I’ve been meaning to write this update for several weeks now, but life got on top of me and, well, here we are. I really wanted to make sure that I finished this post before the end of the month, because a lot has happened since August 1, and it’ll be good to catch up on this before September starts.
Isabelle’s Surgery
On the very first day of the month, Isabelle went to Children’s Hospital to have her tonsils and adenoids removed. Earlier this year we’d noticed that her throat seemed to be somewhat obstructed and was causing her some trouble swallowing, breathing, and even talking. A visit with an ENT doctor confirmed that her tonsils and adenoids were enlarged, but not so large as to be immediately concerning. So a surgery date was set, and before we knew it, the day arrived. Because of how early she had to be at the hospital that morning, our other 7 kids stayed overnight with Kristie’s parents the day before. The plan was for them to spend another night over there, since Isabelle was going to stay one night in the hospital after her surgery. That plan didn’t last long, however. Over the past few months, the construction project at her parents’ house has gained momentum, and a lot of work was being done to create a large, handicapped-accessible bathroom on the first floor there. It’s impossible to overstate how important this is for them and their kids, and how excited we all are that this is happening. But, several of our kids are simply unable to cope with the noise that a construction crew creates. Hallie and Jonathan are particularly affected by this. Hallie is unable to eat or sleep while work is going on in the house, and Jonathan’s anxiety escalates quickly. The construction on the day of Isabelle’s surgery was particularly loud and was to remain that way for the rest of the week, so we shifted gears.
Isabelle sailed through her surgery and was drinking some apple juice almost as soon as she woke up in recovery. I stayed with her and Kristie until she was released from recovery and taken to her room for the night. After Kristie ordered some lunch for the two of them, I gathered my things and left to get the other kids. As far as Jonathan and Hallie have come—in their 1 and 4 years home with us, respectively—it was clear that the construction chaos was just too much for either of them. A quick stop at the grocery store and another one at home to swap out our minivan for our aging 15-passenger van, and I was on my way to get the kids. They ate McDonald’s at home that night while watching TV, and they all settled into bed for a good night’s rest. The kids—again, especially Hallie and Jonathan—relaxed noticeably once we got back home, even though Kristie and Isabelle weren’t there. It’s highly unusual for us to end a day with only part of the family at home, and the fact that this change to their routine didn’t upset them speaks to the progress they’ve made. There’s no way Hallie would’ve communicated effectively without Kristie present, even as recently as a year ago. For the longest time, she would use her full spoken and ASL vocabulary only with Kristie, sharing only a small subset of that with me. That has changed in the last few months, and not having her Mommy at home that night didn’t set Hallie back at all. Similarly, Jonathan did very well here, even with all the changes in the plans for the day. Little did we know what the next day would hold.
That was Tuesday. Wednesday morning Isabelle was discharged from the hospital, and Kristie’s Dad went down to pick them up from the hospital so that I wouldn’t have to load all the kids into our van, which was a great help, especially since our van had become increasingly unreliable this year, sometimes refusing to start with no discernible cause. The two of them arrived home about 10:30, and everyone was happy to see them again. Less than an hour later, however, Kristie was on her way back down to Children’s with Isabelle because she had started bleeding from her nose and mouth. The doctor who performed the operation was very clear that if Isabelle bled from her nose or mouth at all while recuperating, we were to take her to the ER immediately. This wasn’t what anyone wanted to see happen, but at least our next step was clear. There was no waffling over whether it was serious enough to take her to the ER. Our marching orders had been very specific on this point. It turns out that one of the scabs in her throat had come loose, and they were able to cauterize the site in the ER. Unfortunately, that meant another night in the hospital for Kristie and Isabelle. We improvised a dinner at home that night, and the kids did great once again. Thankfully, when Isabelle came home again the next morning, she was home for good. She has healed well since then and didn’t have any more complications with her recovery. It’s hard to be sure just yet, but she seems to be speaking more clearly and swallowing better, and she is definitely not snoring like she used to. We’ll know more when she has her follow-up visit at ENT, but for now, we’re very encouraged by what we’ve seen from her.
A New Ride
I mentioned that our 15-passenger van had become pretty unreliable for us. Twice in the past 5 months, we had it towed to a mechanic because it wouldn’t start for us. One of those times, it stalled in the middle of the alley behind our house. THAT was a fun morning! This van was a gift from some friends of ours, and it was a huge blessing for us. We weren’t looking forward to the day when it would die, because we weren’t sure what kind of van we could afford. All we knew was that, as with everything in life, we needed to keep trusting God and put one foot in front of another in the life He’s called us to, knowing that when the need arose for a new vehicle for us, He would provide what we needed. Well, He ended up surpassing what we thought was realistic!
Good friends of ours from church told us about an organization (MATS) that was founded to help people in ministry find cars at competitive prices. They buy cars from auctions, make sure they’re in good working order, and will then even deliver them to your door. And they were great to work with! When we started looking at buying a used van earlier this summer, we thought that the best we could do would be to find something from around 2010, which would have been a big improvement over the 1993 van we’d been driving for the past nearly 3 years. The folks at MATS found a 2015 Ford Transit for us that was, shockingly, within what we could afford. So, two days after Isabelle’s surgery, a very kind octogenarian drove our new van out to us from Indiana. At least our old van started for him, or that afternoon would’ve become quite the adventure! We still can’t quite believe that we have this nearly new van sitting outside, and I can’t tell you how good it feels not to have to wonder whether it’s going to start every time we get ready to leave the house. It really is an amazing vehicle, though I suspect most people wouldn’t speak so effusively about a 12-passenger van. Such is our life. 🙂
(Note of interest: We went with a 12-passenger van instead of a 15-passenger because that’s a better fit for us. Our 15-passenger van had functionally been an 11-passenger van the whole time we had it, with the 4-seat rear bench living in our basement. We needed the space in the back-end to transport bags, strollers, and other miscellaneous items, especially when visiting my family in PA or when moving over to Kristie’s parents’ house to keep the 19 kids they still have at home whenever one of them is having surgery. That happens several times a year. So a 12-passenger van that has built-in cargo room in the back because it’s the same length as a 15-passenger van actually nets us one additional seat over what a 15-passenger would.)
Change on the Horizon?
As Jonathan has adjusted well to our crazy life, we’ve become convinced that God isn’t finished writing our adoption story just yet. We feel like the time to adopt again is approaching, but we don’t yet know how soon He’ll show us the child we’re supposed to adopt. In the meantime, in order to get a head-start on the process, we decided to go ahead and have a home study done so that we’ll be ready to move as soon as He shows us where He wants us to go. Thankfully, we had enough in our tax return from this year to cover the cost of the home study, and we are saving some of the rest of that tax return so that we’ll be able to pay the initial adoption fees when the time comes. It’s almost certain, however, that whenever we do adopt, the fees will exceed what we have saved, but we’re thankful that He has given us the first bit of what we will need. Like I said, we don’t have a child identified yet, though we’ve been praying about a couple. We would greatly appreciate you praying along with us as we keep following God down this road He has us on.
Changes in the Rearview Mirror
When we decided to do our home study now—I forgot to mention that we had our final visit with our social worker the day before Isabelle’s surgery; that was a crazy week!—we knew that it was time to do some rearranging in the house. Kristie devised a plan to split our 5 girls up into two rooms upstairs (they’d all been in the largest bedroom before), which would mean converting the downstairs office into our bedroom. Several weeks of hard work later, and it has all come together quite nicely. We purged a surprising amount of stuff from our house (I’ll never understand how odds and ends can accumulate so stealthily), and everything feels cleaner and more organized than it has since we moved in here 5-½ years ago.
Looking forward to the Future
We’re both waiting to see where God is going to take us, especially where our next adoption is concerned. The need of orphans worldwide is incomprehensible, and while it’s a little scary to keep stepping out in faith after Him and hard to keep trusting Him while taking those steps, we can’t just sit back and do nothing if He has another child He intends to bring us by way of adoption.
I have to admit, I’m a little hesitant to write this last bit because talk of money makes me kind of uncomfortable. But some people have asked how they can help support us, specifically financially. There are two ways to do that:
- Because our 4 adopted children were TSC kids, donations can be made to their joint account with The Shepherd’s Crook. Click here to donate online. Funds in our kids’ account can be used for anything relating to their care: groceries, medicine, special clothing, therapy aides, or even our van.
- The Shepherd’s Crook is set up to accept donations on behalf of the children being advocated for or adopted, not on behalf of the adoptive family, so we can’t receive donations for the adoption God is leading us into through TSC until we have identified our child. In the meantime, we’ve set up an account with AdoptTogether, where you can help us raise adoption costs.
Time to get ready to join some of the folks from our church small group for a pizza dinner in the park this evening. The kids can’t wait for it!