Announcement

Guys.

Guess what? 

WE ARE HAVING A BABY!

Isn't he so perfect? 

To say that we are excited would be the understatement of the century. We knew this wait could take up to a few years, but a sweet expectant Momma chose us. First, she chose life for her baby and then she chose us to raise her precious little boy. We are amazed by her. We have been writing back and forth with her, and she is so sweet and selfless. We are flying down to Florida (for less than 8 hours – eeek!) to meet her next week Wednesday.

The baby is due November 14^th – so about 6 weeks left in the pregnancy.

Things are happening very fast around here, and we feel a little bit crazy! We know that God will take care of us, and our growing family. We know that there will be grace upon grace and all we have to do is take the next step. We have seen God provide for us in so many situations, and we are clinging to that promise that he will continue to do so.   

We are trying to get arrangements made for November, as we will be in Florida for up to 2 weeks while everything gets legal.

We are still working on fundraising for the adoption. If you would like to contribute financially we would so appreciate it! 

We are still doing the puzzle fundraiser – see the previous blog about that, but I have included a photo of our progress there! We would LOVE to have that puzzle done and hanging in the nursery before we leave to bring the baby home.  Each piece is $20 and you can buy as many as you would like!

We covet your prayers, and are so thankful for the support we have received during this process. Please let us know if you have any questions - brittany.immink@gmail.com

Love, 

Brittany & Mark 

Puzzle Fundraiser

As a child, I used to love doing puzzles.  And when I say love, I mean capital L, Love.  (clearly I had a rockin social life). I remember sitting at my desk under the warmth of my lamp, scanning the pieces of a puzzle.  There was nothing quite like finding the right piece, putting in place, and watching the picture come together.  In fact, I loved my puzzles so much, when I finished a puzzle, I would put modge podge on the puzzle so that I could hang it in my room. I even asked Brittany to be my girlfriend on the back of a puzzle that she put together in a Stake ‘n Shake back in college. 

I loved puzzles.

The thing about puzzles is that each and every piece is important.  And each and every piece has a special spot in which it locks in other pieces.  Puzzle pieces cannot be interchanged or manipulated.  If a piece is missing, the whole puzzle is messed up.

The more I learn about adoption, the more overwhelmed I get.  

Adoption is a really big, complex, beautiful puzzle.  There are paperwork pieces (the mountains of forms, tests, interviews, fingerprinting, home studies, and photobooks), logistic pieces (how do you plan to “have” a baby in another state, organize travel, find a place to stay for an uncertain amount of time, trying to make arrangements for our other kids), emotional pieces (we can’t have a baby, how do we talk about adoption, this is so hard, will anyone pick us, what is taking so long, is something wrong, the birth mom breaks our heart, will the baby have drug damage) and of course financial pieces (everything costs money: forms being processed, homestudy, photobooks, travel, prenatal care, attorneys, licensing, counseling for the birth mom, and on and on and on).

In order for us to see the complete picture when it comes to our adoption, we need your help getting all the pieces in place.  Unfortunately, the financial piece of the adoption is a large one - too big for us to manage by ourselves.  That is why we are asking that you prayerfully consider helping to fund our family bringing it’s newest member home through purchasing puzzle pieces. 

We will have a puzzle made for our future child that will be placed in a two way frame.  On the front, it will be the puzzle picture.  On the back, each piece will have the name of who purchased it, or the name of who it was purchased in honor of. Each piece will cost $20 and you can buy as many as you want, or split a piece with someone else.  We will be able to hang the puzzle and show our child how many people had a piece in their joining our family.

If we sell all 500 pieces we will raise $10,000 to go towards our adoption costs (which are going to total about $25,000-$35,000) and we would have a wonderful start and a great keepsake for baby Immink.

You can donate through youcaring.com/immink or by sending cash or check to us (email us for our address – Brittany.immink@gmail.com)

Thank you everyone SO much for your love, prayers, and support!

-         - Mark

Adoption fundraising stinks

I am having a really hard time with the “fundraising for adoption” concept. It’s a tough one friends. It’s kind of like how I felt making our profile book (a book about our family that will be given to birth moms choosing a family for their baby – felt like I was “selling” our family), or doing a home study (where you are asked a million questions and have to show your bank account and messy basement to a social worker you don’t even know). It just doesn’t seem right, it is so unnatural. It seems so unfair and dumb really.  Like we have to ask our friends and family to donate money so we can get a baby? And why is this so expensive anyway?  It also feels like just a gut punch reminder that we can’t just have a baby biologically – that we have to do all this silly stuff.

But here’s what God keeps reminding me:

“It’s not about you”.

 This adoption was never about me, or us getting a baby. It has always been about God.

The story in 2 chronicles 20 has always been one of my favorites. I love it. I love how Jehoshaphat has a huge battle in front of him, he looks to God (probably pretty scared) and remembers all the times God has kept the covenant for His people, and so trusts him for this future battle. God says “Do not be afraid and do not be afraid or discouraged, for the battle is not yours but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:21).

Friends, we are up against some vast armies. Cancer. Death. Anxiety.  Abortion. Teething. Addiction. Sleepless nights. Lust. Three year old attitudes. This world is fallen, and to try and follow God daily is hard.

God is writing a story for our lives and for each of our children. The story is his, not mine. I get to play a part of it, but it is not for my glory. He is weaving so many people and stories together to show His glory. We know that if we follow him that He will provide victory in the battle.

 I cannot wait to tell each of our children awesome stories of how God made a way for them.  How he provided meals during our most stressed seasons, encouragement from friends and family too keep going, doctors – who have saved Gideon’s and my life, peace that surpasses understanding, and we are trusting that for the adoption he will provide financially. We will tell this next little baby how his birth momma courageously chose life for them, and that God used so many people to bring them home. We will teach them that sometimes life is made of hard, scary, and some seemingly stupid battles, but that it’s not about them. It’s about God getting the glory and God keeping his covenant. 

And sweet little one, we should be so glad that it is not about us, but about God fighting and winning His battles because that’s what he always will do.

-B

 

Because every blog post needs a picture :)

Next Steps - Adoption!

We wanted to keep everyone who is interested on our next steps- we are adopting!

We have always wanted to grow our family both through birth and adoption, and have always imagined having many kids. We are thankful we have always desire to adopt, especially now that we cannot have children biologically. In the bible God always tells Israel to look back and remember all the things that he has done, so that they can continue to trust what He will continue to do. We remind ourselves continually of all the goodness and grace God has poured on us and all the manna that he has given us, sometimes just enough to get through the next day, but he is always faithful. We hope that anyone who looks at our lives can see that God is faithful, and hope that we can all remember how he has been faithful and continue to trust Him for our future family.

Here are some of the most frequent questions we get when we tell people we are adopting…

Are you crazy, you already are so busy/overwhelmed with the two kids you have?

-          Yeah, we are probably considered crazy. But, we know that God always shows up in the middle of our crazy when we follow Him. We often talk about how crazy it was when we took D 10 days before going in to the hospital to have Gideon, and then everything we dealt with for Gideon’s nose, and how God just gave us such a peace, perseverance, and amazing support during that crazy time. We know that having another child will be difficult -we also cannot wait to see how God provides and weaves our family together.

Why don’t you “just” adopt from foster care?

-          We hope to, we really do. But guys, the foster care system is SO hard. We are over 20 months into drama, appointments, birth parent visits, and hearings for a child that we were told would either be back home, or his parents rights would be terminated within 30 days from us getting him. We are SO thankful he is still with us, but you just never know what can happen, and adopting a baby from the foster system is a very difficult and a very unlikely situation. We plan on continuing to foster, and of course we love D as if he was our flesh and cannot imagine life without him.

Isn’t adopting expensive?

-          Yes, very. The average adoption is about $40,000. That’s why we are busy playing the lotto. Ha, just kidding.  We have been saving for years by working hard and living modestly hoping to adopt some day. We have a small amount saved for this, and are hoping to have some fundraisers, and apply for grants to help as well.  If anyone has ideas, we would LOVE to hear them!

How does this adoption process work?

-          Well, first we did a home study (which has to be a totally new one from the one we already did for our fostering license…), where an agency comes and looks over your home and spends hours interviewing our whole family about our money, our faith, our neighborhood, our ways of disciplining children, and about a million other questions. We got fingerprinted, and made profile books about us as a family. These books will be presented by either an agency or attorney to moms who are looking for families for their unborn children. If we are chosen, then we will likely go meet with the birth mom to get to know her, and she will decide how much of a role we play in the birth plan, and we will all decide how open we want the adoption to be. We are working with Christian Adoption Consults and my cousin Kim, who is an adoption attorney in Florida. We have not been chosen by any one yet, and this step could take weeks, or years.

Are you sure you are ready for this?

 

-          Yes, as ready as we will ever be! I remember being in the hospital before giving birth to Gideon and not feeling “ready”. We are not trying to replace the baby we lost in April, we have, and still are, grieving that loss. We still have no idea what God was doing during all that, or why he allowed all that to happen. We do know that He has saved us. I have been in counseling, and adoption is not a knee jerk reaction. We have always wanted to adopt as a way to grow our family, and we are excited to start down this journey. 

Please be praying for us during the time, that we can make wise choices and cling closely to our creator and provider. We hope to update our blog more to keep people who are interested updated! Thanks for all your prayers and support friends. 

Love,

Brittany

My fight with God

It feels like I have been in a fight with God. 

He didn’t come through for me and I was furious. It felt like God had the perfect opportunity to show His amazing glory, and he didn’t.  He would have had an awesome testimony, and I would have had a baby and a uterus, but I don’t have either. He let me down.

The first few weeks I wanted nothing to do with reading my bible or praying or talking about God. It just made me too sad. Too mad really. I wish I could post about now – 2 months later - how I totally understand why He allowed everything so terrible to happen and how I completely trust that He is good and submit to His will over mine, but I am not there yet. I wish I could say I spent hours clinging to promises and singing hymns and praising God for all the blessings, and the fact he saved me from a very dangerous situation. But I didn’t.

Not even close. 

But now I am clawing to get back to that solid ground- slowly and desperately fighting to get there. Through forcing myself to read my bible and allow His voice to speak to me through it, through worship and songs that sing truth, even through just praying my anger toward God, and telling him my hurt and broken heart. Through weekly counseling, singing Jesus loves me to the boys (and me) 23 times a day, and through forcing myself to fellowship with people who can encourage me I feel I am healing my relationship with God. I am learning that sometimes things just don’t make sense and I may never understand this side of heaven. That even though things suck, He is still good.

I catch glimpses of how He is working in my life. Mark brings me flowers home from grocery shopping and it reminds me of how God has given me him, a best friend, during all this has served me and loved me so well. That my once painful stomach and leg, can now have a little boy touch it without horrible pain – He must be healing me.  That He allowed us to have one precious boy come from our bodies, and that we have had a funny, sweet 3 year old in our home every day, is pure grace. He did not need to give us even one child, and we have two. I can see things like McDonalds now serving diet Dr. Pepper and 59 cent cones as goodness from Him, that when paperwork goes easy or a doctor returns a call as help from God. Those small things are turning me back to my first love.

I still have hurt, and I still don’t understand, but I hope that this can be an encouragement to the hurting. Press in to Jesus. Keep faith and keep moving towards Him even when you’re mad and sad, he can handle it and loves you endlessly. 

- Brittany

When words fail

Fact: It’s hard to explain the world to a three year old.  Anyone who has been around a young child for any length of time knows the dreaded question that always seems to come at the most inopportune time: “why?”

Why do I have to eat my vegetables?

Why can’t I touch my poop?

Why can’t I run around here?

Why do I have to wear a coat?

Why don’t I live with my mom?

Parenting is often messy, hard work.  Actually, it pretty much always is.  And that is when everything is “the way it should be.”  The way that God intended our families to work.  Two parent household.  Healthy Marriage.  Healthy balance of work and home life.  Family that rallies around you.  A church that rallies around you.  Christ is the center of the home.

But what about when it isn’t the way it should be?

Divorce happens.  Selfishness happens.  Things constantly draw us away from our priorities.  We don’t let the church help.  We don’t let God help.

Here is the story of our morning:

It’s Thursday, that means everyone gets up early, even though the night was cut short by school assignments and even worse- a normally sleepless child who is sick- aka: sleeps even less.  But the funny thing about employment is that you still have a start time that unwavers.  Brittany needs to be in Portage, Mark needs to be at the middle school, D needs to be to daycare in Kalamazoo, and Giddy needs to be with Grammy. 

So we start our early morning shuffle.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Until D wakes up.  From the moment he opens his eyes in the morning, to the moment he shuts them at night, everything is a mountain to die on.  I’m not talking about normal three year old, everything is a battle, type things.  I’m talking about all out, no holds barred, tantrums because I don’t want to wear a sweatshirt, type things.  I’m going to lay here screaming, you can’t make me move type things.  I wanted to walk down the stairs by myself, even though I was laying on the floor screaming and crying, saying I’m not going anywhere type things.  Shoes.  Coat.  Animal crackers.  Chocolate milk.  Hold me.  Put me down.  Tantrums.

Going to be late for work.  Deep breath.  Deep breath. Deep breath.  Pray for patience.

Finally, the clouds are beginning to break, the storm is quieting down.  Now, the talk.  In a calm voice.  Hey Buddy, what going on?  You know we don’t act like this in our home.  Where’s our happy little D?  “Grunt, sniffle.”  Extra big pout.  You know that Brittany and I love you lots and lots and lots, and nothing will ever change that, and we want to keep you safe and protect you, but we can’t do that if we don’t know what’s going on.  What’s going on little Buddy?  Sobbing resumes, tears beginning to flow again, D cries out,

“I miss my mommy!”

All words vanish.

What do you say?  Do you share the unfiltered truth about why he lives with Mark and Brittany and not mom and dad?  Do you attempt to explain the complexities of the foster system, and all the legal processes and protocols?  Do you make up a story that shields him from the truth? 

Or do you just say “I know.” 

That’s what I did.  And wrapped that boy in the tightest hug I could muster.  “D, look at my eyes.  I know.  I’m sorry.  I know.  Do you know what else I know?  I love you more than anything.  Brittany loves you more than anything.  We would move mountains for you.  We will protect you as best we can.  We love you lots and lots and lots.”

Sadly, this is our daily routine.  Doing our best to unconditionally love a sweet, confused little boy, who is trying to figure out a world that he should never have to figure out.  We don’t know what the future has in store for D.  We jealously hope it’s with us.  The one thing we do know: it’s in God’s hands.  We have no control over the foster system, the courts, or his parents.  The only thing we have control over is that we will continue to weather this storm, as long as God will have us in it.  We will trust God, and cling to the mercies that he gives us.

Why? 

Because we serve a God that can calm the storm with just his voice.

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”  They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Mark 4:39-41

Grace and Peace-

-Mark

Ruined Expectations of Motherhood

My Gideon, 
I was so wrong in my expectations of being your mom. This week while sorting a box from childhood I found a form I filled out for the fifth  grade time capsule where I had written in my fanciest fifth grader cursive that my career goal was “to be a mom”. I have always wanted this. I have spent my whole life loving kids, babysitting, adoring my little sisters and literally could not wait to have my own precious child, through birth or adoption. I could not wait for you sweet boy. But now I find myself laughing thinking how wrong I was about everything.

First let me clarify the greatest misconception that I had-  I never realized that I could love something so much. Especially something that interferes with my sleep in such a profound way. Each day I fall more and more in love with you, and yet feel like each day I could never love you any more than I already do. I literally love you with every cell in my being sweet boy.

I laugh when I think of my labor with you. I wanted a home birth, but settled on a hospital birth that was as natural as possible. I read a book about having a home birth in the hospital, and I imagined laboring in the tub, toughing it through without medications and being a hero, Mark rubbing my back, quickly pushing out a perfect baby, breastfeeding perfectly, and leaving the hospital within 24 hours - and of course, NEVER having a c-section. Oh but you had different plans. I was induced, pumped full of medication, begged for an epidural, had a c-section, and you came out like you had been in battle, beat up and terribly bruised, we struggled with breastfeeding, and were in the hospital for six days.

Then I think of our nights, and I laugh. I read Babywise, and Happiest Baby on the Block, and lots of blogs about this too. I imagined you sleeping for long chunks at night, only to be interrupted by “dreamfeeding”, where I nurse you without waking you and then nicely lay you back down and we both fall back asleep. I pictured you in our room for a couple weeks, and then moving your crib in the nursery. Oh sweet boy, this is not how we spend our nights. I am not even sure you know what a "night" is. Last night we were up every 45 minutes, suctioning out your tiny nose, nursing, changing diapers (kicking myself for doing cloth diapers at time), trying to massage gas out of your tummy, tripping over the mess in our room, moving you between the swing, rock and play, and our bed – figuring something has to work, crying (both of us), all while trying to not wake up Dad or 2 year old D (our foster kiddo). We have watched three seasons of Hoarders at nights (you know so I could feel like my house isn’t so messy), I have eaten through our candy stash, and neither of us really seem to sleep. That’s how nights really are.

Next I think of maternity leave. I imagined us snuggling,  getting ahead on freezer meals for when I go back to work, unpacking our basement from the recent move, running errands, visiting Dad at work, visiting friends, going on walks, reading the dozens of books I have waiting on my kindle, exercising. HA. We do our fair share of snuggling, but I find myself doing laundry every day (we used to do once a week!), tending to your nose and medication schedule, going to doctor appointments, trying to get dishes done (just enough so we have dishes for the next meal), dealing with insurance messes, stuffing my face when I get a few seconds of peace, and dealing with Foster Care stuff for little D. We are quarantined in the house due to your suppressed immune system and the high risk of getting you sick. We have been admitted in Ann Arbor twice. We can’t even go on walks because it’s like single digits cold. The basement looks like a bomb went off – well actually that’s how the whole house looks, there are zero meals in the freezer,  I have read maybe a half of book, you have two surgeries scheduled, and I cannot even remember what exercising is. But I would not change anything to be with you day in and day out, watching your every move. 

Then I think of the schedule I had written down for you. It looked something like this: nurse, play, nap for a few hours while I get things done, and repeat. What our schedule actually looks like is me trying to get you to sleep anyway I can - all day long. And when you get to sleep, I just sit there and watch you – afraid you will get something in your nose and not be able to take a breath, and I don’t get anything done. Sometimes I doze in and out with you on my chest or snuggled next to you in bed.  I never imagined having to try and get you to take steroids and antibiotics, rinsing out your nose several times a day, and shoving your little hernia back in, so those things did not make it onto the schedule. Giddy, you totally missed the memo on sleeping for longer than an hour, and you want to leisurely eat every two hours. So needless to say the schedule is a laughing matter in our house.

Although everything has not gone remotely close to how I imagined, it is so much harder, but so much more awesome than I could have dreamed. I am cherishing this time with you precious boy, loving you more and more each day.

Now as I think of all this when I find myself crying in the middle of the night in frustration and fatigue, I can’t really help but cling to Jesus who provides hope, rest, and peace, remind myself that this is just a season, and laugh.

Love, 

Your head-over-heels in love and exhausted Momma

Sweet snuggle time

Here is the sweet ruin-er of all my expectations

He is jealous for us…

- post from Mark -
(one scripture where God describes himself as a "jealous God" is 2 Corinthians 11:2 " I am jealous for you with a Godly jealousy")

Since we began fostering D, one of my greatest joys is bedtime.  

I’ll tell you why: From the moment D came into our lives, we were in love.  But the more time that D spends in our family, the deeper we fall in love. 

But I feel like I’ve built a special bond with D because of the one on one time that we share during bedtime. What started as an epic battle of the wills, has turned into a nice routine and time that I cherish (though tears still happen). We say goodnight to everyone and give kisses to Brittany and baby Giddy. As I change his diaper and put on his pjs, we joke and tickle each other. He loves to tickle people and make them laugh (or pretend to laugh).  We then turn on D’s turtle that softly illuminates the room and casts stars on the ceiling, to which he points up and  exclaims, “ooooooh, dars!” Then we walk over and he turns off the lights. 

And then comes my favorite part.  D will say, “sit, sit , sit!”  So we sit and cuddle in the nice recliner in his room.  He wraps his arms around my neck and rests his head on my shoulders.  I just hold him and pray for him while he chatters some and then finally quiets down. 

It’s in that moment I get a glimpse of how God sees us.  As I hold and pray for this sweet, precious little boy, my heart melts.  I often choke up.  My biggest desire, the thing that I want the most is to call this sweet boy mine.  I want to call D my son. I do not want other things to tug at his heart and pull him away from our family. I want to protect him and keep him safe and love him forever. 

I am jealous for him.

This is how God views us.  He wants a relationship with us and wants to call us his children.  He hates when we give our hearts to other things, and other things tug our heart away from Him. He weeps when we are far from him and his heart breaks when he can’t call us His.  He is jealous for us. 

More than anything I want to call D mine.  More than anything God wants to us to be His.  Remember that the next time you think that God is not fair, or that God is mean, or that God just has rules for us to follow.  God is far bigger than all that. He is a perfect father and loves us with a father's heart.

He is jealous for us.

Love, 

Mark

Giddy's nose update!

We took Giddy to UofM for his latest appointments with ENT and plastic surgery yesterday – so here is a quick update!

Well we had to be out the door at 5:30 am, so you can imagine how smoothly that went. No one wanted to wake up and cooperate – including us. We made it to our 8:15 appointment on time, and we saw ENT first. They did a scope up the right nostril (the good side) of his nose, because of how labored his breathing has been lately. Which during these scopes, we hold him and he screams bloody murder and it is pretty traumatic for all of us. The scope revealed that his right nostril is much too small. This is the nostril that we thought was normal, so it was very disappointing to hear. The doctor explained that he should be able to get the scope up much farther even in a newborn the first day it is born, but he can hardly even get in Giddy’s nose. This is obviously causing his labored breathing, as his left nostril is completely shut. They are not sure why the right side is like this, but they want to avoid doing surgery until he is bigger and stronger – possibly this spring. They gave us steroids to put in his nose twice daily along with the saline rinses we are already doing to hopefully help keep that right nostril clear. He emphasized again the need to keep him healthy and keeping it at home through this winter so he does not get exposed to any unnecessary germs – as a cold would be devastating to him.

We then headed to see the plastic surgeon. He picked at the scab on the left nostril and discussed what we are going to do. He is worried that the left nostril will heal together (so there will not be any opening). It is closed most of the time now, but it is able to open. The left nostril is small, due to scar tissue and we are not sure how it will grow, but the main concern – especially in light of the right nostril being fairly ineffective – is to keep it open. So he is planning on putting a stent in the left nostril – possibly at our next appointment in 3 weeks. They are waiting until the last of the scabbing falls off, which will take a couple more weeks.

So we will head back in three weeks and get the stent and see both doctors again. Hopefully the steroids will help, as there are times when his breathing gets very labored and it is extremely scary for us. We do saline rinses and I pick out debris with forceps many times daily – lovely. 

Thanks for praying for us, and please understand why we are a bit psycho and overprotective about germs with baby Giddy. I never wanted to be one of those crazy parents that hand out hand sanitizer and don’t bring their kids anywhere – but I am! Also, please pray that little D doesn’t give any of his many two year old germs to Gideon. Oh - and great news! Giddy is now 8lbs 13oz! This is wonderful news!!

Snoozing on Dad's lap waiting for the next doctor - isn't he looking huge!?

Love, 

Brittany

Our first day with our first foster kiddo

So we got the call about little D needing a home on Wednesday, made the decision that night, and he got dropped off on Friday morning. Thursday night I figured I better get some groceries, I hear kids like to eat. So I spent over an hour wandering around Meijer, looking at food thinking “I have no idea what this kid will like?”, “what do two year olds even eat?” It was so strange, knowing that a boy was coming to live with us and knowing nothing about him. 

Mark and I were so nervous waiting for D and the social worker, we sat staring out the window thinking how everything was about to change. Well they pull up and he is in a pink car seat, fairly dirty and reeks of smoke – but is literally the cutest thing I have ever seen.  He has a full head of curly black hair, and the deepest brown eyes ever, and the sweetest toothy smile.  He has a laundry basket full of belongings and clothes that were dirty and smelly, and a sippy cup with rotten milk. He came right to us and let us carry him inside. He sat and colored while we signed the papers, saying that we were responsible for him.  Our social worker did not know much about him at all, no ideal any medical conditions, allergies, who is doctor was, even how to spell his name.

He then introduced us to his fits, when he was asked to not color on the table, complete with arching the back, banging his feet on the floor, etc. Oh yeah, and he does not talk, so that almost makes things difficult with understanding what is wrong. We were told that he did not know any words. The social worker then left, and we were alone with him. It was honestly so weird. We played with him for a while at the table, and fed him lunch.  I started going through his clothes, many which were sizes too big or small, and summer outfits, all which desperately needed washing.

Then about at 3 o’oclock I thought “what are we going to do with him on Monday?”, you know when we are both are at work? We talked to the social worker, and she suggested the CDC, and after some research the closest placeis Borgess, which would work out fairly well. I called them and talked to the director, who asked us to come in and discuss options. We got a few days covered for the next week,  which would really help us. We filled out his paper work the best we could, and she was very understanding and compassionate to our situation.

Both my sisters happen to be coming home for the weekend, so they got to quickly meet him. It was great, and he loved them, but I can see what all the books and blogs about traumatized kids and attachment problems say about keeping the kids worlds small. Each time someone would leave he would have a huuuge meltdown.

We figured bedtime would be difficult, as we did not know what his previous sleeping situation had been, did he use a crib, have lights on or off, what time, bottle? We were clueless. We knew we had to get him into a good sleeping routine as quickly as possible – with a newborn coming and all. He finally went to sleep – but it took hours. HOURS. But I mean, the poor kid didn’t know us at all, have a clue where he was, we were probably doing his bedtime all wrong . We eventually got the precious little guy to bed.

And that was our first day with little D.

 We were totally in love, excited and nervous for this adventure, and went to bed knowing that God had shown up, and would continue to everyday with new mercies each morning. 

This is the verse that has been the verse we have clung to with D

Love,
Brittany