In "Preparation"

We will be living in 15 days....it seems crazy that we are FINALLY at this point. Of course, now that we are, I am feeling suddenly unprepared. ;) I have been pouring over pick up trip stories on blogs. Both current and older. I LOVE being able to read other people's stories. We have been praying that Simon will eat on the pick up trip. We don't really think he will drink, I will pray for that too but it would be a very unexpected surprise if he does. Judging from others getting their kids from Simon's orphanage we have about a 50/50 chance he will eat :) HOWEVER, we did feed him a lot during our visits with him, which I think is unusual, and I am very hopeful that will help us.

We have a couple doctor visits already set up for when we get home. I have been preparing a folder for all of Simon's records in it. He will see the pediatrician on Monday the 26th and they already have his records. Since Jon's sister works at the office and Simon will see Ishmael's doctor, they already know us and know about Simon's story. However, the pediatric cardiologist does not. We are seeing them on Tuesday the 27th to check Simon's heart, yesterday I prepared a letter to go with the records that explains his neglect. I am hopeful that it will help them understand where we are coming from. In it I included a copy of the article from April 2012 about the orphanage. I am asking them to do the least invasive and extensive testing as they can (I know that sounds weird) if things can wait 3-6months, I would like to wait. We want to get his heart checked out of precaution, but I really want to get him home and hold up and feed him for a few months.

Speaking of holding up in our home. I am also trying to work on our letter/blog post to our family and friends. Adoption people, experts and families, suggest "cocooning" when you bring a child home. I am having trouble figuring out how we are going to do that. I do know that I will need to let people know that we are going to be the only ones to feed or change Simon. This should help him figure out we are his parents. The experts suggest that you don't let a lot of people come and go during the first few months that your child is home. This is where things get a little weird for me. The fact is, Simon's life will be full of people coming and going, we live in community, so that is what our life is like. Also, this is sort of what he is used to... I do see the value in us hanging out at home a lot...so we will probably do that. I am conflicted by this whole thing, because reality we will just end up following cues from Simon and making it up as we go along. However, I am haunted by the "experts" that make it sound like I could screw up our relationship with Simon for life. I suppose that is how parenting experts make us all feel??

As a side note, I have found it very interesting to be researching adoption "attachment" parenting as I work in a community of people who are "attachment parents". I am thinking one of these groups need to change their name :) The attachment parents I know are people who nurse their kids past what is "socially acceptable", who co-sleep, and wear their babies and generally spend lots of time with their kids. Some go to an extreme of never telling their child no, but those people are on one extreme end of the spectrum. Most of these parents are also naturally minded, so less medical intervention, antibiotic avoidance, some vaccination avoidance and good organic eating. However, attachment adoption parenting doesn't seem to apply any of these principles??? I am still working the whole thing out in my head.

I am preparing myself for the medical journey we are going to be starting. I am trying to do my research so that when we go to the doctor I am able to make medical decision based on both research and knowledge of Simon's neglect. Meaning, I don't want to just do every intervention that is suggested, I want to examine it in light of SImon's healing as a whole person. For example, I would like to do a titer to see what vaccines he might need, rather than just redo all vaccines. Also, before any vaccines are done, I want to wait until he is healthier as we have no idea how is immune system works and vaccines are made AND tested on HEALTHY children, not severely neglected 20 pound 9 year old. Another example to me is his swallowing problems. We don't know if that is a physical problem or a psychological problem, the result of choking down propped bottles for 7 years. So, if he is eating, then I would like to wait to test the heck out of his swallow....that can wait until he has learned to trust us.

Well, there are my meander-y thoughts and preparations right now. I will try to do another post in the preparation section again soon. My hope is that it will be a little more....focused. :)

Thanks again, for following our journey. Without our wonderful network of friends, family and strangers giving to us, praying for us and encouraging us, we wouldn't be here, 2 weeks away from bringing SImon home!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TRAVEL DATES!!!!

There must be something about the long wait that has affected my ability to communicate. I have delayed in blogging my very, very exciting news. On thursday July 18th I was given travel dates!!!! We will be in Bulgaria from August 15th-24th!!!! We will have Simon in our ARMS on Monday August 19th.

Jon's sister RAchel has agreed to travel with us. She is a pediatric nurse and we felt it would be nice to have her there "just in case" :) SHe has also traveled the world quite a bit and is one of Jon's favorite people to shoot the breeze with. We are very excited that she is coming along and that it gives us the ability to never walk around alone looking for babyfood!

This is my understanding of how it will all go down. We will leave for the airport at about 1pm, we are leaving from the LINCOLN airport. (after taking this trip twice, there is no reason to mess around with an hour drive to Omaha at the beginning and the end of this LONG trip) Then we will fly to Chicago, then we will fly to Munich (this will be my first time at this airport!) and then into Sofia. We will get there on Friday around 4pm. I have found the key to this whole flip to Bulgaria time is to stay AWAKE just past dinner. This means we will probably go to bed around 8pm Bulgaria time....(then wake up around 3am maybe, take a melatonin and back to bed!)

We will have Saturday and Sunday to bum around Sofia. Jon and I have never really explored Sofia, so I thought this might be nice. Our agency, who I love, will also be connecting us with some missionaries that we might be able to hang out with. I would LOVE to pick their brains about culture and religion in Bulgaria! There is a zoo, and some kind of archeological museum and a walking tour of Sofia. So we will see what we do. I also just want to be able to scout out the good places for Simon food and our food. Our plan is to only eat fancy a few nights for dinner (the hotel we are staying at is very fancy, and close to US prices, although the quality is much higher than what we are paying!!!) We can eat cheaper away from the hotel!

MONDAY, will FINALLY come!!! We will be picked up by our driver and translator (2 people actually :)) They will drive us through the mountains and into Pleven. It is a very pretty drive. I am glad that we will be all slept up for it! We will go straight to the orphanage...and we will get Simon. I plan to hug his baba tons, and give her, her locket (with Simon's picture inside). She has been his Baba for 3 years and I know this day will be hard for her. Then we will get in the car and GO, GO, GO.

We will be in the country with Simon for 5 days. In those 5 days we will need to do a few things, I have no idea the order but here is my loose understanding of what we will have to do. We will go to a police station for a photo, I think. We will go to the embassy, which I hear is super hard to get into..., we will also go to see a doctor. At some point we will be given a new birth certificate for Simon, his visa and his Passport!!!!! The final night we will get to have dinner with our lawyer Toni and any of her other clients that might be traveling, so far it is just us :(. BUT we are excited to get to spend more time with Toni. We will probably try to pick her brain more about the history of Simon's orphanage and also what is really going on legally right now.

We don't know how Simon will do out of the orphanage. We do know that he eats slowly, so we will spend a lot of time feeding him. We will have to take him on the outings listed above, IF he handles those okay, then we will be able to go do some other stuff, like show him some of the cool places we found when we were out on Saturday and SUnday. If he can't seem to handle it, we will stay in the hotel room eating :) And at least we will have some pictures to show him of his native land!

We do plan on blogging. My husband just bought a new camera, because ours died, and he has become quite the budding photographer. He got it last week and already had two gigs yesterday (a friends engagement photos and VBS photos) He was very excited about the camera for its ability to take scenic pictures and also very FAST photos. We are hoping to get awesome pictures of Simon and his birth country!!! Sadly, those pictures will not arrive on our blog until after we are home....DON"T FEAR, we will take some pictures on the ipad and some video....we will POST those right away!! :)

There is the overdue update for my blog readers. Sorry my communication is down....my mind is still mending with the news of our travel dates...I am feeling the fog of uncertainty and sadness lifting ever so slowly, and I am hopeful that when it dissipates, I might have my whole brain back from the pit of international special needs adoption of a severely neglected child.

THank you all for your support and encouragement during this time of our lives!!!!

Timeline and NEWS!!

I haven't been very good at keeping a time line of our journey. But while I can still sort of remember what has happened this last year I figure I better try to jot it down. AND since I have found that pouring over other mother's timelines has been helpful to me over the past year, I thought I should try to share mine.

April 20, 2012----I travel with Grace to meet her daughter Sam for the first time.
June 24, 2012---we start getting fingerprints done for our home-study (I know this because they have expired...and we have to get them done AGAIN :) )
September 2012----we commit to Simon
January 24th 2013---I mail my dossier to my agency!!!
January 28th 2013---my dossier goes to Bulgaria
February 22nd 2013---verbal referral
February 28th 2013--written referral
March 22 2013----we get to meet Simon for the first time
April 30 2013--Article 5 interview
May 20 2013----our article 5 is submitted
June 2 2013----our lawyer tells us that she is going to a hearing to get us a court date
June 8 2013----our court date!!!! Simon is officially ours!

We can't wait to get our travel dates and we have been told that we will get some travel dates on Monday or Tuesday of next week. (july 15 or july 16)

It finally seems like things are moving quickly!! I hope it continues to feel this way! Praise God for all his provision, and moving the mountain to allow our court date to happen before the court shut down in Bulgaria. Now I pray that he helps me get everything done to prepare for our trip!

Here are some pictures of our recent camping trip to Lake McConaughy. If you live in the midwest...you should visit is sometime. It is the closest you can get to the "beach" in the midwest...besides lake Michigan, which really doesn't count as midwest because it is so far north :)

here is Ishmael driving a stagecoach in a museum in ogallala...we didn't know this was such a cowboy town!

Here is our campsite...this is the best beach I have seen in the midwest...I can't believe we were in Nebraska!!!

Here is Ishmael roasting his own marshmallow.  

This is after we came home...but I wanted to include it.  Ishmael really loves to play in the water!  I hope Simon does too!