GOTCHA DAY!

Today was the day that every adoptive mother waits for, the day that she is able to finally pick up her child from his orphanage and take him away, FOREVER!  Today was a very peaceful day, I feel like that must have been thanks to the prayers of hundreds of friends and family members.  We woke up a bit late because our wake up call never came....however, we still made it out the door on time.

 

The drive to Pleven was beautiful as always.  When we arrived at the orphanage, another family was standing out front, the mother told me that our kids were both waiting outside when she arrived.  I could see Simon and his Baba inside so I walked right in.  We spent more time than I thought we would, talking to the director, a nurse and of course, his baba.  We asked more questions and took tons of photos and a few videos.  Simon's Baba seemed to love the necklace I gave her with Simon's picture inside.  She is SO SWEET, she filled the bag we had left behind, with not only everything we left with her but also MORE CLOTHES, a toy and some food :)  For some reason, they did not change him into clothes that we brought them.  I don't know if it is because I never asked them to or what?  I always thought they would just demand that I hand them the clothes and they would change him.  I felt kind of bad when we left the orphanage with cute PINK shoes :)  So this is why there aren't very many photos of him in his special gotcha day shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

opps who is this?  How did this cute little child get into my photos? 

 

Me giving Milka the locket :)  (no I never found the one I lost, sigh)

 

 

 

 

it was hard watching her say goodbye

 

she really loves him...bless her heart.

 

 

 

 





The current orphange director, please keep praying for her!!!  It is working!!!



if you see this woman around the orphanage, HUG HER!!!!



YES!!!!!!  He is ours!!!!



So then we said goodbye, Simon left the orphanage for the last time.  He did incredible in the car!  Jon sat next to him and fed him.  It was sweet.  I thought about how when you are a bio-mom, the hubby NEVER gets to do the first feeding, so I thought it was nice that Jon was able to feed him first.  (I also get car sick so it was best that I stay facing forward!) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them.  Psalm 10:18

We have spent most of the day feeding Simon, as it takes him a long time to eat.  Then Jon and I gave him a bath.  Which seemed to be going well, ie, he wasn't acting like it was bothering him, he didn't make a noise.  But afterwards, I had him wrapped in a very soft towel I brought with me, I was rocking him, and then thought, gee I better put a diaper on him.  Then I realized he was all tensed up :(  He wouldn't even move his legs down so I could get the diaper on.  So keep praying for this poor boy.  He is very hard to look at his legs or his upper arms.

But he has spent the day getting more and more comfortable with us.  He has eaten like a champ and his has been laughing and smiling!  I hope and pray that this pattern continues!

Blessings to you!  THANK YOU 

A tour of Sofia

We purposely came to Bulgaria a little early so that we could do some tourism before we pick up Simon. We don't know how much we will be able to take him out and about but we also wanted to take in some more of the Bulgaria culture on this trip. When Simon asks about his homeland, I want to be able to at least tell him something:)

We were blessed by getting connected with a missionary that lives in Sofia who offered to give us a walking tour. I am pretty sure that we saw all the sights we would have seen on the official free sofia walking tour, but I am sure we saw a few of them in more detail. And as we were walking and talking we were also able to get to know Cameron and hear about his experiences living in Sofia for 3 years as a missionary. We walked and talked for over 3 hours!! He is a history buff so we learned A LOT about Sofia and Bulgaria and the many, many ruins and churches we toured. My brain feels fried out from all that I learned!! I could do tons more research on this very interesting and very old place. Constantine called it "my rome" way back in the day. At that time it was called Sardica. I am telling you, this place is OLD, probably the oldest place that I have ever visited. Although that is not true for Rachel and our guide who batted around stories of visiting other very old places in Turkey. VERY interesting!

So we started out at our hotel and walked toward the city center. We crossed the lion bridge and eventually came to a courtyard area with a fountain. There were people selling honey at little stands. People lounged around on benches around the fountain. One building near us was a Mosque...it used to be a church but when the Turks took over they made it into a mosque. Another building there was a turkish bath house.




our hotel, the budapest!

the lion bridge







mosque

Then we walked out of there and past the "white house", this building was built when the communist party took over. We were sad to learn that christian pastors were taken from their homes and tortured in the basement of this place when the communists outlawed Christianity.

So, at some point in the last few years the Bulgarians began to build a metro system. While they were building they uncovered Roman ruins! (now that is something that NEVER happens in the states!) So they had to stop their project and start excavating...so they have set up a few ways for you to few them. You can stand above them, looking down on them or you can go down some stairs and see them behind some glass. You used to be able to walk under there, but they have since closed that...not sure why. When we walked down the stairs to get a closer look at the ruins we were able to see a very small little church. We went inside, you couldn't take pictures in it, but I did buy a little postcard of a saint slaying a dragon. (when you walk into Simon's orphanage they have this picture on the wall, so I thought I would take it home as a memento of the Pleven baby house)

here are candles right outside of this church, they light the candles for the dead

After that we walked to a very very old church in deed, the St George Rotunda, this is the oldest building in Sofia. It was surrounded by a building, so that it serves as a courtyard for a hotel on one-side, and the president's corders on another end and we weren't sure what the other buildings were, they looked like apartments? So we were able to go into this tiny rotunda church, we couldn't take pictures but we did enjoy the air-conditioning :) There was a sign that said that visiting was free but that we should buy items at the church because God would bless our purchases :) I almost bought a 4 pack of items from the "holy land", it had holy oil, water from the Jordan, dirt from the holy land and frankincense from the holy land. It could have all been mine for only 6 leva. There were also ruins around back that used to be a part of this building. The ruins included a roman bath.

st george rotunda

view from the back, ruins behind rotunda

rachel and I examining the back of the presidential corder

Then we walked out of this area, only to be just in time to see the "changing of the guard" at the president's place. (please note, we were unclear on whether or not there is a president right now, or what really goes on in his "corders" or place??)

they did quite the fancy walking!

Next up, we walked around down some stairs and into a hotel. This story might sound familiar, this hotel was being built when low and behold, MORE RUINS were discovered! So at first they just stopped building to check things out, what they found was amazing. One end of a huge Roman amphitheater, the rest of it is below the other buildings near the hotel. The hotel finally decided to just excavate and restore their part of it and use it as a tourism thing for their hotel. We went down inside and checked it out. I just kept imaging people in evening gowns drinking cocktails around these ruins at a very formal wedding or something. It was very beautiful.

view from the lowest level of the hotel

Next, we walked to the church of saint sofia. This was a very beautiful church as well. You can't take photos inside but we were able to listen to a beautiful choir at a memorial service that was going on while we were there. Then we discovered, much to the excitement of our guide, that they had finally finished excavating their ruins (the ones under their building) and they were open for a tour. We paid to get in there, a family price of 10 leva, to get in but we didn't pay the 15 leva that would allow us to take pictures. You will have to take my word on it, it was pretty cool, they had glass steps all over where you could go up and down into the ruins. They had a few video screens with some historical data in english! (big plus) In parts of it we could hear the service going on from above, which was cool, although I was worried they would be able to hear Jon's voice carrying from underneath. I am sure that is just what they wanted at the memorial service was a booming voice speaking english from under the floor! :)

The big finally was the Alexander Nevisky church. If you have done any research on tourism in Sofia this is another big one. The church is HUGE, in fact it is one of the largest eastern orthodox churches in the world! No pictures could be taken inside, so we took A LOT outside!




So you may or may not have heard that that there has been some unrest here.  We walked past parliment, and the spot were protesters, protest.  Here are some pictures of their signs....very interesting!

We finished off our long journey with a sandwich. You can eat VERY cheaply in this country if you leave our hotel! We paid 9.10 leva for 3 sandwiches and 2 drinks. (you get 1.43 leva per dollar at the airport; we hope to get money exchanged on Monday and get an even better deal :))
I had one of these sandwiches with Grace on my first trip to Bulgaria. It is on pita bread, we chose chicken, then their is cabbage, french fries, tomatoes and cucumber sauce on it. It is very good, I recommend it. Cheap and cultural and it hasn't made me ill so, try it!


So this concludes our Sofia cultural experience this afternoon, we don't know for sure what we will do tomorrow but we hope to visit a mountain that is very near here! So check back for more exciting travel pictures and stories and in a few more posts....you will get to see the reason we came all this way!! SIMON, we are coming for you on Monday, bright and EARLY!

The boy who lived.

 I have been watching another Pleven story unfold before my eyes, thank you internet.  I have been AMAZED at the progress this little girl is making.  She too, was almost Simon's age and only 18 pounds, she too has a similar diagnosis to Simon.  It has left me wondering and hoping and thinking.  You know even from the picture that was taken for Simon's file in June and the picture another mom took in September of last year, Simon looks to be improving.  (at least the care he was getting was improving, you can tell by his hair)  In our photos from March 2013, he looks even better.

This is Simon in June 2012, 17 pounds.

This is Simon in Sept 2012, 18 pounds.

So in reality my son is already healing, just as I have been praying that he would ;).  When we committed to this small, sick, hurt boy we made the commitment to love him no matter what.  Which is a pretty big leap of faith if you think about it.  Many people in our culture today have trouble making that kind of lifelong commitment to people they have known AND already loved for 5 years or more.  Yet there we were...having to trust God that this was the right choice and that NO MATTER what we will LOVE this child with ALL that we have.  We will do everything we can to help him HEAL.

Why, would we do that?  Well, sometimes you hear about a need so great, that you just can't ignore it.  Sometimes you hear about an injustice too horrible to deny, you have to act, you have to REDEEM.  I studied the Holocaust in college, I always wondered what I would have done, if I lived in Poland at the time.  Would I protect my neighbors, would I risk the safety of my family to safe someone else's family?  Here, was my chance to answer a similar question, after I found out about an orphanage that held children prisoner in their cribs, who gave them enough care to keep them barely alive, who housed a 16 year old that weighed 16 pounds, what would I do.  Would I just try to block it out, or would I risk it all?  Would I agree to a 28,000.00 process I had no money to pay for, believing God would provide?  Would I add a child to my home that may NEVER leave it, who may never walk, never talk, never be potty trained?

I counted the cost before I started this adoption and I realized that nothing mattered to me more than doing my part to save a child from this place.  No vacation or freedom for myself and my family means more to me than another human life.  Somehow Simon lived through this "holocaust", at almost 9 years old he is 20 pounds and he is still alive.  When we traveled in March we saw that we could hope that he would walk.  The jury is still out on whether or not he will talk.  I don't have my hopes too high for his development, because I KNOW what he has been through, and I don't know if I could heal from that.  Heck, I have trouble healing from my little emotional hurts....imagine being abandoned, imagine being starved, imagine being alone in a crib in a dark room, imagine never being comforted or touched by a mother, while the world waits for you to die....but he didn't die.

HOWEVER, I know that everyday we will see him COME BACK TO LIFE.  I know I will see with my "mommy eyes" his wonderful strides but I don't know how quickly you will get to see them.  Maybe it will be as fast as that beautiful little girl that was brought home a week ago, who is signing for more food and laughing with her brothers.  But maybe it won't....I am okay with that.  I would love for you, my family and friends, to be okay with that too.  Please let us never forget where my son comes from, what my son has been through and please don't forget, we are leaving HUNDREDS more of these children behind.

I don't know what is going to be happening next week, but I feel so blessed to be apart of it.  I feel blessed to be apart of the group of families who have committed to these children.  I feel blessed to be called Simon's mom.

Packing physically and mentally

We leave in 11 days. That fact has begun to be a bit surreal for me. Being this close has kicked me into gear thankfully. I worked on packing Simon's clothes over the weekend. I really have no idea what will fit and what won't, so it is a little hard. I am packing 3T and 4T shirts, most likely they will be very baggie but I do what to make sure they are long enough, because Simon is fairly tall for his weight. Pants are a little more difficult. I have packed a variety of sizes and styles. In the end I just told myself, if we have to we will just wash the pants that work and re-wear them. I have some 2T and 3T pants that I am hoping will work as shorts and then some 3T and 4T pants. I have gone back and forth about whether or not I should even put him in shorts. I don't want him to be hot, but perhaps that is impossible due to his weight. :( In reality I don't really want people to see his legs anyway. Perhaps I will just go take the shorts out :) (See this is still a work in progress)

We are not packing things that we can buy in country, like wipes or diapers or baby food. When he come home I will start being more concerned about nutrition, making my own purees and all but for now, he has been eating their baby food for over a year so he can do it for one more week. I was BLESSED with specialized formula and thick it from a dear friend and adoptive mother. I am hoping to get formula in him one way or another because it will help rehydrate him and give him nutrients in a easy to digest sort of way. I will be adding a standard process supplement called immnoplex to his food during this trip as well. It will serve as a multivitamin and also an immune-system booster.

I don't know how or if he will drink liquids. We tried to give him a bottle and a sippy cup while we were in country in March and he wouldn't put his mouth around either. However, I am still bringing those items along BUT I am also bringing a couple syringes. I also saw that another adoptive mom gave her son a honey bear straw bottle and he was able to drink from it. So after a fruitless search for a ready made one, I gave up, spent 1.49 and bought a honey bear from a local store in town and then found that my neighbors have tubes in their house that I could use as a straw, it worked perfectly. (they also provided me with the large syringes, thank you Abbi, wish you didn't have to have all this stuff around) We know that Simon will be dehydrated, they feed him liquids "by spoon" in his orphanage, if you could see me say that you would see my eyes rolling. Most kids struggle with constipation that first week at the hotel, it will be hard for us to know if it is what we are feeding him or his state when we picked him up. This puts us in a difficult situation. We are bringing some prune juice along, my game plan is to push water if is it possible...and pray that he passes stool without too much pain. We might also bring items to help him with it but I don't know if I want to mess with that too much.

When I went to Grace's house to pick up some options in sippy cups, she had bought every type to try to get Sam to drink from them, which has not worked, she also gave me some other helpful items. I had a so-so stroller in my car that I was going to wash up but Grace said, why don't you take Sam's old one, and I said, yes, why don't I! She also loaned me a carrier and told me where to buy my honey bear! It was a wonderful visit. I love hanging out with her because I can jump into adoption questions at any moment, "What did you do when....?"

The car seat is the final big thing to work out. My lawyer informed me that we need to bring a car seat with us for use in country. I am not sure what that will look like. I have emailed a missionary in Sofia and have asked her what a car seat would cost there and also if she could find me one to borrow for a week. If they don't cost too much and I don't want it for the plane ride, I would like to buy it and leave it with my lawyer for future families, but I haven't heard back from her to see if that is even a possibility. I also need to wash off the car seats that were given to us for Simon.

Well I think that is all I have been doing. I have gone to target once already for some travel items and will probably have to go back for a few more things. Tonight, dish-soap and bottle brushes were added to my list.

I can't wait to get there!!!!

Practicing

So I have been loving following another adoptive family's journey while they are in country. As I was re watching a video of their daughter laughing, I thought I should probably try to figure out how to post videos. So this is a practice run...hopefully you can see a video on my blog now.

This video was taken during one of our visits with Simon back in March. It seems like so long ago. I haven't allowed myself to look at pictures or video of him very much...until lately. We are 14 days away from traveling on our trip and 17 days away from picking our son up. It seems unbelievable that the day is getting so close!!

I hope that his reaching out to hold Jon's hand is a sign that he will open up to us and let us into his world....the first step to healing from it.

http://youtu.be/zWB4dxzbRCk

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!!!!