Meet Ivy. We got this sweet little bear from Cuddle and Kind. She is handknit (of course I love that), soft and squishy, and she's wearing a dress (of course Anna loves that). We got her for Sweet Baby Girl for Christmas with the plan to let the kids love on the bear now, then send it to our daughter with a family photo album when we know who she is. We hope the bear will smell like us and help her to connect with us during those early days when we arrive in China.
It's probably a little early for plans like this, but this whole adoption thing was getting just a little too abstract for me. I needed to buy her a Christmas present, because she is a person, not an idea, even if she is so far away I can't see her clearly. Andrew, Anna, and Samuel were all born in January, about a week apart. (I know, people asked us if we planned it. Hello! We planned to have three birthdays just three weeks after Christmas?? We must be terrible planners, ha!) This means that three times at Christmas I have been so pregnant I really wished I wasn't any more. Those were precious Christmases for me. I felt close to the Holy Family in those years. And we experienced the thrill of anticipation that you think of with Christmas, waiting for something that is coming soon. This year, we are experiencing a different Advent. Our daughter is coming, but she is a long way off, and the anticipation is so exhausting we can't sustain it. We have to put it away, to rest from it. This year I identify with the Jews longing for the Messiah: trying to pray faithfully for something when it seems it may never come. The kids have loved having this sweet bear to snuggle and talk about Baby Sister, but I have loved it so much more. I tuck her under my arm as I pour my heart out to God, begging for blessing to follow my daughter and her first family, whatever they face today. This Advent, Ivy Bear is a physical symbol of what we are waiting for: a daughter that I hold in my heart until she can be in my arms.
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I have this wonderful, very wise friend who is an expert at seeing things from both sides. Whenever I talk to him about stuff, he is always saying "On the one hand... but on the other hand..." Drives me crazy.
That's the way it is all over our lives right now. On the one hand, I have thoughts of our daughter and of the adoption process swirling through my mind every day. Has she been born yet? Where is she living? Are her needs known to someone? Where will we be in the process this time next year? The year after that? (Man, that feels like a long way away...) On the other hand, too much of that makes me crazy, so I give it back to God, try to tuck it in neatly in the adoption corner of my brain and heart, and embrace the place where we are now: parenting three kids and waiting for our fourth. We don't want to waste it by missing where we are. And adoption is not the only place we are experiencing this wicked back-and-forth. The holidays are here. We already have our tree, and tomorrow we go to my parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner with (not) all the family. On the one hand, our grief of Adam is every day. We keep saying it's like standing in the ocean. It comes in waves. They pass. Sometimes they take you down. But you are never really dry when you are standing in the ocean. We all feel a little nervous as we move towards a month full of family time and memories. Maybe it will all bring comfort, but it will certainly be sad. On the other hand, grief doesn't erase all joy. Thank God for our kids, they bring the joy pretty hard. And my parents are finding joy in their new farm, which brings us all joy AND relief. It is such a blessing to watch their happy moments. No matter which hand I'm focusing on at the time, I remember that God is there. He is with my daughter far away, and He is working in my children who are with me now. God walks with us through our grief, and His grace paves the way for new joys. As I face the coming days, I'm trying hard to breathe in the moment, and the presence of God in that moment, whether grief or joy. I'm so glad He's there. When I was a kid, my family had a band appropriately named the Trantham Family. My grandfather built instruments, my dad learned to play them, and as soon as we got old enough stand alone, Daddy taught us to play them too. This took us lots of cool places, but our favorite of all was the North Carolina State Fair. For ten days every October, we were part of an educational exhibit called the Village of Yesteryear. The Village is different from your average craft show. All the crafters are experts in their craft, and all are actively demonstrating their skills. Also, everyone is dressed in period clothing, to add to the illusion of stepping back in time. It's all about education and nurturing a love of heritage crafts in the next generation. It totally worked on us. As young kids, we were welcomed into booths by all kinds of crafters and learned to knit, weave, throw pots, make stained glass, carve leather, fold paper, make corn shuck dolls, and dye Ukrainian Eggs. It was a total wonderland. And it taught us something really important: if there's something we want to do, we should find an expert and give it a try. We can probably learn to do it. These experiences led us directly to Cackleberry Studios, the Etsy shop Josh and I have opened with Sara to make money for our adoption. We make Ukrainian Eggshell Jewelry, and we were honored to return to the Village of Yesteryear this year as crafters ourselves. Sometimes when you visit places from your childhood you realize they are different than you remember. Somehow the magic doesn't translate to adulthood. Not so with the Village. We had an absolute ball. We made new friends, reunited with old friends, and were encouraged by world-class artists all week. We even won 4th place for our booth, and our Ukrainian Egg teacher, Kit Lennon, won 1st! It was a huge endeavor to be ready for such a long event. And enough can not be said about our amazing, wonderful, over-the-top supportive parents who took care of our kids while we were away. As always, they are our biggest blessing. The best part of the whole experience was when the kids joined us for the last weekend. It was so fun to watch them learn that they can sew, paint, spin yarn, weave, and even decorate Ukrainian eggs. All they need is a teacher.
Our kids, especially Andrew, are paying close attention to our adoption fundraising efforts. We have told them that adoption is really expensive and so we are working hard to get the money to bring Baby Sister home. They have even helped with some of our fundraisers. It's been a great lesson that sometimes doing something good costs money. We are so glad that our new fundraiser helps other people too! Welcome to the month of Socktober! For every pack of wacky socks you buy, you help us raise money for our adoption AND We Help Two donates a new pair of thermal socks to our local homeless shelter, Haywood Pathways! It's a win-win! Did you know that new socks are the most needed, least donated item in demand at places like Haywood Pathways?? Help us do something about that and get yourself or someone else some awesome funky socks for the fall. We would love to sell 100 packs and bring 100 pairs of socks to Pathways at Halloween. What a fun reverse trick-or-treat!
To order, click this link, or the one under the Fundraising tab, or if you see us, ask us! We have some socks to sell in person! We can't wait to see you all rocking your socks! We are talking about the country of China a lot around our house these days. We check out library books about China and listen to Chinese music. Anna likes to shout "Ni hao!" ("hello" in Chinese) to us from across the room. But our favorite thing to do is watch Wild China on Netflix. It's a six-part documentary about wildlife in China that hits on various aspects of the culture just enough to be digestible to our young kiddos. We've learned a lot about the Silk Road, the snub nosed monkey, terraced rice paddies and, of course, pandas. Tonight, while we were watching it for the eleventh time, Andrew said "I'm so glad Baby Sister is coming from China, 'cause I think China is so awesome. Mom, why did you and dad decide to get a sister from China?" He's not the first person to ask, and I figure he's not the only person who wants to know "why China?" After all, you can adopt babies from lots of places, including the US. Nearly all my adopted cousins were born in America. We have friends who have adopted kids from within the foster care system. These stories are beautiful and precious to us, and have inspired us and encouraged us. When we first starting asking the adoption question seriously back in February of this year, we were open to any option the Lord might lead us to. Even so, after doing our research, there are several things about adoption from China that appealed to us: -China's adoption relationship with the US is *relatively* steady and predictable. (Ha! Yeah, yeah, we've been delayed for over a year because China changed some rules. But I think that delay came from the Lord, who knew in advance we would need a little breathing room after the summer we've had. All in His time.) -As far as international adoption goes, China's wait time for referrals and travel dates is pretty short, sometimes less than a year. That doesn't sound short, but compared to some countries where you expect to wait 2-4 years, it's pretty quick. -You only have to travel one time. Lots of countries require more than one trip, trips up to a month long, or even in-country fostering for a length of time. -Younger children are available for adoption. In some countries only older children (4+ years) are eligible for international adoption. Since keeping our kids' birth order intact is important to us, this matters. -We are moved by the plight of orphans in China. Lots of people remember stories about Chinese girls needing families, but that story is actually outdated now. Domestic adoption is more widely accepted in China, but disability is still difficult for many families to deal with culturally, not to mention financially. Result: girls AND boys with disabilities need to be adopted in China, and many of them need access to medical care that is difficult to get in their home country. We could tell we were drawn to China and felt like it was a good fit for us. Still, it wasn't an easy decision, especially for me. I like data when I make decisions. Ask my work family, they can tell you. And even though the "pro" list for China was long, I could make equally long lists for other countries, and an even longer list for domestic adoption. (Side note: a lot of people assume domestic adoption is cheaper, and it is, but not by much, unless you foster to adopt which was not something we think is right for us at this point. Fostering older kids is totally on my bucket list when we are empty nesters, though.) All these lists bothered me. We knew we wanted to go with China, but I couldn't come up with a clear, "can't argue with that" reason. Why choose a Chinese daughter over all other children who need families? This is maybe the most striking thing for me about adoption. When you make a kid from scratch, you find out you're pregnant and then you are on the train. In 9 months or less that kid is coming, whatever that bring with it. You don't have to do much else to make that happen, and you don't choose anything about the kid. But adoption is just the opposite. It is choice after choice after choice to get that baby home. The choice over where to look for her weighed heavy on my heart for a while. In the end, we chose China because we did. I guess you could say we feel led to China, although to my data-driven way of thinking that sounds fluffy. Fluffy or not, we are confident that it is the right decision for us, and that our daughter will be in China when God gets us there. We fall more in love with her birth country all the time as we learn about vast and varied landscapes and people groups. We can't wait to find ways to help her enjoy this part of her heritage that will now be part of ours too. Andrew had a hard week last week. It was so bad we had to read about Alexander's bad day more than once. I once had a little friend tell me when he was about 10 that he really wished he could go back to being six because it was the best. And while there are lots of amazing things about being six, sometimes being six can be really hard. Last week was one of those weeks, man. School was hard, brother and sister were hard, Mom and Dad's expectations were hard, missing Uncle Adam was hard. Thanks to all that hard stuff, by Thursday we had all just about had it. That Friday, my mom and dad called to see if they could check him out of school a little early and have him for the night. Um, yes. They farmed and kayaked and ate pumpkin muffins. Basically, they filled him up after a week that emptied him out.
Then Sunday, Josh's Uncle James and Aunt Ann were in for a visit, and Ann asked us if they could sneak Andrew out of church early to spend some time with him. Yes again. While they got lunch ready for the crowd coming home, they talked about hard things and how to work hard at them. And they made a lot of silly jokes because, as I am often told, Uncle James is "like, so hilarious." What? We let our kid leave school early and get out of Sunday School? Totally. Any time trusted adults in our kids' lives want to take time to encourage our kid, our answer is yes, no matter what they miss. This is what makes their lives so phenomenal. And it's what helps Josh and I survive and thrive as parents. Our amazing parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends fill in all our gaps and amplify our message of God's love to our kids. This is why we want to adopt. We wish every kid could hear the message of love, security, and faithfulness that our kids get from their amazing support system. So we will make sure one more does. Andrew had a much better week this week. He worked hard to make it so (as did his awesome teacher). And Josh and I have been problem-solving it out behind the scenes for him. But enough credit can't be given to having precious adults tell him that he is awesome and brave and strong and loved. Nana, Papa, Grama, Pagra, and dozens others, thank you. It is Back-To-School week at our house, which means Meet the Teacher night, trying to locate the lunchbox, and counting how many pairs of pants my kid has that DON'T have holes (how can it only be 2? He has like 15 pairs of pants!)
Being back at work for me also means giving lots of updates on our adoption to my friends I haven't seen since June. Since our Big Wait started, there isn't much to tell, except that we are WORKING. A ton. It may be hard to wait, but it's not hard to find things to do to raise some of that extra money we need. We are working like crazy on Cackleberry jewelry to prepare for a couple of huge fall shows we are doing. Someone pointed out yesterday we should have listed our house on AirBnB for the eclipse. Such a good idea! Why didn't I think about that before this weekend?? And this week, we are also SHOPPING! My cousin Jessy is hosting an Agnes and Dora shopping event this week via Facebook (the internet is an amazing thing) with a couple of her fellow reps and donating a portion of their sales to our adoption! The clothing is really beautiful, and Jessy makes shopping on Facebook (something totally new to me) really easy. If you want to join this event, click this link to join it on Facebook (make sure to say you are "going"). Monday at 8pm Jessy is doing a live sale there. Tuesday, photos of all the goodies will be posted in the adoption group for 24 hours. Wednesday will be a "lightening live sale" of leggings only. Thursday will be outfits and Friday will be open shopping. It sounds really fun! So many Thank Yous to Jess and her friends for doing this for us, and for coaching me through all the social media skills you need to pull an event like this off. Have I mentioned before that social media is not my thing? Thankfully, Jess knows what she's doing. :) If you've been following the blog or my family on social media over the last few months, you may remember that my brother Adam left us to be with Jesus in May. It was not exactly a surprise, but it was unexpected and caught us all off guard. We began this summer with the worst storm of our lives. After his death, we sheltered at my parents' house for almost ten days: we slept, ate, cried, and tried to breathe together. It was excruciating, but somehow bearable because we were together, and because of the hope of heaven. It is fitting that during the last week of the summer (Sara, Robin, Andrew, and I all start back to our regular school schedules this week), we got away together again, this time to Oak Island, NC. A family friend graciously offered us a place to stay to spend some time together and it was such a blessing. Josh cooked every day. We collected shells and jumped waves and colored in coloring books. Hardly anyone got sunburned (sorry, Robin). We talked and laughed and had a dance party. Gracie celebrated her first birthday with a cookie with a candle in it and about a million choruses of Happy Birthday. We watched Moana. A lot. And we sang Moana songs at the top of our lungs in the car, on the beach, and inside when it rained. We watched baby sea turtles crawl to the ocean from their nest. We found peace and joy in each other and in God's world, even if not quite complete. It was an echo of heaven. It made me cry to leave. I so want for the world to be like this. My soul aches for this, for heaven, for healing. I am so thankful that Adam is there, experiencing rest he so desperately needed. For him, as Aslan says in The Last Battle, "the term is over: the holidays have begun."
Our church yard sale yesterday was a HUGE success!! We sold like crazy from 6:45-noon and raised more than $1600 to bring our little girl home!! It was so amazing. We were showered with gifts last week by my sweet aunts and uncles via our Pure Charity campaign. These fundraising successes have gone a long way to calm our hearts and minds while we face the next step: a wait. Yep. We have to wait. I broke the adoption process down into four steps in an earlier post: Home Study, Dossier, Wait to be matched, Wait to travel. After talking with our agency, we are basically going to stop and hold at the end of Step One, the Home Study, until this time next year. Our home study can't be finalized because it must affirm that we meet China's criteria for an adoptive family, and at this time we do not. This is kind of a bummer because we were hoping we could at least work on other aspects of our paperwork, apply for grants, etc, but we can't do any of that without a finalized Home Study. We can do our own fundraising (Cackleberry, maybe a silent auction online, maybe a t-shirt relaunch with long sleeves or a sweatshirt?), but that's all until next fall. Blah. Our kids love to watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. (We like to watch it too.) It's basically their guide to life. There is a song about waiting: "When you wait, you can play, sing or imagine anything." It works well for waiting rooms, waiting in line, stuff like that. We are using it as our guide for this waiting time: Play: We refuse to miss this time when Andrew is 6, Anna is 3, and Sam is 1. By the time baby girl gets here, they could be 8, 5, and 3. We can't waste it. So we will play, and lean in, and treasure every day rather than wish it away.
Sing: We are going to sing our Daniel Tiger songs and play loud happy music in the car. We will sing songs to God and about God and how he always keeps his promises, always goes with us, and always brings beauty out of pain, even when those promises are hard to believe. Imagine anything: This one is hard, and doesn't make waiting easy. We are imagining our sweet girl's face and the day when we will meet her. We are dreaming about the adventure of traveling to China, both for our gotcha trip and as a family when the kids are a little older. We are praying so hard that she will be surrounded by love every day until we get to her. Thanks for waiting with us.
Sam is 18 months old, for those of you doing the math. So that's an issue.
We don't have answers yet about what this means for our timeline, but it looks like we might be headed for some delays. Maybe a long one. We will keep you posted once we know for sure what this means, but in the mean time, please pray for us (ahem, Emily) as we try not to panic and over-plan in a situation with lots of unknowns. And join us in fervent prayer for our sweet girl far away, as she waits for us to come get her. Good things came to Abraham when he waited. We trust the same is true for us. |
Josh and EmilyWe hope that by sharing our steps, challenges, and milestones of our adoption, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to build around our child as she grows up. Archives
July 2020
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