Closure...

It's time for this blog to have some closure. It was made to chronicle our journey of Bringing Kellsey Home... and that journey is now complete. She is home, with her family. Where she should be. Exactly one year ago today I wrote this post on our family blog announcing our decision to adopt. It was not a decision made lightly or hastily. Many of you have asked throughout our journey how we came to the decision to adopt or how we came to choose Kellsey specifically, so I thought today would be a good time to share our story.

We actually first noticed Kellsey (then called Victoria) when she was listed on Reece's Rainbow as a baby.

At the time a couple friends of ours were adopting through Reece's Rainbow. They already had a child of their own with Down syndrome and we thought, "WOW!" So in browsing the site, we found this beautiful little baby and I thought, "Ohhh she is SO cute!" And Victoria instantly became my favorite. I watched closely to see if her "forever family" would find her. We began to pray for her daily.

Over time we watched more and more of our friends commit to adopt one or more kids with Down syndrome from other countries. We followed them closely. We prayed for them. We helped them financially when we could. We learned more about what happened to these beautiful children when they turned 5. We learned that they would be transferred to an institution on their 5th birthday where they would die within a year. And our hearts broke.

Then we received an updated picture of Victoria...


I sent the picture to Frank, who was in Afghanistan at the time, and he immediately said, "She needs to be part of our family." I immediately replied with, "You're CRAZY!" HA! We had 4 kids, one who not only has Down syndrome but has been through a lot medically. Fear overwhelmed me. What if Kennedy's leukemia returned? What if we brought Victoria home and she got Leukemia? And Frank said, "God's taken care of us so far, don't you think He'd take care of us still?" And so we committed to PRAY. We weighed pros and cons. We talked to close friends and family who were both for and against the idea. We asked them all to pray as well. I prayed that God would ease my fears and make His will clear... and I followed the journeys of our friends who were bringing their new children home very closely.

A few months later, I started promoting Reece's Rainbow and their plight on our family blog, bringing awareness, and getting our family and friends comfortable with the thought of adoption. I posted about other family's homecomings. All the while we were talking closely with Andrea Roberts and learning more about Victoria and what it would take to bring Victoria home. We prayed hard. We shed tears as we tried to seek out God's will for our lives and for Victoria's life.

Finally we talked to Kassidy and Kameron. We had already decided that if they were not 100% on board with this decision that we would NOT adopt. They are part of our family and have been through so much already. If they had reservations or fears about bringing another sibling into their lives, then that would be that. We talked to them about Reece's Rainbow and showed them the Angel tree. We told them that RR tries to find families for these kids who have no families. And then we showed them Victoria's picture. They thought she was so sweet and looked a lot like Kennedy. We asked what they would think about bringing Victoria to live here with us and explained that she has Down syndrome, like Kennedy does, and would need some extra help and therapy and time. Kassidy said that Down syndrome is what makes Kennedy so special and Kameron asked if we could get a boy too! HA! They were both instantly on board and very excited!

I was still dragging my feet however. Here was God, tugging at my heart, my husband and kids were on board, but my mind was working overtime on the "what ifs". Finally, God clearly spoke to me that I HAD to trust HIM, and on Thanksgiving night we took the leap of faith and committed to bring Victoria into our family. And Andrea said, "FINALLY!" HA! We still kept it under wraps for a little while until we were able to tell our family either in person or over the phone and then, one year ago today we went public and this blog was born.

Throughout the process I had moments of complete peace and moments of complete panic about our adoption... about adding another child to our family... about adding another child with special needs to our family. I would worry, God would calm me, and eventually my human side would take over and I would worry again! LOL Mostly though I felt extreme peace that we were absolutely doing what God had called us to do and that Kellsey belonged HOME with us.


And now, here she is... She has a daddy and mommy who love her and two brothers and sisters to run around with and cause trouble! haha Having only been home for two weeks, we are still learning about her, and she is still learning about us. It hasn't been perfect, but it's been amazing and way easier than I thought it was going to be. I know there will be hard days, but nothing worth it is ever easy. We are SO thankful that God called us to bring her home. We look forward to seeing her thrive surrounded by love and chaos and lots and lots of toys. We look forward to teaching her about the love of the Lord and how He brought her home to us. Such a perfect gift, the completion to our family, just in time for Christmas.

Thank you to everyone who has walked our adoption journey with us... the ups and downs, the frustrations and joys and tears and waiting, waiting, waiting. We hope that you will all stick around and continue to follow Life With My Special Ks.

Q&A #13

Most of the questions people have asked have been answered in subsequent posts. I apologize if I missed anything. Here are a few that I don't think have been answered.

Are there any spots on her hands? If so, it could be impetigo, which I would predict very common in her living conditions.
Nope, nothing on her hands, only her face, as far as we can tell... we still haven't seen her belly or back or anything. Thankfully the cream (whatever it was) has cleared up her face A LOT! :)

Why does this have to take so long?! Has to be frustrating! Frank can take this much time off?
Fortunately, he had a lot of leave stored up, he may go a few days in the hole, but with his deployment coming up next year, he'll make that back up and his command is fine with that :).

That's awesome! Hey, why haven't you been allowed to see her in a week?
It was because of the quarantine due to the H1N1 virus there... it was finally lifted yesterday :).

She's so stinkin' smart! She must have been in a wonderful baby home! I love all the developmental toys they have for the kids. It warms my heart how well she was taken care of.
Actually all those toys are things Frank brought to her. He brings them with him every time he goes to visit and then takes them when he leaves. When he takes Kellsey out for GOOD, he will donate them to her baby home.

Whistle while you play!

I didn't get to visit Kellsey yesterday for Thanksgiving but I had a good day enjoying the day with with another family that adopting here in Kiev and we had a real Thanksgiving dinner at the Radisson Hotel in the city. The dinner was a fundraiser that raised money to buy incubators for premature babies in poor rural areas in Ukraine. It's a great cause and we got to enjoy a wonderful turkey dinner. Anyway today I got to visit Kellsey along with Andy and Ellen Stumbo who were visiting their daughter Nina. We were all in the same room and the girls had a good time playing with different toys, coloring and playing with play-do. While Kellsey was playing with some stacking blocks I started whistling to her and she just stared at my lips like how are you doing that? She was totally amused by it so I kept doing it. I had to take a video of her attempting to whistle and it turned out really cute. I feel like Kellsey is totally comfortable with me and that she looks forward to seeing me now more and more every day. I'm excited to almost be done and I can't wait to take her out of there and bring her home!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A good visit.

I had a good visit with Kellsey today she was in a very spunky mood and full of energy which is always fun because you never know what's she gonna do next! I took some video of her and you can really see her personality really come out in it. She has her own mind and her own way of doing things and she loves organized chaos just like the rest of the Special Ks! Ha! She also has no problem expressing disapproval if she doesn't like something as you'll see in the video. I love seeing how her mind works and I'm so excited because I know she's going to fit in so well with the rest of the kids. I don't think I'll get to see her tomorrow but I'm shooting for friday, for now we just wait for Kellseys tax code to come so we can continue the rest of the paperwork process. Oh one last thing I apologize if the video is a little shaky it's hard to video tape and play with Kellsey all at the same time. :)

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Kellsey's Birth Certificate!!

Today we obtained Kellsey's new birth certificate! It only took one hour isn't that crazy? Oleg our facilitator was kind enough to inform me that he will be going today to the city in which we attended court to file for Kellseys tax code which is necessary to obtain her Visa. I'm hoping the processing won't take longer than 5 days but we'll see. Tomorrow I'm hoping they will allow me to visit Kellsey since I haven't seen her in about a week. In the mean time I've been keeping busy exploring the city and taking lots of pictures of the different historical sites in the city. I think I'm doing pretty well so far. I'll post pictures later on.

Winners of the Restaurant Gift Cards!

So, I am doing major catch up blogging lately! I have SO much to catch up on... this video was obviously done the night before we left for Ukraine... so ignore the whole "we're leaving on a plane tomorrow" comment! LOL I'm just a slacker! haha

Congrats to the two winners... and one of you I've talked to A LOT lately so don't be mad at me for not telling you that you won! haha I wanted it to be a surprise! LOL If both you will email me and let me know which restaurant you want your gift card to and give me your mailing address, my friends Tina and Brian will get your gift cards out soon!

Thanks again to Tina and Brian for hosting this giveaway and to everyone who donated!!!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Adoption Update

The waiting game... it's so fun, isn't it?! As of today, our 10 day wait is officially over! YAY!!! SO, what now? Frank is now on a paper chase! He will be getting Kellsey's birth certificate, passport & visa and they are also waiting on a tax code which prayerfully will come in QUICKLY as they can't leave the country without it. They need to go to the bank and draw out Kellsey's money which he will then donate to her baby home. We don't know how long these things will take... it just depends on how fast the U.S. Embassy gets it done... and well, it's a government office... enough said.

After he does all THAT he can go get Kellsey from the orphanage and walk her out those doors FOREVER! :) He will have to take her to get a medical clearance to be able to leave the country. When he has all the paperwork in hand and she is medically cleared, then we can arrange for them to fly home!! We're hoping 10 days from now? Maybe?

Just be in prayer that everything continues to go as smoothly as it has been!!! We can't WAIT to get them home!!!

PS. Frank's internet is down in the apartment. They're working on fixing it. Hopefully he'll be back SOON with more pics and stuff! :)

Colors, Colors.

I wasn't able to visit Kellsey on Saturday like I had hoped but I did get go see here Monday morning and we had a blast. Yesterday I decided that I would get something new for Kellsey to play with, I found a coloring book, crayons, stacking blocks and a little baby for her to hold.

When I got to the orphanage, she was dressed really cute and she was curious about what I had in the bright pink bag that I got from the toy store. I decided that I would show her one toy at a time, so first I gave her the baby. She looked at it and then made the motion like, "um... yeah that's not mine, here take it back!" I attempted to give it back to her but she just wasn't interested (bummer).

I then pulled out the coloring book and crayons. Kellsey's little face lit up and she knew exactly what she wanted to do with the crayons and she went to town coloring! Like any other little toddler, she wanted to scribble through every page possible as fast as possible, (he he) she had a blast!

Next she played with the blocks for quite awhile and she really seemed to enjoy it. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of that, just video, so I'll get that video up as soon as I can. For now I will post the pictures of her coloring. Oh and one more thing, Kellsey's little face is looking a lot better! I had picked up some medicine the orphanage director had suggested and it seems to be doing the trick. It's not completely cleared up, but it's looking much much better as you can see in the pictures.

Thank you all for your prayers and suggestions we really do appreciate you guys reading and following us in this journey. So far it has been a great learning experience for us and a blessing beyond words.

So Cute!!

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Just Smile! :)

Am I cool or what?

Visiting Kellsey...

Yesterday was the first time I got to go visit Kellsey since Renee left. It was a very rainy drab day and I was anxious to go see her again. The driver was running late because the traffic was pretty bad once he picked me up getting to Vorzel just seemed to take forever. Once we got there orphanage I went inside and I was greeted by the workers and told to wait for Kellsey to be brought to me. Once the brought her she was so funny because she walked in the room and immediately walked over to me and sat next to me it was so cute but she had a look on her face like Ok? what do you have for me today to entertain me. Ha ha She's so stinkin cute! We played for a while and she layed on my lap and let me hold her and hug her, it didn't take long for me to tickle her and it all became a game for her. I had her cracking up the loudest I've heard her laugh yet so we had a great time. Unfortunately our time was cut short because of the medical inspections they are having at the orphanages so needless to say I was disappointed. Before I left Kellsey did something cute and I figure she must have been starving because she had no hesitation to give me a hug and just wave goodbye!!

Things are pretty drab and boring without Renee here but I guess its part of the process of being the parent being left behind to finish out the rest of the process. I thank God that our court date was so quick and she was able to go home so quickly to be home with the kids. we are very blessed and I can't wait to be home with the whole family together for Christmas! For now I just hang out in the apartment and hope time goes by fast. I will be doing some more sight seeing sometime next week I'm sure but for now I just wait until I can go see Kellsey again which I'm hoping will be on saturday.

Heres a few pictures I took of her her poor little face is broken out but I did buy her some medicine will hopefully clear it up...

Clean with a wipe I just don't see the obsession with this! lol

Oh Hey! I've never seen a camera in my face before! Ha Ha

Cheese!!

Q&A #12

Do you have to come home for the 10 days? (obviously you have kids back at home that need you too) Could you stay for the 10 days? Those flights must be expensive, not to mention exhausting.
Originally Frank was going to come home for the 10 days because he didn't have enough leave to stay. Now that we have a sooner court date, he will be staying, which will be much easier on everyone! :)

She is one of you already, i love the pictures. Are you calling her Kellsey or her Ukrainian name?
Right now we're going back and forth... the only way we can get her attention is to call her "Vika". We'll transition completely soon, I'm sure she'll catch on! :)

Yay! So since you didn't think court was going to be like til the 20th or something, you would have had to be in country all that time? Yikes! So yeah, you are saving lots of money then!! But after all is said and done, it still won't be til early Dec that he comes home? Ahh. Hurry hurry peeps! LOL. You will have a very merry xmas, that is for sure! How fun! Can I come? LOL
Yes, we would have, and we were praying HARD for a faster court date! Right, because Frank will need to finish the process AFTER the 10 day wait, so it still will be the very beginning of December, most likely, when they come home. We WILL have a very Merry Christmas!! You can absolutely come! Bring the kids, Nika and Kellsey will have a blast together! LOL

Renee, Since she is officially yours when does Frank get to take her to the apartment?
After the 10 day wait and after he gets a bunch of the paperwork done... whenever Nadia and Oleg tell him to basically. She's not going to want to sit around in government offices forever with him! SOON though!

so did you have the bday party???
NO! I'm hoping THEY did, but they wouldn't let us do it while we were there. We brought pastries and juice boxes like they told us to and then they said it would ruin their lunch... SO hopefully they sang to her and gave the kids the treats after lunch!

Where was court, Kyiv or Irpen?
You were right, it was in Irpen... the courthouse was so tiny! LOL I was so confused when we got there, I asked, "Is this REALLY court?!" haha