Our Adoption Journey

Junie has been home for three months now.

oh, yes, we’re calling her ‘Junie’. At least, the kids and I are calling her ‘Junie’. Well, Mason kind of still calls her “Zhu-zhu-liana”, and for some strange reason Ethan has decided to call her “Shifflahna.” Daddy calls her “Oolie”, which kinda makes me cringe. But Riley, Ramie, and I are calling her ‘Junie’. It just fits better with the pattern of our kids’ 5-letter, 2-syllable names, and it has that long “ee” ending, like “Riley” and “Ramie”.

Where was I?

Oh, I was about to tell you about Junie’s adjustment.

Junie’s adjustment is going really well. She seems to be really attached to us, and she’s fitting in great. She’s comfortable enough to flat-out disobey us and then laugh about it, and not in that formally-institutionalized-child-nervous-laughter kinda way– in a true ‘hahaha I’m so cute when I do this‘ way— which is both reassuring and decidedly un-charming at times. It’s a good thing she’s so stinkin’ adorable.

Last night, I told Hubby, “I really think she loves us.” That might seem an odd thing to say, but in the beginning we discussed the fact that while she liked being the center of our attention, and she liked a lot of the perks that come with being in a family, she didn’t really love us. How could she? She had no shared history with us; she hardly even knew us. And in all of her 5-1/2 years, she never knew love. She never mattered most to anyone. Everyone in her life went home to their own I-love-you-best-of-alls at the end of their shift. But now, just three short months later, I really think she loves us.

Hubby responded with, “She’d be heartbroken if we took her back to the orphanage now.”

I know– you think that’s an odd thing to say, too. But it isn’t. Because back in the beginning, back when we had the “she doesn’t really love us yet” conversation, we talked about the fact that, if we were to walk back into the orphanage with her, she would probably be bummed that these people who carried her around and let her eat all the food she wanted and thought she was so adorable were leaving, but she’d probably get right back in the swing of her institutional life pretty quickly.

Not that for one minute we ever considered taking her back, mind you. There are times when Gotcha Day slaps a family across the face. There are situations when a family comes apart at the seams, because this child they dreamed of all those months comes home with severe attachment issues and institutional behaviors, and as much as that family wanted that child for so long, the thought of taking them back has to cross their emotionally exhausted minds, even if for only a fleeting moment, and even if they’d never in a million years actually consider doing it.

That wasn’t our situation. Her transition was a breeze. So taking her back never crossed our minds, not even in that oh-my-gosh-I-didn’t-mean-to-think-that-forgive-me-dear-Lord-I-could-never-do-that way. But in those first few weeks home, we wondered if it ever crossed hers.

That thought really stung back then, but we both knew it was true. And it was reinforced every time I took her out in public. In social gatherings, she would throw temper tantrums because I wouldn’t let her go to the other mommies. At the doctors office, she wanted to go sit with other people, she wanted the nurse to carry her. She would scream at me and hit me and try her hardest to rip herself out of my arms and run to the nearest mommy-who-wasn’t-me. And when I wouldn’t let her, she would look at me hatefully. I truly felt that she would have been just as happy to go home with someone else. Maybe happier.

I understand the mechanics behind it: a child who has spent their whole life in an orphanage learns that working yourself into the good graces of as many adults as possible works in your favor. It’s a survival technique. But that didn’t make it hurt any less. Trust me, many a time my heart was screaming, “Do you have any idea what I went through to bring you home? Do you know how many tears I cried? That I have scars on my heart that will never heal? That I’m pretty sure I have PTSD from 25 months of discouragement and walking into doors that seemed forever shut? That mommy right there— that mommy didn’t bake a thousand pies to bring you home. She didn’t lose sleep over you. I’m your Mommy!” But of course she didn’t know any of that. She only knew what life had taught her: woo the grown-ups, and life will go better for you.

God has brought an amazing transformation in the past three months. She’ll still go to people who reach to pick her up, but with the exception of a few close friends & family, she doesn’t go to great lengths to get other people to hold her. She doesn’t wrestle away from me to go to someone else. She doesn’t like letting me out of her sight in public. She knows I’m Mommy. She runs to me when she gets hurt. She seeks out Daddy when she’s tired and wants to go to bed. She runs delightedly to clamber over her brothers and sisters and claim her spot right in the middle of the couch on movie night. She SQUEALS with delight and shimmies all over when one of her brothers or sisters gets in the ‘Burban. 

She’s ours.

So when Hubby said, “She’d be heartbroken…”, it was monumental. Because I really think she would. Not just because she’d miss all the perks, but because she’d miss us. We are hers. She would be heartbroken…

…and the feeling would be mutual….

It’s something all adoptive parents have to face.

The overwhelming joy of having your child home cannot crowd it out.

The busyness of life with a transitioning child cannot drown it out.

Time doesn’t fade it from your consciousness.

You left them behind….

The thin, platinum haired boy who ransacked my bag every day. The brunette with the sagging eye whose good eye widened when we turned the view screen on our video camera so the children could see themselves. The phantom hand that creeps into view on our orphanage video and snatches Juliana’s bread from her plate.

They’re still there, still orphans.

And statistics tell us they will likely remain so, as they are the least likely to be chosen by adopting families. Their chances are so grim that their institutions aren’t overseen by the Ministry of Education like other orphanages, but the Ministry of Health and Social Science.

At the age of 18, they will be transferred to closed adult mental institutions, places that make One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest look like Club Med. Places filled with people society would rather forget, no pretense of rehabilitation. Places where howling schizophrenics are strapped to metal beds, where drugs and abuse are rampant. A perpetual, unrelenting nightmare.

At 18 years old, these children will be consigned to that, forever. They will be driven away from the home they’ve known for most of their lives. The terror will begin.

Most orphans with disabilities in Eastern Europe are introduced to the neglect and abuse early on. They will spend the first four years in baby houses where they may be segregated in laying rooms, left to spend their every hour ignored in cribs, touched only to be changed once a day, a bottle shoved in their mouth at feeding time. At the age of four, they will feel the fresh air on their face for the first time since leaving the hospital shortly after birth. They will stare out the window, confused at the scenery whizzing by. They will disembark and be taken through the doors of an institution for older “defective” children, where they will spend the next 14 years.

Usually, the older children’s institution is a primer in hopelessness.  Children are ignored, left alone in rooms without stimulation, without nurturing. Surrounded by stomach-churning smells, they rock, pull their hair out, grind their teeth into nubs, and bang their heads in their hunger for sensory input.

And they die inside.

We thought Juliana was being held at the baby house for us, that since she had a family in progress, she wouldn’t be transferred. We didn’t find out that she was in an older children’s institution until we were in the car on our way to meet her.

We braced ourselves for the worst.

We walked in the door, certain that each step brought us closer to finding our daughter-across-the-sea vacant-eyed and hollow, reeking of urine, starved, neglected.

But she wasn’t.

She was finishing up her lunch, sitting at a table with the other 7 children in her groupa. Along one wall there were peg hooks, with washcloths and towels for each child, and a shelf with cups and toothbrushes next to a child-sized sink. There was a play area of thick padded blocks and mats with a slide. The children were eating soup and bread.

It wasn’t fancy. It didn’t smell of vanilla and lavender. But it was clean, and the children were bright-eyed and eager to swarm us.

We were confused. And we stayed confused until a few weeks after we returned home from that first trip, when we made contact with a missionary from our church living in Moscow, who in turn put us in contact with a man in Pskov, who in turn told us of an organization that had “…something to do with orphans.”

That organization was ROOF, Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund. The home page of their website announced plans for their annual summer camp at, of all places, Belskoye Ustye— Juliana’s institution.

Another notch in my Ebenezer stone….

I found out that it had once been every bit as horrible as I feared. But ROOF brought in hope and education, and transformed this once filthy place. Now, for the 14 years that these children call Belskoye Ustye home, they will be fed and clothed, cared for and taught. The older children put on shows for the younger ones. ROOF brings summer camp to them every July. The new director radiates sincere love for these children.

For 14 years, they are safe.

But eventually, they will turn 18.

ROOF currently rescues 20% of Belskoye Ustye’s “graduates” from transfer, and brings them into their Abilify Program. But for the other 80%….

There are 6 little faces left behind in Juliana’s groupa.  One of them will be saved. Five will be lost.

That haunts me.

ROOF can save more— their program works, they have the full support of the orphanage, they have volunteers willing to travel halfway across the world to be the hands and feet of Jesus to these forgotten ones, and they have the burning desire to save every single child.

What they don’t have is the funding to do more.

I am honored to advocate for ROOF. I am grateful that God raised them up to do His work and minster to the least of these.

This video tells more about ROOF’s work at B-U. It features my daughter, Juliana, herself only 7 weeks removed from being a Forgotten Child.

And it features the faces of the 5 children who will be forgotten forever 13 years from now, as well as many who are much closer to that fate.

Will you please take 4 minutes of your day to watch? 4 minutes to see what ROOF is doing in Belskoye Ustye, and hopes to do for many more children? Their program has the potential to drastically change the way children with Down syndrome and other disabilities are treated in Russia.

To learn more about what ROOF is doing, you can Like them on Facebook, at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/roofnet/?ref=ts

Thank you, and may your New Year be blessed.

Click to watch video

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

A few years back, my kids and I got seriously into two shows: Surface and Invasion. We gathered ’round the TiVo every week to watch them, and after the cliffhanger season finales, we waited anxiously for the season premiers.

Only, there were no season premiers. Both shows were canceled. Questions left unanswered. Issues left unresolved. Participles left dangling.

Okay, maybe not the participles so much….

But I realize that my blogs have been on the equivalent of the summer television hiatus, and the Speed of Life threatens to cancel them both. I assure you, the Ashley Network has no desire to cancel them. However, I’m not so fairly certain that I have the creative energy to deliver a full-blown season premier, complete with plot and wit.

But because I have received more than a few inquiries regarding a few unanswered, unresolved, dangling things, I will spend whatever time I have between now and when-the-sounds-coming-through-the-monitor-seem-to-maybe-indicate-that-Mason-might-possibly-be-gettin-his-naked-on-in-his-crib addressing a handful of topics.

OOH— I have an idea! Let’s make it a game, shall we? Because everything’s more fun when you make it a game. Except chores. I tried to make chores into a game during our mad dash to clean the house before having company over for Thanksgiving, and the whole let’s-make-this-a-game thing led to an episode which resulted in a Mommy-Meltdown that will live in infamy…. But this isn’t chores, so we should be good.

So, as my belated Christmas Gift to you, my beloved friends and readers, I give you Moreno Adoption Journey Jeopardy.

The answer is (y’all have to imagine me getting’ my Alex Trebek voice on, ‘kay?):

Getting out of the bathtub.

I am convinced that Russia is a misogynistic society. 1) Cultural moires dictate that women have to wear 4” heels at all times in a place where you walk EVERYWHERE; 2) Even in the freezing Russian winter, the preferred skirt length is mini; and 3) bathtubs are freakishly tall.

When we passed through Moscow on our way to Pskov for court, we stayed with the sweet family that put Tesney & Greg up when they were stuck in Moscow for Kirill’s Supreme Court appeal. We were exhausted from the flight, on which we could not sleep because about 15 minutes after we did fall asleep, the gal sitting next to me woke.us.up to ask us if we needed blankets. Why, yes, because not having a blanket was so obviously interfering with our ability to rest comfortably. Naturally, we couldn’t get back to sleep after that.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The bathtub. So after we arrived at the apartment and met our lovely hosts, Hubby decided to take a nap and I decided to shower. After I washed my face (yes, in the shower), I realized I left my towel on the other side of the bathroom. Having water on my face really bothers me. It’s a thing. You know, as in ‘I have a thing about having water on my face.’ As I stepped out of the shower to retrieve my towel— and this is sort of a blur, as things like this often are— I caught my toe on the edge of the tub. Now, by freakishly tall I mean that climbing in and out of a Russian bathtub is akin to climbing in and out of a convertible without opening the door. Not like a Miata, like a regular, ordinary-sized coupe that happens to be a convertible. The sides of a Russian tub come up to my crotch. The most sensible way to get in and out of one would be to sit on the side and then swing one’s legs over, but I never claimed to be sensible now, did I?

As I stepped out of the FTT, my toe caught on the edge, causing me to completely miss the bathmat and instead land my wet foot directly onto the tile. I remember the bottom half of my body flying up, while the upper half of my body— which includes my head, for those of you who haven’t caffeinated yet and might miss such things— shot downward. It wasn’t like falling and hitting my head on the tile floor, it was like being having my head slammed into the tile floor, probably on account of the whole bottom-half-of-my-body-flying-up thing.

Yes, it hurt. There was some darkness, and those old Warner Brothers cartoons are right– you really do see stars. But in that moment, all I could think was, “Oh, great. I’m gonna die, and they’re going to find my naked, wet, fat body laying here dead and covered in blood. Great.” But then I remembered how God safely landed the burning plane, and the dead wasp on the dashboard, and my Ebenezer stone and all, and I figured I only had to worry about the naked-wet-fat part. Somehow the prospect of being found naked, wet, fat, and alive is even more humiliating than naked, wet, fat, and dead, because at least ‘dead’ gets you sympathy, so when Nicole rushed to the door to ask if I was all right, I stumbled to my feet. I finished my shower— being very careful of the FTT— and then messaged both of our emergency doctor friends to consult them about my head injury. I made Hubby stay up for half an hour after I fell asleep, only— as anyone who has traveled halfway around the world for adoption court can tell you, you’re not going to fall asleep within 30 minutes. We took the fact that I didn’t immediately lapse into unconsciousness as a good sign, and I didn’t wake up dead the next morning.

I did, however, have what I guess was terrible vertigo for about 3 weeks following the injury. It was like the ground wasn’t a solid, stable surface, as if I were walking on a giant waterbed, where each of my feet felt as if the ground beneath them was moving independently. It wasn’t fun. My doctor back home confirmed my suspicions about the nature of my injury, but he felt that if I’d lived through the pressure changes of the return plane trip at 30K+ feet, that I’d be okay. Actually, his words were something along the lines of, “If you were a high-school football player, this would be very serious. But luckily, at your age….”

If you haven’t guessed, the question was: How did you get a concussion?

Answer: Yes, just as we were going to have to give up and go down to meet our driver to leave for the airport. It was in one of our suitcases.

Hubby must have packed it the night before. We had another Reece’s Rainbow family, the Zuzunagas who adopted Maria, over for dinner in our hotel room the night before we left. I had SO much fun trekking out on my own (while Hubby stayed with Juliana in the hotel) to buy groceries at the market for that night, and then to a little cafe to buy pierogis. I absolutely LOVE Moscow’s city center, and I LOVE the area right around the Marriot Courtyard. The street where our hotel sits is very narrow, and it overlooks three old, historic churches. It’s lined with trees, and feels very secluded, but just a block from the hustle and bustle of shops and restaurants. It was a chilly, grey day, and I set out in my black trench coat and my cute black hat, feeling very European.

We had a wonderful visit with Gentry and Kike, saddened only by the fact that another family, the Jims, had hoped to join us but weren’t able to. Once we said our goodbyes, we had a lot of packing to do. It seems like you should be able to just throw everything into your bags and sort it out once you get home, doesn’t it? But gone are the days when you can just pull out an extra tote to cram the overflow into. With today’s baggage limits, you have to cram everything into your ONE suitcase and ONE carry-on, which means you’d better have mad 3D Tetris skills.

In all craziness of packing, we discovered that Juliana has a fierce talent for un-packing. The girl loves nothing more than unzipping a bag and pulling everything out of it. So we put her to bed, and once she fell asleep, we finished packing. Quietly. In the dark. So you can see how something like that could get stashed in a suitcase instead of being left on the hanger with Hubby’s coat, ready and waiting.

The question was: Did you find the money belt containing all the money you had left in the world?

I think there’s probably at least one more question I left unanswered, but I hear suspicious sounds coming through the monitor. And I’m in no mood to compose a post about hosing down a poo-covered child….

We missed our flight. The AA agent said there was another flight on continental we could get on arriving at 6:30, so we announced that time, but that wasn’t true. So finally we are booked on SOUTHWEST AIRLINES ARIVING AT LOVE FIELD AT 9pm. I’m so sorry for all the confusion.

I am in tears. Missing my kids. We didn’t have time to get our luggage. But praise God we are almost home!!! Keep praying!!!

Quickest. Post. Ever.

WE WERE APPROVED IN COURT!!!

We are now the legal parents of Juliana Sofia Moreno. In case you’re curious, in Russian it’s pronounced, “Zhuliana Suhfia Muhrenuh.

I’m sorry I didn’t update right away. We basically raced from the courthouse to the hotel to pack up our stuff, straight to the train station, 12 hours on the train, straight to the airport, through Moscow security, onto the plane to Houston Hobby, taxi to Houston Bus, flight to Dallas, then home, hug & snuggle the kids, then off to bed.

I will post to tell the whole story later— promise! But for now I can tell you that while the week in Russia was full of drama, God, in his lovingkindness and mercy, reserved 3 drama-free hours for our court hearing. In the words of our facilitator, “It couldn’t have gone any better.

Many of you have asked whether she is home with us now. No, she’s not. In our region, the 10 day wait is never waived. Never, as in our facilitator said we weren’t even going to ask, because we didn’t want to risk offending the judge.

We are home with our kids for the 10 day wait, then we leave for Russia on October 16. It takes 2 days of travel to get from here to her region, so we spring her from the orphanage on October 18, then back to Moscow for her immigration medical exam and visa at the embassy, and home on October 25. We’re not 100% sure yet which airport we’re flying into, but as soon as we book our flights, we’ll let you know so that those of you who would like to join us for Juliana Sofia’s homecoming can be there!

And yes, I am super-stoked that I get to go in the American embassy in Moscow.  I think I should watch The Saint before I go back. Maybe I’ll even run up to the gate screaming “I’m an American! Let me in! I’m an American!”

Or maybe I won’t.  I was scolded by four different Russian women for wearing flip-flops.  I have a feeling the security at the embassy might be a little tougher than sandal-hating babushkas….

I have no idea why I named this post “Humpty Dumpty.”  It just popped into my head, and I went with it.

Today was hard. h-h-h-gggccchhhhhhaaaaarrrrd.

If y’all read last night’s blog post, you already kinda know what frame of mind I was in when I went to bed last night. Can I just tell y’all that I literally fell asleep sitting in this oh-so-uncomfortable computer chair, with my head falling back like in Mrs. Simpson’s senior English class?

So, today. I woke up, put on my bigger-than-they-were-when-I-started-this-process-two-years-ago-girl panties, and said to myself, “Where’s your sense of adventure? God has got this, girlfriend. It’s not all you. Prepare the horse for battle, but the victory is God’s.”

And then I dropped $451 at Wail-mart on processed-pre-packaged-minimal-preparation-safe-for-multiple-food-issues supplies to feed our children while we’re gone.

I almost cried as I hauled my two shopping carts out to the ‘Burban. Is it just me, local peeps, or has Wail-Mart increased their prices since Kroger announced they’re doing away with double/triple coupons?

The good news is, my pantry and fridge are stocked. Hopefully they’re   stocked well enough to buy us a couple of days when we get home. And hopefully I’ll be able to hit the grocery store for some unprocessed-shut-up-and-cook-woman food once we get back, so that we can save the rest of the pre-packaged-minimal-preparation food for when I go back to bring J home.

And just to be clear— this is the COURT TRIP, not the gotcha trip. We leave for Gotcha on Oct. 16, Lord willing.

So, back to today. After WailMart. I really didn’t accomplish much. That sums up the time period from 10am til about 3:30. Riley, however, cleaned the living room & kitchen like a madwoman. She’s a powerhouse. I love that girl.

3:30– printed Lisa’s visa app so she can come with me for the gotcha trip.

5:45– gathered the kids out to the ‘Burban to go see “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” For those of you who weren’t in on my FB discussion, Hubby and I went to see “Apes” a couple of weeks ago. Great movie, but I got really emotional and sobbed through most of it. Heaving, hefty sobs. Seriously almost walked out of the theater because I just couldn’t handle it. I’ve never been that emotional in a movie. I don’t want to drop a spoiler, and I don’t have time to think through a synopsis, but having a child with Down syndrome, and advocating for institutionalized children with Down syndrome– I think I saw the movie from a different perspective than most of the people in the theater.

5:50– Our garage door doesn’t close when the sun is out. Or when it’s cold, but that wasn’t really a factor today. And by “when the sun is out”, I mean, when the sun is in the sky, even if it’s cloudy. Which it wasn’t today, but I thought I’d disclose that anyway. And the release rope that you can pull to disengage the garage door opener and pull it down by hand? Ours broke off in my hand about 2 years ago. Yeppers. I tried to trip the disengage switch using the wooden pole/screwdriver tip that Hubby rigged for just that purpose, but I’m neither tall enough nor strong enough to get the leverage. So we locked the door into the house and left it open, because Hubby was on his way home & would be here in the next 10 minutes.

5:54– Hubby calls to tell me he’s stranded at the Greenbelt park entrance. The van dropped all its coolant and started overheating. I tell him I’ll come pick him up on the way to drop the kids off at the movies, and he can come with me to Fed Ex Lisa’s visa application. I have already forgotten (yes, in only 4 minutes) that the garage door is still up.

6:00–pick hubby up at Greenbelt. His car is parked in the lot, but he’s walking toward us from the park area. Thinking I’m planning on driving all the way to meet him by the park area, he flags me to stop where I am. My psychic abilities fail me, and I think he’s trying to keep me from getting to close to his van, leading me to wonder if it’s going to explode.

6:01– hubby says, “I hope I don’t get a call.”

6:02– hubby’s phone rings. There’s an outage— a “severity one/priority one” outage.

6:20– realize that I didn’t feed the children. Ethan will need more than popcorn; he’s going to need some protein to keep from going bonkers and picking a fight with Riley.

6:25–pull up in drive thru lane of MiCasita, the one in the mall parking lot, thinking we’ll quickly cram some flautas in them and send them on their way.

6:50– Hubby mutters, “Let’s remember to never come here if we’re in a hurry.”

6:52–Drop the kids and their food off at the tables outside the Barnes & Noble, and tell them we’ll be back to pick them up at 9.

6:59– Fed Ex Lisa’s visa app. Ask the guy if it would be a problem for him to go back and click “signature required” after all, seeing as how the package does contain her actual passport.

7:25– Drop hubby back off at the Greenbelt to wait for tow truck. Insist that I’m not leaving until he’s locked himself in the van, because I’m worried that the way this day is going, he’s going to get mugged. Or mauled by a mountain lion. He tells me it’s too hot to sit in the car w/out the engine running,  so he’s going to stand outside. I leave, and pray that he doesn’t get mugged or mauled by a mountain lion.

7:40– Pump gas. Reflect on the fact that I’m dancing with joy over gas being “only” $3/gallon.

7:49–notice lightning.

7:50– Arrive at Wail-Mart (yes, again) to buy Hubby a men’s white dress shirt for court. Debate going to Macy’s and buying a REAL dress shirt. Decide it doesn’t matter and toss the $18 Wail-Mart  shirt in the cart, along with 2 pairs of clearance socks for Ramie, because all her socks are dirty and at this point $1 for two pairs of socks is such a better deal than doing laundry.

7:55 — hear thunder.

8:15–leave Wail-Mart. More thunder and lightning.

8:20— it’s raining hard. NOW I remember the garage door….

8:30–call my Mommy and ask her if she’ll run to Kroger on her way over tomorrow night and get all of Mason’s Horizon dairy and his Kroger pasta, because I am fairly certain that I am not going to make it to Kroger before we leave, and Horizon dairy and Kroger pasta comprise a full 75% of Mason’s diet.

8:40– arrive at the GOODYEAR TAS ON UNIVERSITY, ACROSS FROM KROGER, where we know CESAR will take excellent care of Hubby’s van tomorrow. (I was not compensated in any way for that shout-out. I just really less than three Cesar at Goodyear TAS on University. He rocks. If you go see him, tell him I said so). Park next to hubby’s van. Hubby isn’t in van. I look around for muggers. Or mountain lions.

8:41– phone rings. It’s hubby. He’s walking back from Pizza Inn, and he can see me and knows me well enough to know I’m freaking out because I don’t see him in his van. I assure him I was most certainly not freaking out.

8:43– Hubby thinks I can make it through Kroger before the kids get out of the movie. We decide to drive to the Kroger closest to the mall, just to be safe.

8:50– the phone rings. It’s Riley. The storm blew the power out at the mall 20 minutes before the end of the movie, so they’re sitting in the pitch-black theater, waiting for the manager to give them all refunds & issue free passes to come back and see the movie another time.

9:00 –pick up kids at the pitch-black mall. They really liked the first 1:50 minutes of the movie. Riley says it was really good, but she sobbed, too, and she’s not sure she can sit through the first 1:50 again.

9:35– home. Three hours past Mason’s bedtime.

10:35– Mason & Ramie in bed. Four hours past Mason’s bedtime.

10:40— cry, because I realize that there is no way I can spend a fun, family day with the kiddos tomorrow, because I have too much to do. We’ll have to settle for pizza and a board game, which will be fine, but I promised them we’d go see Lion King in the theater, and it won’t still be on when we get back from *UEEC*.

Very little productivity anywhere in there. And I really am feeling a lot overwhelmed. I’m a donkey on the edge.

But it’s okay. God’s got it. I’ll be prepared— I’m not going to walk in and wing it. Please, God, please let me be prepared. Prepare me. Please don’t make me walk in and wing it.

But right now, I need to pack. And write my speech. And find my check list.

You know, when my head falls forward (like it just did), it does kind of evoke a “Humpty Dumpty”-esque vibe….

My friend Jean set up a Facebook prayer event for our court date. We will be in court from 1am CST Thursday morning (as in, after all your neighbors go to bed Wednesday night). You can join the group HERE and join us in prayer!

One week from right now, I will be waking up in *UEEC*, no doubt with a knot in my stomach.

My brain will be racing.

Did I say waking up? I meant staring at the ceiling after tossing and turning all night. And not just because the beds at our hotel in J’s region are 4″ foam on top of a wooden platform.

I will be totally useless. Exhausted. Overwhelmed.

Truth be told, I ran out of me a while back.

I am resting in the faith that God is going to drag my sorry, depleted, used up shell into that courtroom, that He is going to prop me up on your prayers, and that He is going to go all ventriloquist on me, because I don’t want to trust in my own words.

I want His.

One week from now, we will be 3-1/2 hours from court.

I will have held our daughter-across-the-sea the day before. I will be pleading with God, pleading that it won’t have been the last time.

My friend Jean started a FB group for those who are willing to be a part of a prayer vigil over our court hearing.

We are guessing that our hearing will start at 10 their time, or 1am Thursday morning CST. After the rest of America has gone to bed Wednesday night, we will need faithful prayer warriors who will be willing to hold vigil on Baby J’s behalf.

The FB prayer vigil will begin at 7pm Wednesday evening, and will continue through Thursday. We don’t know how long our hearing will last, but everyone’s best guess is all day. That would mean 1am CST — 8 am CST.

Will you stand together in prayer for Baby J?

Even if you can’t stay up all night, can you take a shift (you can just make one up. We don’t have time cards or antyhing fancy like that;-) , and cover that courtroom, the judge, J’s birth parents, and our children in prayer?

Sweet friends, I am beyond tired. I can’t keep my eyes open, and every minute or so my head bobs backward. I could fall asleep sitting straight up in this uncomfortable computer chair, that’s how tired I am. In fact, I’ve typed this paragraph with my eyes closed.

I remember sitting up in my prayer closet all night praying over Tesney’s hearing, and then Angie’s, and then Tesney’s appeal. I remember not being able to keep my eyes open. I remember dragging my laptop into the closet, because their were stretches of time (between caffeination) where the closest I could come to really praying was listening to hymns. I remember waking up and realizing I had dozed off, face down in Psalms, and rushing to go get more caffeine.

So believe me when I say, THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart. I know that as mommies, sleep is a precious and scarce commodity. And I want you to know that we appreciate every single minute of yours that you sacrifice in order to stay up and pray.And those of you who aren’t mommies, please know that I appreciate all y’all, to.

Dear, sweet friends, thank you for being a part of this journey to bring our daughter-across-the-sea home. I love y’all!

These are our friends, the Hilton family. I have known Nikole Hilton since her oldest son and my Riley were in the 1st grade.

Nikole and her family had moved out of town when Mason was little, so I lost touch with her. What a blessed surprise to run into her at church a couple of years ago! It was so nice to reconnect. She was pregnant with her fifth child at the time. I told her of our plans to adopt a child with Down syndrome, and she nodded and smiled politely. I know now (because she ‘fessed up later) that she thought I had gone a little crazy. I get that reaction a lot.

Shortly thereafter— I can’t remember if it was that very day or a week or two later— Nikole was sitting in church when she was struck with the overwhelming feeling that her child had Down syndrome. She couldn’t explain why; she just knew.

When she ended up having a high-res sonogram a few weeks later due to a fall, her doctor told her that he suspected that baby Asa did, indeed have Down syndrome.

Look at that precious little muffin sitting on Nikole’s lap! Isn’t he adorable? All 47 chromosomes of him!

Through these events, the Hilton family felt the Lord leading them to adopt a child with Down syndrome. They are now very near the end of their journey to bring TWO children home from China— Abel, an adorable little guy with Down syndrome, and a handsome older boy named Archer.

Abel

Archer

They expect to travel in November to bring their boys home… but they still need $25,000 in order to travel.

Yep, $25,000.

That’s a big number.

I am always amazed at how God weaves people into each of our stories. I think back to the first time I met Nikole, to carpooling on the Dallas Arboretum field trip, hanging out together on the playground while our kids ate lunch. Little did we know that God planned to weave our stories together in such an incredible way!

If you’d like to be a part of the bigness of the Abel and Archer’s stories, the Hiltons have a GIVEAWAY for an XBOX 360 Kinnect at their website, aprecioussight.blogspot.com

Imagine being able to tuck that baby underneath your Christmas tree for some very deserving boy or girl!  And right now, you can enter for a chance to WIN it, and help bring the Hilton kids’ newest brothers home from China.

This giveaway runs through October 30. You know you’re only going to get busier as Halloween approaches, don’t you? I mean, you’ve got kids costumes to plan out, candy to buy,  and  you’ve got to start pre-thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas, as well as my third favorite holiday of all time, Fall Back Day.

So why put it off and risk missing out on your chance to WIN an XBOX 360 Kinnect AND helping to bring these two handsome boys home to their forever family? Head on over to NIKOLE’S BLOG before you forget!

And please join me in praying for the rest of their journey to bring Abel and Archer out of orphanhood, and into forever family.

I am somewhat recovered from what was certainly a full-on mini-nervous breakdown.

I was filling out our travel visa applications (‘visa’ as in, paperwork you MUST have in order to gain entry to foreign country, not as in ‘credit card’). The instructions must have been auto-translated into English, because they were very awkward. The last page, with the instructions for how they must be opened using THIS program and printed out just so like THIS and how failure to do it like THIS will result in the application being rejected.

But the instructions were impossible. Not hard to understand— they couldn’t be done. Have you ever seen “My Cousin Vinny?” There’s a scene where the DA asks Marisa Tomei what the proper timing would be for a certain make & model of car with a certain engine, and she responds by saying— well, I can’t tell you what she says, because this is a family blog, but she basically tells him it’s impossible to answer the question. When he presses her by saying “Impossible because you don’t know the answer!” she says, “No. It’s impossible because Chevy didn’t make that model/make with that engine in that year.”

THAT’S what I’m talking about.

And, faced with that brick wall…

… I blew.

I’m talking full-on, crying, sobbing, chest heaving, snot-producing breakdown. Everything I tried to say came out as so much blubbering. Hyperventilating, even. I don’t think I’ve ever hyperventilated, other than the first (and subsequently, only) time I ever donated blood, and the hand-holder guy told me to pump the rubber ball, only he never told me to STOP pumping. Next thing I know, I’m woozy, and clammy, and he’s calling for a nurse, and they’re feeling my feet & saying I’m too cold and gray, and the nurse is telling me, “You’re bleeding too fast!” and I’m like, “Oh, great. Something else I’m a fail at. I can’t even bleed right.” And I start to panic and hyperventilate when she rips the ball out of my hand.

The events that followed are a bit sketchy….

I didn’t pass out this time, but I think I scared the hooey out of The Poor Hubby. I do have to say, though, that it is a beautiful thing to have your husband pull you close to him and pray over you.

I even called my BIL,  a software developer who works for Adobe (since the “THIS” program was Adobe), and even he said it couldn’t be done. The instructions said to open the file in Adobe reader— but there was no way to save the file. Clicking on “File–>Save” didn’t offer the right option. It didn’t work.

I was stuck on this page, unable to move on. The instructions made it very clear that you HAD to do it THIS way, OR ELSE. And because I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t move on to the next page, for fear of that “NEXT” button being the equivalent of the “SELF DESTRUCT” button of on-line visa forms.

Finally, my BIL (who conferenced us in on his meeting website so he could see our screen) said, “Well…let’s just click the NEXT button and see what’s on the next page.”

So I did.

And the danged thing saved itself to a PDF. All by itself. Without me doing any of the stoopid imperative directions stuff on the printing page.

Stoopid.

And now, it’s printed.

And I’m still emotionally depleted.

I think the sum total of all the emotional stress I’ve been carrying around these two years just fell out of the sky on top of me like a cartoon piano, only heavier. Don’t get me wrong– this whole forms fiasco was stressful enough to merit tears all on its own.

But I just haven’t cried lately.

I walk around most of the time feeling like I’m about to cry, like I could cry at any minute, without warning. The knot has taken up permanent residence at the back of my throat. But no matter how frustrated or sad or discouraged I get, no tears.

Even when I panicked when I realized that I had forgotten to apply for our visas two weeks ago, I was shaky and nauseous. And I felt like I needed to cry, but I didn’t.

When I realized there were yet more costs and fees (like almost $1,000 for our travel visas), I felt ill and discouraged and confused, like it couldn’t really be true. I added and re-added and called the bank to get our exact balance and called RR to get our exact balance and I added again. And I felt like I wanted to cry. But I didn’t.

The tears just don’t come.

It’s as if I have scar tissue built up on my heart.

But I always knew the tears were there, waiting for the right instigator. And boy, was this ever it.

I felt so small, so helpless. It felt like a steel door slamming on me, like the enemy laughing in my face. Insurmountable.

But God overcame.

My sweet friend Jill posted this on my FB wall:

He has you hemmed in, behind and before. You may think you are unraveling but you aren’t. You’re simply realizing how desperately you depend on Him for everything. You’re simply being the perfect vessel for showing how His strength is manifest in our weakness.

Isn’t that perfect? My friend Jill, she has a knack for saying the perfect thing.

I know my great, big God’s got this. He is carrying me. One set of footprints in the sand. He’s teaching me to trust. He’s teaching me to hand it over–all of it: my worries, my anxieties, my I’m-not-good-enough-not-smart-enough-too-incompetent-I-can’t-do-it-what-if-what-if-what-if’s over to Him. I’m not very good at it yet. I’m not sure I ever will be. But He’s working on me. And as hard as it is sometimes— most of the time— it’s good. It’s big and it’s messy and it’s scary…but it’s good.

And it’s long overdue.

We are still raising funds for this final leg of our journey to bring Baby J home. We leave on October 1, and we still need over $4,000 to meet agency & travel expenses. Will you be a part of Baby J’s story? Will you be a part of her happily-ever-after? Donations made through our blog are TAX DEDUCTIBLE. You can donate on the top right of the blog, either through the CHIP IN (which will help us track our progress toward this current financial goal), or through the picture of Baby J on the far right top of the blog. Please specify “Moreno Family/Baby J” on the paypal comments section.

Thanks, and God bless!

We leave in less than two weeks!

It constantly amazes me how God puts me where I need to be. I don’t always recognize it in the moment, but He’s working on me there, too, and I’m slowly becoming more discerning in that regard.

Because right now, I have my hands so full with getting our travel visas, writing my speech, anticipating objections & writing rebuttals, gathering supporting documents, and making sure everything is in order to leave the children in the care of others while we’re gone (Note to self: they will need to know how to get to the children’s school…), that I absolutely don’t have time for fundraising. All of the fabulous ideas I had bouncing around in my head— the Karaoke Challenge,  a Russian tea & culture festival,  a brisket taco dinner, and of course, PIE!— I simply don’t have time for any of it. We leave in less than two weeks. And I am operating at about 20% above full capacity (which would probably only be about 70% of your full capacity, but we all know my limitations…).

I am grateful to my wonderful friends— and even many complete strangers, who I’m assuming are friends of friends— for coming alongside us to support us financially and prayerfully. We wouldn’t be this close without each and every one of you!

We are still short of our financial needs.  We will be spending approximately $13,000 in the next week: agency fees, transportation, lodging in-region (praise God, a precious new friend is taking care of our lodging needs in the captial city!), and our court-required in-country medical exams. I think we may need to eat a few times, too.

Right now, between the funds left in our RR FSP and our bank account, we have $7,300. That’s a deficit of $5,700.

We have a $2,000 matching grant opportunity. That will help enormously.

I originally thought we were really close to being “okay” for this first trip, and that we had a little bit of a time cushion, because it was mainly our final trip that we would need to cover expenses for.

I was wrong.

And I’m sick over it.

I still can’t figure out where I figured wrong. I think I miscalculated our remaining agency fees— I assumed that the part we pay to our in-country rep was included in the total remaining fees, and I deducted it from our final agency fee. But it wasn’t included— they were two separate amounts. Maybe it’s the sleep-deprivation-constant-stress thing that compromised my thinking. I don’t know.

But in any event, I am trusting God to come through. I am trusting our great big God, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, to throw some cows for Baby J’s ransom.

Would you please help us meet the rest of our financial need? Your donation will be DOUBLED by our matching grant opportunity!

And would you please share this post in the prayerful hopes that God would allow the right people to see it?

All donations made on-line are TAX DEDUCTIBLE.  You can donate through the CHIP-IN button at the top of the page, on the right hand side.  Please specify Moreno/Baby J in the pay-pal comments.

Thank you for being part of Baby J’s story. Thank you for being Jesus’ hands and feet for us. Thank you for lifting us up in prayer. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.