Holiday Greetings 2012

Merry Christmas and Blessed 2013 from our family to yours!

As for 2012, it has certainly kept us busy...with paperwork!

We still miss our precious Caleb each and every day, that will never change...

 We are all eager to fill a small hole of our home and hearts...

2013 will prove to be a wild emotional ride.

We have signed, dated, notarized, copied, stapled, mailed, certified, verified and sent 

or received more papers then we can count!

Why? Because before Caleb, we would never have considered 

ourselves capable of adopting or caring for a "special needs" child. 

There is a little boy overseas that was put up for adoption by a loving family of 3,

because they know they cannot care for a Down Syndrome child in their country.

We sent in a family profile to say that we were willing to adopt this precious boy

and they said "YES".  With this response, we began the tedious task of adopting

this little guy.  We have done all of our part required for this side of the world.

We now wait through Taiwan's lengthy court process...after 3 court hearings, he will

officially be ours.  We will then travel to bring him HOME!

We are currently waiting to hear word of court hearing #2 to take place...

we have NO idea when this will occur...

but in the meantime our little guy has gone from living with his birth family for 16 months

to now living in a foster home.  That major change just occurred last week!  We cannot

imagine what he is going through or feeling at this time.  Our hearts break for him

and we cannot wait to finally get all this "process" behind us and be able put our arms

around him and tell him that this is IT - we are taking you HOME, your forever home!  You have a mom and dad who love you and a big brother and sister who cannot

wait to have you home as well.  Clearly his birth parents have made a very difficult decision.

We know their pain...whether you have had to give up your son to heaven or to the U.S. 

in order to have a better life...the pain is deep and we hope to do them proud

by raising their birth son in a loving home. 

                           

One year ago today...straight from your mommy's heart...

...what can a grieving mommy possibly say?  What I would really like to do today is shout from the rooftop "CAN I HAVE HIM BACK NOW?!!!"  There is really no way to "talk" about how much we miss you...there is really no way to describe how much we miss you...yet the images and sounds and events of this past week, as they played out last year...well, they are still so vivid!  On the other hand, what I feel is slipping away is what it felt like to hold you...to rock you to sleep...to give you a bath...to feed you...to have you burp right in our faces after your bottle...to have you blow raspberries at us as we tried to feed you carrots or peas...

I miss this...

the indescribable JOY that you brought to your brother and sister.  You changed their lives, especially Ryan's.  He finally wrote about you in his English class this year...we have been trying to get him to write about you for the last year.  He finally wrote about you as his English teacher asked the class to write about someone they felt was special enough to be on a coin, needless to say, he wrote "my little brother Caleb should be on a coin because he changed my life".  Your brother and sister miss you dearly.  As we all do!  To experience a loss like this is just too much for this momma's heart to handle.  Your daddy and I don't know how to handle it ourselves...let alone how to help your brother and sister handle it.  We can only hold on to the fact that we will see you again.  Which leads me to always ponder what you look like now...how much has Heaven changed you?  Have you grown up or are you still my precious little boy?  Do you still smile as bright as the sun?  Do you still love to put your toes in your mouth?  You were certainly happiest here when your toes were up by your head.  Are you walking?  talking?  I hope your great-grandparents and Jesus are taking good care of you...I hope they are holding you non-stop.  I often pray that you are so loved in Heaven that you do not miss any of us one bit.  I don't want you to feel that emotion at all.  We hold enough of that emotion for you!

Not much has changed around home.  Your room has stayed pretty much the same...your sheet is still on your bed.  Your dirty clothes are still in your laundry basket.  Your clothes still hang in the closet.  Your bouncy seat, bumbo seat, car seat, etc. take up all the space on the floor.  We can't just sell these things and hope the buyer has some idea what they mean...so they sit.  I guess your little brother will be able to use some of them, but at the rate the adoption is going...he will not even be able to wear any of the clothes that I had bought for you to wear last winter.

Thank you for leading us to your little brother.  He will fill a small portion of the hole you have left in this house!  Parents cannot really prepare themselves for having a Down Syndrome child...but you made it so easy!  You were determined to show the doctors how much you could truly fight.  I wish I had the chance to take you back to them to show them just how wrong they were...maybe they would second guess themselves the next time they wanted to tell an expecting mommy that the child they were carrying would not amount to anything...you showed them!  You overcame everything in your first year like a champ.  So we hope you have passed along a little bit of this drive and determination on to your little brother in Taiwan...here's hoping he will be rocking his extra chromosome just like you did!

CALEB ANDREW - We love you and miss you to the moon and back!

If we had to choose just one thing Caleb taught us...

He taught us that we CAN handle a special needs child, something we never imagined we would ever be able to do.  There is really no way to describe all that Caleb taught us and still continues to teach us each day.  Caleb taught us more then we could ever put into words.  We certainly learned to live each day to the fullest, no matter what circumstances we were under.  We struggle with the feeling that Caleb is in a better place…but on his 2^nd birthday, we REALLY wish he was here with us.

Since Caleb’s passing…we have learned that we have to keep busy.  We have to stay busy focusing on the future.  John and I certainly cannot watch dramatic or any type of “depressing” movie!  Even the smallest stories on the news about children catches our attention!  Our heart aches even more for those we know who are caring for a child with medical issues or have lost a child themselves because of a heart condition.  We are still learning how to grieve something like this.  We are still learning how to even handle something like this that comes along in life.  Losing a child is like losing a limb – you have to relearn how to live without that limb.  We have truly learned that only God is in control…

Two years ago…we were getting ready to start another adoption process from Korea.  Our process with Sara went so smoothly, how could we not work with that country again?  Just about the time we were going to start the application, we learned that we were expecting our own child.  As shocking as that was, it was not as shocking as all the news that came right after…the Down Syndrome, the two heart conditions, the 90 miles a week I had to drive to get to the “high risk pregnancy” doctors that were located in Fairfax Hospital.  We tried to handle this all as best we could.  The moment Caleb was born, we were instantly in love and knew we could handle all that came our way with just one glance into his amazing eyes.  

WELL...Fast forward two years, to 2012, 6 months after Caleb’s passing…we have started the adoption process once again.  We have been working at this since early Spring.  There is a little guy in Taiwan that needs a home.  Yes, he sure does have Down Syndrome!  There was NO way we could take what we learned from Caleb and not put it to good use.  We could not let a child, that might not easily be adopted, be sent to live in an institution because they become “too old” to be adopted by some countries standards.  Call us “crazy”, a “glutton for punishment”, whatever you would like.  This is something we have all thought about, prayed about, dug deep to be able to do!  We know many will wonder how in the world we can replace Caleb…well, there is NO WAY to replace Caleb!!  We are doing this BECAUSE of Caleb! :)  This does not erase any of the grief or emptiness we feel each day.  There is truly no way to simply get rid of or cover up those feelings.  We just need this little guy as much as he needs us!  He needs to live in the U.S. where he will have so many more opportunities to receive specialized care regarding his DS.  Again, we just could not take all that we learned from Caleb, especially the simple fact that we can do it - we can care for a special needs child!  This little guy, half way around the world, is currently being cared for by his birth family.  They have made the ultimate sacrifice in deciding that they cannot care for him in a country like Taiwan and that he needs a home where he can receive therapy, specialized doctor care, etc.  If anyone knows how these parents are feeling or how they will feel when they have to finally give their son up to go live in another country...that would certainly be us!  We are blessed beyond measure that these birth parents chose us to care for their son.  We have adopted before and we have cared for a Down Syndrome child before, so we hope these two facts bring his birth parents just a little bit of comfort as we wait out the rest of this process.  

We have finished our Home Study, we are halfway through our Immigration application, our papers just finished being translated into Chinese which has to be done for these papers to be sent to Taiwan to start their court process.  Unfortunately, Taiwan’s court process can be lengthy, a good 6+ months!    All that are involved in our U.S. agency, as well as the Taiwan agency overseeing his care, are in agreement to appeal to the family court to expedite this process as best they can, for this little guys sake.  We covet your prayers that this last piece of the process will go quickly, so we can get him home as soon as possible.  Unfortunately, with us being right in the middle of this process with a particular little one, we do not feel we can post pictures or mention his name yet.  Please feel free to ask us about him when you see us in person!  We would be happy to share our latest photos of him with you.  

 

Most of all…Caleb Andrew – Happy 2^nd Birthday, precious boy!  Mommy, Daddy, big brother & big sister miss you more than anyone will ever be able to describe.  10 hours, 10 days, 10 months, nothing has changed – we love you to the moon and back!  Thank you for each of the 414 days you hung in there with us and ALL that you taught us – esp. the simple fact that “we can do it”!!  A very bitter sweet day to say the least...

18 months & slideshow link

Well, we have made it through 4 months without Caleb. Not one day is easy or proves to get any easier, but we get through them. Today...well, it is one of those days that is hard to get through. Today, 2/2/12, Caleb would have been 18 months old. What a fun age. It has always been one of my favorite times in a child's life as SO much is going on with them at this age...needless to say, I can only imagine what Caleb would be up to these days. Would he be crawling? pulling up on things? starting to 'talk'? How many teeth would he have by now? We would be pouring bottles of Milk vs. formula. We would be doing more table foods vs. baby food...the list goes on and on...


We have been trying to stay busy. The weekends tend to be our hardest time as it is very quiet, slow and lonely. We have been trying to stay busy by working on a couple painting projects and have even been known to make an impromptu trip to a ski place where John and Ryan learned some real snowboarding. Sara just loved finally getting to play in some snow at the end of the ski slope. You really never know what we are going to do or where we are going to appear...beware! :)


Emotions run very high in our house. R&S can go from playing to fighting in no time, we can all go from peaceful to emotional in a flash. You just never know what you are going to get. I can be completely content one moment and the next be hearing a song that just completely reminds me of Caleb and I am a wreck. The songs that tried to keep me upbeat and positive during and after Caleb's surgeries/recoveries, now just remind me of how much I miss him! My life truly went from being a whirlwind of Caleb's Dr. visits, physical therapy, medicine schedule, feedings, to wandering around stores just to kill time, esp. on the days Sara is in preschool.


I have always said Caleb impacted our lives in more ways then we could ever write...but I have truly seen a difference in his older siblings since he has been gone! They both adored their little brother, as most would. But they both certainly knew there was something extra special about this little brother. They have not been the same since. I guess none of us have...never will be. We just try to get through each day the best we can while being sensitive to each others moments. We try to figure out what 'normal' is suppose to be now with the huge hole in our home as well as our souls.

I will never understand why Caleb (& his family!) made it through two open heart surgeries with flying colors, but a blood infection was brewing after the second surgery that we could not see at all. I think back to that time and wonder what signs I missed that there was something going on. I guess every parent who has a child that has struggled with an illness, esp. an illness that claimed their life, goes through these waves of emotion. Just a very wild, tough ride! Grief like this can be a very lonely place. There are so few who have been through and have any idea what it is truly like...we just try our best to not make people feel awkward. It is OK to talk to us, it is OK to talk about Caleb, ask questions, get weepy, give a hug! We would prefer that over people avoiding us because you don't know what to say or do. We continually thank you for your support and covet your prayers.


Slide show remembrance of our precious boy, produced by Unforgettable Productions, LLC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE7a_VyGipA

J, J, R & S