Thirteen Months!

Claire is THIRTEEN months old!

This month she got two more teeth (the top middle one on the left, and the one right next to it also on the left) for a total of four. She also started pulling to stand, waving, climbing 1-2 stairs, enjoying baths (finally!), playing peek-a-boo, AND bear walking. 

She is wearing 3-6mo tops and 0-3mo pants. She is 29" tall and weighs 16lbs. Her favorite things are kisses, necklaces, talking, and food. She loves attention and melts the hearts of anyone who takes the time to talk to her!

Here are some pictures from her 13th month:

Dressed up to celebrate her big sister Emelyn's fifth birthday

Ready for the fireworks.

Fireworks galore and this one is sound asleep.

The Polish Flag in a cookie!!

Staying out of the sun at her very first air show, with a daddy
who is a pilot, she has many more in her future!

Trying to learn to chew... chew Claire, chew!

Very FIRST time pulling to stand, daddy kisses
are a great motivator <3.  Mommy cried!

Showing off her bear walk at PT 

Bear stance and silly faces!

Thank you for cheering her on!!!  She is still struggling a lot with choking and has some sedated testing and another eye surgery coming up but overall, she is doing really great.  We are SO proud of her! Hopefully her fourteenth month will involve her meeting her new sister for the first time!!!!!

Our Final Day in Poland

We had another great day today!

When we arrived, Amelia was already crying and the moment I took her in my arms she fell asleep <3. We didn't get to spend as much time with her today because we had to have an appointment with an attorney and translator to sign our application to the court and a power of attorney so that our facilitator can communicate with the court on our behalf until we come back for our next trip. After the meeting, we went back to the orphanage. I got to feed her lunch with a spoon, she did great!! And then the sisters set up a little family photo shoot for us. Saying goodbye was harder than I imagined, I just couldn't find the strength to hand her back to them. I fell apart and I can now check "getting a long hug from a Polish nun" off the adoption checklist (yes, I nasty cried all over her outfit ... that will be a story for the baby book!).

After that, we drove the four hours back to Warsaw. We leave to head back home at 4am and it is 11:30pm now so it's time to get some sleep. THANK YOU for praying for us. Now we just need things to move quickly so we can get back here to our girl!

Day Two with Our Girl!

Today was AMAZING!

The only tears all day were mine. She came right to us and we were there every second that the orphanage would allow us. We spent a total of 6.5 hours together! She napped in our arms, we fed her bottles and, not only is she comfortable with us touchin her, we would tickle her and she was laughing!!!!!!! To go from crying with any touch to laughing at it in just two days … it is the best sound in the world. She loves kisses too!

There was one moment where she was laying on Justin’s chest and she lifted her head (for the first time in two days) just to make eye contact with him and they had the sweetest moment. I cried!! …and then took a picture ;-).

We were told that this is the first time she’s ever had individual attention and she is absolutely getting our full attention! She cried when the caregiver came to take her, it broke my heart and I can only imagine how hard it is going to be to say goodbye to her tomorrow.

We Got to Meet Amelia!!!

We couldn't imagine today going any better!!!

We started with our interview at the regional adoption center. They asked similar questions to the ones that we were asked yesterday plus a few more that were a little more difficult: Why we didn't want to adopt a typical child and why we wanted to add more "burden" to our family. But we, again, shared our hearts graciously with them and the neat part was that the woman who was asking these questions accompanied us to the orphanage and was able to watch us meet and interact with Amelia! By the end of the meeting, SHE approached Amelia herself to "play," she was smiling, and I could see a shift taking place. What an amazing moment to witness. This was an answer to our specific prayer!

After that first meeting, the regional adoption director, a translator, and our facilitators took us to the orphanage! This particular orphanage is run by nuns although the women who do the care for the children are young women who are employed by the orphanage. We had yet another interview from the orphanage director and then we were able to ask questions about Amelia's routine, health, and family. They told us some more information about her health and warned us that she has a sensory issue and cries whenever she is touched, they told us not to be alarmed if she cried the entire meeting, and to expect her to not want us to touch her at all. They even asked us if Claire cries all the time as well.

Finally, it was time to bring her to us! One of the caretakers brought her into the room and placed her right in my arms. There were eight other people in the room observing us and how this first meeting with her would go as all of this must be described to the judge when we go to court. Initially she did cry, I tried to calm her, Justin tried, nothing seemed to work but we were persistent and calm and within just fifteen minutes or so she was completely relaxed in our arms! They had also told us that she isn't able to hear well but we believe that she can hear some, she loved it when we sang to her and turned her head toward sounds that we would make, more on one side than the other but we do believe that she hears us. They let us stay until dinnertime (about five hours total) and over time, she had relaxed enough to take a long nap in my arms, she let me hold her while she ate her bottle, and by the end, she was reaching out to touch us and even allowing us to tickle and kiss her. We found out that she is buckled in something similar to a bouncer all day (they call it a cot) - for playing, naps, and even sleeping overnight - and after interacting with her for a while and seeing her in the bouncer, we think that she doesn't have any major sensory issues but rather prefers to be in the bouncer because it's what she is most familiar with. We both think that she is going to thrive given the opportunity as the bouncer keeps her movement pretty restricted. She isn't able to hold her head up yet but you can tell that she desires to be able to move around on her own and we are excited to be able to offer her more opportunities to be able to do that! She is in a wonderful orphanage and everyone there truly cares about the children, they were amazing, but with so many children there is only so much that they are able to do.

I have to be very careful about sharing pictures publicly until the adoption is finalized in court but we did take videos and lots of pictures and we can't wait to share them after our final court decision when she is officially ours! They gave us an estimate today of 1-3 months before we will be back to have our court dates and bring her home with us. Because July and August are very popular vacation times, they were hesitant to give us any type of more specific estimate. The nuns seemed to really like us, the director kept remarking that she "couldn't believe we made such a big decision" and another one kept saying that Amelia's interactions with us and ours with her were "super" so we hope that works in our favor to make the time shorter! They all seem to really want her to be in our family and were very, very accommodating of us.

Thank you for supporting and encouraging us. We felt your prayers all day and saw them answered one after the other! It means so more than we can say to know that we have an army going behind us and before us!

Tomorrow and Thursday we get to visit Amelia again from 8:30-11 and 1-3, we also have a meeting scheduled tomorrow to put in our application at the court. This is the final step in the process. They asked us initially to wait until Friday after we had more time with Amelia to do this step but we assured them that we will absolutely not be changing our minds so they agreed to allow us to do it now, it will hopefully save us a couple of days time in being able to come back for our next trip. Once the court has our application, they verify that we have all of our documents and at that time the judge can request any additional documentation that he or she feels is necessary to make the decision for us, send them all to the Ministry for one final approval, and then once the court has our documents back, they will set our bonding period and court dates and invite us back to Poland!

We had the most difficult time saying goodbye to Amelia tonight, I can only imagine how hard it will be to say goodbye on Thursday. Please continue to pray for strength for all of us and for protection for her heart.

Thank you again!!!

We Made it to Poland!

We made it to Poland last night and "passed" our first interview this morning! It was like we expected, they wanted to know why why we wanted to adopt a child with special needs, how we thought we could handle another child with extra needs when we already have one, how Anna and Levi feel about having another sibling with special needs, etc. We understand that we are the first special needs adoption here and, although their questions were hard to hear and answer, they seemed to just be genuinely curious and we did enjoy sharing our hearts with them. We were in a conference room with a HUGE table, there were seven people including the director of the national adoption center and a psychologist! After the interview, we drove South for about four and a half hours and just made it to our hotel. We have another interview at the regional adoption center in the morning and they will be the ones to notify the orphanage if we have final permission to meet Amelia. After they give us permission and notify the orphanage, we will drive to the city that she is in and then we meet her tomorrow afternoon as long as the orphanage is willing to let us come then. It's already 9pm here so probably only about 16 hours or so until we hope to meet her!!!

We found out today from the director that Amelia's legal guardian (we learned that all Polish orphans are assigned one and it's typically someone who works at the orphanage) must also consent to the adoption in court and is even allowed to add her own qualifications! Some examples that they gave us are that she can require us to come back with Anna, Levi, and Claire to make sure that they are all happy about the adoption, she can require us to prove that we can understand and speak Polish, almost anything that she feels is necessary to prove that we will be a good family for Amelia. Please continue to pray that everyone here receives us well and that we can meet all of the requirements of all of these different people so we can get our girl home!

We will update again tomorrow. Thank you for encouraging and praying for us!!!

Poland!

The day is finally here, we are headed to meet our girl!!  We know many of you have had questions about our trip and we wanted to take a minute to share.

We are leaving at four o'clock this afternoon but because of the time difference and layover, we won't arrive in Poland until late Sunday night. We will spend Monday in Warsaw for an interview at the Public Adoption Center. On Monday afternoon, we will ride the train three hours south to Sosnoweic where we have another interview on Tuesday with the regional Adoption Center. If all goes well, we hope to meet Amelia on Tuesday afternoon and spend as much time as they will allow visiting her on Wednesday and Thursday before taking the train back to Warsaw and flying home on Friday. 

Specific prayer requests:

- That our interviews go well and we will be able to clearly articulate God's love to the directors in why we would like to adopt Amelia.

- The file that they gave us says that Amelia cries whenever she is touched. We are praying specifically that she would be able to connect with us in a really special way. I have been praying when I put Claire to bed every night that God would give Amelia dreams of us and that some of those walls would begin to be broken down.

- It is uncommon but possible for the judge to decide to waive the bonding period on trip two (this would shorten our second trip by at least 2-4 weeks). Our hope is that because of her age and the physician letters that we submitted because of her heart, the judge would be open to waiving that requirement for us so that we can get her home and access to medical care more quickly. It would also helps us significantly financially (and emotionally as we won't have to be away from the other kids as long!).

- That we will be able to advocate for a very short time between trips. We are ready to have her home!

- And finally, for the strength to say goodbye at the end of the week and that Amelia's heart would be protected so that meeting her and then turning around and leaving would not create another wall in her heart for us to overcome. -- or even that our court date would be soon enough that we don't have to leave at all!!! ;)

We want miracles! For God's power and love to reach her and all of the many people who are involved in her care and adoption. Please join us in believing for that.

Thank you for your support and encouragement!  We feel so blessed to have such a big army behind and before us. We will update as much as we can!