Glutton

It's been a while since I blogged. As usual, life got in the way and there just really wasn't time to write. Since my last post we have had another lengthy hospital stay with Ryan, he had his first post placement report finished and sent off to Bulgaria to show the progress he's making in a family, and he's gained a little over two pounds! That is the really, really short version of what's been going down the last couple of months.

I wanted to write about something else though. I was at the store today, which was a serious chore since I have the stomach flu but we were out of sprite and that's the only thing I even want to go near so off to the store I went. Anyway...so I was at the store today and I got my sprite and I was talking to the cashier about how I hope I don't share my flu germs with Ryan and ended up talking about his adoption...which I'm sure I do too much of with everyone I meet...and she says "adopting TWO kids with special needs...you must be a glutton for punishment". 

I have heard that exact phrase more times than I can count. A glutton for punishment. Someone who goes out of their way to make their life miserable. I don't know if people don't truly understand the meaning of what they're saying...or if they truly think that I should be miserable because I chose to parent these kids. Either way, it's hurtful...not to me, I'm a big girl...I made my choices and I know not everyone will agree with them but it's hurtful to my kids. To say they don't deserve parents, or a family? To say their very existence causes misery to the people who are raising them? That's horrible.

Did I choose a life that is harder than it HAD to be? You betcha. If I never adopted my kids I would be able to do SO much more with, and without my biological kids. We could afford more trips, I could easily find babysitters and go on weekend getaways with my husband. I would never have to change a diaper again. I wouldn't have to learn sign language. I wouldn't have to be on the phone fighting insurance half the day. I wouldn't have to craft til my fingers bled the other half of the day to pay for medical supplies and bills. My credit score would be a lot higher without all those medical debts, too. I could have a nicer car...I could afford a nicer house...materialistically I am absolutely a GLUTTON for punishment because I chose to parent kids from across the ocean with severe medical needs.

But material things fade. Every single shiny new toy will find it's way to a landfill sooner or later and what will we have to show for all the stuff we chose to collect? Instead of having stuff, I get to watch tiny broken humans become whole again. Everyday they grow, and learn, and trust a little more. Their eyes are bright with the hope of a future. I get to watch a little girl who was never supposed to walk climb up and down stairs. I get to watch a little seven year old boy learn how to shake a rattle and giggle because for the first time in his life he is allowed to play and be a kid. Their entire existence is no longer wrapped up in figuring out how to stay alive one more day, they're free now. There is not an ounce of punishment in watching their stories unfold. Not one ounce. I feel nothing but gratitude for having been put on a path that led me to them. The real tragedy would be if I was a glutton for materialism, or comfortability...because if I put either of those things on a pedestal, I wouldn't have my kids. 

We only get one life on this planet...and it's fleeting in the grand scheme of things. Maybe mine is a little harder, a little more stressful...but it's also so much richer for having chosen the road less traveled by. 

Catching Up

Sorry for the gap between posts! Life has been pretty crazy around here! As it turns out, adjusting to having 4 kids is a lot harder than I thought it would be! Everyone says "once you have three, you might as well have six...it's all the same after three!" and they were wrong. Ha! We are trucking along though!

Ryan has quite the following on Facebook, and I'm so sorry to those of you who joined recently who might not know who the heck we are or who Ryan is or what the deal is with this tiny pocket sized dude. I'll try to introduce our family really quickly! 

My name is Priscilla (everyone calls me Cilla) and my husband is David. We've been married for 10 years, and we have 4 kids. Two biological, two adopted. 

McKenzie was adopted from Russia in 2012, she will be 7 next month. She has Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect. She had a full repair in 2013 but will need pulmonary valve replacements every 5-10 years for the rest of her life. 

Our bio boys are Dylan and Jack. Dylan will be 13 next month (he shares a birthday with Kenzi) and Jack just turned 6. 

Ryan is our latest addition. He came home in November 2015 and is 7 years old. He will be 8 in June and he has a host of special needs including: cerebral palsy, failure to thrive, global delay, institutional dwarfism, microcephaly and the list goes on. He weighs in at around 12 pounds, and is 27 1/2 inches long. 

So there you have it! That's our crazy blended family! The most common question we get is why we chose to adopt kids with significant medical needs. The answer is pretty simple for us...we just decided that if we were going to adopt we were going to choose kids who are often overlooked. Older kids, kids with special needs, etc. We wanted to give a family to someone who might otherwise never have one. That's it! :)

Now, to catch you all up on your favorite tiny dude! He is starting to sleep a little bit better at night. He still wakes up a couple times, and he still HATES bed time/being put down in general. I think I've spoiled him rotten...and I'm ok with that haha! Tomorrow he is going to Nashville for three doctor's appointments. The first is with his surgeon to see if his g-tube placement is healing properly. If he gets cleared from surgery, I'll be able to set up his therapy appointments. He will need physical, occupational, and speech/feeding therapy. He has an appointment with GI where we will once again try to figure out a game plan for his vomiting issues. Then he will have an appointment with his complex care physician to see where he's at, how he's progressing, what the next steps for his care will be. We'll also need to make him an appointment with the STEP clinic for CP. Lots, and lots of work to do to get him to where he needs to be, to try and overcome the damage that was done to him in the orphanage.

While I love adoption, and would love to adopt all the orphans...that just isn't realistic for our family. We are getting older (well my husband is...I will never admit to aging!), we have a lot of kids, and Ryan is very expensive with all his medical needs. We will most likely not be in a position to adopt again, but we still want to help other kids find forever families. I would really, really appreciate it if you guys who are reading this could help me out with this! 

I have an etsy store that you can find HERE and during the month of February I'll be donating my profit to Mallory. 

The only way I'm going to be able to raise money for her is to have lots of people spread the word. I sell mostly hair accessories, and I know that I have a pretty limited target market and not everyone is going to be able to buy something, but if you guys could share the link, I would be so grateful. I'm going to make a post about Mallory with the etsy shop link in Ryan's group on Facebook, all you need to do is hit share! You never know who's sitting at home watching Seinfeld rerun's thinking "wow I really wish I could buy a hair bow right now..." haha! Not everyone can adopt, or donate, or whatever...but we all can do a little something to help these babies come home!

Thank you for stopping by and for loving this tiny dude. Another update that I forgot to mention...his Certificate of Citizenship came last week! He is officially an American! Whoops! To celebrate, I will share with the the picture that is on his certificate, because it is beyond hilarious. Enjoy!

What it's like

I've been asked a million times "what is it actually like to adopt?" And I take that question to mean how does it feel after the paper chasing is over and life with a new person begins. I'm guessing my answer will be different than a lot of others, because I essentially adopted babies. My kids were almost 4 and 7 1/2 when they came home but size wise and cognitively they were babies. It's really hard to get frustrated with a baby, at least it is for me. I'm positive that if I adopted a seven year old who acted like a seven year old and looked like a seven year old but had all this orphan stuff going on I would lose it. So, don't compare my story to anyone else's because they are all so different. I bond quickly to my adopted babies, that's actually the exception not the rule, so take that with a grain of salt too. Even though all that gushy mommy love is right there on the surface, that doesn't mean it's easy, and it doesn't mean it's natural. I don't know how else to describe it but being different than the affection you have for a biological child. I have no hormones racing through my body telling me to nurse this tiny new baby that I made, there are no instinctual biological ties that promote bonding. It takes work on both of our parts and sometimes the affection that is present isn't mutual, it's a delicate dance and it just takes time I guess. 

So back to the original point since I'm really good at chasing rabbits and losing my focus...what is it like to fly around the world and adopt a child....

It's devastating. It wrecks your mind, it challenges your faith, it breaks your heart while filling it up at the same time. Your soul aches, your mind questions everything and anything you've ever known to be real and true. You drown in guilt. You're so tired, but so happy, but so sad too. Nothing in your world seems right, and you stay awake wondering when the other shoe is going to drop when you have a day where things seem to be going fine. You gain 10 pounds if you're a stress eater, you lose 10 pounds if worry makes you lose your appetite. Nothing in your world is ok. You're a freaking mess. A mess with a smile that shines bright while you gush over your new tiny person and declare your undying love for them and every single word of that is true too. They aren't the mess, you're the mess. Because you're the mom and you have ruined EVERYTHING. 

Sounds spectacular right? I'll wait here while you rush out and start a homestudy because I'm sure you just can't wait to adopt a kid now! It's not as awful as it sounds, I'll break it down a bit. Yes, it is devastating. There is no way that flying to a foreign country and snagging a kid and bringing them back to your home could ever not devastate your family. It changes everything. That doesn't mean there isn't beauty in the ashes, but yeah prepare to have "what the hell was I thinking" moments. Your mind will be jacked up. This will be a combination of shell shock, sleep deprivation, jet lag, and trying to learn how to parent an institutionalized child because *SPOILER ALERT* it ain't nothing like parenting a biological child. 

Adoption truly challenged my faith. I had to step back and really work through all the feelings I had and decide if I even wanted to know a God who allowed such horrible things to happen to innocent children. That was a very real struggle for me. Ultimately my faith won out, as true belief in a sovereign God always will, and I had to realize that all of this isn't for me to understand, the big picture isn't mine, it's His, and my job is to obey and play the part he called me to. A friend explained it like this...He is either good all of the time, or none of the time...it can't be interchangeable. My faith says He is good all of the time, and even pain and sorrow are for His glory and we aren't always (or ever) meant to understand it. 

Even though my faith survived adoption, I still had a lot of personal inner conflict. I would catch myself complaining about something ridiculous and my mind would flash to this little girl in Ryan's orphanage who clearly got dealt a horrible hand but when you brushed her hair back out of her eyes she would look up and give you the most genuine smile. Her heart was full of joy and I was sitting in my spoiled little American world whining about some nonsense. Guilt consumed me. Guilt still consumes me. I feel like I am always failing someone. Always. It's a terrible feeling. 

The weirdest feeling is that you are going crazy and you are happy at the same time. You're stressed yet happy, worried yet happy, depressed yet happy....it's so weird. For example: it is currently day three for the clothes I'm wearing. I'm rocking my rats nest messy bun. I probably smell. Forget makeup. Forget anything that is considered a luxury...like eating meals or sleeping in a bed. But...while all of that sucks (it sucks so so bad...seriously) today Ryan reached out and wrapped his little hand around the strap of my tank top, pulled himself in closer and smiled. You could have given me a million dollars, a slamming hot body, and a mansion by the ocean and none of it would have filled my heart and rocked my world the way that little boys smile does. That smile is just...it's everything. 

So, you will go crazy and freak out and lose sleep and second guess and want to scream and cry and rip your hair out and drown in a gallon of rocky road that you will hide in the bathroom to eat so you can get just ONE minute of solitude...but then they smile at you. They smile and you know they have never smiled THAT smile before. The "my mama heard me fussing and picked me up and kissed me and snuggled me close and in these tired, stressed arms...I am safe. I am loved..." smile. That smile is worth looking like this. 

The Pocket Gypsy

I guess the first step is to acknowledge how incredibly non-P.C. this blog name is. The second step is to inform y'all that if you're looking for a P.C. kinda gal, you've arrived at the wrong blog altogether. Ain't nobody got time for that. I laugh at everything, and I can turn anything into a big ol' inappropriate joke. It's my superpower. Now that we've gotten that out of the way. I bet you're asking yourself what the heck is a pocket gypsy?! 

Let me begin at the beginning...as most of you know my husband and I just brought home a fabulous, adorable, tiny bundle of Bulgarian perfection. He is of Roma (gypsy) descent and as mentioned he is super tiny (14 pounds at 7 1/2 YEARS old)and we have joked that he is so teeny we could fit him in our pocket, friends and family have threatened to "put him in their pocket" and sneak him home with them...then one day in Bulgaria my friend Jamie referred to him as a Pocket Gypsy...and it just stuck! When he was admitted to the hospital here in the U.S. even his doctors started calling him Pocket Gypsy...so there ya have it...the origin of the pocket gypsy. 

I might just take the name and run with it...rename my etsy store?! Who knows...but it's fun, and it's snarky, and it fits our families personality to a T.

I will be back soon to update on how our little dude is doing...and kind of catch everyone up on who he is, and who we are, and all that good stuff. I know a lot of people on his facebook page are curious about the full story and interested in our family so I'm going to give this blogging thing another go. I'm not great at it and honestly I don't think our family is interesting enough to fill a blog with our shenanigans but we'll see! Until next time!

PS if you want to keep up when I'm slacking as a blogger...you can click the facebook link on the right and it will take you to Ryan's page..I update there daily.

Happy New Year!

Resolutions

I have always been one to roll my eyes at the whole New Years resolution thing. I mean seriously you're the same person at 12:01am on January 1st that you were at 11:59pm on December 31st. I mean I get it, clean slates and such...but really what's the point?? 

Over the years my mentality about the whole thing started to change. The thought process behind turning over a new leaf and the desire to become a better version of yourself made sense to me, but I still never took the plunge and actually put thoughts to paper and chose specific things to work on to become a more decent human being. 

So, fast forward to this year...2015 was craaaaazy. It was crazy good, crazy bad, and just completely insane at times. I kind of veered "off course" in some areas during the year and needed more self discipline and structure so I'm thinking maybe if I just lay all this stuff out there, acknowledge things that I could change up for the better, I might do a bit less veering in 2016. Also I'm watching some friends who made awesome resolutions last year and right now they are sitting around like "2015? Nailed ittttttt!" And I want that feeling of accomplishment too! 

So, how does one resolve to be better? I've been thinking, and thinking, and I've come to the conclusion that for ME, making a lot of smaller changes over the course of the year would work better than puffing out my chest at midnight and declaring that I would lose all the pounds, finish the Boston marathon, and cure Ebola. I want my goals to be attainable! I'll be writing down my goals, my resolutions, tonight as the ball drops. I know for sure one will be to just stay present in moments. Have my eyes focused on my children as they play and learn, on my husband as he tells me about his day...less screen time, less candy crush, more of the people I love. 

Happy New Year. May you all be blessed in 2016. 

Ryan

Ok, so I'm fully aware of how much I absolutely suck at blogging. I was trying to do a little "series" on what we did to raise money for Ryan's adoption...what worked and what didn't...and I just got lost in the craziness that is life. Anyhoo, Ryan is home!!

Yeah that isn't news at this point, but so many people joined this adventure on the tail end of his adoption, or after he was already home, and they're like "what's the deal with this cute kid?!" so I'm going to post his story right here! 

I first saw Ryan's picture on a friend's facebook page on June 7th, 2014. (I would later learn that June 7th is his birthday! It was meant to be, right?!) My husband and I were taking our three kids to the park and I was scrolling and stopped dead on his picture, because he reminded me of my brother who passed away years ago. I showed his picture to David (hubby) and he was like "he's cute, but we're done...three kids is a lot" so, I pouted and let it go. I couldn't get this kid off my mind though! I kept bringing him up, Dave kept shutting me down, and by August I was like "I really feel like we're supposed to be his family" and David said he would think about it, pray about it, and was no longer giving me a firm no...he moved into "maybe" territory! In September of last year we had a big, long talk about adopting again, and to make a long story short Dave said if I could somehow put the money together, he was in. So, full force fundraising started!

We contacted Reece's Rainbow, who got us in touch with the agency that held Ryan's file, and the paperwork began. By October we were officially matched with his file, our homestudy was in the works, and I was making hair bows and other crafty stuff nonstop. I would stay up until 3 or 4am to craft, then spend the following day hustling my hair bows locally, in auctions online, on Etsy, anywhere! We did several other fundraisers and by the grace of God always had the funds available when it was time to write a check for the adoption. 

So, by spring we had a completed homestudy, USCIS approval (our governments approval to bring a kiddo home from a foreign country), and a completed dossier (all the paperwork required to adopt...things like FBI fingerprints, medical reports, etc) and all of this stuff was shipped off to Bulgaria for approval! During this time we were praying for God to put someone in our path who would be willing to go to Bulgaria with me to meet Ryan! My husband's job is really demanding during the summer and there was no way he was getting a week off to go to Bulgaria, and while I love traveling, and I'm pretty comfortable in foreign countries, I was nervous with it being the first time I would be in Bulgaria, and I was also nervous due to the long list of special needs Ryan had on his medical report. I wanted someone to come along and pray me through that trip! My friend Kristie stepped up big time and said she would come along and we had a blast!! Meeting Ryan was amazing, and scary. There is nothing like walking into an orphanage and being handed a seven year old who weighs less than 10 pounds.

I can't stress enough how grateful I am to have had a friend there with me. I'm not much of a crier, and I have a pretty thick skin...but seeing him in this condition, and knowing I was going to have to leave him there at the end of the week shattered my heart. If I hadn't had a friend to talk to, pray with, and go out with between or after orphanage visits...I would have cracked. We spent time at the beach (his city was on the coast of the Black Sea), ate way too much, and took a day on the way home to tour Paris. It was a beautiful trip, even though it was sad for me to leave my baby behind! Thank God for the good friends in your life!

So, after seeing the condition my little boy was in, I was on fire to get my paperwork done when I got home. We had to do a "secondary dossier", basically updating some paperwork, completing some new paperwork, honestly it wasn't that bad because we have an amazing doctor who fit us in immediately to update our medicals and signed anything and everything we needed him to. I ran around like a nut and finished our paperwork the same week I got back from Bulgaria. All of that got sent off to Bulgaria, and we were then waiting for a court date to make the adoption final!

The months between first trip and when I finally picked Ryan up in October (we passed court in September) were the hardest months of my life. I was in such a bad place, and completely exhausted from trying to hide that I was at such a low point. I was so worried that he would die before I got back to him, and pictures really don't begin to describe how small and frail he is/was so it was hard for me to explain to people, even my husband, why I was so worried. It was a bad time. When it was time to pick him up, I went alone and I was fine with that because Bulgaria wasn't a new unfamiliar place to me anymore. My friend Jamie met me there halfway through my pick up trip to help me get through airports and security and all that mess with a tiny guy and all of our luggage. I think she was just in it for the Ryan snuggles though... :)

Finally finally finally...on November 4th we were home. Ryan was a son, a brother, a nephew, a grandson, a friend, an American...an orphan no more!

I will post another blog with pictures from both trips to Bulgaria. They're all on my phone, I just realized I never transferred them all to the computer!!

Thanks for reading and hopefully this catches everyone up on Ryan's journey!