This time last year was rough...her birthday box was returned to us, we didn't pass court and had a 2 and 1/2 month wait until the next court date, then missed her 3rd birthday that we so hoped to celebrate with her. You can read about it all here and here. But even in all the disappointments and heartache God was right there with us, preparing us, teaching us, holding us! He is SO good!!
And this year we CELEBRATE!!! We have 3 other birthdays to make up for! I LOVED watching the excitement on her face as she saw all her birthday stuff in the kitchen this morning, as we sang Happy Birthday to her, as she opened her presents! Pure joy!! We went to Chuck E Cheese for lunch and games. As I watched her climbing up the little steps to slide I could not help but think about how much her little life has changed, and how much she has changed our lives for the better. We are SO blessed to be this precious little girls parents! I pray more than anything that she will come to know Christ early on and grow in her relationship with Him daily!
Enjoy the video below of Mary-Lynn's first ever day of being celebrated on her birthday! We will party with family and friends on Saturday!
Adopt! Do it scared! Do it! So many children need families! It's such a blessing! Your child is waiting on you!!
She has only been in our arms for 2 months, but it seems like she has been with us forever. I loved this precious baby before I even knew her, and fell more in love the moment I saw her little face in a picture almost 2 years ago. As we waited and waited to bring her home, the love grew more. And as you could imagine, my heart just might burst with love now that she is in my arms. The moment she was conceived she was ours! We do not have much information on her at all, but we know she was left at a police station as a newborn. I am so thankful that her birthmother chose life for her, and so thankful to whoever it was that left her at that police station.
During our wait, especially on Sundays while singing in church, I would pray and ask God that as she was on the other side of the world asleep He would let her dream of us; I asked that He would let her see our faces and hear our voices as we sang to Him in church. So it is such a huge blessing to hear this precious baby sing along with me now!!
It seems like she has been with us forever, but at the same time I realize how much we have missed with her. 3 years and 9 months we have missed, and not just missed but have no idea about her life at all during those times except for some vague paperwork and a few pictures. But I know our God can and will redeem the time lost. I love watching her take it all in, and learning new things, and being able to hold her, rock her, calm her when she is upset, kiss her booboo's; all the things we have missed until now. I love being this precious girl's mommy!!
She is so girly, and I LOVE it! She still loves shoes, new clothes, baby dolls, and bows! She is saying about 60 words in English now, but if she really gets to talking no one can understand her, haha! She has gained 3 pounds since coming home and grown an inch in height!! Her favorite to eat right now is Honey Nut Cheerios and chicken nuggets. She loves Caleb, is getting so much better with Eli, and likes to tattle on MattMatt, but also will copy just about anything that he does. She is doing so much better with her daddy, but still prefers mommy, especially at bed time. It amazes me how much she has grown and learned in just 2 short months!
My sister and I are having too much fun matching our gorgeous girls!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to Susan Luckie for capturing these great pictures for us!!
We are so thankful that she is HOME! There are SO many children all over the world waiting to be brought home, don't ignore or run from God. He will provide! Is your son or daughter waiting for you? I would love to talk if so!
Mary-Lynn has been with her mommy and daddy for 3 weeks! Home for 2 weeks!
I have put our process from start to home in 5 videos...
Green Family Adoption 2015-2018...Video 1
India Bound...Video 2
Gotcha Day...Video 3
Delhi Dash...Video 4
Home...Video 5
Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving and praying to get our baby girl HOME! I can't believe she is finally here! If you feel God leading you to adopt...DO IT!!! Don't let fear of anything stand in your way. Your child is waiting on you!
817 Days! 2 years and 2 1/2 months and we will finally have our daughter in our arms!!
We leave Thursday, February 1. The boys (and the puppy) will be with grandparents. Mary-Lynn's Gotcha Day will be February 4! That is my great-granddaddy, Granddaddy Pete's, birthday. Makes it even more special!
Granny and Granddaddy Pete, my great-grandparents, I was blessed to know into adulthood.
We can not begin to tell you how thankful we are for all of you who gave, bought, followed, and prayed for our adoption!! My prayer is that you were drawn closer to Christ by following our journey and that many of you will chose to adopt yourselves! There are so many waiting children all over the world.
We have done a lot of research, spoken with lots of other adoptive families, and to our adoption agency about what I am posting below. Of course, it will be something constantly bathed in prayer...
Our sweet girl has not had the kind of life a 3 year old little girl deserves. She is an orphan. The only home she has ever known is an orphanage. She doesn't know what it means to have a mommy and daddy. She doesn't know what it means to live in a home where she will always have food, always have clothes on her back, toys in her toy chest, and a safe place to land. She doesn't know what it is to have unconditional, lasting love. Life in an orphanage - even the best of orphanages - is sad and hard and competitive and too often characterized by lack and loneliness. From a very early age, children in orphanages learn not to cry because no one will care, and no one is coming for them. As they grow they learn that the best way to earn extra treats and get their hands on the shiniest new toys is to be cute and charming and give affection to every adult that walks in the room. This is not only dangerous, it's unhealthy and fosters attachment disorders.
We need to put Mary-Lynn first and
begin the process of showing her what a family means. Her entire world will change. She will leave the only
home she’s known, with people who look and sound very different. Then will be
shuttled to multiple appointments. Live in a hotel room. Take 3-4 flights and some
will be 8+ hours. That’s BIG. So when we get home we need small. This will
mean generally hunkering down at home. We are strangers and we need her to know we are mommy and daddy. In the
orphanage mommy might mean multiple caretakers. And daddy is usually
non-existent. We need her to bond with us. Bonding and attachment can be HUGE problems
for children that have been institutionalized. That
means “all good things” MUST come from mommy and daddy – food, toys, anything
good needs to flow through us to her.Part
of healthy attachment building is learning when and where it’s appropriate to
give and seek affection. When you meet her…wave, give high fives, blow kisses,
make funny faces; but refrain from hugging, kissing, and/or picking
her up for now. This is VERY important. Many
children will show signs of indiscriminate affection as a product of living in
an orphanage. They reach for anyone. Call everyone mommy. Hoping any adult
might meet their needs. Indiscriminate affection may seem cute as a baby, but
can lead to major safety issues in the future.
Most
adoption experts recommend one month of cocooning (what is being described above) for every year your child has
been in an orphanage, but we are not putting a timeline on it. We will do this
for as long as it takes to create that bond. And there may be times down the road that we need to recreate that cocoon if we
feel it’s necessary. We know that she is adorable and huggable
and this will seem torturous. But this is for her future health and well-being
and we know that all of you want the best for her and our family. Please know
that we love and appreciate what all of you have done to help us through the
adoption process. We couldn’t have done it without y’all! So we ask that you
give us grace in the first months home, and help us in teaching our daughter
what the love of a family means. I will be posting LOTS of pictures and videos for all of you to enjoy ; ) Please pray
for a smooth and quick attachment, pray as she grieves the loss of her
caregivers and only home she has ever known, pray for her to adjust to American
time, pray for her to feel safe and comfortable in her new home and with her new family! And please do not hesitate to ask us questions about what I posted above. I never thought about or understood this until we started our adoption process.
We will be flying into the Montgomery airport for anyone that wants to come and greet us and see Mary-Lynn in person! We just ask you let the boys come to us first. We are not sure the exact date that we will return, but I will post it on Facebook as soon as we do. We are hoping for Feb. 10 if all the appointments go quickly and smoothly. Also if you are on Facebook and not in our secret adoption group and want to be just let me know and I will add you. This is where I will post while we are in India! : )
Thank you again for following our journey and please continue to pray as we travel and begin bonding with our daughter!
I love, love, love seeing our names on her birth certificate!!!
Her passport has been applied for, supposedly 3 1/2 weeks ago, but we still are not sure what is going on with that. The orphanage director is saying she is not getting any information from the passport office so she contacted CARA (the government adoption authority of India, they monitor and regulate in-country and international adoptions from India), but she has not received a reply from them either. So our adoption agency is getting their in-country rep to call the passport office to see if she can find out what is going on for us.
I'm not worried or surprised. Our whole process has had slow downs like this. It will happen in God's timing just like everything else. Please pray that God prepares Mary-Lynn's little heart and mind for all the changes coming her way. Not too much longer and she will be in our arms!!!
A friend sent this to Britt..."Without hope, waiting for God can feel like torture, but with confidence in Him, waiting can feel like joyful anticipation...Isaiah 30:18 says 'Blessed are all who wait for Him.' Part of the definition of wait, which is chakah in Hebrew, means to wait 'in ambush.'...To wait in ambush for God means hoping in the future and what He will do through us, because we know that something good is going to happen - in God's time, in God's way. When faith replaces distrust, the agony of waiting can turn into hopeful anticipation."
So, we are waiting with hopeful anticipation to be traveling to India so soon to get our daughter!!!
We really thought 2017 would be the year Mary-Lynn came home. I even wrote this in her journal on New Year's Day 2017...
We had already been waiting for the No Objection Certificate for 3 1/2 weeks and would have another almost 7 weeks before we finally got it. Two months after we got NOC we finally had our first court hearing. We never dreamed it would last 7 months! But praise God we finally passed!! 2017 has been a lot of waiting and frustrations in our adoption. But we have grown in our relationships with Christ in ways we never would have without this experience. And as Britt said in his sermon this morning, our suffering is never wasted, God uses all things for His good.
We have hopeful anticipation for 2018! We received an e-mail this week that the passport has been applied for. There seems to be some trouble surrounding it, but we know God will handle it just like He has handled every other issue in our adoption process. So for now we keep trusting Him and wait in hopeful anticipation! We continue to pray that God prepares Mary-Lynn for all the changes that 2018 will bring her way.
Santa came to see Mary-Lynn!
She also got gifts from MawMaw & PawPaw...
...Aunt Ashley, Uncle Michael, and Zoe...
...and Aunt Kim and Uncle Greg.
My sweet friend, Christie, got this for our family...
Eli is starting to wonder if we will be here for his birthday (Jan. 21). We just are not sure. We have told him most likely we will find out it is time to travel and then leave within the same week. Pray for all 3 boys, we have never been away from each other as long as we will be for this trip.
Even though the adoption has brought frustrations and long waits, God has really blessed us with some great family time with our boys in 2017. Here is a video of our 2017 fun...I had to add that first song for Mary-Lynn (and her birthday is in May!)...
Happy New Year and THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the support you have given our family through our adoption! Praying we will be with our daughter so soon!!!
2 years ago today I posted my first blog announcing our adoption. We had just started our process 6 weeks before. We were not matched with Mary-Lynn yet, had never seen her face, but we were so excited and full of anticipation. She was 1 1/2 half years old sitting in an orphanage over 8,000 miles away from us when I posted my blog...
This time last year we had been matched with our precious daughter 5 1/2 months. We had seen her face. Her daddy got to meet and hold her a month before. We were coming into a tough No Objection Certificate wait, and even tougher court process. She was 2 1/2 years old and still sitting in that orphanage without her family.
And here we are, our 3rd Christmas since we started our adoption process. We so hoped she would be home with us by now. But at least we see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are still waiting on the birth certificate so the passport can be applied for. Please pray along with us that those things come quickly.
Another sweet couple, the Kirkegaards, are at their 3rd Christmas without their son. Please pray for them also!! I wanted to share what Kelsey so transparently shared with all of us on social media...
Their son is in a tough northern state of India like Mary-Lynn is, but our babies are SO worth the wait and the hard!!
Another India adoptive momma shared this...
I'm sharing a lot from others tonight because it is just so good and worded better than I ever could have. This is from a blog called No Hands But Ours...
We have had a tough week. Matthew had the flu and I had a fender bender (my first ever, still mad at myself). But I think God was trying to slow me down and remind me that this season is about Him and nothing and no one else. It's so easy to get caught up in the busyness of this time of year and forget what it is really about. When we have Mary-Lynn home with us next Christmas the most important thing will be to teach her what Christmas is really about. Jesus! And oh how I pray that she will come to know Him and have a personal relationship with Him.
Boo for the Flu!
I looked down to change the air and when I looked up the car in front of me had stopped. The guy I hit was very nice about it and kept asking if I was ok. My legs are bruised up and my van had to be towed. But the man I hit was able to drive his car home, thankfully.
We did get snow in Alabama on December 9 though! That was awesome!!
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service tonight...I started to get emotional a few times not having Mary-Lynn with us but our 4 year old was so bad he helped the emotions go in another direction! #ineedemojis #jesustakethewheel
Mary-Lynn's Christmas tree in her room!
Christmas surprise for the boys in the morning! And yes, we know we are CRAZY! Hahaha!
