages.  Here are a few that hit me like a ton of bricks...

"Every year on your birthday I think about the day you were born, how the sun must have shone, or the moon looked so bright."

"I wasn't there, but I was thinking about you as I waited at home to be your new mother."

"Every year on your birthday, I think about the six Chinese girls who shared a big room with you in China.  They knew you before I did.  They are your first friends, like sisters, the ones who touched you and heard you cry and laugh for the first time."

""Every year on your birthday, we look up at the stars and remember your Chinese family.  They are a part of our family now, and I hope somehow they feel the magic of your love too."




There is so much of our birthday girl's story yet to unfold and yet God's handiwork is all over the place for us to enjoy as we go.

Its been a day of reflecting and joy and a few tears here and there.  I'm thinking about the mommy who carried Hope in her tummy.  She was the first person in the world who undoubtedly loved her with every fiber of her being.  She was the one who gave birth to her and faced the same shock and despair that I did just two short years ago.  She was the one fed her and loved her for at least a couple of days before making the ultimate sacrifice in g leaving her in God's hands on a chair outside the entrance to the pediatric ward of a hospital on October 4th, 2010.  My heart breaks for her because I know how she must have felt giving birth to such a beautiful angel.  I know the fear.  I know the heart break.  Oh, how I wish her mommy would've had a chance to feel the joy I feel today on this her birthday.  I pray that she's filled with hope about her daughter's future.  Hope's birth mama will always be in my prayers.  Never a day will go by that I'll take for granted that my joy in being Hope's mom began out of the despair of another.

Dear Hope,
Its your special day!  Happy 1st Birthday, baby girl :)  May your days be filled with love and happiness until we make our way to you.  It may seem like a long wait, but often times the best things in life are those we must wait for.  We consider it a privilege to wait to be your mommy and daddy, although its pretty hard because you're so very precious and we just wanna scoop you up and bring you home NOW!!  While you've not yet felt the warm of our hugs or heard that crazy laugh of your mama's on your birthday this year, there will be a time soon when you'll hear and feel and taste all the love you can imagine coming your way.  This birthday will be your last birthday without us, Hope!  May you always remember that you were fearfully and wonderfully made exactly as you are today and that God is in complete control of your life with his infinitely loving ways.  We prayed for a birthday miracle that you would know you have a mommy and a daddy on their way and we would know you were ours by September 30th...you birthday.  God gave you your miracle, baby girl, and he gave us ours too...YOU!

Love,
Mommy, Daddy, Lincoln & Sully

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Big Brother Love

There has been a whole lot of Hope talk around our home the last couple days and the boys are both picking up on this little sweetie's place in our family :)  Today on the way home from school I was trying to explain to Lincoln why the social worker was coming tonight to visit.  I told him that she was going to come and help us to bring Hope home.  Here is how the conversation unfolded:

Lincoln:  What can't Hope's mommy get in her car and bring her here?

Mom:  Lincoln, Hope's family couldn't take care of her so right now she doesn't have a mommy or a daddy or a brother so that's why your daddy and I are going to go to China and bring her home to our family so I can be her mommy, daddy can be her daddy and you and Sully can be her big brothers.

Lincoln:  But why doesn't she have a mommy?

Mom:  I don't know, but maybe they didn't know how to take care of a baby with a birthmark like hers and like Sully's but we do and you need a baby sister, don't you think?

Lincoln:  Yeah...

Just a couple hours after we had this little talk  Lincoln amazed me when he was able to tell the social worker without any coaching that "Hope doesn't have a mommy or a daddy or a brother so we're going to be her family."  Oh son, YOU GET IT!!!  Lincoln's love is growing by leaps and bounds for his sister already. Its going to be so fun to see the boys get wrapped around our little girl's finger...and ours :)

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Introducing Our Daughter!!

It is with overwhelming joy and excitement that we introduce to you our daughter...

Hope Isabella Xiang Fei Nagel

Born September 30th, 2010 in the Guangdong Province of the People's Republic in China

We received "the call" this afternoon informing us that our agency had indeed secured the file of Hope for our family.  We are MATCHED!!!  The longing of my heart to be this little girls mommy has come to be.  Only God could have orchestrated the many details that had to align so perfectly for us to be matched with this sweet little one.  I cannot fully wrap my mind around it all yet.  My heart is raw and so full of love and awe of how big and mighty and absolutely amazing God is.

Look at my baby girl...


We knew that Hope was developmentally doing very well and her referral confirms that.  She is reported to love music, is bonded well to caregivers but not afraid of strangers, has been a very healthy little girl, sleeps well, is active, carries a ready smile and laugh, obstinate sometimes (haha), impatient sometimes, is full of personality and adored by her caregivers. 

Medically, her skin looks very good.  She is perfectly spotted everywhere :)  While she has a lot of nevus to deal with...most of her back, her bottom, her, hip, parts of her tummy and some big spots on her legs and one on her arm...she also has a lot of areas of "good skin."  There is not a shadow of a doubt that Dr. Bauer will have my little girl all fixed up in no time.  

We still have a long road of paperwork ahead, but we know that this little girl will one day come home to the family who's loved and prayed for her like crazy.  She's ours and we're so very in love!

Its the middle of the night...

Its 12:57am and my night of sleep is OVER!  Just last week we learned that Hope's paperwork had been submitted to the CCCWA and that as of a couple of weeks ago it was in translation.  When I heard that my hopes instantly soared thinking that her file could be "ready" sooner rather than later.  Then I learned that tonight, in the middle of the night, the newest batch of available children with special needs would be released to the list of "ready to be adopted" children.  My hopes soared even higher.  I thought, "There's a REALLY good chance that her file could be released with this group."  So I did what any potential adoptive parent who knows that God is in control of even the most minute of details does...

I began begging for people to pray with us for  "a birthday miracle."  You see, Hope's first birthday is this Friday, September 30th.  She will turn one in a very special foster home with people who love and adore her, but she won't have her mommy and daddy there with her.  The only consolation to that sad reality would be if God could orchestrate a divine miracle in the life of our family and His precious daughter, Hope...blessing her and her future family with the knowledge that she has a family that is on its way!!!

"In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my request before you and wait in expectation."  Psalm 5:3

I'm pretty sure that I never stopped praying since about last week Wednesday about the possibility that tonight would be "the night" when we would learn if Hope's file would be ready.  What this all means is kinda complicated but I'll briefly break it down into steps.

If Hope's file is ready, then she is officially available to be matched with a family...

If she's available to be matched with a family, then we are praying that she will be placed on a specific list for children with more significant needs.  This is a multi-faceted "praise" if she is because it allows our family to lock her as our child well before the typical matching process would take place (meaning instead of not knowing who our daughter is until January-ish...we could know next week!!).  It also means that we would become eligible for more grants based on the severity of Hope's needs.  Every penny saved is crucial to us being able to complete the process and stay afloat....

If Hope is on the Special Focus list (for children with more moderate to severe significant needs/older children), Holt must work to get Hope's file designated to them to find her a home.  If anyone can do this, they can :)

If Hope becomes a designated "Holt Special Focus" baby, we will be able to view her file, pray over it, send it around to a few important doctors and make a final decision about our intent to adoption her as our baby girl.

The rest is a whole lot more paperwork which will be much more meaningful down the road, but the most important part is that we get her file, prayerfully review all the information and make our decision to pursue her.  Then we wait for provisional approval and on and on the waiting game continues. We are expecting that we could travel sometime in the late spring/early summer at this point.

So let me cut to the chase here.

At 9:00pm I received an email from our agency containing these words, "we think we found your girl :)"

Oh dear Lord, could it be!?!?!  That was all the email said.  What does that mean?  Did they find her on the shared list?  Was it the special focus list?  She wouldn't have said "your girl" if things weren't positive, would she?  Could God be so good as to bless us with yet another miracle!?!?  Will Hope be ours, Lord?  Oh please let her be ours!!!


After many shed tears of joy and a couple phone calls, I tried to settle down for the night.  I knew that the chance of getting a good night's sleep was slim to none and now...well, no way.  So I put my phone on silent, knowing I'd be checking it a gazillion times for more emails from Holt without giving myself a chance to fall asleep.

At 12:30am I rolled over and saw my phone flashing and scanned through the latest emails to find yet another email from Holt.  Yes...Yes...YESSSSSSSS!!!!!  "Yep (she was on the special focus list)...we are doing well and I will give you a call as soon as possible in the am."

Heavenly Father, how could I every doubt your love for me?  I have such a small faith and you've blessed my family over and over and over with such obvious miracles.  I asked for a birthday miracle and even though it seemed a little silly you knew my heart and answered my longing with gifts greater than I ever dreamed possible.  When I think of how I'll share this story with our sweet girl, I'm speechless.  If it wasn't for living this journey and seeing Your hand in it over and over and over, I might not believe it if I was told.  The timing?  Amazing.  The circumstances?  Unbelievable.  The story of bringing a precious little girl to our family?  Miraculous!


So now in the middle of the night, with tears streaming down my face, I write with joy that tomorrow morning God will shed new light onto the life of a sweet girl we've loved since before we ever saw her precious face.  A girl who has been completely wrapped in love by God's own hands since before she was knit together in her mother's womb and in my heart.

"Blessed is she who has believe that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"  Luke 1:45

"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another."  John 1:16


We may very well get our birthday miracle.  Hope may get her birthday miracle, too!

Friday, September 16, 2011

They don't "get" it

There are some people in my life that just don't "get" adoption.  They don't "get" why we would want to flip our lives upside down, making sacrifices of every kind imaginable, to adopt at this point in our lives.  They don't "get" why we would be willing, or even eager, to embark on another an unpredictable journey with a child we know will have a special challenge of some kind to face.  These are the same well-intentioned folks that insist on questioning us and our parents over and over about the cost of adoption and whether or not we are 100% sure that our adoptive child's medical care will not be considered a pre-existing condition (and therefore not covered by insurance).   They just don't get it...

She's worth it!

She's worth the hours of paperwork we've put in, the money we've put away, the tears we'll shed for her, the worry of how we'll meet her needs, the sacrifices we'll make with our finances...she's worth every bit of it.

Our daughter, while not conceived in my womb, is every bit as real and already a part of our family as the two living, breathing sons playing trains downstairs right now.  I know people have a hard time wrapping their heads around that, but its true.  Our daughter will not be known as our "adopted daughter" for the rest of our life...she will simply be our little girl.  The distinction of her being adopted is going to be no more significant than the color of her eyes or the sound of her laugh when it comes to who she is.  Just as we've never wanted Sully's birthmark to define him we don't want our little girl's adoption to define her.  Its a special part of who she'll be, but its not the only part.

And just to set the record straight to those of you who still don't "get" it...yes, yes a thousand times yes! Our daughter will be our daughter in every sense of the word and that means she'll be a little Nagel to the state of South Dakota, to the United States of America, to the People's Republic of China and the ever-important health insurance company.  Whatever needs she may have will absolutely be covered by our insurance.  I'm not saying we may not need to fund raise for medical and travel expenses down the road just as we have for Sully, but our little honey will be covered.

I hope that more people will "get" adoption and that God will move in powerful ways to set orphans in the families they deserve.  He moved our lives and he's still moving people :)  I can't think of a better example of the value of life than that of Paige.  You can go here to read about her life.  She was worth it.  ALL orphans are, especially our little angel.

PS On a super positive note, our social worker is coming out the week of September 26th for our first home study visit!!!  We're also about a week and half away from being able to check the status of Hope's dossier again.  Always praying.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Filling our "Hope" Chest

This past week has brought a big milestone in our adoption process.  We are home study "ready."  Our paperwork was reviewed in Omaha on Friday and as long as things look okay our file will be passed on to a social worker who will conduct the "study" of our family.  We are hoping to hear from the social worker early this week to get our first appointment on the calendar.  This "study," which basically is a written document describing every detail of our family life, is our representation to the China Adoption Affairs representatives and everyone else who will be helping to unite us with our daughter.  Its a very important piece of this adoption journey and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about how it will go.  I am....very nervous, that is.  I think we have a great family and all but its kinda weird having someone examine our family in such a personal way.

When I think about our little one waiting for us on the other side of the world I've been struck lately by the reality that she has already been born.  Our daughter's miraculous birth has already taken place, but the circumstances of which will probably always be a mystery.  Her birth family has already made such a great sacrifice in giving her a chance at a life they didn't feel they could give her, but that will probably always be a mystery as well.  I just wish I could fast forward in time and see who our little girl will be.  Will she have chubby little baby cheeks?  Will she be busy like Lincoln?  Will she be spunky like Sully?  All of these things are a great big mystery, but yet I have to keep reminding myself that the journey to our little girl is a story that can't be written in a day, a week or even a month.  The only one who knows the beautiful fairy tale ending (and yes, I believe there will be one) is God Almighty and he'll reveal all those precious details to us in His perfect timing.

While we wait on His precious timing I have begun having a strong desire to....well, shop :)  When Sully was a baby I bought him a very special blanket that was a giraffe print and the softest minky you could ever find with a ivory satin edge.  It was beautiful and I apparently wasn't the only one who thought so.  I left it at a Dr.'s office when Sully was a few months old and it was never "found."  Well, I just so happened to find the My Blankee outlet center on the great www and stumbled upon this sweet little ladybug blankie that has my daughter's name all over it (even though I'm not sure what her name is yet-haha).  It arrived Fed Ex on Thursday :)  Its extra special because ladybug's are a symbol of Chinese adoption and polk-a-dots are kinda special to us nevus families too.  This blanket will go into my little "Hope" chest of things I've been picking up here and there for our little sweetie.  


I'm going to have to be careful or the Hope chest may explode :)
 

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