Spending Money

It feels good to be putting out big chunks of money this week and last! (When you total it, it's over $12,000 - probably the biggest two weeks of spending for the entire adoption. In all fairness, $2000 of that is a retainer that we will be refunded after completing all four of the post-placement reports that are due every six months after the girls get home, but it's still a chunk of money that has to all come out now.)

Mostly it's good because it means things are happening!

I think the single biggest reason I get from people that I talk to who have been interested in adopting, but don't, is the cost. I so badly wish I could get through to them that if God is telling them to go, He's already got the funds in place (somewhere!) for them to do it. There are so many ways He can provide - small gifts from friends, big gifts from strangers, acquaintances who have offered to pay for one of our plane tickets for trip one, in our case! - money we've been able to put into savings because there just happened to not be other things that came up to take that money away. Even the funds I wired to Bulgaria this morning - I'd been thinking from the general paperwork that I needed 5600 Euros - turns out some of T's fees in-country have been waived in an effort to find her a family, so we only needed to wire 5000 Euros. Sometimes just the timing of things has been one significant way we've seen God provide for both this adoption and Krassi's - when paperwork gets delayed, it gives us a little bit more time to accumulate and save up what is needed to pay for the next step.

Maybe that's another reason why it's so exciting to be spending this money - it's solid evidence that we're on the right track, and a real, tangible way to see God's provision for us as we walk forward on the path He's laid out for us.

If you're reading this, and think that God is directing you to expand your family this way, but you're just not sure how you'd come up with the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to get it done, there's only one thing to do - check it out and make sure that's what He's telling you. If it is, the money's already waiting for you - GO FOR IT!!!

Twelve Years

 Somebody had a birthday today! Because cake and ice cream would be food, and thus a hated activity, we decided to DO something fun instead. Less than two weeks ago a new playground opened less than 15 minutes from our house - it's huge, and designed specifically to be accessible for kids with a wide range of disabilities. Even the slides are made of a special kind of plastic so as to not generate static electricity which could interfere with hearing aids - they tried to think of everything.

 

 Krassi loves to swing, and although quite a few of the playgrounds around here have swings like the one on the right that work for Reuben (and Evania, as you can see here), they don't provide enough security for Krassi. But the one on the left does!

 Most of the play structure can be reached in a wheelchair (though as a practical note, that's only good if all you want to do is wheel around on it and then come back down - yes, there are plenty of circles/routes to take, but only one way up and down, so it feels a little pointless.) Krassi likes slides, so we wheeled up to one, but then had to call Leah up to bring his wheelchair around down to the bottom for him!

This big platform has "couches" on either side, and is accessed from the ramps on the play structure - Krassi can just be wheeled onto it, we crank his locks down, and then it can be rocked. Once, the kids had it rocking hard enough we were glad K had anti-tip braces on his chair! All eight children you can see on the platform came with me. I'm holding Gloria.

We didn't go with just our seven, but because Matt was out of town for the day, we had room to bring two friends, on the condition that they knew they weren't there just to play, but were there to help me guide/care for Reuben, Evania, and Gloria so I could make the morning a special one for Krassimir. So we filled up Big Blue (as in, it was full! we could only bring two of the kids' three friends at that house!) and away we went.

Reuben's favorite part of the place was the splash park, as you can see in the photo above. He was soaking wet - it's going to take his shoes days to be dry enough to wear! But he was absolutely delighted. The splash park, too, was designed at a variety of scales, so after observing it for a few minutes to see where things ebbed and flowed, I was able to find a place where Krassi could get close enough to play with the water without getting himself and his chair quite as fully engaged as Reuben was!

He knows that's where the water's going to come from again in a moment!

Here's another example of where this preferred posture of his just doesn't really do much for him! The water's on! And he's missing it!!

Ah ha!!! There he's found it!

And even trying it with the left hand, too. Happy boy!

But Krassi's favorite part was the zip line. There are two of these running parallel - one with a round seat where you hang on, either standing or sitting, and one with a bucket seat like the swing Krassi was using earlier. This one we tried three different times, and each time, though you couldn't really tell from his face, he went through great contortions to get his hands together to sign "more" each time it slowed down!

I think my only disappointment with the playground is that although there were easily over a hundred people there this morning, Krassi was the only one in a wheelchair. Yes, I am very well aware that there is a very wide range of disabilities that a playground like this can cater to (the static-free slides, for example!) But, still, it was kind of a lonely feeling to be the only parent of a child in a chair at a place like this. So many, so many of the families and children there seemed to be just "normal" families with "normal" kids checking out a new playground.

~~~~

There's a reason this post is titled the way it is. Although this is a happy day because it marks a milestone - twelve years old! - for our oldest son, it's also a day that's raised some rather strong emotions. Twelve years ago today is when life suddenly started going very wrong for this precious little boy. Twelve years and one day ago, he was safe and warm and held within his mother's womb. I don't know much of anything about her - I don't know if she was worried, excited, ambivalent about the tiny life growing inside of her. I know that her baby's father was not in the picture. But what I do know, and brings me to tears every time I think of it, even now I can hardly type for the tears falling down my face, is that twelve years ago that tiny baby was born, too early for his little body to be ready to be on its own, and on that day he lost something so incredibly precious - his mother. Suddenly he was not only no longer within that safe, warm, held place where he ought to have been able to grow and prepare his tiny body for weeks yet, but the one person who had been with him every moment of his tiny life since it began was no longer with him. Instead, he spent two weeks in the hospital, and was then transferred to the preemie care unit at the orphanage where he would eventually be committed for the next nine and a half years of his life.

So much life, so much potential, was robbed from my little boy in the years he spent in that place. I wish someone had told his mother the truth - that she, with all her imperfections, could have done so much for that tiny baby boy had she just been encouraged to love him, hold him, talk to him, love him, keep him. I don't ever wish that Krassimir was not my boy, but I wish for him that he would never have had to be my boy.

There is so much loss wrapped up in adoption. The only reason we have gained our eldest son, and will hopefully soon have our two oldest daughters, is that all three of them have experienced one of the most serious losses any human being can have. The one person who was everything to them for all of those days, weeks, months of growing before their birth is just simply gone. And that loss happened at such a tender age, under already strenuous circumstances for a tiny person. It doesn't matter when a child is adopted, or what circumstances it happens under, at what age, what kind of care they had in the interim, all adoption is a story born out of a profound loss. And that is something incredibly sad.

I think back to the six little ones that I birthed into this world, and realize that I can never be that for Krassi, or for B, or T. I am (or will be) still their real mother in every true sense of the word, but I can never replace that mother.

Twelve years ago, my boy. I am so sorry. I can never replace what she should have been to you, but I hope that I can continue to become something precious to you in a different way. I, too, am a very imperfect mother - so inadequate compared to what you really need, what you ought to have, but I promise you, my tiny twelve-year-old - I am going to spend the rest of my life being your mother, and we'll keep growing into that together, won't we?

Visiting on trip one, March 2013

Letting me hold him on trip one.

From our pick-up trip, October 2013

He stands! (with help)

Krassi was evaluated for a stander earlier this spring. Standing will be beneficial for him in a number of ways. At a most basic level, circulation, digestion, and other bodily functions work best in a vertical position. Sitting is better than laying, and standing is even better than sitting. We also really like how standing encourages him to interact with his surroundings (both physical and people!) in a different way than he can when he's laying on the floor, or even in his chair. He reportedly LOVES his 20 minutes a day in the stander when he's at school, and we believe that spending more than an hour a week standing would be really good for him!!!

Part of the process of actually getting a stander is a one-week trial just like we did with his wheelchair. We were really pleased with the model they sent out to us, and pleased with the opportunities it opened up for him. Like the wheelchair, too, now that we've finished our one-week trial, we get to wait through the whole insurance approval process.

I'm lucky to have many helpers in the kitchen.

Many helpers - there's Reuben in the background putting onions in the pot - one of his favorite pass-times.

Look at that grin on Krassi's face!

Hi, 'Vania!

This posture is a constant challenge for us with Krassi. We've talked with his physical therapist, and she believes that his difficulty here is not one of physical ability, but habit. I don't have time to go into all of that here, but have a post rumbling in my head if time allows.

Gloria takes to having an older brother with cool equipment quite well. The chair that helps Krassi sit up while he's eating is perfect for propping up a four-month-old baby, too! She likes hanging out there for a while to see what's going on.

Here's another shot of the head-down posture. I'm pretty sure you can imagine how this as a preferred posture makes looking at things around you, and noticing and responding to your environment a very difficult thing.

Mr. K

[sung to the tune of "Mr. Golden Sun"]

Oh Mr. K, K,

Mr. Bulgarian K.

What'cha been doin' today?

[Repeat]

This song has many variations around our house. Tonight Daddy stopped mid-way through and said, "Wait - he's Mr. American K!" So the next time through pushed the meter a bit to get, "Mr. Bulgarian-American K."

Enter one (pre-kindergarten) younger sister, and what do we hear in the background? 

"Oh Mr. K, K,

Mr. Bulgarian-Minnesota K."

Guess we've got some basic geography on the agenda for kindergarten when fall comes around!

Apostilles - - - CHECK!

The tidier print came in the mail this morning, so this afternoon I snuck out (all by myself!!!) in the rain to the office of the Secretary of State to get our apostilles.

One hour (and $50 - thank you to one of our dear friends who gave us the proceeds from their spring garage sale, this is covered, as is the shipping to Bulgaria!) later, I walked out with ten apostilled documents in hand.

Tonight Matt and I are printing a better set of the required photos of our house and family, and now I'm hoping to get it in the mail tomorrow! (It's got to go through Maryland where our primary US agency is located to pick up a document they have before going on to Bulgaria, but they'll handle the sending of all that - we just have to pay for it.) :P

Holding his own hands

Every now and then I see something that reminds me of how very upset this boy's development has been. Although he's making strides (slowly) in many areas, it was almost shocking to me to run across him doing this a few days ago:

See what he's doing? He's holding his own hands. This is something that babies may start doing in their third month - Gloria's done this and moved on to bigger and better things.

Krassimir does *other* things that are significant developmentally related to this - he can cross "mid-line" to reach for things (still harder with his left, but it's something he did not do at all with his left when he came home.) He can pass objects from one hand to the other (though he still does this primarily from the left hand to the right hand, and will only go the other way with heavy intervention. This, too, is something that he's learned to do since coming home.)

But this is the first time I remember ever seeing him deliberately holding onto his own hands, and (the photo doesn't capture), playing with his own hands, handling them, moving them, holding them VERY tightly.

Ahh, tiny boy, what you have missed!