I made it to 33!

Thank you everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes on Monday.  I cannot tell you how important family and friends are in my life.  I had a wonderful day; I got my hair cut, had dinner out at Red Robin with the hubby and kids, and spent two hours at Frederick Meijer Gardens at the Christmas celebration.  It was a multicultural event surrounding the holidays, and it gave us a little thrill to see the displays from China.

It feels as if we are losing our enthusiasm for the adoption.  Having no little face to gaze upon, and waiting for more paperwork to be processed is not very motivating.  We have all of the paperwork ready to submit to the US Government for child immigration, and now we wait.  Again.  I'm not sure if it's the distraction of the holidays, or if we are still pushing away the negative emotions of losing our previous referral, but it's not always on my mind like it has been in the past.  I hope that as we get closer that the little spark in my heart reignites. 

On the happy side of things, I had a wonderful 33rd birthday, and am immensely enjoying the holidays with my family.  This is always my favorite time of year.  To see the joy and excitement of Christmas through my daughters' eyes is one of the most happy times of parenting.

Heartbreak

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I report we are back at square one.  We had a lengthy conversation with our inernational pediatrician late on Wednesday night where she reviewed the Chinese medical reports with us after we were able to obtain the untranslated Chinese documents, to make sure that there wasn't more infomation that we were missing.  Sometimes with language translations pieces get dropped.  This was the case for us.  What we found out by reading the origonal documentation was that Ben has a more severe and long-term defect that will most likely remain a moderate to severe special need throughout his life.  I don't think I have to state how badly this hurt our hearts.  I don't think Matt nor I got more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep after that phone conversation.  It was one of the hardest decisions to make I can ever remember.  In making our decision not to accept this referral, and this child, we were first considering the needs of our existing family, and the sacrifices that Madeline and Charlotte would have to make if we were to bring them a sibling with such extensive needs.  But the guilt of not accepting this child is real.  I keep thinking, "Well, if not us than WHO for this child?" and when I consider that there are 150 million orphans in this world who are parentless today, it bruises my heart.  I am trying to keep in mind that there is a boy for us, waiting for us, but that we just haven't found him yet.  I am praying that God will find Ben parents who can bring him home, love him, and support him throughout his life.  I am sad that it is not going to be us.  I have to say this feels like a miscarriage in a way: where the dream and hope of a child has been taken away.  It hurts.  But with time we will heal, I am sure of that.  We are so grateful for family and friends who have chosen to walk with us and support us through this experience.  Thank you. 

For now, we will continue to work on our Chinese dossier paperwork, and wait.  Stay posted. 

Introducing Benjamin Li Beresford!

After a long, fun weekend at Zehnder's Splash Park and Hotel, and a family discussion that included our two girls, we have chosen an American name for our newest Beresford member!  Introducing:  Benjamin Li Beresford!  "Li" is pronounced"Lee" and it is, by Chinese definition, "strong".  We thought that to be very fitting for our little guy, who has already endured so much.  Little Ben, we already love you so much!

Charlotte really wanted to name him "Diego" but we had to exercise our power of parental veto on that one. 

We had a lot of fun at the water park.  We played from open to close, which was at 10:00pm.  It was the first time either of the girls has stayed at a hotel, and it was so fun to watch them explore our room.  Charlotte, the master of hiding spots, was thrilled to find that the night table had a spot just big enough for her.



Madeline was a bit hesitant about the three-story water slide, but after trying it once on Daddy's lap, she was in love.  She must have gone a hundred times.  It was so fun to see her confidence rise, and her smile and laugh all day.  We needed that one-on-one time with each other more than we realized when we made these plans.  It was a GREAT weekend!

It's a BOY!

It's amazing how fast some things can go once you set the right things in motion.  It was last January that Matt and I sat down and talked about expanding our family through adoption.  We explored it, prayed on it, discussed it, and then set it on the back burner.  Too expensive.  We are already too busy.  So many excuses NOT to leave our comfort zone.  But it kept coming up.  Fast forward six months, and we were looking at different adoption agencies, comparing what each one offered and what the adoption process entailed.  We talked to other adoptive families.  We decided in July that adoption was something we were not willing to postpone any longer, so we took a giant step forward and made a connection with All God's Children out of Portland, Oregon.   It was written in our hearts, we knew that we had a son out there, but we had to find him!  Fast foward to last Thursday, when I got a call from our adoption agency that we had a referral waiting for us: a 15 month old little boy named CHANG SHUN MENG from Changzhou, China!  Within hours we had submitted the required paperwork to request permission from the Chinese government to choose Chang as our son.  We waited seven nail-biting days to hear back, and the official letter came yesterday: HE IS OURS!  HE IS OURS!  HE IS OURS!