Monday, December 8, 2014

What a beautiful Christmas this will be!!!

First of all an update on Arielle.  This amazing and beautiful little girl is the light of our lives.  She brings so much joy to each of us everyday and we could not imagine life without her.  We came home in August 2014 weighing a mere 12 pounds at 11 months old.  She had open heart surgery in October, 2014.  It was a tough time for us, but this precious baby girl is such a fighter and did an awesome job with recovery.  Since fixing her heart, her little body is growing like crazy to catch up, she currently weighs around 18 pounds and she is 15 months old.  She has grown so much since surgery and she is moving all over the place.  She can sit up now and is trying so hard to crawl, but she is not quite there yet.  Her surgery made all the difference in the world.  Her heart surgeon who is world renown for pediatric heart surgery, said she would not have made it much longer in Eastern Europe without this surgery, he said it was that bad.  Here she is now:




Today my husband and I made a decision that we will go back to Eastern Europe and adopt another beautiful baby girl with Down syndrome. But this is not just any baby girl, you see when we started this adventure a year ago, we had selected a baby girl named "Maureen."  We were so excited that she was going to become a part of our family and everyday we looked at her picture and imagined what it would be like once she arrived.  Then right before our travel to Eastern Europe, our hearts were ripped out of our chest when we found out Maureen could not be adopted.  Her legal paperwork was a mess and she was not legally available.  We mourned her loss for a while, then we found our new baby girl Arielle, whom is home with us now safe and sound.  She is a blessing to us everyday and we love her so much.  You just cannot imagine the joy she has brought to our family.

We found out a few weeks ago that Maureen was cleared legally for adoption.  That was the start of the praying and thinking process.  We could not handle the thought of her being left behind and we spent a lot of time discussing and deciding if we could handle two the same age, twin girls!!  We already have a 6 and 3 year old and then we would have twin girls.  It was an easy decision on whether or not we could handle having four girls, with two the same age, it was the logistics we had to pray about.  Our first thought was we already went over there, we already spent a ton of money, how could we possibly go back and get our baby that was meant for us from the beginning?  Lots of praying has gone into this decision and God has already opened some doors for us to start the process again.  You see He has provided us with the USCIS approval needed for this second child, so no money or time will be spent in that area, He provided us a discount on our adoption legal fees in Eastern Europe, He provided us a kind, loving and caring social worker who has agreed to update our HS for free and He has provided us with a very special family,whom we met while they were adopting a baby girl from Eastern Europe.  We have never officially met in person, only through FB and messages, but that have become very special to us and now they are offering to help us work towards obtaining donations and hosting fund raisers!!  Wow, He is moving in this adoption already and now we will trust in Him to finish finding the financing we need to go and get her.  As of right now, we are winging this and hoping He provides by the time we will travel in March.  We strongly believe God wants us to bring her home.  The region she is located in is OK for the younger children like Maureen, but upon transfer at the age of 4, the institution she will be moved to is horrible and her fate is a guaranteed death.

Stay tuned as we work through the process and paperwork to bring her home where she belongs.

3 comments:

  1. I am so happy to hear that you are going back for "Maureen"!!! God works in mysterious ways, maybe He wanted you to bring Arielle home first because of her heart!! Anyway, Congratulations, this is great news.

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    1. Thank you so much, we are happy, excited and nervous all at the same time. We love her so much and just cannot leave her behind. We need to get her home and get her heart fixed as well!

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