Random Contemplations

Because I just don’t have a lot of extra time right now while getting adjusted to having a sweet, wonderful toddler right now; I am posting something I wrote to the people of the Angelman’s list-serve that I joined. It is a group for paren’t of children with Angelman’s Syndrome, a big group that has tons of wonderful experience to offer. Anyhow, this has a lot of info about Joshua that I have been wanting to share here, but just haven’t done it yet.

Hello everyone, I have been sort of “listening in” to y’all for the past few days, and thought it time to introduce our family to you.

My name Adrienne and my hubby is Kevin, we have a daughter who will be 13 on Friday, and only a week ago Saturday we brought home Joshua Paul to join our family. Joshua is going to be 2 on January the 20th and he has a clinical diagnosis of Angelman’s Syndrome. We have adopted him through our state’s (Texas) foster care system. He was taken at birth from his birth mother because she was “mentally retarded” and had already had two children taken from her because she just couldn’t care for them properly, although she tried, she just couldn’t do it, and his father died of diabetic complications before he was born.

We first saw Joshua on the TARE website, that is the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange, it’s where they post pictures of kid’s who are up for adoption, and I just fell in love with him right away. We submitted our homestudy and were chosen to be his forever family. They chose us because I have a nephew named Eli who is undiagnosed but has very similar things to Joshua, so we already have experience with special kids. :-) So I can say that Eli helped us to get our son! They sent us his files and that’s when we found out about the Angleman’s diagnosis. So the research began….I was given the name of Teresa J by a friend and she e-mailed me and was so kind and answered some of my questions. Well…we just knew that Joshua was meant to be a part of our family!

It has only been a little over a week, but already I am head over heels IN LOVE with our little guy!!!! It just feels right, and I know that God meant him for our family all along. He is a joy to be around, and I already don’t know what I would do without him, I feel SO blessed to have been chosen to be his Mommy and Daddy and sister feel the same way.

In was with a wonderful foster family near Austin, Texas and got lots of love while he was there, I am so grateful to them for caring for my son the way that they did. He seems to be bonding very well with our family, like I said it’s as if he is just meant to be here. :-)

The foster family didn’t think it would be hard for him to transition to a new home, he didn’t SEEM to mind leaving with us, but I believe that it did affect him in ways that just aren’t seen. His tummy was upset, reflux that he had not had a problem with in a very long time reappeared, so now he is on Zantac for time and then we’ll see how he is. He does seem to have more stranger anxiety than they thought that he had, he wants me back after someone else takes him from me, and it a lot quieter around new people than normal. He usually makes a lot of happy sounds. He seems to be getting more and more comfortable here every single day, and I think he feels very safe with us now.

Some things we’ve learned about him:

He only eats mushy food so far, nothing that has to be chewed.

He sleeps very well, goes down by himself at 10:00 and doesn’t wake up until 9:00 in the morning, and takes an hour to two hour nap during the day.

He mouths everything, grinds his teeth if not chewing on something else.

Loves bath time!

Has an awesome sense of humor!

It’s exhausting dressing him, I feel as if I have run a mile after his bath and putting on his diaper and jammies.

He hated brushing his teeth, his foster mom would only attempt it every other day. We since have gotten him and electric toothbrush, and he plays with a Bumble ball during the day and the input from that has already helped so much, it did take two of us to brush his teeth and now he willingly opens his mouth for the electric toothbrush!

He loves shopping, but not too long.

He gets pretty fussy whenever his schedule is too disrupted, poor guy has entered the most non-scheduled family, so we are working hard to accomodate him!! :-)

When he first came to us, he played for very long periods of time by himself with toys, and did the same as his foster home, but now…I don’t know if we just play with him too much, or that’s he getting more bonded, but when I leave the room he really fusses! I hope it’s because he is bonding well! :-)

Well, that’s probably more than any of y’all wanted to know. :-) I am honored to be a part of your group and, I am so blessed to have my own Angel. I hope to learn a lot to be able to help him be the very best that he can be! I love reading all of the posts, what great kids you all have!

Blessings,
Adrienne

Home with our new son, ahhh, what a beautiful thing!!
Joshua playing in his new toy room, our living room. :-)

This is Joshua’s WONDERFUL foster family; all three older children are theirs and the littlest girl is their foster daughter.

This is the very first picture I took when we got there on Friday.

I will write more later, just know it was wonderful and we are blissfully happy, and we give all the glory to the Lord for this beautiful little boy being able to become a part of our family!

Love one another~Adrienne

 

This is the sign Christine made for Joshua’s door. :-)

This is the view from the door, hanging on the sides is one of the blankets my friend Thimble Chick made for him and the other one is the blanket that I just finished crocheting for him.

My friend Jeana made this one, it’s a twin size, so it’s on the twin bed in his room, where I am sure that Christine is planning on sleeping for a little while. :-) Isn’t it cute?

I will tons more pictures when we get back home with him!! The presentation went so well yesterday, praise God! His foster mother seems like such a sweet woman, they are a homeschooling family too! I thought that was pretty neat. I can’t wait to see him, we are leaving tonight and will meet him for the first time tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. We will stay in the area Friday evening and start back our way at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, so by 1:00 we should be HOME with our new baby!!!

They sent me the full shot today of the the photo I already had of Joshua, I finally get to see his arms and legs! :-)

Love one another~Adrienne

My wonderful friend, Marlain, has started her own blog here on homeschoolblogger! Please go and visit her and say “HI”, she has been such a good friend to me, she is the BookCoverMom!

I had coffee with Tiffany of Grown at Home last night! We have been talking on the phone quite a bit about adoption stuff, she and her family are using the same agency as us, but last night was the first time to get to really chat in person. Very fun! It has been so great that the Lord has given me someone going through the same process as us to talk to!

We are still in the process of house cleaning around here and it’s going very slowwwww…It’s the week my cycle will start and I am always so tired and just sort of drag around, I’ll have small bursts of energy and then hit the wall and become so tired. We are getting there though, and will definitely be finished by the time we leave Friday morning! :-) Samantha told me yesterday, “it’s not going to take you four days to clean your house”, well the way I’m going, it just might! Sigh…

Tomorrow is the big day, the presentation for Joshua! I need to fill out paperwork tonight and come up with a list of questions that I have for them so that I don’t forget something. I wish it were Friday already!!

Christine is so excited, she spends so much of her time in his room now, just waiting… looking at his clothes and rearranging toys and blankets. Marlain has ordered her a “Big Sister” shirt, I think she will probably be wearing it proudly all of the time. I forsee her washing in the sink every night so that she can wear it over and over again. :-) She is such a sweetie pye! ;-)

Off to clean more! :-)

Love one another~Adrienne

Today was our “baby” shower, I wish you all could have been there, although my friend Marlain, who threw the shower for me, is probably quite glad that you weren’t. :-) Her house was busting with my dear friends and family, it was fabulous! I was overwhelmed by everyone’s excitement for us in our adoption, and feel extraordinarily blessed by God to have such incredible friends and family to support us in our journey. It was so encouraging!

Marlain did an awesome job with the shower games, she had my Hubby and I play a sort of Newlywed game, it was quite entertaining. Hubby was too cute, of course, and gave his usual slippery sort of answers, I tell him he must be related to our former democratic president. :-) It was a cute idea, and I enjoyed it. (Not to insult the person I know who really IS related to Bill C.) :-) The cake was DELISH, I don’t know what kind it was, but YUMMY! I don’t know exactly how many people were there, but there were many. I was overwhelmed by how many presents we received, including a jogging stroller and a carseat, wonderful books and toys, and Joshua is going to be one very well dressed kiddo. Snazzy! Christine surprised me by crocheting two beautiful wash cloths for Joshua, I was really surprised and so proud of her. They are just beautiful! I’ll share pictuers later.

Hubby has decided on Joshua’s middle name, it will be Paul. Doesn’t that just sound fabulously strong? Joshua Paul… I just love it! We had two wonderful friend’s make beautiful blankets for Joshua with his name embroidered on them, they are so nice, I love them both! One is crib sized and the other is twin sized so he will always be able to use one or the other, perfect!

I have been nesting in his room. :-) Christine is helping me. We are going to wrestle with the closet in there tomorrow, it’s amazing how much stuff I have crammed into that little closet! I hope I can find someplace to put it all, if not the old stand by is available…the garage. Hubby just loves, ha, ha, when I put junk out in “his” garage. :-)

Well…off to bed now for me, this day has been very full and I am ready to get to sleep and have sweet dreams of it all. :-)

Love one another~Adrienne

 

We were told by our caseworker today that both boy’s caseworker’s want us to only take one of them. Because we had to do it, we made a choice.

We chose Johnny Joe (aka Joshua).

I am sure none of you will be as shocked about it as we are, we would much rather have both of the boys, but that doesn’t seem to be God’s plan. You may be surprised that we chose Joshua, since we have never met him. We have cuddled Will and played with him and bonded with him, and it’s so hard to know that he won’t be ours, but when we think of who we felt, from the beginning, that God wanted for us to have…it’s Joshua. Will is so sweet and and his medical needs seem to be almost non-existent from how they thought he would be. The neurologist even released him at the last visit because he is on target with everything! Joshua on the other hand, is very delayed and on paper looks pretty scary to most people. He is the one who would have the hardest time finding a family, we are the family that is used to what he is like because he is so very similar, in many ways,to my nephew Eli, and he doesn’t scare us. Each time I have been with Eli in the past couple of weeks, I just can’t wait to see Joshua, I think they will be best buds. :-) We were the chosen family from 24 famiies and they chose us because of our experience with Eli, of children with special needs! Trying to make things happen with Will, on the other hand, has always felt like just that, us trying to make it happen. We want him, but when it comes down to the decision, we don’t feel as strongly that he is the one God has chosen for us.

I am sad, but in a strange way I feel more at peace than I have in quite a while, almost a feeling of relief. I will miss Will’s smile, and laugh and bright happy eyes though. I know that God has a very special family out there though, that must be the ones that He desires for William’s forever family.

We are probably going to do the presentation for Joshua on Wednesday the 19th and then go to Austin on the 21st as was originally planned, before all the plans went haywire earlier this week. We are excited to go and meet Joshua, finally!

Love one another~Adrienne

 

I have just spoke with my caseworker again and we are still on to visit Will on Saturday. We get to pick him up and take him wherever we want, even here to our home, for a few hours. I don’t quite understand everything that happened this morning, when I got off the phone I didn’t know if they trusted me with either child. All I know is we are still moving forward…what a roller coaster. I am sure I am being swayed by the wind way too much right now. I also don’t understand if they are truly concerned with me, why are the letting us pick Will up and take him out by ourselves? I am very relieved that we get to do something more normal with him though, and not have people inspecting our every move during the visit. I can’t wait to hug him and kiss him!

Thank you so much friends who are praying for us and who keep pointing me back to the One who is in control of it all. That is what true friends and sister’s in Christ should do for each other, and I am very blessed by you all!

Love one another~Adrienne

 

L. just called and they feel that we should slow things down with Joshua because they don’t feel that CPS would allow us to have Will knowing that we are taking another child into our home also. She thinks that if the next visits go well that we could have Will by the end of the month? Will’s caseworker’s have not known that we are adopting Joshua also, and with their concerns with us they just think it would be what makes them say no to us. I am not sure how I feel about it, but I do know that I am very sad to have to wait longer on Joshua. L. and the main director, both think that Joshua’s casworker will be very understanding about it. They don’t feel the same way about Will’s side though. This can all seem so crazy, but I know that God has his hand in the whole thing…

Love one another~Adrienne

UPDATE: Even more change…After my own hestitation to the way they wanted to do things, and advice from my pastor, I called L. back and told her that if it was God’s plan for us to adopt William that it could not be thwarted and that we were not comfortable with the plan that they had wanted to follow. There was silence on the phone…and then I was told that really the agency was also concerned about me and that they wanted to slow things down for that reason. I was shocked, and asked why they hadn’t been upfront about it, her response was an apology and that she wasn’t good with confrontation.  I told her this is our life, we need honesty. She again apologized, and said she thought that I knew that the agency was also concerned and not just CPS and and said that I had no idea.

I got off of the phone crying and told her I would speak to her later. I am pretty sad. I have to believe that God’s plan cannot be thwarted though, if we are meant to be the parents of either of those children he will soften hearts and allow it to happen. If it doesn’t happen that is His divine plan and He has a reason for it.

Jeremiah 29:11
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.