Another Forever Family

Since coming back from South Africa a lot has happened and it has been difficult to keep up. Shortly after arriving back a sweet family from our church arrived home from Ethiopia with the newest member of their family.

July 4th

We had a fun July 4th. Went to church then spent the afternoon taking naps. After nap time we went to Melody's house to swim and celebrate her birthday. While Greg and the kids stayed and swam at Mel's house I headed off to the airport to welcome home some friends and their 3 new daughters. It was a fun day.

A Must See Video

I stole this video from a friend's blog. Thank you Tera for having it posted. I hope that you watch it and are moved.

Lightning Ahlers - My Adoption Story from The Ahlers Family on Vimeo.

Four Years Ago Today

Just last week we celebrated Naomi's home coming. Four years ago today we brought Josiah home. I remember it like it was yesterday. With Josiah it was different than with Naomi. We were first time parents, scared and knew nothing about taking care of a child, let alone a 7 1/2 month old that already had routines.

We arrived at the adoption agency in Korea on our way to the airport to return to the States. We had a brief meeting with our social worker, got all the paperwork we needed to clear customs and immigration and then sat and waited for Josiah's Foster Mother to bring him in. She sent word that he was asleep and she needed just a few more minutes with him before she could say goodbye. Josiah was her 3rd foster child and the only one whose parents she met before he had to leave. She brought him in, she gave us so many gift, she gave us his favorite toys, bottles and clothes even though she did not have to. She loved this little boy with a love that I cannot even put into words. Her and his foster Dad handed him to us and they sobbed so hard that we all were in tears including Josiah. We said our final goodbye's and got into a taxi for the the airport.

Josiah pretty much screamed, kicked and scratched me for the entire hour drive to the airport (no car seats in Korea, so I was holding him). By the time we reached the airport I think he was exhausted and just could not cry any more. He stayed calm until we got on the plane and then cried again for a couple hours. He finally fell asleep and we were all exhausted.

We arrived home late at night to find welcome home signs and meals for several days at our house. Our friends took good care of us those first few weeks.

As you can imagine, life has changed a ton since that day and then again not so much. The tantrums and crying still come in full force when they come, but Josiah has learned so much and grown so much in 4 years. Josiah has very good language skills. He talks like he is 7 instead of 4 and keeps us guessing as to what questions he will ask next. He is curious about everything and has a desire to learn as much as he can. He loves to read, which thrills me so much. I think reading is so important for developing a well rounded child. Greg and he are reading Charlotte's Web right now, and this book has finally challenged his reading skills. He has a very sensitive side. He has a fear of anything new and doesn't like change too much. He loves his sister and comforts her when she is sad. He is strong willed and will definitely be a leader someday. Josiah will be starting kindergarten in the Fall and is going to be going to the Montessori school. I am excited to see how he will do. I can't believe my baby is growing up. The Lord has blessed us with two wonderful children.

One Year ago Today

Can you believe that a year ago today Naomi was placed in our arms forever?

We went to the adoption agency in the morning had a short meeting with the social worker and her Foster Mother. We were given gifts by the director of the agency and then we were escorted out of the building with our daughter while her Foster Mother stayed behind. My heart was aching for her as she watched us leave with this little bundle that she had been taking care of for so long. I am so thankful for her and her love for Naomi. She gave our little girl a loving positive start to her life.

So much has changed in our lives in this one short year. Josiah became a big brother. He loves his little sister and plays with her so well - most days. We have only had one day recently when he told me he wished he didn't have a baby sister, but that was because he was mad at her and besides he didn't want a daddy or mommy that week either.

Greg and I have gone from having absolutely no sleep to having an occasional good night. I believe when my children are 18 years old or older I may get my rest. Until then we will continue to love on and comfort our kids in the middle of the night and play with them and teach them all we can about life during the day.

Naomi has grown in leaps and bounds. She loves to eat and that's the first thing she wants to do when she wakes up in the morning. She has gone from being a baby to our little girl. When she came home at 8 1/2 months she could not sit on her own or crawl. She is now running and climbing anything she can. The other day I waked into the kitchen and found her sitting in the middle of the table. She has gone from not saying anything to talking all the time. Greg jokes that there are only 2 people that understand what she is saying and that he is not one of them. Often when I am not in the room I hear Greg asking Josiah what she is saying. Josiah can pretty much tell him exactly what Naomi is saying every time. Naomi has shown that she is opinionated and fits in well with our family in that respect. She has learned the art of throwing a tantrum from her brother and she is very jealous of any time he spends with me. She is a Daddy's girl through and through. What a blessing we have.

Update on Chase - Please Continue to Pray

Chase came through surgery Thursday with a repaired valve and heart. His surgeons were cautiously optimistic. Later he spiked a very high fever and was packed in ice to reduce it. His family really have just relied on the Lord to bring them through this. His fever went down and as of yesterday he is doing better. He has been taken off the respirator and his pace maker and is holding his own. Please continue to pray for this little guy and his family.

URGENT*** Please Pray Fervently ***URGENT

This afternoon I got an e-mail from a friend of mine giving me an update on another friend's little boy, Chase.
"Chase is the Longeneckers eighth child (only adopted child) who is ten months old. He was born with Down's Syndrome and has been battling so many health issues since he was born. It has been a terribly long journey for the Longenecker family. They desperately need their church family to intercede for them as they face their most difficult and life-threatening moment thus far."
This is the update that Jan (Chase's Mom) sent to my friend.

"hey friend
I have a heavy heart as I type this. I am headed to st. louis in the morning to prepare for round two . Chase will be having open heart surgury thursday morning at 8am . I wish I could say the doctors were optimistic but they're not. As you know chases first surgery was completely a botched job, and we are really struggling with that, and what it has meant for our family. At this point we are on 146 days in the hospital and who knows what the future holds. The doctors have tried everything possible to avoid this surgery (and being so close to his last )but we can't put it off any longer. His mitral valve is simple shot. They are going in to attempt to widen it, but weve been told it's like working with tissue paper and tape, doesn't tend to be to successful. We are praying that a mechanical valve will work for chase, even though that brings with it significant chance of rejection and blood thinners for life and much more..... At this point we'll take anything to save our lil guy. Chase is in heart and kidney failure and the anesthesiologists aren't wanting to sedate but surgeon sees no possible turn around so it's now or not. Chase has shown to be a real fighter so we pray he still has this one in him .We believe in the power of prayer so please pray and ask anyone you know who is a prayer warrior to get on their knees. God is the great physician and we pray his wisdom on the doctors this time and if not then peace for our family. Will try to update asap but struggling to just keep up with my children right now .. "

Please pray for Chase and his family. Please send this info to anyone that you know will pray for him.

She is Officially Ours

8 Months ago we travelled to Korea to bring Naomi home. With a South Korean adoption we have to wait 6 months and have 3 reports sent back to Korea on how well Naomi is doing before we can legally adopt her. Today we went to Family Court down town Louisville and had our court proceeding to formally adopt her. The whole process took about 20 minutes. Our attorney, Teresa Kinberger, testified that everything was in order and all the papers were filed correctly and that we would be good parents. Naomi's Attorney also testified that he has met us (even if only for 10 minutes) and that Josiah and Naomi seem like happy well adjusted children and recommended that the court grant the adoption. After all the formalities both kids got to pick out a stuffed animal and then we got our picture taken with the judge and the attorneys. Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Melody were there to celebrate with us. Thanks Grandma for the very cute elephant for Naomi.

This is Our Story - Part 2

Two years after Josiah came home we started thinking about adopting again. We decided to adopt from Korea again since we were familiar with the process and felt it important for our children to share the same heritage. We had also decide that we would love to have a daughter. We were told that with the agency that we chose that this was possible only to be told later that by requesting a girl we would be placed on hold indefinitely. Instead of staying on hold we changed our request to either boy or girl knowing that with the Korea program we would most certainly get a referral for a son. Both Greg and I, after much prayer, came to the place that we were quite content to have another son. Besides we had boy toys and boy clothes and we "knew" what to do with a boy.

In September 2007 our paperwork was sent to Korea and we were told that it would be 5 months before we heard anything. Many people asked us about the possibility of getting a girl and I kept telling them that short of a miracle I couldn't see that happening. There had not been a girl referral with our agency for more than 6 months and there were many people still waiting for a girl.

Very unexpectedly we got a call from our social worker just 2 months after sending our paperwork to Korea. She wanted to know if we would consider reviewing the file of a little girl that was considered to have special needs. The director of our agency was in Korea at this time and when this information was presented to her she called our social worker and said for her to show it to us. This little girl was not even officially in the system yet and was not being presented to any other family.

We went through all her medical information very carefully, had 2 doctors review her charts and had several friends and family members praying for guidance.

It was clear that God was at work:

* It is virtually unheard of that we would have received the information about a little girl without God's hand being in it.

* It is almost unheard of to receive a referral picture and information only 2 months after paperwork being sent to Korea.

* Both Dr's that reviewed her file believed that she would be perfectly healthy with a 15% chance that she would have mild progressive hearing loss due to her diagnosis.

We accepted the referral of our daughter Naomi Yoojin. Our social worker advised us not to expect to travel to Korea before 4-6 months. God again had a different plan. Almost exactly 3 months after our acceptance we travelled to Korea to bring Naomi home. Our travel date was 2 weeks shy of being exactly 3 years to the day of Josiah's homecoming.

On March 10, 2007 Naomi Yoojin joined her forever family.

Wow God is good and is faithful and has been with us every step of the way.

This is Our Story

I have had several people e-mail me since I posted the Journey to Australia story asking if I would consider telling our personal story of how we came to adopt. So here is the first installment of our story. I will post our journey to Naomi later in the week. I will warn you it is very long.

Greg and I started trying to add to our family in the spring of 2001. We got pregnant after a few months and everything seemed to be ok. In January of 2002, at 13 weeks, we miscarried. After this miscarriage I went through a period of depression. I was angry with God, but learned to cling to His Psalms. I carried scraps of paper in my pockets with a verse from Psalms written out, so that I would be reminded of those thoughts during the day, when I began to feel depressed.

We continued to try to have a baby and had our 2nd miscarriage in June of 2002. After some recovery time, we got pregnant again. This time I was so nervous that I insisted on an 8-week ultrasound. This ultrasound showed conjoined twins that shared a single heart. There was no chance beyond a miracle that these children would survive. Our doctor suggested that we terminate the pregnancy, but instead we prayed for a miracle. At 10 weeks we lost our twins.

At this point we knew that something had to change. We were clearly not going to have babies the traditional way. So we decided to seek the advice of a fertility specialist. We were relying on the doctors and medical research for the answers to ‘fix’ our problem. After a series of tests and procedures, our doctor was able to identify a likely cause for our recurring miscarriages. My immune system caused my body to attack a pregnancy as if it were foreign. In addition to my immune response my hormones were not at the right levels at the right times. The treatment for this type of condition was expensive, involved a lot of shots and promised far less than a certain outcome.

We decided to give treatment a try, but now things were different. I was a reluctant patient, but Greg encouraged me to make one more try before we ‘gave up.’ After all that I had been through, the thought of getting pregnant again was terrifying. For me, pregnancy did not mean a time of joyful expectation, but a time of living each day in constant dread of how the pregnancy would end.

In the mean time, I also began to research adoption. Greg was not ready to even talk about adoption; so I began the research on my own. I began to share my findings with Greg and frequently brought up adoption in conversation. Finally he asked me to put the adoption research on hold, because he did not have the time, emotional energy or money to pursue both adoption and fertility treatments.

I had been speaking about adoption with a friend and was trying to arrange a time for Greg and I to sit down with her and her husband to talk about their adoption experience. Since Greg and I agreed that we would put the adoption process on hold for a while, the next Sunday I told them that we were not going to meet with them right now. The very next day my another friend was waiting at my car when I finished work.

She knew about our difficulty having children and had quite a proposal for us. Her daughter had just taken legal guardianship for a little boy named Devan who was in a difficult home situation. She wanted to know if we would consider adopting Devan. The idea of an actual baby that might become our child was exciting. I had to call Greg and tell him what had just happened, but I didn’t know what he would say. To my surprise he said that we should look into adopting Devan. Greg said that having God drop an adoption right out of the sky was very different from some distant dinner conversation. My very next call was to our friends to re-schedule our get-together.

In the end, we did not adopt Devan; another couple that had made prior contact with Devan’s mother adopted him. This was not really a disappointment for us, because everything happened so fast that we didn’t really have a chance to become attached to the idea. On the other hand, it made me see that Greg considered adoption a valid option and our meeting with Scott and Lynn opened our eyes to more details of the adoption process.

During this time we had continued with fertility treatment, and we lost our fourth pregnancy at six weeks. This was the breaking point for me. I just couldn’t take it anymore. Greg could see what the fertility treatment and repeated pregnancy loss was doing to me and we agreed to stop treatment.

Shortly after stopping treatment we went to a marriage conference in Chicago where Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife spoke about the experience of adopting their two girls from China. Both Greg and I were reminded of Steven Curtis’s concert we had been to the year before and were touched by their story. God was beginning to work in Greg’s heart. Greg was beginning to see that adoption was a very real option, but he needed some time to grieve the loss of our children and come to terms with his fears of adoption. We went to a couple of information meetings with several different agencies. The meetings helped to answer our questions and made adoption seem less intimidating.

Even though we had come to the realization that adoption was and always had been God’s plan for us Greg still needed more time. We took a vacation to South Africa and during that time Greg read a book called Adoption after Infertility. The book put into words all the things that he had been thinking and feeling, but was unable to express for himself. The book, some much needed time away from the everyday grind, and a lot of prayer really helped us with our final decision. When we got back from South Africa we started the long process of paperwork, patience and prayer.

After our application was approved and all of our background checks were completed, we started the home study process. Home study is not the most descriptive name for this process. Our social worker discussed adoption topics in greater detail and we had the opportunity to get all of our questions answered. We completed this step in February of 2004. WE received a picture of our beautiful baby boy, Josiah TaeHyung, on Sept 13, 2004 and travelled to Korea in March to bring him home. On March 21st, 2005 we boarded a plane from Korea with our son.

We believe that God prepared us to parent an adopted child. He used Devon, Steven Curtis Chapman concerts, seminars and friends to show us His plan and to prepare us uniquely for this experience.

Adoption After Infertility

Several people have asked me lately what is it like to go through the process of deciding to adopt. I could write a ton about what we went through and how we felt and how God lead us down the path of adoption to our two beautiful children. Instead I am going to post a story written by an anonymous author that describes a lot of the feelings and experiences of going through infertility and completing the journey of adoption

Different Trips to the Same Place

Author Unknown

Deciding to have a baby is like planning a trip to Australia. You’ve heard it’s a wonderful place; you’ve read many guidebooks and feel certain that you’re ready to go. Everyone you know has traveled there by plane. They say it can be a turbulent flight with occasional rough landings, but you can look forward to being pampered on the trip. So you go to the airport and ask the ticket agent for a ticket to Australia. All around you, excited people are boarding planes for Australia. It seems there’s no seat for you; you’ll have to wait for the next flight. Impatient, but anticipating a wonderful trip, you wait---and wait---and wait. Flights to Australia continue to come and go. People say silly things like, “Relax. You’ll get on a flight soon.” Other people actually get on the plane and then cancel their trip, to which you cry, “It’s not fair!” After a long time, the ticket agent tells you, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to be able to get you on a plane to Australia. Perhaps you should think about going by boat.” “By BOAT!” you say. “Going by boat will take a very long time and it costs a great deal of money. I really had my heart set on going by plane.” So you go home and think about not going to Australia at all. You wonder if Australia will be as beautiful if you approach it by sea rather than by air. But you have long dreamed of this wonderful place, and finally you decide to travel by boat. It is a long trip, many months over many rough seas. No one pampers you. You wonder if you will ever see Australia. Meanwhile, your friends have flown back and forth to Australia two or three more times, marveling about each trip. Then one glorious day, the boat docks in Australia. It is more exquisite than you ever imagined, and the beauty is magnified by your long days at sea. You have made many wonderful friends during your voyage, and you find yourself comparing stories with others who also traveled by sea rather than by air. People continue to fly to Australia as often as they like, but you are able to travel once, perhaps twice. Some say things like, “Oh, be glad you didn’t fly. My flight was horrible; traveling by sea is so easy.” You will always wonder what it would have been like to fly to Australia. Still, you know God blessed you with a special appreciation of Australia, and the beauty of Australia is not the way you get there, but in the place itself.

This is my Australia and the journey was fantastic!

March 21st - 3 Years Ago

Josiah on the Day he came Home
Three years ago we had the privilege of travelling to Korea for the first time. We spent a week there spending time with our little boy and travelling the country. We had the unique opportunity to travel with an interpreter to Josiah's birth city. We toured the hospital in which he was born and spent time with the social worker that counselled his birth Mother. It was an amazing experience.
On Friday we spent the day honoring Josiah and his place in our family. We talked about, as we often do, his Birth Mother, Foster Mother and Korea. He is now beginning to understand that he is adopted and that we love him more than anything. Having Naomi's home coming so close to his adoption day has been a blessing in that it has helped him understand his home coming a little better.
To celebrate we invited our family and Josiah's friends Max and Madison to Chuck E Cheeses for a fun afternoon of pizza and games. The kids had a blast.
If you would like to see the journal we wrote while we were in Korea three years ago getting Josiah click here and view journal history.

WOW! What a Warm Welcome Home

I sit here not even sure what to type. Greg has been doing all the blogging while we were in Korea and now I sit in front of the computer overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of our family and friends.

We arrived in Atlanta last night with 1 1/2 hours to clear customs and transfer to our flight to Louisville. It took forever for us to get through immigration and then Greg ran to our gate for our next flight. He got there as they were closing the door. The Delta agent working the gate held the plane for us and the 3 of us were able to make it home by 9pm.

The flight was short and fairly uneventful, but after so many hours in the air we were more than ready to be on solid ground. We were the last on the plane and the last off. When we walked through the gates and saw everyone that had come to meet us at the airport both Greg and I were overcome with emotion. When we were close enough to the security check point Josiah came running and Greg and I just lost it. We knelt down as he crashed into us with hugs and kisses all around. Josiah was a little confused at both Mommy and Daddy crying. He still asks me today what was wrong. I don't think he has grasped the concept that sometimes people cry when they are happy.
Again, I have to just say Wow! Thank you everyone that came out and made our homecoming extra special. Mom and Dad H, thanks for watching our rowdy, wonderful little Josiah for us all week and for bringing him to the airport. I can't even put into words how it felt to have him run so fast to meet us and love on us.

Mark and Janna, thank you so very much for the support you have given Greg at work and now at home. The banner and the gifts for my children were a huge blessing. We so appreciate it. Thank you to all the other Humana folks that were there. I would mention you by name, but in my stupor I have to apologise I just can't remember everyone that was there.

The "Zoeler clan" - Chris and Laura how can we ever thank you for your friendship and encouragement during this process. To see you at the airport was an extra special surprise. The poster and balloons are great and Mr Chris, Josiah thinks you are the coolest.

Vonda and John - we just didn't expect that you would be there and were so excited to see you. I am praying that we will be doing this exact same thing for you in just a week or two. We cannot wait to meet Paul and see you holding him in your arms.

Things have been really good so far. Except for Greg and I walking around in a sleep deprived stupor for most of the day and Josiah showing some perfectly normal jealousy, we are all doing well. Naomi slept better than we ever expected last night. We can only hope tonight is as good or better. I know that this can only be the result of so many prayers being lifted up for us. God is truly good.