Friday, February 18, 2011

Five months ago today, Ryan and I were awakened by the shrill of our phone ringing. It was 11:20ish in the evening. I jumped up and said something to the effect of, "Oh my gosh! We have a baby!" and I remember I was SHAKING. I said hello and our agency contact started telling me all about a 13 month old baby girl who needed a family. We hung up and immediately planted ourselves in front of the computer for the first glimpse of our little girl. Five months ago, we added a member to our family and welcomed her into our hearts. Since then, we have prayed for her, planned for her, bought for her. For five months we have imagined what our life will be like, we have guessed when we will meet her, we have anticipated the arrival of updated information, we have wished her goodnight every morning when we wake up.
The most popular question that seems to be asked is, "Is it harder this time or easier?" People who ask this question are really asking two questions. They want to know if, since we have already adopted from China one time, the paperwork is easier. No. We had to do every little thing over again. We requested birth certificates, our marriage certificate, obtained new medicals, got fingerprinted three more times - like fingerprints change, right? - everything had to be done again. We used nothing from MK's adoption. When asked, "harder or easier?," people are also referring to the wait. With MK, we waited 11 months, switched to special needs, received her referral 5 weeks later and we were on a plane to meet her 3 months after first seeing her little face. This time, the wait has been more intense. It has made me anxious, to say the least. For five months, we have waited, knowing a face, knowing a smile, knowing our daughter/sister. It is just different.
I like to compare this wait and MK's wait to our pregnancies with the boys. With Colin, our first, he was active. He kicked and kicked and kicked, he entered this world kicking, literally. We expected him to join us on the later end of my pregnancy. Instead, he came 10 days early. With Pryce, our second child, he was sleepy. He slept my entire pregnancy. I remember drinking Coke to get him to move. I would have to push one side of my stomach to get him to kick me even the slightest bit, you know, just to make sure he was ok. And then he would sleep some more. We expected him to arrive prior to his due date because, you know, his brother had so we just figured he would too. He surprised us and arrived on his due date, not early or late. Both pregnancies were same but they were different. With Colin, we knew nothing. With Pryce, we knew more, had heard more, we anticipated more and had experienced more. Our adoptions have been just like our pregnancies, same but different. With MK, we knew nothing going into the process and we learned as we went along. With Maddox, we know more, we hear more, we anticipate more and we have experienced more. It is same but different.
Currently, our family is awaiting our Travel Approval. This part of the process, both times, has been compared to the ninth month of pregnancy - I am ready to pop! We want to meet her, hold her, we want to count her tiny little fingers and toes, we are all just curious about her. When we receive our TA, we will then be permitted to schedule our travel to China to meet little M. We are praying and hoping that this will be soon!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Five happy boys!

Colin is fast approaching his 11th birthday....too fast if you ask me! To celebrate, we took some boys down to Charleston, toured the Yorktown, had a birthday dinner in the city and then headed over to Seabrook for some beach time. One thing I brought back from this weekend was, once again, appreciating how fun it is to do things for Colin. He is one kiddo that always says, "Thank You" and means it with all of his heart. He doesn't say thank you so we will do more for him or because we have asked him to or because it is the right thing to do. He says "Thank You" because he really appreciates what is given to him. I love his heart!

Sharing Letter M?

We talk a lot about sharing with Maddox. So far, MK has agreed to share most everything except her beloved shoes. On Friday, she was doing an alphabet puzzle. She got to the letter "M" and shouted, "Hey, Mom, look it is letter M for Mason-Kate!" Oh, she was so excited with this discovery! I said, "Yes, the letter M is for Mason-Kate and Maddox too!" She got a peculiar look on her face and there was a long pause. I said, "Mason-Kate, M is for Maddox too." She replied, "We can't share the letter M, mom. God will have to make baby Maddox her own M. If we share my letter M and I cut it in half, it would look like the letter N!"