One Year Ago

One year ago, we had our little foster baby, Helen. We were having our first real "trial run" as parents and were saying, "Hey, this isn't so hard!" OK, so we were a little naive.

One year ago, we were spending new year's eve with some friends, and Rob got really sick- the first day of a week long bout of dysentery.

One year ago, we were in a different apartment, trying to keep our landlady from storing more stuff in our cabinets and trying not to let on that there would soon be a child in our home (on several occasions she tried hard to convince us to wait to have kids, for the sake of keeping her apartment clean).

One year ago, it hadn't even entered our imagination that April would be pregnant before our adoption was final.

One year ago, we were expecting to bring our daughter home from Ukraine sometime in the summer of 2010...and that she would be about 18 months old.

One year ago, Rob hadn't started noticing gray hairs.

One year ago, we never gave a thought to Interpol or the actions of the Ukrainian Parliament.

One year ago, we were in a very different place! Much has changed, but God has not.

One year from now...well, it makes me dizzy to think of all that will change in the next year!

The Second Appointment

During our second appointment, we weren't shown any new files of children. Our translator/agent pressed the issue with the office, and they eventually called nearly every region in the country, only to report that there are no children under the age of 6 without severe disabilities. We're not sure if this is true, but that's what they told us. We are allowed to schedule a 3rd appointment, but it seemed pointless to do if they aren't going to show us any more children.

We weren't sure what to do. We didn't feel any clear leading from God. Mostly, I (April) just felt really guilty that we weren't open to adopting a severely disabled child. I know they deserve love and a family as much as any other child, but I don't think we're in a position at this time to choose to take that on. After caring for a special needs foster child (see our posts on Helen from a year ago), we have a better idea what it means to care for a special-needs child in a foreign country.

So, we chose to look into the file of one girl who we saw a picture of during our first visit. We have been told 3 vastly different accounts of her situation. We're going to visit her in a few days and make a decision then. That visit involves two 13 hour train rides to/from the other side of the Carpathian mountains. Normally, I would be excited about such an adventure. But - it's freezing outside, I'm tired, I'm sad and I'm very pregnant. I'm not sure how my pregnant body is going to do sleeping (or not sleeping) on that overnight train.

More details later- we're pretty wiped out right now. All we want to do is drink something warm, eat something sweet, and gather our thoughts!

Sunshine, Sicknesses, and Smiling Babies

So I feel somewhat humbled and embarrassed. After my weather rant a few weeks ago, we've ended up having the mildest December I've ever experienced. I think I need to apologize to the universe (or at least the local weather system). April keeps reminding me that December isn't always that bad. It's January and February that you have to look out for, so maybe my nibbling on humble pie is a bit premature. I still think we've had a few amazingly sunny weeks. My apologies to the atmosphere.

In other news, I'm just getting over dysentery. Chalk that up as one sentence I never thought I'd be saying (or typing). First, I never thought I'd get dysentery. Second, I didn't realize dysentery was ever not fatal, so I couldn't conceive of "getting over" it. I think when I was young I read too many missionary biographies where the protagonist has a friend or loved one die of dysentery. Apparently, there's plenty of non-fatal versions; though for a few days I was pretty sure I was a goner. It's good to be able to once again eat food and keep it in my body for more than a minute. Major kudos to April, who for the first 3 days of my dysentery (which actually went undiagnosed until day 5) also had to care full-time for Helen. Helen went back to her foster family on Saturday.

And just so this post ends on a happy note, let's close it with some appropriately censored pictures of Helen. The one of April feeding her is possibly one of my favorite pictures from the past few months:

Welcome Helen

As promised, here are a few Helen videos. The organization that set her up with us asks that we not show pictures or videos of her publicly without blurring or blocking the eyes.



Helen will be 1 year old next Monday, but she's developmentally more like a 5 month old. She had surgery to remove a large something (not sure if it was a tumor, sack of fluid, or what) from the back of her skull, and the bone still hasn't re-formed back there, so she's really sensitive on the back of her head. She also has a shunt (don't worry, I had to look that word up, too) in her head that drains the excess fluid down into her stomach. Because of her special physical needs, she's been in foster care since her surgeries. We're watching her while her American foster family is out of the country for a few weeks.

She sleeps most of the night, which is good. But she can get fussy during the day. 'Fussy', for the uninitiated, means she may cry and scream for 2 hours with no apparent reason. But like most babies, when she's happy and sweet, you forget the fussy times:

Helen Arrives

We got our foster baby today. Helen will be with us for 2 weeks. She'll turn 1 year old on the 28th, had surgery a few months ago and is with us while her foster family is overseas for a few weeks. We'll try to get some pictures and videos posted soon. Right now we're a little busy with our trial run at parenting :)