Meet Rochelle

Jeremy and I were excited this past week to discover that someone we knew from our days at USU is kinda famous now, thanks to the new Mormon.org website! It has little movie profiles of lots of members of our worldwide church who are in different circumstances in life, following their hearts in all kinds of ways. Here's the video about beautiful Rochelle and her family.  They happen to have something else in common with us...they adopted a child with Down Syndrome!



You can read more about how their story of how Derick came into thier lives by reading her profile. Scroll down to where it says Personal Stories.

Rochelle and I have e-mailed each other several times this past week.  We have very similar experiences in how we received answers through the Holy Spirit and have gone forward knowing without doubt that the Lord had called us to succor one of the "least of these."  Derick is now 13 years old and is still potty training and nonverbal, mostly because of his sad past, when he didn't receive the intervention that was needed.  It has not been easy for the Tallmages, but never have they questioned!  They know that they were called to be his family.  Rochelle told me that when times get tough, she remembers her experience where the Holy Spirit spoke to her and that many of the rewards of having him in their family have yet to be realized.  Some will come in the eternities. With that perspective, they have found untold joy in raising this special person. 

I'm so glad we found Rochelle's little movie this past week.  It made us so happy!

There's Still Hope

Our coordinator is trying to set up a meeting with the head of the committee this week to see if they would make an exception to the suspension for Anna (and others with our agency) since she has special needs.   There have been exceptions in the past.  For example they used to waive the 10-day waiting period after court for special needs kids.  So it's very possible!  We are hoping and praying that our coordinator will get an appointment with this woman and that she will take the time to review our dossier and out of the goodness of her heart allow our case to go through this year. Not only will it benefit Anna to be out of the orphanage, but it will be a huge help to us financially to get our adoption tax refund early next year.  If it's the Lord's will, this miracle will happen! 

Sad News

The Minestry of Education in Anna's city met on Thursday.  It was decided that no more adoptions will take place in 2010.  The City Government's goal is not to exceed the number of adoptions that took place last year, and they have exceeded that number. Also, because of some recent US adoptive parent abuse cases, the Governor's goal is to eventually reduce the number of adoptions by 60% compared to 2009.

Reduce by 60%.  I don't understand this. It's so unfair to the children. 
So...our dream of having Anna home in 2010 is now over.  Our coordinator there has promised that she will call every day and try to talk the leader of the committee into reviewing our dossiers (ours and the Nine's) and giving us our appointments, so we can at least make our first trip this year. She was told by a commitee member not to worry about if our adoptions will happen. It's only a matter of when. She figured out that it appears that the reason our dossiers haven't been reviewed is because they have been putting everyone off so that the number of adoptions will s-l-o-w  d-o-w-n.  We won't be able to submit our court papers until the end of the year, then we most likely won't be able to get our court date until February or March, given the number of people who will be in line before us, some who have already gone for their first trips before this point.

So we will still hold out hope for a travel date soon.  But even if we do meet Anna, say in November, it will be a good 3-4 months before we can go back for her.

This will be one of our biggest tests of patience ever.  But we'll make it. In the end, it will all seem like one little speck of time in eternity, and the rewards will make every minute of waiting worth it.

Hold on Tight, Baby Girl!

It won't be too much longer.

Pretty soon, Mama and Daddy are coming.

We won't get to bring you home yet,

but if it's OK with you,

we'll give you lots of big bear squeezes

to hold you over until we return.

We received our match packet from our agency today.  They printed off a few pictures for us.  This was one of them.  Oh...how I want to have that travel date.  We need to meet our baby girl.  We're ready. 

Those squishy arms and chubby cheeks are calling us! 

Buddy Walk

One of the best things I've done to prepare for having a child with Down Syndrome is getting involved in our local DS Foundation chapter.  I am serving on the board as the one who plans get-togethers for families of school-age children with DS.   I haven't done anything to get involved in our community for a while and it feels great!

Saturday was our Buddy Walk.  I was in charge of preparing and serving the breakfast.  We had Chick-Fil-A biscuits, melon, donuts and milk.  It was crazy trying to figure out quantities and getting donations.  Our chapter president was most successful in getting businesses to donate.  I didn't have much luck with that part.  But I'm glad I could be involved in such a great event.

This is our chapter president, Lisa's gorgeous daughter and hubby.

And here's another board member, Nicole with her cute boys.

Look at this guy.  Can you just eat him up?

Another board member, Summer with her little monkey. 

He had a mustache like her but he must have rubbed it off.

I set up a booth for Reece's Rainbow, to help spread the word about this great organization.  This is a poster I made on Photoshop and had Jeremy print out at work.  I put a few pictures of some of my favorite RR orphans on the poster and described what Reece's Rainbow is all about.

Here I am (on the right) with my two new friends Shannon and Angie.  Both of these awesome women are hoping to adopt a child with special needs through Reece's Rainbow and they offered to help with the booth.  It was so great to have them there! I have met so many incredible women through Reece's Rainbow who have either adopted already or are in the process. It was fun to actually meet a couple of them in person!  We handed out some brochures and talked to a few people.  I think we were successful in spreading the word a bit.  

What a great morning.  The weather was perfect, the atmosphere was perfect, and we had a great turn-out!  I'm so glad we got to get involved.  A couple of my good friends came to help with food and a few of Sadie's friends, too.  Jeremy was a huge help, too.  Thank you everyone who helped make this a success!  I'm excited to see how much money was raised.

Here we go again.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you're trying your hardest to get somewhere or find something and no matter how long and how hard you look, it's nowhere to be found?

After checking my e-mail 100 times in a few hours time, I finally got one from our agency.  When our coordinator called the committee, they said they were too backed up with dossiers "because of vacations."  So in addition to fulfilling their everyday duties, they have to review the dossiers that were submitted August 23, one by one.  Apparently ours and the Nine family's are not the only ones still waiting for review. Our in-country coordinator was told it would be at least another week.  They told her, "don't worry, just wait."  Our dossier has been sitting in this city since June.  JUNE! What's another week or so? 

All in His timing.  Patience is definitely a virtue, isn't it?

Friday...

The head lady said she needs two more days (hopefully because she's just trying to get caught up) and to have our in-country coordinator call her on Friday.  OK folks.  Two more days.  At least we won't feel like we have to check our e-mail every minute until then.  Good thing I'm busy with Buddy Walk stuff, parent teacher conferences, Cub Scout Pack Meetings, etc etc!  Hopefully we have some news on Friday!