Anna's Forever Family

You may not be able to tell, but Anna and Ryan were thrilled at the moment.

When I started researching adoption about 5 years ago, I would see these profiles of children and my heart would break.  I would see a picture of a beautiful child and read about how they just wanted to find their "forever family."  Browsing adoption sites and child profiles became a hobby of mine and the more I looked at pictures, the more confused I became.  Exactly how does one go about choosing a child to join their family?

I've told this story before, but I assumed that we would instantly know, I mean really KNOW without a shadow of a doubt, the instant we saw a child's profile, that that child was meant to be ours.  When I bought my first house in Sugarhouse, after looking at dozens of other houses, I walked in and knew instantly that this was the house for me.  When we adopted our yellow lab Abby, I knew instantly that she was the dog for us - again, after looking at about a dozen other adorable dogs.

But with Anna, I didn't feel that instant confirmation.  Tony did, but I didn't.  And that really bothered me.  But after we went to the temple and prayed about it, it felt right.  And so we moved forward and accepted the child file that our adoption agency had sent to us.  And over time, that knowledge that Anna was to be our little girl grew.  By the time we flew to China, it felt like she was already ours.  On our "Gotcha Day", I was amazed at the instant love I felt for this little girl the first time she held me.  I held her for several minutes while she screamed in fear and then she looked up at me, looked me straight in the eyes for a long time and then she held me.  It was one of the sweetest experiences in my life.

Well, last Saturday was another one of those sweetest experiences in my life.  Tony and I were sealed to Anna in the South Jordan Temple and Anna is officially, part of our forever family. 

We left for the temple around 8:30am and Ryan was especially excited to go to the temple for the first time.  Anna didn't understand what was happening, but she loves to go on any excursion.

When we arrived, we dropped off Ryan and Anna at the Youth Center where my cousin Joy (the same cousin who traveled with me in China after Tony flew home) was a volunteer worker and was able to take care of the kids.  Ryan was super excited to see Joy and but Anna was a bit anti-social.  But when the sealer came down to visit the kids, Anna climbed onto his lap where she decided to stay.  Joy then brought Ryan and Anna up to the sealing room where they waited for us.

When we walked to the room, Joy, Ryan and Anna were waiting for us just outside the door.  They both lit up when they saw us, exclaimed "mommy, daddy" and they both ran towards us.  As we scooped up our beautiful children in our arms, I started to tear up. It's hard to describe how overwhelmed by the Spirit I felt. I felt grateful, fortunate, blessed, lucky and very, very happy.

I hope I remember that moment for the rest of my life.

When we walked into the sealing room, all of our family members were there waiting for us, including my mom and dad.  Ryan again yelled:  Hi Grandpa!  Hi Grandma!" and everyone laughed.  It was adorable.

As we sat holding our children while the sealer spoke to us, I tried to keep my emotions under control. What I felt is sacred, but suffice it to say, I felt our Heavenly Father's love for each one of us. I knew He loved me, Tony, Ryan and especially our little Anna. I truly felt the power of the temple and knew that the sealing ceremony would allow our little family to live together forever. 

And most of all, I once again, felt that confirmation and knew, really KNEW, that Anna was meant to be our little girl.

popcorn parties

We have popcorn parties just about every weekend. I'm not sure which the kids like better, watching the popcorn pop or eating it, but mommy loves having the kids entertained for an hour or so. 

For the most part, Ryan and Anna love playing together and being together.  On Thursday, Anna had a medical evaluation for her speech therapy so we dropped Ryan off at Auntie Patty's in the morning as usual.  As we drove away, Anna started crying and pointing at Patty's house and saying over and over, "Ryan, Ryan, Ryan" which really sounds like "eye....ann" over and over.

It broke my heart that she was so sad that she being separated from Ryan, but it also kinda melted my heart.  Tony often says that Ryan may be the most important person in her life. 

I hope so.

living our lives...one cliche at a time

It's no secret that I went through a bit of a rough patch last year. 

We started 2013 with an ultimatum from my boss telling me they wanted me to move to North Carolina.  With that hanging over our heads, we went through Anna's adoption from China, my mom's successful but heart wrenching bout with breast cancer, probably two dozen business trips, Anna's cleft palate surgery, Ryan adapting to Anna and vice versa, and then renting out our house and packing up to get ready for the move. 

We had already started saying our good-byes when I received a series of three surprising (understatement of the year) and I have to say, not very nice, phone calls from my boss saying they had changed their minds and that instead of relocating us to North Carolina, they were terminating me.  In 24 hours, I sat looking at both the signed rental leases and a severance agreement in front of me.

To say I was shocked is yet another understatement.  I wasn't given any explanation and I felt like my life was left in a thousand scattered pieces.  Tony, understandably, took it pretty hard.  He had been working extremely hard to get both of our houses ready for our move (we have an existing rental that needed some repair work).  We had packed quite a bit and were left with pretty empty tanks when this all happened.

For the next two weeks, I was in pretty bad shape.  I couldn't sleep.  I was extremely (EXTREMELY) stressed out and anxious.  I kept my kids home with me because I was too afraid to spend a dime on daycare.  And with two little toddlers at home with me, I tried to start the job search.

Looking back now, we both found jobs pretty quickly.  I had a job within a couple of weeks and while it took Tony a bit longer, I think considering two of those months were the holiday months of November and December, he landed a good job pretty quickly as well.

During the lowest point of my emotional downspin, we went to talk to our Bishop (clergyman) in our church.  He gave us wonderful counsel which included praying together and going to the temple.  He also said that in the future, we will look back and see this with a different perspective and that the most important thing would be for us to draw close together as a couple and draw close to our Heavenly Father. 

And then he gave each of us a Priesthood blessing.  From that moment on, the anxious feeling left and I felt like my heart beat at its normal rate.  And best of all, I slept well for the first time that night.  A couple of nights later, we went to the temple and I had an overwhelming feeling that if we dedicated ourselves and our little family to our Heavenly Father that we would be ok. 

The feeling of peace that I felt in the temple is hard to describe.  I'm sure many of you have felt that in your own lives as you have had your own prayers answered.  I have felt that peace before, but that night, it seemed so powerful.

Since that moment, we have had one small miracle after another.  And it isn't only in the form of good jobs.  Almost every day, I have a moment when I realize how blessed we are.  We love our home.  We ended up with good jobs and are in a better position than we would be had we moved.  We love living in Utah.  And when I think about how things would be if we did move across the country, I literally shudder.

When the door closed, windows opened.
We took things one day at a time.
And it was meant to be.

63rd percentile

On Thursday morning, Anna was evaluated for speech therapy.  A bubbly, enthusiastic speech therapist came to our home and tested Anna in a variety of areas from gross and fine motor skills, cognitive abilities, language abilities, social/emotional and adaptive skills.

In gross and fine motor skills, she scored in the 63rd percentile which, along with these pictures, proves my claim that Anna is one active little girl.  Not surprisingly, she is a little below average in other areas, but she is one bright little girl and I think she will catch up in cognitive and adaptive areas.  Also not surprisingly, she scored below 1 percentile in expressive language.

While Tony and I see vast improvement over the last several weeks (she can say "night night" very clearly now and you can almost understand "banana"), she is obviously very delayed in her speech.  She still calls Tony "mama" and she calls Ryan "eye-aaa". 

The good news is the speech therapist said she thought Anna would do really well with speech therapy.  Next step is a medical evaluation next week and then hopefully we'll get on the speech therapy schedule and maybe Anna will start calling Tony "daddy" soon.

My hope is that someday soon, Anna can talk as well as she and her brother climb.  Because 63rd percentile seems like a pretty good place to me.