Beginning our home study

We are half way through our home study!!!!  Dewey and I have both done our individual visits and we are scheduled for our joint visit on Friday and our finally in home visit on Monday.  Most of the paper work is collected, copied and in the envelope to be mailed.  Now we are really just waiting for our referrals to get sent in, then our social worker will start writing it all up.  I am getting very nervous.  I only have 4 days left to get my house "home study" ready. 

I tried having a garage sale last Wednesday, but only made $84.00.  Don't take me wrong, I know it puts us that much closer to Clare!  I just already want to be there.  I am going to have another when we are finished with the home study visits.

Hannah's surgery for tubes in her ears went well yesterday and she acts like she feels 100% better.  But poor Aaron, he has been telling me for several days that his ear is broken.  I took him to the dr. and they said he has fluid behind his ear, again, but that it isn't infected, so really nothing can be done.  I am about ready to take him to Hannah's ear dr. so he can get new tubes!! 

We went to St. Louis this weekend and met our knew granddaughter.  She is just beautiful!!


Here is some new info on my sweet Clare:  http://littleflowerprojects.blogspot.com/2011/06/mei-mei-and-ran-ran.html





Enjoy.


Suzanne

Hannah is 2

This post was actually started on May 26, 2011.  I just couldn't put my thoughts into words, until today.  So here it is, a little late, but done.


Today is Hannah's birthday.  Two years ago at 5:40 pm she was born via emergency c-section.  Hours later we were told that she had Down syndrome, an unknown heart defect, low blood sugar, possible sepsis, possible leukemia, not urinating, no bowel movement, she might have to be transferred and she might not live.  Then the doctor asked if we had any questions and when we didn't respond quick enough, he got up and left the room and hospital.  It was another hour before I had enough feeling in my legs to go and see my baby.  I was so scared.  I wasn't able to hold her, until she was 2 days old.  It was awful.  To make a long story short, the whole event took me months to process and accept.  Actually it took about a year.  Now I look back and wonder what my problem was???  She is just a baby and a beautiful one at that.  She is doing everything my other kiddos did.

Hannah has made our lives complete.  Things have slowed down a little, which has really been a blessing.  I am enjoying life so much more now.   She is the reason we have chosen to adopt.  She has opened up a world we would have never been a part of and has shown us SHE can do anything, just give her time.  I can understand the fear these mother's feel when they are told their precious baby has Down syndrome.  I remember the first 2 nights lying in bed, waiting for the state to come and take her away.  I know that sound ridiculous, but it is true.  The last thing I remember about ds, was from nursing school, a simple 4 inch paragraph telling us what it was, how it happened, issues involved and finally that most babies end up in institutions.  In fact I remember Dewey asking me if we were up for this and in my mind I thought he was suggesting we turn her over.  Later the next day, I realized that was not what he was saying.  It wasn't until the 3rd day, when Leslie, from the Down syndrome guild, came and talk to us about all the possibilities that were out there for Hannah, that I realized that I got to KEEP her.  I slept better that night, but not until after my 45 minute cry.

Hannah at birth.

Mom holding Hannah, for the first time.

Hannah at 1.

Hannah at 2.

Because we are no longer scared of ds, we welcome it, we are able to open up our hearts and home to this beautiful little lady, Clare.  We know there will be challenges, but what child doesn't come with them and they can come in any form, health, education, physical, and behavioral.  They each provide there own challenges.  We truly feel that this is what God wants us to do and we have accepted his challenge.


If you listen close enough, I bet He has a challenge for you too.


Suzanne

The Waiting Game

I am finally rested from our first two fundraisers. I am just sitting here, because I have nothing to do.  Well, I have plenty to do, clean house, wash clothes, pull weeds, plant and figure out how to raise money.  But I have no paper work to do right now.  For weeks, it seemed like there wasn't enough time in the day for all the paper work and now I just sit.  I so wish there was someway to speed this up.  I want to get Clare here ASAP.  I want to get all her medical needs met, so we can move on to the important stuff, enjoying life, teaching her to reach for HER dreams and how important she is to everyone around her.  I want her to be hugged and kissed daily, even though I know she probably already is, she is in a wonderful healing home.  I want to be the one doing it!!!  For now I have to be content with pictures and dreams.  It is so hard to just sit here.  I can honestly say, it is just as hard as trying to decide if we should take this journey.  Here are some new pictures of Clare and I know this is going to be a wonderful journey. 

Looking at these pictures, I can just see the attitude.  Like leave me alone, I don't want to smile. 

I'm playing here, go away.

Finally:  Okay, I am smiling.  Take the picture and get out of here!!!!

She so reminds me of my other children, she will so fit in so well here.

Suzanne

 

Garage Sale: Day 4 and Savin Clare Pig Roast and Concert

The weather was beautiful!!  We were so much busier today then the last 2, but not as busy as Wednesday.  God is so good.  It was suppose to rain off and on all day.  But the rain stayed away.  We made $1138.16 over the 4 days of the sale.  God is just too good!!!!  A big thank you to Sara, Dewey T., Daniel, and Abby.  Thank you to my mom and dad for watching Aaron and running Abby to ballet.  Thank you to Hannah for being a big girl and staying in her pack and play for 4 days and not complaining a lot, even when she didn't feel good.  A HUGE thank you to my sister, Pam and niece, Stephanie for letting me use there driveway!! God bless you all!!

Off to the Pig Roast and Concert.  You could not have asked for better weather this evening.  The temperature was perfect and so many people showed up to help us get Clare home.  I told our story to everyone that asked.  It was a really nice party, except for the nasty pig in the garage!!  My husband, Dewey, opened the show by playing guitar and singing and then Diamondeyed Jack played.  We thank them from the bottom of our hearts for helping us out and volunteering to play!!  Thank you to Paul for allowing us to use his home for the concert and for all this children for helping with the food.  Thank you to everyone that helped setup and take down the tents and stage.  Thank you to Mac, who made the tie dyed tees and donated 50% to us.  Thank you to those who came out to celebrate Clare with us.  We can't wait to have another party, when she gets here, so everyone can meet our beautiful Clare.  We made an amazing $1600.00.  All we can do is say THANK YOU and GOD BLESS YOU!!!!!!

                                   

Garage Sale: Day 3 and How we found Clare

Wow.  Today was no better than yesterday.  In fact it rained more today.  When I got up the sun was shinning and I was very excited.  Slowly the clouds started to roll in and the thunder started and down came the rain.  Not just a little rain, a LOT of rain!  So, really no closer to getting Clare home.

On to a nicer topic:  How we found Clare.

I was searching RR for my child and thought I had found the perfect little lady to join our family.  Her name was Meredith, but when I went to pull her file, I was informed that another family was viewing it and most likely going to accept it.  I was really heart broken, but went back to looking.  After a few weeks I still hadn't found my child.  On February 26th, 2011 there was a post about Princess Clare, I read the title and just kept going.  That same day there were several post about Princess Clare, but I ignored all of them.  On the 27th there was another post, so I decided to go and take a look.  Here is the post:  There must be a perfect family out there somewhere for Clare! I can guarantee she will brighten your lives! -Caroline  So, I decided to go and take a look, plus I could feel God telling me to go and look.  When I click on the blog link, I got this strange feeling that this little girl had a cleft lip and cleft palate.  This is only important, because when I was pregnant, I always had a dream that MY baby would have a cleft lip/palate and I would push them into the corner and refused to take care of them.  I was waiting for the page to load and part of the way down, it just stopped and all I had to look at were these big beautiful eyes, just full of life.  By the time the page loaded and I was able to see the rest of her, I was already in love and knew I had found MY daughter!  I emailed Caroline and got all the info about Clare that she had available.  I called my older children over and asked them what they thought and they thought she was perfect too.  When Dewey got home from work, I showed him the blog, pictures,video and the info I had.  He said she was beautiful and he was okay with her coming to live with us.  THANK YOU, CAROLINE, for advocating for Princess Clare.  Otherwise I would have never found our daughter!!!!! 


I have gone back to RR many times since all this began and realized that the other family did not take Meredith, so if you are looking for a beautiful, little angel of your own, go take a look at Meredith:  http://reecesrainbow.org/meredith1

Garage Sale: Day 2 and Why China???

I don't have much to say.  It rained all day and very few people stopped by.  I did get a lot of things organized.  Maybe I will pick a better week next time, because at this rate, I will have enough stuff left for another sale!!!!

Since I have nothing to report, I will try and answer a question many people have asked: 

 

Why China?????

I spent an hour one day messaging Andrea, at Reece's Rainbow.  We looked over the list of requirement: length of travel, number of trips, who had to travel, family size, income, and age restrictions.  We came up with the following countries:  China, Bulgaria and India.  Then I was sent to find my child.


Suzanne

Garage Sale: Day 1

Wow.  That is all I can say.  My two sons, Dewey and Daniel, and I were up until 2:00 am, trying to set up everything.  People kept stopping and wanting to "shop" even though I wasn't open yet.  I ended up making $110.00 and wasn't even open.  I finally was just too tired and too cold and decided to call it a night.  Got home and in bed by 2:30 and up at 6:00.  I got to the sale and there were a couple of people already there.  The morning started slow and we still had so much stuff to put out.  I got a call from my daughter, Abby, telling me Hannah had another temp of 104.2, so I rushed home and took care of her.  I ended up taking her back to the doctor.  Thanks to my wonderful friend, SARA and to DEWEY, DANIEL, and ABBY, my sale went forward without any problems.  I really don't know what I would have done without them!!!!!!  The sale officially closed at 3 pm and all my help left shortly thereafter.  So, as I slowly put everything away and covered up what I could, people still came and shopped.  My last customer came at 7:15 pm.  I was really starting to slow down when my husband called and asked me if I had been on our family sponsor page recently and I had told him, not since Monday, when we had $25.00.  He told me we were now sitting at $3025.00!!!!!  I got a second, maybe third wind and was excited about cleaning up.  I can't believe how things are going and falling right into place.  I am so praying that we can have Clare home by the new year.  If God continues to bless us, it just may happen.  I would love nothing more then to be able to have her here for her 5th birthday, I have already missed too many. 

What I learned from my first garage sale is that I probably bit off more than I could chew, but I was able to rise above it all, with the help of God, family and friends.  All the hard work was worth it and will even be better when I get to hold my new daughter and give her a big kiss.  I am in awe of the generosity of others.   There are so many good people out there, just hiding and waiting for their chance to shine.  God is GOOD and oh so GREAT!  I am willing to do this again, for the right cause.

I want to say THANK YOU to everyone that shopped, donated, prayed and helped us out.  I would have never been able to accomplish what I did today.  There are 3 days left of the sale and I am already excited to tell you how we did, but I am going to keep you in suspense until Sunday.  I won't be able to post on Saturday night, because I messed up when I scheduled my garage sale this weekend, because my husband had already scheduled a benefit concert for Clare.  As soon as I am done with clean up, I will be on my way to the concert.  I hope to see some of you there!

Suzanne