Contact with Social Worker this Morning

On Monday, I posted how our social worker from Andover contacted us with a couple of possible options for babies.  I hadn't heard anything so I contacted her this morning to see if she had any updates.  The baby that was already born, did not work out.  Which I am fine with as I am still recuperating. :)  There is another one, that we had already been presented with over Mother's Day weekend, that we had already turned down.  Then there is still one that is due in September with a boy.  This one sounds like the most "promising". Our social worker hopes to meet with her either today or tomorrow to present her with our profile, amongst 1 or 2 others.  I am to call our social worker back tomorrow afternoon to see if there are any updates.  This birth mother has about 4 other children, with 3 of them farmed out to others.  She is due at the beginning of September and sounds to be a Christian without drug and alcohol issues.    This would also be a local birth mother so we wouldn't have the extra expenses that come with travel.  So, we will wait and see if we can get some closure on this birth mom and then decide where we need to try to go with Angel Adoption.  I did attempt to let our social worker know what kind of pressing situation we are in in regards to Angel Adoption in hopes that she will finally step up and get serious.  Will see how God leads!!  Thanks for continuing to pray!  Will post when we find out more where we stand on this case! :)

Quick Correction to Last Post

I can't begin to tell you how much it meant to me to know that so many people were praying for me while I was in the hospital.  Thank you so much!! 

In the last post, I mentioned that the nurse predicted I could go blind - - I don't know that at that point they were necessarily concerned about permanent blindness but more "blindness" from both eyes being swollen shut.  However, when the doctor had me try to open my eye, and I was able to, he did ask if I could see from it.  I s'pose that since they didn't truly know what was going on they had to cover all their bases.  Anyway - - just wanted to quickly clarify that and apologize for my phrasing on that one.  Only God knows if it would've been permanent, but praise the Lord He chose to heal me this time!!  You don't realize how important everyday activities are and how we shouldn't take anything for granted.

Hospital Vacation

The afternoon of my last post, May 18, we received an email from Angel Adoption confirming that they had received our contract and check.  The following week we would receive an email with all the details of what they would need to get working on our portfolio.  After the week we had had with Anne breaking her leg, I was ready to get started again on our adoption pictures and try and get back to 'normal'.  We were looking forward to a nice campout over Memorial Weekend so that we could kinda regroup as a family after all the stress.  Well God, had another vacation in mind...

Many of you have asked what happened - - well here is the best of the story as I can remember.  Sunday night/early Monday morning (May 20 or 21) I woke up for some reason touching my eye lid.  The pain that shot through me was intense.  I touched the eye lid again, and the pain was enough to make me cry.  However, the strange thing is, is that it was like I was in a dream and just went back to sleep.   Monday morning, when I woke up, my eye felt swollen.  At 6:46 a.m., I knew Skeeter was going to need to take me to the doctor to see what was going on.  However, I didn't want to wait for a regular dr appt and we chose to go to Same Day Care to hopefully get in quicker so Skeeter could get to work.  So we dropped the kids off around 8:00 a.m., and went to the doctor -- at this time, my eye was swollen but was still poking through.  The doctor diagnosed it as cellulitis and put me on an antibiotic and steroids.  After the appointment, around 9:00 a.m., my eye was completely shut.

Around noon, I noticed the swelling was getting worse and called the doctor.  They said it would get worse before it got better - - boy were they right!!  By 2:10 p.m., my eye had developed a lovely blister.  These pics are on the cell phone so will have to forgive the quality.  The pic below shows the blister if you can tell. :)

 

I called the doctor again and they said to get in right away and that they would work me in.  So I again had to call Skeeter home from work so that he could drive me to the doctor.  Suffice it to say, they didn't know what was going on, but was definitely thinking it was a reaction that was moving quickly and would need to have some stronger attention.  By 4:00 p.m., we were on the move packing and arranging for child care.  We dropped off the kids around 4:30 p.m., and was in the hospital by 5:45 p.m., waiting on an iv and CT.  They were wanting to see if the CT would show any absess behind the eye that was causing the fluid to build and then that would require surgery to drain.  Praise the Lord there was not an absess!!  However, there was some possible indication that there COULD be some cellulitis.  So they put me on 2 different antibiotics and steroids to help with the swelling.

Tuesday morning, the Infectious Disease Doctors became involved.  They were uncertain that there was an infection, because my lab work was coming back ok and there was not a fever, but to be on the safe side they would keep me on my antibiotics.   I had to stay elevated as much as possible so that things would drain down to my heart rather than my brain.  I had swollen up into my forehead, out to my ear and down to my neck.  The family doctor just kept saying over and over that I just wasn't sick enough to have cellulitis (maybe we caught it in time), but that I didn't have enough redness and misery and that it was just a lot of swelling indicating an allergic reaction.  But since we don't know for sure what happened, we don't know what we are allergic to.  By Tuesday evening, things weren't looking good for my good eye and the nurse predicted that in about  hours I could be blind.  How I pleaded with God to let me keep that eye or if not to give me back the other one.  I was petrified to go to sleep not knowing if I would wake up and be able to see.  But I knew that worrying about it wouldn't help and so I did come to rest knowing that God would be my strength.  However, each time I woke up, you can be sure I was praising the Lord when I could see.  Thankfully, He did let me keep my eye! :)

By Thursday, they decided to take me off the antibiotics and switch me to oral steroids so that I could get home.  Thankfully that worked. I had and continue to be on higher doses of Zyrtec as well.  Friday morning, I was discharged from the hospital!! :)  All the doctors and nurses kept saying over and over again that they had never seen anything like this before!  Think I should win a prize or something for this one! :)

Here is my eye as of Sunday.

We may never know what happened, and that is very frustrating for me, one who likes to have answers.  But we have sprayed the house and are carrying on as though I was bit.  Maybe once the swelling is completely gone, we will be able to see something, I don't know. I go back for a follow up visit on Friday.

As for the adoption - -I was so disappointed knowing that while I was in the hospital there was an email for me with a project of something I could be working on.  What was/is God doing???  So we emailed Angel Adoption and told them what was going on and told them that we hoped to get on to the pictures when we got home from the hospital.

Here we are with a new week - - hoping to get started again as my strength and eye sight increase.  I received a call from our social worker this morning (from Andover) saying that she may have a couple of possible cases for us and needed us to again send her our portfolio.  One of these babies was just born and another one due in September.  What is God doing to my heart???  What is He wanting us to do?  Are we to work with Angel Adoption??  If this works out with our local social worker, can we get at least a partial refund of what we sent to Angel Adoption?  Praying that God will clearly lead us and that we will know what HE is wanting for us to do.  So as we recuperate from our health issues and broken bones, we will see what excitement we have this week in the world of adoption as Angel Adoption will need to know what is going on.  What will we tell them??!  Gotta love this journey!  Thanks for coming along with us!

New Start!

This week has been a bit slower on the adoption front, which is ok as we were dealt a blow with Anne breaking her leg over the past weekend.  She got her cast today so hopefully will be on the mend soon.

As for our adoption - - on Tuesday we mailed our 18 mos contract with a nice sum check to Angel Adoption to start their advertising for us.  It has been such a PLEASANT change to email someone and actually get a response, much less that same day!  Amazing - - so not what we are used to!!  I gave the fax number to our social worker so she would know where to send our home study.  I did not hear a response back, so checked with Angel Adoption to see if they had heard anything.  Not surprisingly, their answer was no.  So next week, I will again try to pursue getting our home study to Angel Adoption.

Once Angel Adoption receives our check and contract, we will begin more frequent communication with them as they send us requests for what they need to build our profile FOR us.  So hopefully, next week, we can get started on that process as well.  Can you tell I am excited to start working with someone who will be doing the work for us???! :)

Our biggest hurdle that I see right now is once again involving the home study. :(  The home study needs to be valid in all states, and I have asked about that, but have not been given a response.   So we are praying that: 1) Our home study will be valid for all states, and 2) That our social worker will quickly get our home study to Angel Adoption.  Thankfully, I do think we have a bit of time, as it will take 1-2 weeks from what I understand for our profile to be ready to go active, but I don't think we will be able to be shown if they haven't received our home study.  

Thanks for continuing to pray as we wait on our next forever child!

God's Answer in regards to Angel Adoption

Today has been an emotional day for me.  It reminded me of when we were struggling with infertility and I would think I would finally be pregnant, test, and then see the negative results.  After you keep getting negative results you tend to not want to test because you just know that it won't ever be positive.  I knew that today we would get the results from our "test" with Angel Adoption and in my quiet time today, the first line that I read was, "Thank Me for your problems".  Great!  I might as well start preparing myself for another negative result.

I avoided email as much as I could today because I knew either way there was going to be an answer in there at some point   I wanted to know, but I didn't want to see the negative.  By 3:00 p.m., I had to check - - nothing.  By 5:00 p.m. - - nothing.  It was after 5:30 p.m., and I needed to go to the store.  I thought, maybe I should check one more time.  If nothing was there, maybe I'd need to wait until Monday??

I checked, and the answer was there and had been sent at 5:10 p.m.  Here is what it said --

Dear Skeeter and Joy,

I would like to thank you for your interest in Angel Adoption. It was a pleasure talking to you and getting the opportunity to tell you about Angel Adoption’s program.

I would like to formally extend an invitation to you to join Angel Adoption in the month of May; I feel that you would be an asset to our program.

Everyone in the neighborhood could probably hear me shouting as I was so excited to finally see a POSITIVE!!  I finally feel like we are in the stages of our paper pregnancy!  

What does this mean for us now?  Well, basically, we are starting over.  We will begin working on sending in pictures, etc, so that Adoption Angel can build a profile for us to be shown to birth parents.  They will build an online copy as well as a paper copy.  They will work and do things FOR us instead of me always having to do everything - - which will be a huge relief.  It will be a relief to work with someone who responds to my emails and my calls, rather than me always having to keep trying due to lack of response.  There are so many other things that will bring great relief as well!  Another nice thing is that most of the birth parents they work with are not heavily influenced with drugs and alcohol.  

We are so excited and can't wait to see who God will bring along for our family!!  We had a family from our home school group come over yesterday and they had an almost 6 month old baby.  It was so cute to watch Adia play with her and soothe her and be ever so gentle.  After they left, Adia asked me when we were going to get our baby.  I know the "excitement" stage won't last forever once the baby does come, but it does this mommy's heart good to watch these developments.

Our next big prayer request is once again in regards to our home study. :(  We will need our current social worker to get our home study to Angel Adoption.  It should take 1-2 weeks or so before our profile goes active, so hopefully this will give them enough time to get the home study to where it needs to go.   Pray that this will be a smooth process and that I won't have to keep asking to get this done. 

Thank you for continuing to pray!

Phone Interview Update

Today, at 5:00 p.m., we had a phone interview with Lori, who is with Angel Adoption Inc., that lasted over an hour.  We felt like it went very well and now will be in prayer as to what the Lord's next step should be.  On Friday morning, Lori, will be looking over the profiles of the adoptive parents that she has had interviews with to best see which ones would work best with their birth mothers.  They only accept 6 new adoptive families each month and right now their website is saying they have room for only 2 more families.  She said we will receive an email either way, sometime Friday afternoon.  If they say no, but we feel like we would like to work with them, we do have the option of emailing them and requesting being considered for the next cycle of adding in new families.

Please be in prayer for Lori, especially on Friday morning as she looks through the profiles of adoptive parents that she will have the wisdom she needs to select adoptive parents, even if that ends up with us not being chosen (although we'd really like to work with them :) ).  We will be eagerly checking email on Friday as we await the answer and seek the Lord's will as to our next step based upon their answer.

Thanks for praying with us!

Phone Meeting on Tuesday

Thought I would take a moment to update you on what is shaping up for this week in our adoption journey while I am staying home from church with 2 sick kiddos.  Last week I did a lot of research on different adoption agencies as we have been feeling like we might need to check out an additional agency as our current agency isn't being able to network out very well as she is so busy.  In contacting other agencies, I was amazed at how many were telling me that they were full and had more adoptive parents than babies to adopt out.  This seems to be a different trend than what we encountered 5 years ago - - which is amazing!!  I am glad that there are more families out there feeling the need/call to add to their family through adoption.

Anyway - - we have settled on checking out Angel Adoption.  Not only did they have a free online application (which is very rare), but they fit our budget range.  They also appear to be aggressive with advertising, which is not what we are used to at all.  We have a phone meeting with them this coming Tuesday, at 5:00 p.m.  We then wait to see if we have been approved as they only accept 6 new families a month. If we are approved, they give us a list of what they need so they can build a profile for us that can be shown to prospective birth mothers.  They would do the work for us - -which will be a huge relief for me as I feel like right now, I have had to be the pusher, instigator, etc, for any possible leads, which is what we are paying our social worker to do so that we don't have to.

It has been nice to have a slower week, so that we could recover from our emotional roller coaster ride from the past several weeks.  God is good and we know that in HIS timing, the right child will come along.

 “Before you were born, I dreamed of you, I imagined you, I prayed for you. Now that you’re here in my arms - I hope for you, I love you … I thank God for you.” ~Unknown

In the meantime, we are feeling that with the "shortage" of birth mothers available, we might need to expand our searching capabilities.  If we are accepted with Angel Adoption, we will drop out of the Adoption Share group (which we have to pay to be a member of), as most of the contacts from there have been way above our budget.

So for this week, you can be in prayer that both the agency and us will clearly feel God's leading and peace as we try to apply for membership with Angel Adoption.  I will update you when we find out where our status is at in regards to Angel Adoption.  Thank you for all of your support for us!