A New Language

Roman and  his turkey A.K.A. Spiderman

When Roman was diagnosed in utero with congenital heart disease we learned a whole new language and I cannot say necessarily welcomed.  Words like Tetrology of Fallot which by the way is the name of his heart condition, but words like: echo, stenosis, blue tet, pink tet, VSD, pulmonary valve, syonotic, aortic arch, and a long list of other words that relate to his condition.  I also become familiar with other words that relate to other congenital heart diseases as I became friends with other families who had children who had congenital heart disease.  Now that we are adopting we have had to learn a whole new language.  I have to say this language is welcomed because in less than a year we should have a new daughter.  The children are so excited.  They have all ready begun including her in our family prayers and in their individual prayers.  We do not know what she looks like or how old she is, but we know she is meant to be apart of our family. In the upcoming year I will be using words like dossier, homestudy, LID, 1-800, LOA, TA, and Gotcha Day.  Last night we completed our homestudy.  What is a homestudy?  It is a series of meetings with a social worker.  They come to see that your home is safe.  They talk to you about things like attachment or lack of attachment.  They talk to you about how to include your children in on the conversation when people in the supermarket find it fascinating that you have a child adopted from China.  They talk to the children to see what they think about adopting and many more things.  It can be a little scary because your life gets examined under a microscope, but as the agency explained to us it is more an opportunity to exclude you in than out.  They want to make sure you are prepared for this new addition not just financially, but emotionally.  We are excited to have this part of the process completed because that means our 1-800 can be sent in to the government to get approved.  This document states that we are requesting approval for the adoptive child to become our relative once they enter the United States.  You cannot send your documents to China without this approval.  The process seems to be moving pretty smoothly.  The agency knows me well by now as I call just about every other day to make sure I am filling out the forms correctly.  Let's pray it continues to go smoothly.  

Well, we are off for the week!  We are heading south.  My children have off from school this upcoming week and we are going to go to Orlando.  I am so excited because a friend of mine and her family who I haven't seen in 10 years are going to be there at the same time.  Along with another family that we know, so it is going to be a fun week.  I may or may not blog, but I hope you have a fantastic week and a Happy Thanksgiving!