Mission: Adoption, Phase One Complete

This is the end of our adoption blog.
"Phase One" is now complete. Zephan and Ellie are no longer orphans.
Now, we are into Phase Two 
and 
Phase two will take much longer than 16 months. :)

Phase Two is raising ALL of our daughters and sons in a way  
that they may also walk with the Lord.
We will teach them of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We will boldly speak the Gospel.
We will teach them God's ways of living.
We will raise them to be securely grounded in the Word of God.
We will give them the tools of maturity and skills for success.
And so much more.
It is a pleasure to have 6 children to raise for God's glory! We pray that they will turn their hearts to Him, surrendering their lives, joyfully living for Christ Jesus alone.

We will start right here with this. These two sweet children waited their whole lives to be held by their Daddy and Mommy. And we thank our Lord they waited for us. When we hold them, they are as darling as holding newborns. Zephan and Ellie completely stop everything to be held, they snuggle into us and nurse their thumbs, reverting back to the moments they "should have" had. Praise the Lord for the preciousness of these children and for the bonding we are able to experience with them, OH PRAISE HIM!

Family

For Zephan and Ellie, this is what being part of a family looks like:

Being goofy on a hammock with siblings.

Having cookouts with Daddy and Mommy!

Having a dog. Playing with brothers.

Getting muddy with a brother/sister, as muddy as they like.

Eating watermelon with brother.

Playing in their home, with their siblings.

Digging.

Viewing little ones with their mommy and 

knowing, now they have a mommy too.

Things that are sad.

Excessive scaring on our little girl, 

due to careless surgeons.

We actually, would not have chosen this surgery.

There are other, better recommended surgeries for her issue of tight tendons.

Curled, bent toes on our little boy, due to wearing shoes that were too small.

And a smile like this, due to malnutrition.
He has five front primary teeth that never developed.
All of the teeth he does have, are prematurely loose.








But much sadder than this, is that there are so many children NEVER chosen into families.
The children long for families.
Ellie and Zephan both, were so excited when I visited them on trip one and told them I was their mother. And I told them they have a daddy too. And siblings. It was what they always wanted.
EVERY DAY, they tell us "Obechum Te". They give hugs.
And they are wonderfully cuddly.
A good 3 minute waiting child video!
http://rainbowkids.com/WC/

Home at last: The first hours at home, meeting the siblings.

John picked up the three children (who stayed with church friends) around breakfast time to bring them home.

Brendon had been missing his chicken, named Poofy, so he went and found her to take into the house to show Ellie and Zephan. The children enjoyed Poofy. She is calm and sweet.
Brendon did very well meeting Zephan and Ellie, as if he had known them for a long time. Brendon is very social.

Greger felt overwhelmed by meeting new siblings, he quickly went to the barns to see his chicken (below). She hatched chicks while everyone was gone. Greger stayed outside for a long time and enjoyed sweet fellowship with Andrew.

Torrie is not typically social, yet she was very excited to meet her new siblings. She was completely at ease and overjoyed!

Zephan deals with his overwhelmed emotions in a miriad of ways. One of them is by acting like a dog. That is what he is doing here in this photo. He was a dog most his waking hours, our first two weeks home.


Ellie has no strange behaviors. She (so far) expresses her emotions normally. She very much acts as if we have had her since birth. 

Andrew, Greger, and Brendon had their last soccer game the day after we came home from Bulgaria. We decided to take everyone. It went pretty well. And after the game, the kids aimed to involve Zephan :)

The siblings all 6!

This is our first day going to church with all of our children. This is two days after arriving home :)

Home at Last: The first hours at home, meeting the animals.

These photos were taken soon after we arrived home. It was about 5:45 or 6 a.m.

Zephan was "shell-shocked", nervous about everything.
In the first photo, he is actually crying because he didn't like the tall grass
or getting his pants wet from the dew.

 We went into the barn to see the new chicks that hatched while we were gone.
Ellie smiled happily.
Zephan still in shock.

Meeting the goats and alpaca.
Ellie calm.
Zephan nervous.

Below, we thought feeding the chickens would help loosen Zephan up. Ummm, maybe it worked....hmmm. He kept his hood up and sucked his thumb big time. Ellie was calm and happy to feed chickens. There were chickens at her foster family's house!

 Playing in the dirt went really well.
Zephan and Ellie both had a great time with the toy trucks and tractors!

Nap time! This is the one and only time we have seen Zephan sleep folded in half.
These two were very, very tired and fell asleep quickly.

 After nap time, they meet their other siblings! That's the next post!

Going Home!

Waiting for the SAMOLET (airplane)!

We were at the airport at 4:30 a.m.

John and I were on 2 1/2 hours of sleep.

On the first flight (apx. 2 hours), Zephan sat between me (Mommy) and Andrew. He was so ornery.
Ellie sat next to Daddy and was well behaved.

So for the long flight, 9 hours, we switched. John had Zephan and Andrew. I had Ellie.
It did not go well.

I felt very sick as always, only this time, I had a little girl next to me who wouldn't sleep.
I couldn't relax.
I felt ill and wanted to drift off to sleep.
And every 5 minutes (I am NOT exaggerating), Ellie would put her hand on my arm and bug me.
For a long time, it was that she wanted to watch something else. She would not watch any movie at all.
Then it was her earphones. So we tried our own ear buds to stay in better. She kept taking them out, then wanting them back in.
Then she wanted to do games on the screen. SAME stinkin' deal, she wanted it changed constantly and would get the games jammed up.
She wanted "pishka" (to go potty), over and OVER, AND OVER! and over. I so wish that I had diapers for her, I would have told her, "NO!", but I kept thinking, "What if she does have to go, and I say no..then yuck...I better take her." She went many of the times she asked to go, but her main desire was to flush the airplane toilet and wash her hands in the little sink. Again, I very much wish I had a diaper on her. It was ridiculous. By the way, Ellie can't walk. I lugged her 45 pounds of "dead" weight down the narrow aisle way, all those times. I finally asked John to start taking her. Apparently he didn't realize how frustrating it all was until he joined in on the "nice" walks to the bathroom.

Then Ellie went on an "Obechum Te" spiel.
Normally a parent would be overjoyed to hear their new daughter tell them "Obechum Te", which means "I Love You". But having my arm grabbed and  hearing it every 5 minutes for the last three hours of my flight was making me want to vomit. I was getting so motion sick and so exhausted with a kid who would not stop moving, talking, and bugging me.

And what did Zephan do? He slept the first two hours on the flight, then played and snacked quietly for 7 hours! 

John and Andrew took no sleep on the flight.
Andrew watched more movies than he gets at home in about a year.

When we landed in our country, we were all exhausted.

I felt sick, but was so eager to get home. We had one more flight to get home, 2 hours!
Then we learned the terrible news that our flight was cancelled.
And I "lost it". I cried, "We've been gone for two weeks. Our children miss us so much, I have a son who won't even play any more!!!!!!"

I'll apologize right here to all you adoptive mothers who wrote that you cried in the airport on your way home. I have read many, many adoption stories. And when the mama breaks down and cries, I was thinking, "What was she crying about? She is in her home country, she is nearly home. Come on. She is so close, keep it together."

Well, now I know. Now I have compassion for you. In absolute exhaustion, we can not keep it together. Being away from our other children for so long and spending so much intensive time getting to know the children we knew from photos and from a distorted trip one , takes us to an emotional level we can hardly cope with. One last "straw" does indeed, send us crying.

The earliest they could get us on a flight would be 6:30 the next morning, putting us home at about 10 a.m. John and I were like, "We can beat that time!"

So we rented a car.

On the bus to get to the car rental place,
We were shocked to be greeted so sweetly by the bus driver!
Several people were discouraged that their flights were cancelled.
And with more exuberance than I had heard in two weeks,
We hear, 
"I'm sorry ya'all are having a bad day, but you're going to have a GREAT bus ride, I'll make sure of that!" She went on and on encouraging everyone, no request was too great. This woman bus driver was high energy and full of joy. WOW, truly a delight.

At the same time, Ellie began chanting "Amer-li-ca". She knew we touched down in her new home country, and was very excited. So many people were charmed, and with Ellie's deep accent, could assume she had just been adopted!

We got situated in our SUV rental and Zephan threw up 10 minutes after driving off.
We cleaned him up in the Walmart parking lot and continued on.

John and I drove 10 hours straight, only stopping once for a restroom break.
John did all except about one hour of the drive, on the 2 1/2 hours of sleep he had in Bulgaria. By the time we arrived home, it was 32 hours with no sleep, starting on little sleep to begin with.
I drifted to sleep a couple of times, but was so afraid of John falling asleep, my "drifts" were brief.
Andrew, Zephan, and Ellie slept about 9 1/2 of the 10 hour drive.

And we did "beat that time". We arrived home at 3 a.m! rather then the 10 a.m. it would have been taking a plane. We didn't even care that we had to drive. We were getting home!
And we arrived home to this sweet "Congratulations" from our dear friends. 
This was such a blessing to us, words don't even describe. 

We are loved!

Here, we had gifts and gift cards and an entire meal all ready to eat.  

Next post is siblings all together and the first days at home.

What we did in Bulgaria for two weeks: Everything Else

"Everything else" includes:

A medical appointment.

And

An appointment at the Embassy.

And

Picking up documents to leave the country and enter ours.

That was it.

The steps were easy, but it would take some days between each step, one waiting for the previous.
So we spent our time basically just living in Bulgaria, going to the park often.

We would like to experience so much more of Bulgaria.
But this was truly an adoption trip, not a vacation. We sacrificed, scrimped, saved and fundraised to make this happen. It is the generosity and love of so many people that helped Zephan and Ellie to have a family.

We never became fully funded. 
But we have two little children, no longer waiting longing for parents. It was worth it all!
We hope to go back to Bulgaria some day, our WHOLE family, to truly see the country, and to reconnect with those in Bulgaria who blessed our children!