Ahhh....We are HOME!

We pulled into our driveway about 6:45pm last night and were greeted with lots of hugs and kisses from the kids! I was worried Elijah would not want to come to us, but both he and Rachel (20 months old) gave us big hugs and smiles. It was funny, they kept staring at us with a big smile to make sure it was really us in person, not just on the computer through Skype. It was very cute! :-)

Our flights were all uneventful, which is the best kind of course. But, they were long...I kept thinking about how I'm going to bring Jonathan back by myself (Sarah is not coming back with me since the trip will be so short), but the Lord will work it out. We flew from Donetsk to Kiev on Saturday night and stayed in a hotel just a little bit away from the airport. We finally got into bed about 10:30 or 11pm, and set the alarm for 2:30AM. Yikes! Little did we know until the next morning there was a window open in the room behind a curtain, so the room had plenty of mosquitoes in that were buzzing around my head until shortly before we had to get up. Oh well...it felt WONDERFUL to sleep in our own bed last night and to take a shower this morning in water that it doesn't matter if it gets in my mouth or not. :-) I feel like a whole new person today!

Court Saturday morning went very well. "Court" over there consists of sitting in the judge's large office, not in a court room like it would be here. So, there was us, our most wonderful facilitator Vanya, the judge, the prosecutor (who couldn't speak Ukrainian very well Vanya told us later), the city social worker, the orphanage social worker/lawyer, and 2 witnesses. (Since Ukrainian is the national language, court and all official documents are all done in Ukrainian.) Most of it was a formality, and very few but easy questions. It's been a night and day difference with the questioning compared to last time since we now already have a child with Ds. There were no surprises, which was nice and we didn't learn anything new about Jonathan's history. Court was scheduled for 9AM, but I think it was 9:20 before we were asked in. We were out of there by 10:15 I think. We stopped by the birth certificate office on the way back to the hotel to see if we needed a spousal POA (power of attorney from Pat to me) to get Jonathan's birth certificate. Turns out a POA wouldn't work either, so we stopped back by the office at 3pm for Pat to sign some papers. Everything should be all set when we stop back on the 6th to get his new birth certificate.Yay for Vanya! We then called the taxi driver that had given Max his phone number (he has a newer car w/ AC), and he drove us down to Donetsk to catch our plane. It was a good, good day!!!

Thank you again to all who were praying for us! We can't thank you enough. The Lord is Faithful!!!

Isaiah 1:17 - "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow"

ONE LESS ORPHAN!!!

We are thrilled to announce that JONATHAN KIRIL BIRSCHBACH officially became a member of our family today!

We praise the Lord for adding this incredible blessing to our lives. We are thrilled beyond words. GOD IS GOOD!!!

I'll post more details when I get home.

Love to you all! Thanks for praying!!! The Lord has heard and answered our prayers!

Our last day visiting Jonathan...

Yep, I said a tearful good-bye to our little guy that I've grown to love over the past 2 weeks. But, I take comfort that I will soon be holding my other kids and the next time I see him will be for "GOTCHA DAY"!  Yay! 

Lord, please sustain him and keep him safe until I return. Help him to find favor with the nannies and that he once and a while will be held instead of always laying in the wooden playpen. Speak to his heart that we love him and will be back soon. In Jesus name.

A quick review of our schedule - Lord willing:

Sat., June 25th - Court! (on a Sat. due to holidays next week)

Sun., June 26th - HOME about 7pm

Mon., July 4th - Jill leaves to go back to EE

Wed., July 6th - Paperchase and "Gotcha Day" - Jonathan to NEVER return to the orphanage! :-)

Thurs/Fri, July 7th/8th - Embassy paperwork

Sat., July 9th - HOME and together as a family of NINE!

I took lots of photos today. He was sporting 2 new hats too!

A lovely white eyelet hat, trimmed with a soft yellow fabric, complete with a yellow bow and a pink ribbon  flower on top. :-)

"Who needs toys? The camera strap is just fine for me!"

Inside looking out

Afternoon hat!
It was red, white and blue! Max told the nannies yesterday that we'll be going home after court, so thus the "American" hat today. Very sweet. His outfit even matched!!!! :-) (Well, it didn't match the hat, but hey...)

Jonathan did SO well this afternoon. He sat in Pat's lap like this for almost a half an hour looking at the book and chewing on things. I don't think the babies get a chance to chew on things very often. (Well, I did see one little one "chew" on a little girl's arm yesterday. :-( )  He seems like he is getting stronger and is controlling his head much better. Just a little practice sitting up everyday does wonders. Oh, and a little love too.

"See, I told you I don't need toys!"

Court Tomorrow!

Our court is scheduled for tomorrow at 9:30am. Please pray for a positive outcome and that all of the paperwork is in line, we find favor with the judge, and Vanya's travel tonight from the capital city to here. (Maybe he can get a little sleep at least.) Also please pray for our travel home that it would uneventful, we make all of our connections, etc. Oh, and that the pesky flight from O'Hare to Appleton will not be cancelled as it was the last 2 times we've come home from here. :-) Just makes life so much easier.

It's storming again, so I wanted to get this up in case we lose internet again. More cute hat photos of the little guy to come!

Thanks so much for praying! Love to you all!

A Visit from a Good Friend!

Lots of things to catch up on here! Yesterday came and went w/ no phone call from the judge. Vanya said it's not uncommon for them to forget to call. Sigh...he called the social worker today, who in turn spoke to the judge's assistant. We're still on the calendar, so that's GREAT news!!! The social worker, who has been wonderful to work with, has to be at court too, so at this point, no news IS good news. That's not always the case, but today it is. So, we should have court Saturday morning at 9:30AM, 1:30AM back home. Please pray!!! We'll take a bus/taxi to the bigger city in this region, then fly to the capital, and fly home Sunday AM. YAY!!!  Please continue to pray for the kids back home and for my mother's sanity! :-) We are SOOO appreciative of what she is doing for us! We couldn't do it without you! Thank you, Mom!

J's hat yesterday morning. Lovely lace with a pink ribbon on top. :-)
We missed our afternoon visit as it was raining when we got downstairs, so we headed back up. I was surprised how much I missed seeing our cute munchkin. It will be hard being gone for those 10 days! Good to see the other kids of course!

A few days ago, we called our friend Max, to tell him we were in the country. We were shocked when he said he was going to get a bus ticket to come and see us. I never dreamed we would see him on this trip. He got in before 8AM this morning after being on the bus for 11 hours. Whatta guy, huh? We are so incredibly blessed he would take time out of his very busy schedule to come and see us and Jonathan. It was SO nice to see him!  We were able to chat with the nannies a bit through him, as well as ask to come in early to see how and what Jonathan ate. (We were going to have Vanya ask, but it worked out just to have Max do it.) Max left about 1:30 to head back home. It was such a joy to have him here with us, even if it was just for a few hours.

He's gotta learn early how to use the cell phone, right???

Love those baby blues!

So, we went in early at 2pm to see how Jonathan eats.  Well, not so good. :-( The first day, the doc told us that he didn't like to eat, even though he certainly looks like he does.  Leah left a comment that very often tongue thrust is mistaken for lack of interest in eating. I think that is pretty true. That along with the amount he was fed in one spoonful...definitely more came out than stayed in. He needs to learn how to get the food to the back of his mouth to swallow it. He went through 3 bibs. Poor thing...I guess I'll leave it at that for now.

He did have a smile for the nanny feeding him.

You can see the amount of cereal he was being fed. Looks like a lot to me. Max said they are feeding him barely and/or buckwheat cereal and that it tastes disgusting...
It took Jonathan 30 minutes to eat. The other 2 nannies fed all of the other 8 babies in that time. They seem to love him, but I can see where he might soon be one of those babies that are "too much trouble", esp if he was transferred to a different grouppa. :-(
He didn't get a bottle this time, but does get a bottle at different feedings. They had him drink out of a cup, as did most of the babies except two.

From our afternoon visit...he really enjoys chewing on things, especially the tag blanket.

Objections???

This video below speaks for itself. Thanks Ashley for sharing this! You really need to watch this. Dare I say I often hear of these same reasons for not having more biological children too. I'm not saying one is better than the other...if you've been here for a few months, you'll know we are open to both. But, I've pretty much heard it all when it comes to our family size. If anything, maybe this will help others understand why we have made the choices we have for our family. I am a mother. At this point in my life, my main ambition is to raise my children to love and serve the Lord, after I honor and serve my husband.  (I still have a long ways to go before I'm good at either one of those.) But you know what? I'm perfectly okay with that. :-) CHILDREN ARE A BLESSING FROM THE LORD!

We had a very nice visit from Elijah's most favorite godfather today. More on that in the next post, but after talking with him, it just reminded me AGAIN (as if being at orphanage 2x a day wasn't enough), these children NEED families. There is NO HOPE here for them. NONE!!!!!!! Guess that's enough said for this preachy post. I'll get off my soapbox now.



My original title to this post was "Common Objections to Adoption" but I changed it. Sorry if I tricked you into reading this. Hope you'll forgive me! :-)

We're Back!

Well, back on-line that is. As Sarah posted, we lost internet last night. I felt so cut off from the rest of the world! I especially didn't like not being able to Skype with the kids. I don't know how people did this before Skype, laptops and the internet! I guess the whole city's internet was down, but we were thrilled to find it back on after our afternoon visit. Just got my Skype fix for the day. Yay! I miss our kids so much!

Not too much new and exciting yesterday and today. We still haven't heard from the judge if our court hearing will be Saturday or not. 95% sure it will be, but we still need the official word! Plus, we already have plane tickets booked...hope it holds! We are going to take the bus down to the larger city in this region after court and then FLY from there to the capital city, spend the short night in the airport hotel and fly out at 5:35AM for HOME! Lord willing that is...please pray our date holds and our travel from this city to our own home goes very smoothly. Thanks!  Oh ya, and pray we pass court too. Not really concerned about that, but it doesn't hurt pray about it. :-)

Oh, and I forgot to say the other day...Thanks to all the "seasoned moms" out there about the prickly heat photo advice. I laughed when several of you asked me how many kids a mom needs to have to be "seasoned". Wasn't almost 7 enough?  Ha ha - good point. I should have clarified that none of my bio kids kids have ever had a problem with it, so that makes a novice. :-) (We'll see how Elijah does this summer.) It was much better today, so hopefully that's all it is. If it still persists when we get home, we'll ask the doc for sure. He always seems to have polyester shirts on, so I know that doesn't help. 

Ok, onto the reason you are here - pictures! 

Jonathan's first book! He did pretty well with it.

Last night after the storm came through, it was much cooler here. It was nice.  It was fairly chilly in the shade of the orphanage trees where I even got goosebumps, so of course, Jonathan was layered up. New hat too...he looks so different when his hair is covered!

The fun part of the visit is that he fell asleep on my shoulder while I was holding him.  I'm so glad he feels comfortable with me do to that. It will make the trip home a bit easier. But he got pretty heavy while walking with him, so Pat got some snuggle time too.  Love the squished baby face! :-)

"The camera again, Daddy???"

One of the fun things about traveling to a different country is seeing different things in nature.  This bird was chattering outside our window.

This fragrant flowering bush is growing on the orphanage grounds.

No Internet for them today!

Hi Everyone! Sarah here. Mrs. Silva (Noah's mommy) just emailed me and said that my parents called her. They said a storm went though their town, and they don't have internet.

Things are going well here at home, we were (for the most part) happy to be reunited. ;) Rachel and Elijah gave each other the cutest hugs - you can tell they missed each other! Elijah hasn't been feeling well again today, but that's probably mostly because we are in a new place AGAIN. He doesn't have a fever and he's sleeping now, so please pray it wasn't anything, and that he recovers!

Here are some more pictures that were taken since mom left for you to enjoy! :)

A playdate at the Ever's

Was trying to get him to smile and he mimicked me! :)

Isaac's new do!

Yes, a mohawk! And yes mom approves until she gets home! ;)

First corn of the cob! (Assuming they didn't have it in the orphanage!!)

He did a great job!

"Shoes! I'm all done eating!"

Swinging on the horsey swing!
(Rachel just saw this picture and said "Wee!" Then pointed and said "Lala!")

We love to sign!

Sarah here... Some fun from back home - Enjoy these videos of Elijah signing some of the many signs he knows!!!

Food Signs!



Cracker, Eat/Food, Water, Milk, and Juice!




Names Signs!



Auntie Debbie, Jake, Ben, Sarah, Mama, and Dada!




Sleep, Clothes, and Play!






Brush Teeth, Shoes, and Socks!

A good day!

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful dad and to my awesome husband! I'm so incredibly blessed to have both of you in my life. Dad, thanks for giving up your wife for a week so she can come and watch my kids. :-) And thanks for hangin' with the girls the past 2 weeks! And Pat, thanks for being such a great father to our almost 7 children!  But most importantly, thank you for being a man after God's own heart.

It was pretty warm today and not a single cloud in the sky, but we had two wonderful visits with Jonathan today. Over the weekends, I think he has a slightly different schedule as he is always ready to go when we get there. Often during the week, we need to wait for him to finish eating. This morning, he actually stayed awake until the very end when we put him back in the stroller. He almost instantly falls asleep when we walk with him. But before that, we were sitting on a bench with him and got him to giggle again. That seems to be our goal of each visit. During our afternoon visit, he was very alert and playing a lot. We were having so much fun, I forgot to take some good photos. Jonathan loved the Ergo again and spent most of the time looking up at me and copying a couple of sounds I was making. Fun!

This might be my new favorite picture!

Since yesterday I gave you a little tour of our neighborhood, I thought I would give you a little tour of the orphanage grounds today. (Debbie H, if you want these in higher resolution for our boys, just let me know. I think the outside looked a little different when Jeff was here in December. :-))

The front door is on the right.

The walk to the green front door

These overhangs would be much more useful with benches in them I think.

Along the front gate

Some play equipment, but there isn't too much. No swings at all that we could see.

The front gate looking in

A brick wall along the other half of the front

Unlike Elijah's orphanage that was right on the edge of town and surrounded by pine trees, this orphanage is surrounded by apartment buildings. (By the way, I counted about 20 large apt buildings that we walk past next to the road. If I counted all that I could see, it would be at least double that.) In fact, many people cut through the orphanage grounds as a short cut. I thought that was kinda weird, but whatever. Isn't the first weird thing I've seen here. These grounds are about 1/4 to 1/3 the size of Elijah's orphanage grounds (who those of you that have been there :-)).

I think this orphanage was built in the 40's. There is a bulletin board on one of the hallways that has photos throughout the years from 1943 to current. And guess what?!? The tree trunks were whitewashed back in the 40s too! :-)

Ok, I suppose I should make some supper for my man on Father's Day!  Just 10 more visits until court! (And 20 more miles...not that I'm counting or anything.) Have a great rest of the day!