Rinnah's **and Leah's** world

 "So our girls know what a nice family we are."

We have a varied collection of magnets that are either the kids' faces, or full bodies printed on magnetic paper. What a delight to come into the kitchen one afternoon and find that Rinnah (age 4.5) had arranged everyone around our photos of B and T so they would know "what a nice family we are."

It is good to be part of a family.

[Leah just saw this post, and pointed out that she and Rinnah did this together - they're both looking forward to their sisters coming home!]

some more specifics

Of the 50% increase to the number of children in our family over the next year, we have confirmed that they are all girls!

This morning at 1:11 AM, we welcomed a beautiful baby girl into our family.  She was 8 lbs., 14 oz. and 21 inches long.  The other thing that all three of these girls have in common is that we don't know for sure what their names are going to be.  For T & B who we are hoping to bring home from Bulgaria before the end of this year, we know their current names, but we are unable to share them, and we are not sure if their current names will remain their names when they come home.  We will know more about that after we visit them the first time.  As far as our newborn, we decided we were going to wait to see who it was before trying to figure out names...and now that there are 6 other kids around the house, Andrea and I have not even had a chance to talk one on one, so it might be a few days before we have a name for this little girl.

I will let Andrea write the details of how it all happened when she is up to it, but in the meantime, I will share some photos and a few words.

This is the second home birth at which Leah has been a huge helper.

 

And as such, it is only appropriate that she get to be the second one to hold our newcomer.

Owen said this time he wanted to meet the baby before Baby was "hours" old, so within about 15 minutes as soon as Andrea was comfortable having Owen in the room, he was ready.

And soon enough it was his turn.

A view of the "celebration party" that took place in our living room.  Andrea, Matt, Baby, Owen, Leah, two midwives and their apprentice.

As morning rolled around, the next round of kids came down to meet their new sister.  Reuben took a quick peek at baby and then he was more interested in snuggling with Mom and playing his iPad.

Next was Rinnah with two older supervisors giving her pointers.

Then Evania and Krassi got their turn to say hello.  As well as Dad.

Last but not least, Grandma came down and got to give her 9th grandchild a good snuggle.

Evania warmed up a bit more as the day went on.

Rinnah having another turn.

And Owen pretty excited at how he could walk with her and gently bounce her and get her to calm down.

The post with too many titles

I've had many thoughts for what to title this post.

"Room for More"

"A 50% Increase"

"New Year's Resolutions"

And there were many others that aren't worth listing.


Matt's had thoughts, too, he says. Here's one of his.

"So, what are you going to do?"




I'll start by saying I've been joking a lot lately that I'm making a New Year's Resolution (which I never do) to lose 45 pounds. ;) The next two or three weeks should show the first fruits of that as we welcome our new little Glewwe, and it should just keep going from there if this is anything like my past pregnancies. But that's rather tongue-in-cheek and rather light, and doesn't really capture everything that's going on (besides the fact that there's nothing like a sense of humor to make life a more pleasant thing! Krassi is still very tuned into that, and will laugh readily when he hears anyone else doing so, even if he's not in the same room - apparently he's quite susceptible to the contagious nature of laughter!)

On a slightly more serious note, we have started walking down the road to do something that shouldn't seem all that crazy because we've done it twice before - and yet at the same time, is something that's only going to make sense when you consider that we're heading this way under the growing confidence over the last two months that this is exactly where God is directing us to go. If all goes as we foresee, we will once again have the opportunity to increase the number of children in our family by 50% over the course of a year.

We've done this twice before - first, when we went from two to three children when Reuben was born in 2009...then a few years later we did it again when we went from four to six with the arrival of Krassi and birth of Evania within a six month period. Well, on New Year's Eve we made a different sort of "resolution" as we sent in adoption commitment documents for two girls from Krassi's birth country, which including our new little one due any time now, will bring us from six to nine.

If I keep sitting on this post and trying to figure out the best way to write it, it may not get published before our littlest family member joins us! So for the meantime, now it's out there and either Matt or I will get back to filling in other details as the next few weeks come.

For now, we're very excited to introduce you to two precious girls that will hopefully become our daughters before 2016 is over!

The first is "T" (just like with Krassi, we can't share names before they are legally our children):

And the second is "B":

 We are so excited about the changes this year will bring for our family, and will hopefully get a chance to include a few more details soon.

A quote

(From a biography of Jim Elliot, written by his wife after his death, and comprised primarily of his journal entries and letters to friends and family. This particular portion is from a letter he wrote to her before they were married as she was facing a decision she feared to make.)

"I pray for you, that all your misgivings will be melted to thanksgivings. Remember that the shadow a thing casts often far exceeds the size of the thing itself (especially if the light be low on the horizon) and though some future fear may strut brave darkness as you approach, the thing itself will be but a speck when seen from beyond. Oh that He would restore us often with that 'aspect from beyond,' to see a thing as He sees it, to remember that He dealeth with us as with sons. Amy Carmichael's words come to me:

'He hath never failed thee yet.

Never will His love forget.

O fret not thyself nor let

They heart be troubled,

Neither let it be afraid.'"

- from Shadow of the Almighty, p 118.

Thanksgiving/ Five Years **Now with photos!**

The day before Thanksgiving marks the anniversary of Reuben's initial diagnosis of epilepsy. It would still be another year and a half before we would learn the root cause of his seizures (ring (20) chromosome syndrome), but at the moment, we knew 1) that our baby boy was not going to just die for no reason because 2) epilepsy is something you can LIVE with!

This year marks five years since that Thanksgiving that changed so much about our life. Five years seems like a lot longer — more of a "milestone" year than three or four.

It was also during that hospital stay five years ago (when I was 10 weeks pregnant with our fourth, Rinnah) that I was up in the night walking down the hall to the bathroom (because I was 10 weeks pregnant!) and was overcome with the realization that the fear of adopting a child with special needs had been completely and suddenly lifted from me. There's nothing like realizing you are already the mother of a child with special needs to help you realize that what we call "special needs" is not something to be frightened by.

What I remember most about that day five years ago was the intensity of the joy that both Matt and I were filled with when the doctor came soberly into Reuben's room to inform us that he had epilepsy. After both of us, individually at first, and then together as we realized the other was also feeling that way, over almost the whole of the previous year, were having a sense that we weren't going to get to keep this precious baby boy, and then to come off of a few days where he'd twice completely stopped breathing for a long enough duration of time to start turning blue in the lips, and to know that God in His mercy had been gently preparing us for months to lose our baby, to then hear that he *only* had epilepsy — a condition that is not incompatible with life — felt like we had gone from being certain we were losing our son to having him given back to us all in a moment.

Yet, at the same time, we *did* lose our son, at least the son we thought we had. Many of those losses have come slowly as we grieve for different things that Reuben will never have or do or be, and many come at unexpected times. I laugh now as I think of one of those milestones — when Reuben started kindergarten last fall. As a young mother, I often heard from people when my first-born was still in diapers as his third birthday was closing in, "Well, he'll get there — after all, you never see a kindergartener going off to school in diapers!" Well, turns out they were wrong. I sent a kindergartener to school in diapers. And this fall, a first grader, too, but sending him as a diaper-wearing first grader didn't cause the same catch-in-the-throat sensation that it did when he was a diaper-wearing kindergartener.

I hit another rough spot about two weeks ago when a rougher week culminated in an ordinary Saturday when our three biggest oldest most capable (how DO you categorize it? Owen, Leah and Rinnah. My first, second, and fourth. The second, third, and fifth oldest of our six...so far. Let me digress here. I've never written about it, but I laugh at all of the stereotypes on birth order when it comes to our family. Rinnah, as the fourth of what will soon be seven, is technically the middle child. But she's anything but the middle child. She's part of the upper half as far as the ones who are the most capable and are given the most freedom, responsibility, and independence. She's one of the lower half when it comes to size and age, but nowhere does she fall in the middle, except for the order in which she joined our family.) Anyway, those three went heading up to their friends' house up the road, and were back soon, informing me that their friends' mom and dad were out taking a walk together (their oldest is 14 and able to keep an eye on the younger three children who play with our kids) and afterward they were going somewhere all together. I felt a wince of emotional pain as I thought about how much *I* would like to go with a walk with *my* husband on a beautiful fall day like this, but brushed it off. However, a while later when I looked out the front window to the regional trail that runs in front of our house and actually saw them out walking together, I lost it. Tears at what I couldn't have, at what I wanted that just won't ever really be mine — the simple chance to spur of the moment say, "Matt, it's a beautiful day — let's go take a walk!"

Yes, I realize that we still have rather young children, and that in a few years Owen, too, will be old enough to stay home for a short period keeping an eye on the kids while Matt and I go out for a walk, but unlike some families where the phase where the kids are too young for some of those things is a temporary thing, the life that God had called us to is one where the phase where we have children who are able to stay home and care for the needier ones is the temporary phase. There will come a day when our last capable child will move out and it will be once again me and Matt and "little" ones who need someone's constant supervision.

[A note: I realize that there are many solutions to this situation — we have many friends who are willing and capable of coming over and watching our children, even our children with complex needs, so we can get some time alone together. We have PCA (personal care assistant) hours for both Reuben and Krassi from the county that we are not currently using in that form that we certainly could down the road which would allow us some regular flexibility. Not being able to go for a walk isn't the real issue. The real issue this raised for me was that I was letting myself be discontent with the good things that God has chosen to give me in the life he prepared for me — a life that includes Reuben and Krassi, not accidentally, but by his good design, and I can, and have already in a number of places, go into that in more detail.]

That very night, the next Psalm on my "read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year" bookmark was Psalm 16.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. (v.6)

Oof. Coming after that day, that was kind of a tough one to read. But it's not alone.

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    I have no good apart from you.” (v.2)

"No good," apart from Him. Not walks, not the freedom to do what I want to do, not having all of my children out of diapers. None of those things are good apart from him, and apart from Him, he who is my only good.

I have set the Lord always before me;
    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. (v.8)

And if he is NOT at my right hand, that promise does not stand - it's a conditional promise, conditional on my choosing to stay near him.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
    you hold my lot. (v.5)

"My chosen portion." It's a choice - choosing to walk with him, choosing to look to him to be everything I need.

You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (v.11)

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
    my flesh also dwells secure. (v.9)

When HE is put in the right spot, then I can have fullness of joy — my whole being, not just some spiritual corner while the rest of me is miserable. And one thing I love about my God is that he doesn't leave me to figure this out on my own, but rather, he makes known what the path of life is. Life worth living, full of joy, gladness, security, is life lived wholly for him and in his presence.

There's a beautiful ending to the story of this weekend, too. And I'm taking the time to record it, even though as I'm finishing this post up it's almost eight months after I started writing it, because *I* want to remember.

The next day was Sunday. A beautiful Sunday in November - warm enough that we were able to get outside. And if any of you know me and Matt, one thing we really enjoy doing together is working outside in the yard.

On this particular Sunday we had the added bonus of having been given two flowering crab apple trees by our neighbor/2nd cousin who works at a garden center that was clearing out stock they didn't want to winter over. It was late in the season to be planting, and the trees were quite root-bound, but there's nothing to lose, right? Our kids' friends (you know, the ones whose parents got to take a walk together the day before) were over - the girls were playing "house" with things gathered from around the yard. We put the boys to work digging a hole (Owen's always wanting to dig holes) and Matt built a fire with Reuben. Krassi spent some time in the wagon watching while Matt and I got to (together, mind you!) settle that tree into its new home in the ground.

How could anyone not want to give their life fully into the hands of a God like our God? Yes, absolutely the pleasures that he offers are not the pleasures that this world offers, but as I live this life, I know that it is true when the Bible says that he knows our weakness and is tender and kind. Giving your life over to this Master is such a worthwhile decision! He requires everything of me - more than I am capable of giving many times - but he offers so much, and a beautiful afternoon to plant a tree with my husband, besides. Coming after that week, and what he was showing me in Psalm 16 the night before, I know this day was a deliberate gift from him.

This photo was taken in July 2016 because the photos we had of us actually planting the tree have gone AWOL. Gone. Done for. Without a trace!!! That's only one small reason that this post was long in coming, but since a post, especially one this long, isn't as nice without pictures, I thought it would be worth ending with a photo for those of you who found this obscure post AND took the time to read it through to the end.

***And now, nearly a year later, I have finally found the photos we took on that lovely November day!

Boys (Owen in the center) digging the hole for the tree.

Girls playing "cooking" with random yard items.

Me and Matt planting the tree!

Reuben with his fire.

Krassi in his wagon.

Weight gain

Krassi had an appointment at the specialty health care clinic today, so we got another "official" weight on him, annnnnd......he's up to 42 pounds, 5 ounces!!!

I *knew* he was getting beefier. ;) (If you can call an 11.5 year old "beefy" at 42+ pounds!)

Small details

With the colder weather outside, we're turning again to indoor tasks. It's been nice that it's been a milder fall because that means that we can use messy tools like the table saw outside!

Last week we started working on finishing the stairs down to the entry landing. Please note the wood on the top tread (the riser is also in for that one) and the stringer along the north side.

That was it for that night, but then last night we were able to get the stringer on the other side of the stair put in, and somehow in between days, Matt managed to put the nosing on that first tread, too!

Putting the south stringer in place meant that we could finally add base trim around the tiny bit of wall between the stair runs, so we went from this...

 ...to this...

...which looks a whole lot more finished.

And that was that for that night, so maybe in a week or so we'll get another stab at it. The nice thing is that now that the stringers are both in place, risers and treads are something Matt can do single-handedly, so he doesn't have to wait for a time when I'm available to help.