What to Do While We Wait

What's an expectant parent to do especially when one has no idea when our "due date" is? Well, I'm having that nesting instinct and trying to clean and organize and start to get Penny's room ready. My husband thinks I'm silly to be doing all of this now when she may not be here for at least four more months. But, I need something to do with all of this nervous energy. And as I see her room become more hers it helps me to start to visualize a live body actually living there. It's still hard to imagine that a real, live breathing human individual will come inhabit this room and actually be my daughter forever. Today I was excited to get the picture I drew of Penny framed. I had to hang it over her bed as soon as I got home, of course. And another exciting discovery was that Hobby Lobby actually had one set of adoption stickers for scrapbooking. Yeah! Someone actually thought of us "strange" adoptive families. The baby stickers just don't do it. Well, here are a few pictures of Penny's room. By-the-way, that white and blue cloth hanging in front of the bookshelf is one that was actually given to me by the Isaan believers in Udon Thani when I visited back in 1999. I thought it would be cool to display something from Penny's own people. And I made sure to put a world map up so that we could continue to remember her birth land.

The Inner Hidden Fears of an Expectant Adoptive Parent

Here I thought I was remaining relatively calm throughout this long process of adoption. But, my dream last night really revealed some inner hidden fears I must be having. I dreamt that we were in a big, dark board room. There were several people seated around the large table. There was a woman sitting at the far end of the table. Someone from WACAP said to us, "We're sorry, but "Penny" will be placed with that family (at the end of the table). You'll have to start all over and try for a different child. I was trying to act like it was no big deal. Jay got mad at me and asked me how I could make light of the matter. I told him it was because I was trying hard not to cry. But after that I lost it. I was bawling and bawling. Then I woke up. It took me a second to get my bearings and to realize that it had all been a dream, rather, a nightmare. When I told one teacher about my dream today, she said, "I can imagine how stressful it is. I was adopted and my mom used to tell me how scary it was to think that at any moment you could have the rug pulled out from under your feet." This is just one way in which adoption feels a lot scarier, I think, than in having a biological child. Everything is so completely out of our control. I thought I was handling these fears quite well. But, I guess the inner self is a lot more timid than my outer shell. God knows my heart and understands. Look at the great risk He took at sending His son to sacrifice Him in order to save us sinners. Now that's a major risk! But, obviously, I guess He thought we were worth it.

Show Time!

I'm going to attempt to insert a movie here. I really enjoyed viewing a movie of another blogger's yesterday. It was of her four year old son dancing. So cute! We hope to show you fun videos of our expanded family in Thailand. Here's my first attempt to see if I can make this work. This was taken on our weekend trip to the Maroon Bells for Labor Day weekend. It sure is great living in such a beautiful state!

We're back!

Well, we decided to return to blogspot. One of the main reasons we're blogging is so that our family can keep up with our adoption journey. But, unfortunately, my parents are having trouble being able to view our vox blog and I can't quite figure out why. So, alas, we are returning to blogspot. Hope this will be a good and safe way to put the word out there about our pending adoption from Thailand. Thanks for all the nice comments from friends!

This past weekend I had a lot of encouragement. Several friends responded about how they had adopted older children from Thailand and found that their kids were quite open to learning about Jesus. That has been one of my biggest concerns is how to present Jesus to our 12 year old coming from a very Buddhist society. However, we were told by a missionary couple who have even adopted from Penny's orphanage that their nine year old was quite open. In fact, they said that most of the girls there are very curious to learn more about the Christian faith when Christian volunteers come in to do service projects at the orphanage. So, I have hope that our daughter will be open to learning more about our precious Savior. In fact, on Sunday I was very excited to buy a children's bible story book for her. And this missionary friend said they'll be happy to help us obtain more Christian materials in Thai for her. It is the prayer of my heart that she will love Jesus as her Lord and Savior, too.