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.

getting to know you, getting to know all about you

We have been learning about Noah, as much as he is learning about us.

J and E are still pretty excited to have him here: Noah's like their toy-of-the-moment. They get upset each time I tell them that Noah's taking a nap; and they have been busy showing him off to almost everyone they know (and sometimes, people they don't know as well: strangers we meet in the lifts, for instance).

E is learning though that a new baby in the house means a little less attention for her, and she isn't enjoying that part so much. But she's still incredibly gentle with him, and she gets a kick out of making him chuckle. J is affectionate, sometimes a little too much! Noah definitely doesn't like it when J pops out in his face calling out his name!

Things we've learnt about Noah:

He's an okay feeder; but we're working on fattening him up! He sleeps quite a bit, and falls asleep by himself with nary a cry, which amazes K and I each time it happens. (Those who knew J when he was a newborn would know that he trained me to have very low expectations when it came to sleep!) So I am enjoying having a baby who can fall asleep on his own.

He coos, and has a really cute laugh: sort of a chuckle.

He likes his baths.

He's a great burp-er.

We're waiting on a few health tests, and are praying that he is fully healthy. We are also praying that he will have no problems attaching to us.

Sunday

I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him.

1 Samuel 1:27

I cannot say how thankful and blessed I am to know that as I am typing this, all my children are home, sound asleep in their beds.

Meeting our little brother for the first time

It was love at first sight, even though I wasn't sure it would be this way. Maybe it'd be a slow road, I had thought. It wasn't. And each time I carry him, feed him or change him, I fall in love just a little bit more.

It's been a little hectic this past day and a half: we brought Noah home, introduced him to two very enthusiastic older siblings, figured out the whole bottle feeding thing, remembered how floppy little babies can be. And then today, we dug out baby toys, introduced him to his grandparents and his church family, and got a new baby mobile for his bed (kor-kor helped put it together!).

It's been hectic, but wonderful too. Because right now, all my kids are in their beds, sound asleep.

introductions, please

Noah is home.

Everyone, meet Noah.


We are all adjusting. But Noah, especially. It must feel like his whole world has shifted.

blessed

We have heard people say, how lucky Noah is to be adopted, how blessed he is that he will be joining our family. It is easy, instinctive almost, to think this way. Because we are the ones who have, and right now, until he arrives on Saturday, he has not.

But this is not the message we've been getting.

In the past couple of days, through different messages from different friends, this is God's common theme for us: Noah is God's gift to us; we are the ones who are blessed.

And the truth is, we are already blessed. Blessed with friends dear to our hearts, here in Singapore and halfway across the world who pray with us, pray over us, and come alongside us to support us in this journey. Blessed with kids who are excited about an addition to our family, who eagerly tell anyone who will listen about their "baby Noah".

And this is before Noah even arrives.

We have much to be thankful for.

So we await with anticipation, the blessing that he will be to us.

four months old today

and four days to go before he gets here!

We're getting ready!

Sunday

When Love Takes You in
- Steven Curtis Chapman

I know you've heard the stories
But they all sound too good to be true
You've heard about a place called home
But there doesn't seem to be one for you
So one more night you cry yourself to sleep
And drift off to a distant dream

When love takes you in and everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When love takes you in

And somewhere while you sleeping
Someone else is dreaming too
Counting down the days until
They hold you close and say I love you
And like the rain that falls into the sea
In a moment what has been lost in what will be

When love takes you in, everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart

And this love will never let you go
There is nothing that could ever
Cause this love to lose its hold

When love takes you in, everything changes
A miracle starts with the beat of a heart
When love takes you home and says you belong here
The loneliness ends and a new life begins
When loves takes you in, it takes you in for good
When love takes you in

we have a date

Noah arrives on a flight from Manila 23 Aug 2008. That's just in two week's time.

We completely sped through the Dependent's Pass application. I drove down on Tuesday to submit the forms, and the in-principal approval letter was in our mailbox on Thursday. And we were originally told that we'd receive the letter in two weeks. Can I say again how great it is to have a civil service that works?

Today I told J that Noah would arrive in two weeks. How many days is that, he asks. I tell him, fourteen. And J says, That's still a lot of days, mom. How about tomorrow instead?

Choosing

Guest writer: The Body Electric

We value choice in almost all areas of our lives. When we lived in southern California, the huge variety of stuff for sale in the supermarkets sometimes confounded me. An entire shelf full of mayonnaise! Sausages? Low fat, nitrate free, organic, meatless and so on. Buy a coffee? An economist could probably make an argument that the price difference between Starbucks coffee and the coffee from a regular coffeeshop here in Singapore reflects the choice available to me at Starbucks: espresso, latte, low-fat, decaf, mocha and so on. Choice, it seems, is a good thing, something worth paying a premium for.

A liberal democracy enshrines the right to choose as an almost inalienable aspect of life. People who do not choose their leaders cannot possibly live in a healthy, vibrant polity. A consumerist society lives by the accumulated choices of its participants. Not only do I have the right to choose what to buy, but I also want to have the right to choose when to buy, and how to buy, and from whom to buy.

On Facebook, I can choose whether or not to accept someone as a friend. Just a few days ago, someone I am certain I have never met sent me a request to become a friend. When I look at this person's age, background and other friends (and we do not have any friends in common), I can only conclude that he's made a mistake and probably thinks I'm some other Keith Tan. But I hesitate to exercise my choice. I hesitate, on the one hand, to invite him into my virtual life on Facebook. On the other hand, I feel reluctant to cut him off completely. Choice has paralyzed me.

Some of the biggest decisions in my life have reflected the exercise of choice. I chose to get married to a beautiful, gentle woman whose heart unfailingly chooses compassion each time. I chose to become a father twice, now three times over. I chose to accept the Love that showers me, every day, with the ability to love back, to bless, to hope, to believe, passionately, sometimes blindly, that things will get better. Sometimes I forget that the choices available to me reflect the almost insensible luxuriousness of my life. Many people do not have the luxury of choosing between chocolate chip and vanilla ice cream. Many people do not have the luxury of choosing to start a life together with a partner they love and someone else they only have the vaguest relationship with.

So this is what I will tell each of my children one day, and in particular, the one whom we chose specially:

Before the beginning of the world, God chose you for me. And God chose me for you.

And when your life began, as a tiny clump of cells or as a tiny clump of ideas, I would lie awake wondering about the choices before me and the choices that you would have one day.

How would I do as a father? What would I read to you? What games would I play? Should I teach you the difference between a Tiger beer and all the other nasty stuff or let you find out yourself?

What if you had problems that I didn't know how to solve? What if you came to me one day with your heart broken by the world and I had no words to say to comfort you? What if you decided you wanted nothing to do with the rest of your family? What if you broke my heart one day?

And time and again, the answer would come back. I chose you. As God chose me with all my messiness, all my failures, all my dismal fears and my whining, whinging nature, I chose you. I chose you knowing that you might one day wrench my heart in two. I chose you knowing that you would change me, that I would never, ever be the same man again once I saw you, once I held you in my arms, once you put your tiny fingers in my hands.

I chose you. And I hope that you will choose to embrace the richness and vividness of life with wholeness, with excitement, with adventure, with compassion. That you will choose people over things, faith over cynicism, love over indifference, giving over grasping.

And that's my great, audacious hope for you.

standing at the edge

Noah comes home in about three weeks' time.

We've been praying and preparing for this for a while now; we only have to apply and wait for his Dependent's Pass and then he'll be here. Home with us.

Even at this point, I in my weakness wonder what I'm getting myself into. How we will all adapt to have a new baby in the house. Getting used to bottle-feeding, which two children on, is still completely new to me. Waking up at night for feedings. Hustling three kids, instead of just two kids now, out of the house in the mornings, and herding three kids back into the house after school. Managing meal-times, bath-times and settling-down-for-nap-times with three!

And then there's how J and E will be toward Noah. They're incredibly excited now, but I wonder if the novelty will quickly wear itself out and if they'll start acting up.

And then there's me. I want to love Noah exactly the same way that I love J and E. But I carried them for nine months inside me. Even before I met them, I felt them within. And I worked hard through labour to be able to hold them and love them. It is all different with Noah, and because it is different, I am not quite sure what lies ahead.

Our pastor spoke from 1 Joshua yesterday at church. After Moses' death, the Israelites stood at the edge of their promised land. They had been here before, only they had been too afraid before, and instead of stepping forward, they held back and so wandered the desert for forty years. As they stand there, the Lord tells Joshua, "Be strong and courageous." To make sure it sank in, He said it three times.

I am standing at the edge now, just before this land that God has led us to. We can't quite see all of the land that lies before us. We're not quite sure of what lies in the hidden valleys. We don't know yet what sort of fruit the land will bear.

But God knows all this. And yesterday, He reminded me, "Be strong and courageous... for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

dance of joy

The passport is ready! The passport is ready!

And ahead of schedule too.

We are expecting Noah in just a few weeks!!

in the papyrus basket

I have been thinking about Moses' story. Moses who led his people out of slavery, who parted the waters, and who could do all that because he was adopted when he was around three months old.

I am thinking about Moses' story because Noah is about the same age now as Moses was when his mother put him in a papyrus basket and pushed him out into the Nile. Her action took faith; she put her "fine child" into God's hands.

And God was there.

This is how we know. With perfect timing, Pharaoh's daughter was there, bathing with her attendants. With clarify of vision, she saw the papyrus basket among the reeds. With compassion in her heart, she heard Moses' small cry and spared his life, in defiance of her father.

Noah is in his own papyrus basket now, wending his way toward us. God has led us to wait expectantly for him, even while we do all we can to smooth out his way toward us. We are praying for his passport to be ready soon. (Meanwhile, we are also trying to get a new passport for E - her present one still has her six-month-old photo - so that we can all visit Noah in Manila in a couple of weeks.)

We carry him in our heart for now, and long for the day (not too long from now!) when we can carry him in our arms.

three months old

Noah turns three months old today, as we move ever closer to bringing him home!

We are done with our Home Study Report, and are now just waiting for it to be mailed out to us. (Godstop: it's been faster than we thought - we were originally told ten weeks, but it took between six and seven weeks.) We are also waiting for Noah's passport to be done, and when that's ready we'll be able to apply for a Dependent's Pass to bring him into Singapore. We think we should have him home by the first week of September!

We had to attend a disclosure workshop a few nights ago; it is one of the requirements of our HSR. The main thing we got out of it: we really want to be able to create some memories for Noah even before he comes home to us. So we are thinking seriously about making a trip in the next few weeks to visit him in the home in Manila. The aim is for us to bring back memories of his time there, so that we have something to show him when he asks us about his life before he came home to us. We want to have a few more answers ready for when he asks. And it'll be a good process of creating memories for J and E too, of how their family came to be.


PS. It boggles my mind to think that when Noah comes home, we'll have three kids under the age of five! Deep breath...

*Edited to add: In the latest three-month-old photos of Noah, he's holding his head up when on his tummy already! A milestone that we've missed...

Sunday

He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, "Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, far more than me - God who sent me."

- Mark 9:36-37 (The Message)

The kids have been asking when their new baby is coming. (J: When's our new baby coming? E: Where my new baby?) I wish we could give them a concrete date: we are still waiting for the paperwork to be done.

baby steps

Thank you to all who covered us in prayer today.

The interview went very smoothly. The assessor was very friendly, and all she really wanted was to have more details to put into her report. Mostly, it was just us elaborating on what we had already written in our application form. The interview took about two hours, but wasn't too difficult really.

What's left on the to-do list:
- we still have a couple of documents to submit (each time we think we are done with the checklist of documents, we find we have to hand in something else!);
- we have to attend a compulsory workshop next month (and figure out what to do about childcare for J and E while we're there);
- we have to schedule a time for the assessor to visit us at home (probably in the next week or two)

We would love your prayers over these too!

first interview

We have our first interview for our home study report tomorrow afternoon. Please keep us in prayer, that we may find favour with the authorities, and that the process will go smoothly.

***

I tore into today's mail because our adoption agency had told me yesterday that a CD was on its way to us. We now have a few more updated photos and three teensy-weensy short video-clips. In one of them, Noah is crying.

I did not know it, but I had forgotten what a new baby's cry sounds like. In my life right now, the cries are angry, loud and fierce. Noah's cry is plaintive, and as he cries, his arms flail helplessly.

How I long to sweep him into my arms, to comfort him, to tell him, "It's going to be ok, little one."

two months today

Our newest baby turns two months old today, and we have no way to give him an extra-special cuddle. We are saving all the cuddles up for when we finally meet him!

We have been asked why we've decided to adopt. In our culture, adoption is viewed with some ambivalence. It is usually a last resort, and is often accompanied by whispers and sidelong glances. We have met with some people, even in church, who do not understand why we would want to adopt. Here's our answer, give or take a few words...

We have felt God leading us to this decision, which we made not rashly but deliberately. This is the gist of it: this baby is God's plan for us, as much as J and E are God's plan for our family.

God is the defender of the fatherless, and he calls us to do the same (Isaiah 1:17). One of our dearest friends gave me much food for thought when she said when we adopt, we get a little peek into our Father's heart, His love for the fatherless, the orphans and the lost.

We are God's adopted children too (Ephesians 1:3-6). There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Because God adopted us, we are now members of his household and we are his children and his heirs. This is what I want to tell him when I finally meet him: Never be ashamed because you are adopted. God adopted us, and it is a beautiful thing.


His name will be Noah, which I think sounds strong and solid. It means peace, rest and comfort. Just as the biblical Noah stood firm, obeying God even when he was laughed at and mocked, we pray that our Noah will also be strong and stand firm, if and when he meets people who do not understand how beautiful adoption is.

G6PD

We learned a few days ago that our baby is G6PD deficient. What this means basically is that he lacks a certain enzyme that helps his red blood cells function normally. He will have to avoid certain medications and foods his whole life, and may react more severely to certain infections.

We are still planning on adopting him.

This deficiency should not stop him from leading a full, healthy life; we just have to be a bit more careful with medications and food. Here's the Godstop: we know three of the youths in our church here, who have this same deficiency, all of whom are avid rugby players and all of whom look hale and hearty to us.

So while we wait for him to come home with us, we pray that God will keep him safe and healthy.

ready to be the big sister

E doesn't have enough words to say all that she wants to say, so she uses what words she does know, and fills in the blanks with "eh-eh". She can manage a whole paragraph this way, but you have to know the context to be able to understand what it is she's saying.

Yesterday she told our dinner guest, completely unsolicited:

New baby... eh-eh... come... eh-eh... home... big zhe-zhe...

She's looking forward to becoming a big sister once our new baby joins us!

We're so proud of her.

She's talking to daddy at work.