Supertastic Day!

Another supertastic day!!! Feel like we got so much accomplished today. Have started the dossier paperwork and our first petition is about to be sent in and wow what a feeling!!! Today we did more blood work for medicals, had our TB test read which of course was normal and had several things notarized. Did I mention that we are the luckiest people in the world to have the support that we have on our side - attorney's, paralegals, nurses, mothers, fathers, secretaries, vets, teachers, our boys, my dad and my husband's family - just really overwhelming as we love them all. Without all of the help we are getting we would be lost because I couldn't tell you how many phone calls that some of my closest friends get of me in panic mode and being a "drama queen" and what do they do - put me right back on my feet and in reality and tell me it doesn't matter we will deal with each thing as it comes and so far so good. All of the panic moments I have had have just worked their way out. You think the Lord plays and intricate part in that??? YES He does. I was talking to one of my friends today and we were discussing about how long some of these folks and maybe even you have been working on their adoption and it is just amazing at what all we have accomplished in two weeks. Our VERY FIRST e-mail to RR was Friday 1/15 at 11:58 p.m. - Andrea first responded at 7:22 a.m. on Saturday and from there we e-mailed back and forth fourteen times on Saturday and Sunday and are where we are today. Is that not AMAZING??? Please continue to pray for us and more importantly say prayers for Ivanna and her biological family because I can't imagine even what they may be going through however I know that they are truly happy that Ivanna has found a home and I really hope they will stay in touch so they can continue to see what an inspiration and bundle of love her child will be and will have.

Passports have arrived!!!

We are getting closer and closer everyday to our little Ivanna. Our passports arrived today it took less than two weeks for them to get here by expediting them. We did get confirmation today that the orphanage has agreed to hold her pending we continue to make significant progress as we have been we have worked diligently to make it through all these tunnels and let me tell you it is not easy but if you have ever even so much as given the thought to adopting a child with "special needs" I encourage you to look in to it more. I have the utmost confidence that if you have taken the time to read our blogs that you have a heart to either follow or look in to this yourself. Just remember we all have a lot we can offer these little ones no matter how big or how small.

Another Day Closer

Another day closer. Passports are scheduled to arrive on Saturday, 1/30. YAY! Received paperwork from the dossier team - we will work to start compiling that data this evening. Hold us in your prayers for the upcoming days ahead. I did hear some great news from someone who has personally visited with Ivanna --- you'll never believe --- SHE LOVES MUSIC - now isn't that ironic. Once again another sign from God that she is our perfect match.

Awwee More "Stuff" Out of the Way

Well, today has been great - took off a little early today to get some more things taken care of. Andy and I went to get our TB test started, blood work for HIV testing and then off to Sherrif's office to have our first set of finger printing done. Now we have to go over to Bama and have it done there also - they are getting away from doing FBI finger printing since it can take two months to get the results back so now pretty much they are doing state wide level checks of any state you lived in. Everyday puts us one day closer. Friday we get the results of TB and then take them to our "regular" MD.

Just a little about us!

I am my daddy's only child. Lucky, lucky me! However I do have two half brothers, one that lives close to us with his wife and children and then one brother as I mentioned previously that is differently abled and lives with my other. Both of which are much older than me to the tune of 15-18 years. But with my differently abled brother he always lived with us growing up or as far back as I can remember anyway so I was obviously 18 years younger than he was and rode the church bus every Sunday together with him. I was like a pit bull dog - if you mess with my brother then you had then 5/6/7/8 year old sister to deal with and even though we were going to church - when you messed with him this little girl turned in to a "demon" LOL. So it didn't happen often but seems our world has come a long way in that there is a lot more inclusion than I can ever remember there being back when I was growing up and it wasn't that long ago so don't even go there :).

My husband has three children from a previous marriage, Steven - 13, Kevin - 11 and Ryan - 10. All of which are our hearts. We don't get to spend much time with the middle one however the other two we see quite regularly and they enjoy lots of things - of course video games, fishing, boating, bowling, skating, watching movies. Family time is important at our house and when they are here we attempt to have a "family night" where we all watch a movie or do something that is fun together and it has worked well for us.

The boys, especially Ryan is quite excited about the idea of having a new sister. Ryan wants to read to her which is great. When the social worker asked Steven what he thought about it - Steven's reply was "I think it's quite nice actually" - he is so funny - so grown.

Anyway so that is the jest of it our lives together, as husband and wife, pretty much make some people want to gag because we have been so goo goo and ga ga over each other. We were married in June of 2006 and we don't have annual anniversaries like most we have them every month. We never say a cross word to each other. When we have had maybe 5 disagreements in our entire marriage it has had to do with struggles with his ex wife and her very different ways but we've always been on the same page and know each others thoughts before we even know we are about to think it - now that's close.

Our goal is to make this transition easy on Ivanna and the boys and show her love like she has never been privy to. Family living is what the Stratton family is all about.

We started helping out the local DS group - Gulf Coast Down Syndrome Society in September of 2008. I became their cheerleader and the continue forward person. When they said they wanted to do something or that they were going to do something Darlena was right there to hound them all the way to the finish line. Only because I had more time on my hands than they did :) and that was my way of supporting. My husband always tells me he knows the names of more children with DS than any other child I told him that was completely ok. These families and their children or adult children have taught us so much and to see their interaction is nothing more than amazing. My friend has given me a new word in that there are a lot of people that are "differently abled" so that is the term I use. When I hear someone say "normal child" I then like to ask in return "what is the definition of normal?". Makes for a good conversation. Well this is one more heck of a support system and we wouldn't trade our road for anything. Ivanna is very lucky in that she will be walking in to a world full of people that can't wait to assist in her road of success and she will have a world of little and big sisters and brothers that will help her with that as well because I feel like we are more than friends and acquaintances in this organization we have developed our own little community families and it is remarkable. Well, enough, cause I could just go on and on and on and on. But these familes do have a lot to teach they "typical" family. So thus, we are well on our way in the adoption process so when you go to bed each night say a little prayer.

How do you pick?

So my husband picks out a little girl and a little boy and low and behold we heard from our contact almost immediately. When we inquired about the two we picked out we were told that there was not a lot of information on them and then she came back with a suggestion of two little girls and our main goal was that we wanted one that was of higher risk of being transferred to a permanent institution/orphange. Well, immediately we knew Ivanna was the one for us and then our worlds were completely turned upside down. It was, and I can't nearly describe it as good as my husband can, but it was like as soon as we said YES then our future brightened, our eyes were wide open and we had a love for that little girl that was just like hers, unconditional and knew that we could give her exactly what she wanted and exactly what her biological family wants for her. So bottom line here if something were to fall through we will be deeply crushed. So for the last "almost" two weeks we have found ourselves in a whirlwind of paper work with a fast attempt of bringing her home where she belongs. Home studies sometimes take a lot of time to complete but fortunately for us because of travel, and the urgency to prevent Ivanna from being transferred the agency worked with us diligently to complete in an expeditious manner. Ours began late Thursday afternoon, 1/21 and ended 1/23. However we have still been scurrying to complete paperwork, medical testing and fingerprint back ground checks - just typical paperwork.

How did this start?

There is not enough time in the day to venture back in time and tell you about our lives however we want to start going forward with this and share. This particular Friday night, January 15, 2010 - I was laying comfortably in bed and my husband got on a roll - now it had been one heck of a week - my friends brother that was differently abled had left this world to be with Jesus on 1/7, attended his wake on 1/9 and then a hole was burning in my heart that I had to call my brother who is presently 57 years old, differently abled and lives with my mother - much to my dismay I wasn't allowed to speak to him - yet another long story. So, my point being, I had a very emotional week and was very heavy hearted. Well, Friday night - I was watching a movie and of all things it was about an orphan from Russia which again triggered my husband to pull up the Reeces Rainbow (from now forward will be referred to as RR) site. He keeps trying to get me to come to the computer and look and I kept telling him now that I just couldn't. Well, then he kept harping about how he wanted to adopt one of the children listed. This was way more than ok with me, however, I just never would have even thought he would "really" want it to be a reality and would be more of an "in the moment" talk as we have had before but now looking back I think he was only testing the waters for me and my opinion because the two of us are so close that the importance of what the other is thinking is very important to the two of us. Well, finally just to get him to quieten down I just kind of shrugged and told him to pick us out a child that to me I'd take any of them and that's what he said but unfortunately that's not an option. So, he in turn did pick out two children THEN here comes the funny part. He wants me to get up and e-mail RR. I told him if he wanted to do this then he could e-mail them - so he walks over to the bed as if he is going to lift me out of it YEAH RIGHT! :). So again, to appease him, I got up typed up a little e-mail to Andrea and minimized it on my screen well there was no pulling a fast one on him he saw that I didn't send it so he sent it. I didn't send it because I didn't want to I simply thought he was making this effort because he knew it's what I wanted and to me it had to be both of us and I just didn't realize it really was both of us that wanted it badly. THEN our lives were "forever" changed.

Adoption Adventure

Oh what a fantastic "almost" two weeks. Let me just attempt to get you started. I have been on the board of directors for our local DS group for the past 17 months - Gulf Coast Down Syndrome Society, http://www.gcdss.org/. Right before the our Buddy Walk in October of 2009 we were contact from another local family about setting up a table at our walk as a fund raising effort for them to bring their little boy home whom they were trying to adopt through Reeces Rainbow with Down syndrome. Well, as soon as I heard of this, I immediately visited http://www.reecesrainbow.org/. This was very heart wrenching to me and I just couldn't bring myself to look over the entire site. My husband immediately said to me that we ought to do that - as in adopt a child with DS. Well, I just assumed that it was an "in the moment" phrase and that it would go away. Well, it didn't go away - we had brought it up from time to time just had never put our thoughts in to actions. All the while we knew something was missing. We had and have become extremely attached to the families and children/adults in our organization. The personalities greatly vary but they all have one thing in common and that is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. Well, what we didn't know is the Lord was certainly working on us through this organization because at first I was a little standoffish when asked to become a board member because I felt like I had nothing to offer since we were not parents to a child with DS - little did I know we both had tons to offer and more importantly we had tons to learn and boy have we learned.