What an incredible time of uncertainty that we are facing right now. Life as I now know it is on the verge of being flipped upside down again. Where there were many speed bumps on our journey to bringing Sweetie home, there are few on this journey. Our only bump was finding out that the mom is part Cherokee. At first I thought we were done. Due to Indian Children Welfare Act, the tribe gets to determine where the baby goes. Before a child could be adopted by a non Indian family they would have to attempt to find a Cherokee family to adopt the child, if a Cherokee family wasn't availible than any Native American Indian family. finally if a family could not be located than the child could be adopted. Luckily the family checked with the tribe and they do not want to claim this child. So we only need our lawyer to send a letter to the tribe getting that statement in writing and that part will be over.
Fundraising is going well. We have raised over $3000 so far. We had written a letter to the babies birth mom and are waiting to hear back. She is nervous about what to write back. I can't blame her for that. I too am nervous of our communications. What If I don't ask the right questions, what if I am too pushy? What if??? There are a million what ifs! My natural tendency is to be sucked into the spiral of what ifs. But this time I am not going there. In every part of my being I know that this child is to be in our family. I do not know the reasons why or why now. I just know it to be and I am ok with that. There is so much to do. Our biggest challenge us fundraising. Several of my uber talented friends have been donating their time and resources to provide various homemade items to be sold at a holiday Sip n Shop. I have also received amazing items and services to be auctioned off this Thanksgiving weekend! I have been blown away by the generosity of so many! I can not wait to showcase all of these beautiful items made with such love in order to bring our baby home!
I started the blog entry a couple nights ago and didn't finish. Then tonight I received our first call from the babies birth mother. I was so nervous and I think she was too. She was very sweet. We are hoping to meet her in a couple of weeks. I was able to find out that the due date of the baby is March 14th. She is not sure of the sex yet, but will at the next doctors visit. She thinks it is a girl.
Things with Sweetie have really taken a good turn over the last month. We have been completely honest with her about the adoption. She wasn't too excited at first. She worried that we would not love her any more and she was more worried that we would be able to afford to buy her as much clothing as before. Now she talks about being a good big sister and how she is good as long as we don;t expect her to baby sit! Ever since we told her about the adoption there has been a major change in her. She is working on healing and I mean really working! She is working on her trauma history with a therapist for the first time ever! I have the therapist all of Sweetie's records to begin working through with her.They began going through the many DSS abuse reports. I know this is painful for her to read, but it really seems to be connecting the dots for her. She has also been making great strides in her relationship building with not only me, but with Cris. We have had weeks of good communication, good therapy visits and good visits. Even when we discuss hard topics she is able to maintain her composure and talk. I am so proud of our girl! We are really looking forward to bringing Sweetie home for a 5 day visit next week.
As the year is starting to draw near to the end I have been reflecting on my word for the year Whole.
My prayer in January was for me to work on my wholeness and for Sweetie to begin to her journey to wholeness. I had no idea what God had planned for our shattered family. But now I see how he mending our girls heart and making our family whole in a way that is so much greater than anything we could have imagined.
