not a baby anymore

Noah turned one today.

We've always celebrated this milestone for each of our kids. It's become a bit of a ritual for our family. With all the stresses of having a new baby in the home, I had never managed a first month celebration, so we always waited until their first birthday to have a party with our family and friends. Josh and Emma were both dedicated in church on their first birthdays too. Noah was dedicated today.


We had a little more to consider in planning for this party. I had to think about whether I would able to manage everything just a few days after having the amniocentesis. I didn't know if the results would be out earlier than expected. If they did, would I be a complete wreak?

In the end, we decided to go ahead. Mostly because I felt that we had to be fair to Noah, to honour him, even with what was going on with his younger sibling.


Because life marches on.

his parents

We had Noah's birth certificate done today. With our names down as his parents.

=)

We took this for granted with the older two, but we are savoring it this time round.

Because of the paperwork needed for the birth certificate, we had to sort through a whole bunch of papers that we have for Noah. We knew we had this, but we paused again when we saw his birth mother's signature giving up her rights to him.

We had to pause because today my name took the place of her name on Noah's new birth certificate.

It made me wonder (again!) about the questions that Noah will have when he is older - who his birth mother was, and why she gave him up. Such tough questions that we don't have answers to, as much as I want to be able to help him understand.

I think of all that I want him to know even before these questions arise in his mind: that we love him, he is as much our child as his older siblings, that God is good, God's plans are perfect. Perhaps above all, this: our adoption of him was so directed by God.

happy dance

Our lawyers called yesterday. Our adoption order has been pre-approved. Ahead of our court date this Friday.

So even though we still have to wait a bit, for our lawyers to get the paperwork and to make a date to get Noah's birth certificate, WE ARE DONE.

=)

heartbeat

Noah's court hearing is in a week's time - 9 Jan. If all goes well, he will be legally ours then and we can apply for a birth certificate for him, with our names on it as his parents. We have been told that everything should go smoothly; our lawyers aren't anticipating problems. Still, I think I'll still heave a sigh of relief when it is all done.

Even though he already feels like part of our family. He seems to have attached to us well.

Sometimes when I carry him, he'll rest his head on me. I imagine he can hear my heartbeat. And I wonder if he can tell that it's a different heartbeat, different from one that he listened to for nine months.

sitting on a rocking chair

Noah is 8 months old today. He has been home with us for almost 4 months. We are waiting for the court proceedings to be done, so that he is legally ours. He feels like ours already.

We have hardly thought about it: it was just a matter of letting our lawyers work out the process.

Then yesterday the ground start to shake again.

We came across information in the newspapers that could potentially hold things up. In the worst case scenario, I thought it could hamper, even bring to a grinding halt, our legal adoption.

In the couple of hours we had to wait before we could get a hold of our lawyers, I worried, fretted, and threw the equivalent of a four-year-old's tantrum in my conversation with God. (I see a four-year-old's tantrum with more regularity than I would like, so I have a pretty good idea of what it looks like.)

Why did we come so far, if it was not going to work out? Why now, when we were so close to being done with everything? Why now, after we've had so much time with him? And if it didn't work out, how was I supposed to explain everything to the two older kids??

Those couple of hours were plenty of time for me to get scared. To feel fearful. To feel how shaky the ground was.

K finally managed to speak to our lawyers, and we were basically told that our legal adoption should not be held up at all. We continue to pray that this will not change.

When K called me to report what the lawyer had told him, I was in the middle of doing my bible study homework. After we hung up, I went back to it. This was what I went back to...

Sing, O Daughter of Zion;
shout aloud, O Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
O Daughter of Jerusalem!
The LORD has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
On that day they will say to Jerusalem,
"Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:14-17

The last verse has always been one of my favourites. But today, God showed me something else, something more. That last verse follows God's assurance that he is keeping me, us, safe: "Do not fear, do not let your hands go limp".

This is what Beth Moore writes: These verses beautifully illustrate that blessed moment in which God's throne becomes a rocking chair and He pulls His fretting, fearful child into His arms and says, "It's ok, I'm right here."

How those words leapt off the page.

How many times have I done this with my children: pull them to me, cuddle them, comfort them, so that in my embrace they go limp with relief.

God didn't tell us how it was all going to work out for us, for Noah, if we would have any trouble with the legal process. We still don't know; we are waiting it out.

But He did pull me into His rocking chair and quiet me with His love.

I am limp with relief.

fear

If you make the Most High your dwelling--
even the LORD, who is my refuge--
then no harm will befall you,

no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.

Psalm 91:9-16

Two Saturdays ago, K pointed something out to me that I had not thought about before. Noah's CMV makes it a little tricky if I should get pregnant again. The worst time to get CMV really is when you're pregnant, because you'd pass it on to the foetus, and the virus could affect its physical development. Because we're pretty sure Noah caught the virus in utero, we were, just weeks ago, quite worried about how his development would be affected.

My hands are full right now with the three kids, and we are not planning to get pregnant. But that conversation with K, when we talked about not getting pregnant anymore made me sad. Just because we felt we had to close that option off.

The next day, something in me rallied. I thought, living in fear is no way to live. And the sermon we listened to that Sunday was on Psalm 91. What I heard: Do not fear.

We were fearful of how the virus would affect us. But God reminded us that He has our back. He always had it. He brought Noah into our lives. And this may be it for us - three kids is plenty! But if He does give us more, fully healthy or not, it will be His plan for us, for our family.

tapestry

In our adoption journey, one of the turning points for us was when we heard a speaker at our church in Claremont pray during a worship/prayer time one evening. At that time, we had only just started toying with the idea of adopting our third child, but we had nothing concrete, only talk.

That evening, Jennifer Kennedy Dean said a prayer that resonated with K and I, separately. She couldn't have known that we at that point wanting to grow our family. She couldn't have known that we had mentioned adoption in passing. But her prayer, and the words that she said... For K and I, it opened our eyes to the fact that God had planned for us to have this child, even if he grew inside of someone else.

Those words resonated with each of us so deeply. Those words were the words God wanted us to hear.

A short while after that, we decided that we would adopt.

Fast forward to this week.

We received a present in the mail a few days ago to celebrate Noah joining our family. (Thank you, Debbie!) It was a book by Jennifer Kennedy Dean called Legacy of Prayer: A Spiritual Trust Fund for the Generations. It's an easy read, filled with lots of great ideas about praying for our children.

But this is what stood out for me. This is what was new for me.

In the book, Jennifer shares that thirty years ago, when she was 19, single and in college, she found out she was pregnant. She writes, I knew instantly what God was telling me to do, and never once have I second-guessed it. He wanted to me to place the child for adoption.

After she hands her baby over to his adoptive parents, she calls him, Child of my womb, child of their hearts. The answer to their prayers lay in their arms, and strangely, also the answer to my mother's prayers for me. My wounds tell a resurrection story.

All those years ago, Jennifer made what was probably one of the hardest decisions in her life. I can only imagine how heartwrenching it must be to give up a child for adoption. I can only imagine how much Noah's biological mother loved him, that she would do what she thought was best for his life.

I am convinced that Jennifer's experience gave her the words for K and I to hear that night in Claremont. What we would think of as a mistake gave Jennifer the experience to have the words to say that would change my family.

God takes all our mistakes, our bad choices, our poor decisions and weaves it into a beautiful tapestry. We cannot see it all, and this side of heaven, we may never see it all. But at the end of the day, his tapestry is beautiful. Always.

all clear

Noah cleared the last of his medical tests today. We are in the clear!

He did great, even though he did have a catheter inserted at one point.

We are thanking God!

building

Every once in while, J will ask if Noah will go back to the Philippines. On one or two occasions, he's asked when Noah will go back.

We pounce, of course. Never, we say. Noah is part of our family now. He's your little brother. God made us a family. God brought him to us. (To which J once replied, "No! He came on an aeroplane!")

J doesn't ask angrily. It isn't that he wants Noah to leave. But the way Noah joined our family was different. Different from E. Different from other families.

So we keep explaining, that the difference makes no difference to us.

We've had a couple of friends ask us how we managed to adopt a child that bears a resemblance to me, and to his two older siblings. I don't know. But it's nice; maybe this will make it just a little easier for Noah.

my boys

pass

Noah cleared both his hearing and eye tests this week. He's okay for now.

Statistically he has a 5-15% chance of developing disabilities later on. So we need to be watchful, just to be able to catch any hearing or vision loss as soon as we can. We continue to cover him in prayer, that he will not develop any symptoms.

He turns five months old tomorrow!

Sunday

Hold on to Jesus

Steven Curtis Chapman

I have come to this ocean
And the waves of fear are starting to grow
The doubts and questions are rising with the tide
So I'm clinging to the one sure thing I know

I will hold on to the hand of my Savior
And I will hold on with all my might
I will hold loosely to things that are fleeting
And hold on to Jesus
I will hold on to Jesus for life

I've tried to hold many treasures
They just keep slipping through my fingers like sand
But there's one treasure that means more than breath itself
So I'm clinging to it with everything I am

Like a child holding on to a promise
I will cling to His word and believe
As I press on to take hold of that
for which Christ Jesus took hold of me

Hold on for life

You can hear it here.

We have Noah's hearing test on Tuesday and his eyesight test on Wednesday. Whether he clears those tests or not, we are holding on to Jesus. Whether he clears the tests or not, we will rejoice that God is with us, with him. And whether he clear the tests or not, we are thankful for all our children.

The best shot I have of all three.
It is impossible, getting all of them to look at the camera at the same time!

curveball

Yesterday, the path we are on took a turn that we did not foresee. I am still trying to catch my breath.

Noah's test results came back from the doctor. He has been diagnosed with cytomegalovirus (CMV), probably contracted in utero.

Best case scenario - he presents no symptoms. Right now, we are here. But in the worst case scenario, he may eventually suffer hearing loss, visual loss or developmental disabilities.

His pediatrician has ordered up a bunch of tests for his hearing and vision, and a brain scan to make sure there are no cysts. We managed to get him scheduled for a CT scan today, and praise God, there are no abnormalities.

I still feel like I am standing on shaky ground. Even if he does not present any symptoms now, there is always a chance that the hearing or visual loss, or developmental disabilities could come later.

I am trying to be open to what God is saying to me or asking of me. Here's what I have so far. I am to love Noah, fearlessly and furiously. We are to fight for him: he has no one else who will. I am to hold on to God, to touch the cloak of Jesus each day, each moment when I feel the ground beneath my feet shaking.

I always have the iPod plugged in whenever I'm driving. Sometimes, I've noticed, a song will catch my attention, make me stop and strain to hear all the lyrics, even if it is a song I've heard before. That's when I start to press the buttons on the dial furiously, because I need to figure out the name of the song. A few days ago, before we received Noah's test results back, it was this:

Safe and Sound - MercyMe

No more boarding up my windows
So that I can lay low
Nobody's home
No more trying to run away from
Tired of being afraid of
What I can't control
The hardest part I'm always told
Is letting go

Safe and sound
Knowing that You're big enough to
Wrap around my heart completely
Safe and sound
Just knowing that You know me

I can finally set my heart free
Lost within the mystery
Of this Love I've found
There is nothing that can pull me
From the hand that holds me
I'm safe and sound

The hardest part I'm always told
Is letting go

The greatest part I now know
Is letting go

At the time, it was just a song with a beautiful melody. In the wake of yesterday, it is so so much more. It is God's reminder that we are safe and sound; that Noah is safe and sound, no matter what lies ahead. Because He is big enough to wrap around our hearts completely.

This has been the hardest post for me to write so far. We would love it if you would keep us in prayer, specifically that God may keep Noah's vision, hearing and brain untouched by the virus.

recognition

Each and every time he wakes up and sees me, he gives me a smile that melts my heart.

Do you think he recognises me already?

Because I like to think that he does.

It is the little things that I have taken for granted. It was the most natural thing for J and E to know me, to want me, to attach to me. I didn't even have to think about it.

But it's something that Noah will have to learn.

In his experience, he's had to fend for himself, soothe himself. Now he'll have to learn that he can rely on us. That we are here to soothe him. That we will be here each time he wakes up and opens his eyes. That we will always be his mom and dad.