Rollercoaster of Parenthood

It has been almost a month since we finally got to Abigail and added her to our forever family.  Many of you have been eagerly awaiting a blog post, and I apologize that it has taken so long to write.  I guess the muse finally hit me.  It is late, and it has been a hard day.  Hard on our little one who is trying to figure out how to make it in a whole new culture.  Please pray for Abigail, that she will process through her emotions in a healthy manner.

We got home from Bulgaria on August 30th.  I had to return to work on September 4th, with some days off for Abigail's doctor appointments.  Tony returns to work next Monday.  My dad (grandpa Ken) was in town for the first week in September and Abigail enjoyed getting to know him too.  Abigail also got to meet Grandma Patty (Tony's mom) over the past few weeks and hang out at Grandma's condo.  Tony said Abigail poked her head into every nook and cranny at Grandma's.  A curious child indeed!

Abigail started school yesterday.  We had hoped to enroll her in a private school near our house, but that did not turn out.  So Abigail is attending a special public school for kids learning English.  There are kids there from many nationalities.  Abigail is having a hard time dealing with this multi-cultural setting.  Yesterday, she said she wanted to go to school with the American kids instead.  We have been trying to educate her on the fact that all these kids, including herself, ARE American kids.  We are also teaching about respecting all cultures and peoples.  Today she told us she wanted to go back to Bulgaria to go to school with just Bulgarian kids.

She says she is not sleeping well, and that is why she wakes up grumpy.  We are trying to resolve this with various approaches, but it makes for rough mornings, sluggish afternoons, and exhausting evenings.  Please pray for all our strength.  Our 13 year old sweet princess is going through a roller-coaster of emotions, multiple changes, and is sleep-deprived apparently (from what she told us tonight).  And to be honest, we are exhausted too.  We love her so much, but we can't do anything to make the transition any smoother. She must go to school, she must learn to obey parents, and learn to go to sleep at bedtime so she will be alert and awake in the morning, and we aren't going to stop loving her and send her back no matter how much she wants to go back to the way things were.  She is getting time for 8 hours of sleep (same as we know the schedule was in Bulgaria for the school year), but she said she got to sleep more during summer vacation.  So part of this we know is any kid's struggle to get back into the school routine.

One hard part about adoption (whether domestic or international), is finding the right balance to respecting a child's past, while at the same time helping them move forward to a brighter future.

But all is not a struggle, there are joyous parenting moments too.  Like how funny it is that Abigail goes to check the mail every day when she gets home from school (even though Tony has picked up the mail earlier).  Tony has started leaving the junk mail in the box for her to bring in.  If anyone of our friends would like to send her mail (fun cards and the like), just e-mail me for the address if you don't have it.  I think it would be fun for her to get mail addressed to her.

Please pray for me at work that I will catch up swiftly on my workload.  I have a lot on my plate right now, but Abigail needs a mom to be home fixing dinner for her (not coming home late after Tony and Abigail have eaten).  We are trying to sort out the schedules so we have as much family time as possible (as all families struggle with I know).

Please pray for Tony's endurance as he drives the half-hour trip to take Abigail to school and pick her up every day.  He needs a supernatural measure of rest this evening.  He is an amazing husband and father.  His love for his family is so evident to me, and humbles me truly, and makes me want to be a better spouse and parent.

Well, I didn't mean to make this post too serious, but it is late, and I am completely worn out.  I guess the funnier stuff may come when I am more awake.  Thanks for all your prayers and interest in how things are going.

Thank You!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support through our adoption process.  We will be traveling soon to pick up Abigail and we appreciate everyone who has helped us get this close to the finish line of the adoption, though parenthood has just begun!

Final Adoption Fundraising Post

Alright, folks.  We are on the homestretch for raising funds to go pick up Abigail from Bulgaria.  We don't know our exact travel dates yet, but it is likely we will be traveling as early as August 14th.  Because of some circumstances beyond our control, we may end up needing to stay in country for two weeks instead of the standard one.  Nothing is definite yet, but we need to plan for the contingency and expenses of two weeks in country.  What exactly are these expenses? you might ask.  Well, here is an estimated breakdown:

Airfare - $5,000
In-country adoption agency fees, translators/drivers, and accommodations - $2,100
In-country personal expenses (food, items needed for Abigail, unexpected emergencies fund) - $1,000
Abigail's VISA - $404
Final payment to English Tutor for Abigail - $300

Total: $8,804

We have about $4,800 of this amount already saved up, so we are asking for people to help us fundraise the final $4,000 needed.

$4,000 in 2 and a half weeks - that is essentially the airfare cost left.  Wow! sounds overwhelming and at times it is.  But I know that wherever God leads, he will get us there.  If you can help out in any way, that would be awesome.

Short of sending us a check for the airfare (for which we would be totally grateful!), there are many fundraising venues we have running for you to donate funds to our adoption that will also give you something in return (besides a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart).

Looking for a tax deduction for your donation - Check out our Adopt Together page here: https://www.adopttogether.org/thegrubaughs

Looking to buy some highly recommended coffee - Our page at Just Love Coffee is the place to go: https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/childofprayer/

Perhaps you want some discounted prices for restaurants - We have a link with CoupAide as well: http://coupaide.com/deal/grubaugh-adoption-fundraiser/

Closet looking a little empty, need a new t-shirt, or want to show your support for adoption - Check out our Adoption Bug T-shirt Fundraiser Site here: http://www.adoptionbug.com/grubaughadoption/

We are also selling some collectibles and vintage toys on Etsy here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TreasuresbyEllie?ref=em

and at Ebay here: http://myworld.ebay.com/trghpu/

You can also link to all of the above using the images to the right on this blog.

Some friends of ours are also helping us do another garage sale next weekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, August 1 - 3, the address is: 740 Fox Run Trail, Saginaw, TX.  Come on by!

Thank you SO much for your time in reading this post and considering how you could help us with these final airfare expenses to bring our girl home!

We are parents!

We passed court today!  Woohoo!  We are officially the parents of Abigail Grubaugh. Adopted into her forever family on July 22, 2013.

Thanks everyone for all your prayers so far.  Now comes the wait for travel dates.  It might take two weeks to get the travel dates assigned, and another two to three weeks until actual travel (sometime end of August beginning of September).  Then we get to go pick her up and bring her home to her family!

Praise the Lord from whom all blessing flow.

Court Date!

UPDATE (7/18/13) - We have been notified that the Court Date was moved forward to July 22nd! Woohoo!  And our apostilled final home study agency confirmation letter is on its way now to North Carolina to our adoption agency, and they will send it on to Bulgaria today.  Thank you Lord, for moving that smoothly along.

Text of original post:

Our adoption court date has been scheduled for July 25th!  We have to get one more document from our home study agency that we should have in hand by tomorrow to send for apostille.  It is looking like we will be able to get that document back to Bulgaria in time.  Yay!

Typically, the travel week to pick up the adopted child is four to five weeks after court.  There are a lot of factors involved, so we won't know the exact date for a while yet, but if all goes smoothly, by mid-September, our daughter will be home.

Praising God for his watch-care over us, even when my faith felt small, compared to the mountains of paperwork and process it took to get to this point.

Received Signature - now waiting for Court Date!

Hello everyone! I am excited to report that we have received the final Minister of Justice signature for our adoption file, and our file has now moved to the Courts for the adoption proceeding to officially make our girl part of our family.  Yay!

We are now waiting to hear when our court date will be scheduled.  The agency is pretty sure it will be scheduled for this month, which means it is likely our girl will be home in America sometime in August.  It is getting so close now!

Doing a happy dance.

Conversation with Abigail

We were able to message with Abigail through Skype today.  It was so good to talk with her.  It is all through text messaging as they don't have voice or video capability for Skype at the orphanage where she lives.

Abigail is beginning to be able to write short English sentences. We asked her some of the books she was reading with her teacher's help.  Here is the list (I fleshed out the info, we just got titles during the text session):

Through the Bible in Felt – Betty Lukens

In a People House – Dr. Seuss (Ages 2-5)

Let's Visit the Zoo – Harcourt Early Reader (Grade 1)

A Rainbow of Friends – P.K. Hallinan (Ages 3-5)

Never Ride Your Elephant to School (Preschool – Grade 2)

The Day Papa Came Home – Barbara Justus and Caroline Starbird

Baseball Blackout – Scooby Doo Picture Clue Book #6 – Level 1 (Ages 4-8)

Meet Big Foot – Scooby Doo Picture Clue Book #12 – Level 1 (Ages 4-8)

Treasure Hunt – Scooby Doo Picture Clue Book #13 – Level 1 (Ages 4-8)

As you can see, she is working with Kindergarten through 2nd grade books on English reading right now.  She just finished sixth grade in her own country.  We don't know how quickly she will catch up with English reading.   Will it be faster than learning reading in her original language?  Possibly she will, because she already knows the words, just in a different language, rather than learning the concept of sentences, paragraphs, etc. for the first time.  We are hoping she will be at a strong 3rd grade reading level by the end of the summer.  Her tutor that we hired is doing a great job, and we are glad that they have the resources (English language books) from which to teach her.  I am sure that helps a lot more than simple word lists.

We do not yet know what grade we will place her in for school here.  There are a lot of reasons to place her in seventh grade when she gets here, one of which is so that she stays on age with her peers.  But we will decide that in conjunction with the advice of the school, once she is here and we meet with the administrators.

We don't have any new information regarding the adoption process itself.  We are still waiting on a government signature, then a court date, then 2nd trip to pick up Abigail and bring her home.  We are hoping now that the second trip will be early to mid-August, but it could hit as late as October depending upon the timing of the government processes.  Praying that we will have patience to last another four months of waiting if need be!  It has already been three months since we last saw Abigail, and the wait is very rough for all of us.

Thanks for your prayers.