November - Nat'l Adoption Month

When I began this blog about our family's adoption journey,  I included the article below as one of my first posts.  Maryelle has now been home 15 months, and with every passing day I realize the depth of meaning to writing new chapters and the lifetime of yeses that move us forward in our smallness but God's bigness.  There are days we still don't feel adequate.  And days that we don't feel deserving of the gift of Maryelle in our lives.  But that is the heart of our God- full of grace, mercy and strength.  And every day with Maryelle makes us an eyewitness to this.

So what's new with Maryelle?
All of the diagnoses seem to be behind us and we're moving forward in supporting her in every way we can.  This fills our days with speech therapy, audal habilitation (learning how to listen/hear), OT, PT and 4K at our elementary school.  She loves going to 4K!  The structure has been so good for her and is providing her better opportunity for gains.  The district's special ed 4K program just got moved this year to our home elementary school, so she and Caleb are in the same school for one year and it will also make her transition to Kdg next year easier by keeping much of the same special needs support.  Yay!  She loves the bus and can barely get in the door before showing me the craft for the day.

Medical updates...

Hearing: the hearing aids have given her increased access to sound.  Far from perfect hearing, but at least she's now hearing speech sounds.  The trick is that since ALL sound is amplified, it's hard for her to distinguish what she should listen for.  In laymans terms, she may be only actually 'hearing' about 60% of the language around her.  She may catch the beginning, but not the end of the word.  Or the end, not beginning of a sentence.  Then she has to process and make sense of all of it.  Not an easy or quick process.  Therefore, language is slow in coming.  Currently, she is around a 2 1/2 yr old level for language.  5 years of not hearing language is a hard deficit to overcome.  But she's making gains and is doing quite well around the house communicating her needs (and trying to boss Caleb around!)  She is now using an FM system (microphone for teacher/speaker) at school and this has made a huge difference in her attending and understanding.  With that success, we decided to purchase one for use outside of school (this will help with therapies and church).  We get that later this week.

Vision:  For 6 months, we used eye drops that penalized her good eye in hopes of engaging her impaired eye.  Again, after 5 years of minimal vision in an eye, the brain pretty much turns it off.  It's difficult to get the eye re-engaged, but thankfully hers has to a fair degree.  We were hoping that she would increase vision in that eye, but unfortunately that won't change because of the type of birth defect.  With the best correction lens we can give her, she still only sees a +500 in that eye.  We carefully protect her good eye because without that sight, she would be rendered blind.  On a side note, she loves her new glasses ;)

Heart:  We'll be having a followup with the cardiologist in January to see how her heart rate is doing and if there's any changes in the leakage of her valve.  Her oxygen levels are great so we're not expecting any change or need for treatment.

Overall physicality:  Boy, is she growing and getting stronger!  She's proud of the ways her body can now move with balance and strength and is constantly saying "look, mom! watch!"  Today in OT she was going up a little climbing wall and when her OT would say "Go Maryelle!", Maryelle would respond with "I can't hear you!" wanting her to cheer more loudly for her!  What a character! The malformation of the inner ear and vision impairment make balance a challenge, but she's certainly made big gains in this area.

With increased language, we're getting to see/hear a little more into her heart and emotions.  For example, whenever a pic of China comes up on our screensaver or China is mentioned, or even if she thinks about it, she quickly and adamantly says, "no, China, no China.  MY mommy.  Maryelle right here."  It breaks my heart to think of what life was for her.  So much trauma, so much lost.  Yet so much to redeem.

She's now experiencing holidays for the first time and it's SO fun!  [last year was too overwhelming and she was developmentally around 12 months so we skipped a lot.]  She now fully understands birthday parties (or any party for that fact) and runs out the front door to greet people and bring them to me for a hug.  So sweet!  And boy was trick or treating a hit!  She's learning about Fall and Thanksgiving and is totally revved up about CHRISTMAS!!  She keeps asking when we get the Christmas tree.  She'll now look at toy catalogs and point to things that she wants.   She says, "Maryelle play.  or  Mine"  I get the point!ha  We LOVE experiencing all of this with her!

One of Maryelle's favorite things is church.  We count the days til it's time to go again.  She started attending AWANA Cubbies this fall on Wednesday night.  And of course there's Sunday mornings.  She gets so excited about it.  And then there's all of her siblings and their events.  She's definitely their biggest fan!  If she's choosing her clothes, then her top picks are her Middleton or Packer shirt.

I could go on. :)  We get the privilege of watching the layers of loss, hurt, and neglect slowly peel away and her God-given personality come to life.  A therapist recently said to me, "when did she get so funny?" ha!  She is indeed.  In the adoption community there's a common hashtag that adoptees use- #wecouldhavemissedthis   It's true.  Obedience to God's calling has been a gift.  Not without daily challenges of course, but no less a gift.  Have you ever thought about saying yes to adoption?  If not bringing a child into your family, then how about coming alongside families who need financial or physical help with their adoption?  If you need some convincing, I'll post a ridiculous amount of cute pictures at the end of this blog. ;)

...We say yes to adoption because we are expectant.  Though we tremble, we expect God to take our yeses, redeem the broken, and weave a great story. 

The truth is, we might possess a few of the characteristics that the world would deem worthy reasons to say yes to adoption.  But, for the most part, we know ourselves to be timid, weak, ill equipped, messy and wavering.  We waffle in our decision-making and fail in our parenting.  We have every reason to say no.   

But here is the glory part.  When we utter even the weakest yes, we find God to be big.  Bigger than we once thought.  Bigger than our lack.  Bigger than our doubt.  Bigger than the needs before us.  Bigger than we can comprehend.  Bigger.  And He proves Himself good, steady, intentional, on time, able, strong, and sovereign. 

So we take our small, mustard seed size faith, combine it with what we know to be true about God, and say yes.   

We say yes because the call is whispered, or downright shouted, into our hearts.
We say yes because we want a child.
We say yes because we have love to give.
We say yes because we prefer front row seats to God’s miracle work.
We say yes because we walk by faith, even when the future makes us quiver.

We’ll never feel adequate for the call.  The circumstances will never be quite right or the timing ideal.  

But with hands open and palms up, we say yes anyway.  And another crib is emptied and a new chapter written.

So we say yes.  Yes to a lifetime of unqualified yeses.  

Yes to moving forward in our smallness and God’s bigness.

For the entire post, see:  http://www.nohandsbutours.com/2015/03/24/yes/