Harsh Realities

I'm sitting here, looking at my girls watch our wedding video - or our "married movie" as they like to call it.  It's a sweet sight, really.  They've watched it before and I'm sure they will watch it many times again in the future.  We like to sit down and look at wedding pictures and videos as a family on our anniversary each year as a way to celebrate our "family's birthday".

But in the last few weeks, Anna Beth has faced a harsh reality in this world.

Like always, she made friends fast when she started kindergarten - my little social butterfly.  One friend just really attached to her and her teacher has even told me that AB helps this little friend throughout the day and is "good for him/her".  She comes home talking about this friend almost every day.

When I helped chaperon their first field trip (ps...bus rides are worse as an adult), I met this friends mom.  And I learned the story of all that their family is going through.  In 3 simple words...

An ugly divorce.  And AB's little friend is caught right in the middle.

You've probably seen  or heard of a similar situation before...mom hates dad so she talks horrible about dad; or dad despises mom and tells everyone he knows about how awful she is in every way.  And they forget the little people in their homes have ears, too.  And they forget that those little people love mom and/or dad - even though mom and dad don't love each other.

And so Anna Beth has stayed up to date on a lot of things going on in her sweet friend's home life.  And the harsh reality that two people broke the promise to love each other forever and to always be a family.

Please hear me - this is not a post about divorce itself. I'm not here to judge or make determinations about anyone's family and/or marriage. It's a post about the uncertainty that is now in my child's heart because she has discovered that divorce is real...because we've told her over and over and over again that we will always be a family and that we promised each other to always love each other the day we got married..

She looks at my wedding rings and asks, "Is this the one daddy gave you when he said 'Will you marry me?' and then he gave you this one when he promised to love you forever?"

Yes, sweet girl, that's exactly what these rings symbolize.

But that truth for her 5 year old little mind is shaken.  Not only is she realizing that sometimes people break promises in general, but the foundational promise that she trusts - that we are a family, forever - can be broken in some families.

She came home every single day from school last week with questions.

"Mommy, do you really promise to always love daddy?"

"Yes, sweet girl, I promise you and I promised daddy and I promised God."

"Daddy, do you promise I'll never have to have another mommy because you'll always live here with mommy?"

"Yes, I promise."

Every day, y'all.  Every single day.

My only guess is that something happened over Christmas break that is instilled in this friends heart and mind and they're still talking about it.  Still processing it.  Still grieving over it.  Still brokenhearted... That's a whole lot of "junk" for her 5 year old friend.

So in an effort to still her heart, we dug out the "married" movie.  Our wedding album will hopefully be back from Tennessee this weekend and we will sit down and look at the pictures over and over and over again.  I will get out the photo album of all the planning and showers and candid shots from that beautiful day.  If i had my dress here, I'd put it on for them and then give them a chance to wrap up in it.

Will it be easy to stay together forever? Nope - sure won't.  Marriage is hard.  Some days are harder than others.  Some days flow perfectly as if they're written by the best romance author in the universe.  But we've promised to be in it for the long haul.  We've promised to give it our best day in and day out.  We've promised to never quit.  We stood in front of friends and family to make these promises before God and we want them to ALWAYS  hold us accountable.

I see what this harsh reality is doing to my daughter.  I cannot fathom how her friend feels.

If you would, please pray for Anna Beth - that her trust in us and the promises we've made will be restored and strengthened; for her friend - that his parents, who fiercely love him, would contain their anger with each other and protect him; and for Jacob and I - that we would set an example for our kids and visibly display our promises to each other and our kids every day.

Merry Christmas to Us!!

I had an entirely different post swirling around in my head for today - but then we got a little early Christmas present, so, you know - obviously I have to share!! And now I can't even remember what the first one was going to be about!! Ha

I got a call from our social worker this morning and our dossier has been

APPROVED!!!!

Write it down on the timeline and celebrate because Colombia says "Yes, we believe you would be good parents to a child from our country.  We'll just let you hop on the 'ole waiting list for a bit!"

Y'all, this is a huge step.  We sent a large stack of official documents and evaluations and more personal information that I can't remember to Colombia on October 1...about 10 weeks ago.

The "timeline" given is about 2-3 months for dossier approval once you've submitted it.  However, in the past several months a LOT of changes have been taking place with Colombia adoptions and their process.  The biggest one - international families can only adopt children from their waiting child list...no biggie for us because that's the route we were already on.  

Colombia then began asking follow up questions to dossier's that were submitted. "Tell me more about what doctor your child will see..."; "How have you specifically prepared for...."; etc, etc.  They just added a little extra in their screening process.  However, this little extra step can push back approval by 6 - 8 weeks.  Their questions have to be translated to us, we have to answer, our answers have to be translated and submitted, someone has to get back around to looking at our answers.  Slow-moving, I tell you.  So, instead of a 2-3 month wait for approval, some families were waiting close to 6 months...I know some that have waited longer than that.  

So....2 weeks ago Beth told me that they did have a follow up question for us - "How did we know we were prepared/could handle the medical special needs we had listed in our dossier?"  She had already written a reply for this question and had our in-country attorney review it before receiving the official request for more information.  Well, because our in-country dude is stellar...he just sent it on.  ICBF read it, said "Oh, okay.  Yes, they are ready/know what they're getting into/whatever the actual words were....they're APPROVED!"

Fast forward to this morning - which we did not know the above conversations between in-country dude and ICBF had taken place already - Beth calls me.  She didn't share the above conversation with us because she wanted to know for SURE. We're just chatting a minute and talking about Christmas plans (y'all, this girl cares about us as people...as a real family, with hearts and issues and love and all of that - couldn't recommend a better adoption agency than Lifeline if you're considering it because while she is a one of a kind social worker....they're all awesome up there!) and then she says, "Well, do you want a Christmas present today?"

Honestly, I thought "How sweet, they probably send their families a little something for Christmas."

But I said, "Yes!!"

She said, "Your dossier's APPROVED!"

PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSING FLOW!!!

And then I cried.  And I think she cried a little, too.  And my kids were running around pouring water into their cups of goldfish while wearing their jammies and/or a princess dress with high heels. But, whatever, I tell ya!!

So - Colombia says we're fit parents.  Thank you, hard-working-on-behalf-of-fatherless-children-in-Colombia officials.  Thank you so very much for this tremendous Christmas present :)

The really cool God-thing....ICBF shuts down about this time each year for a month surrounding the holidays.  Since we hadn't heard anything from them - we were very much expecting approval to at least be in mid-late January!! God can do anything and I love that about Him - among many other things :)

We were homestudy approved on my birthday, dossier approved for Christmas...I'm just gonna go ahead and put "My kid" on my Mother's Day wish list....

What happens now...

we keep waiting.

For how long...

dunno know.

What are we waiting for....

an official match with our kid.

Can I give you a guesstimate...

3-6 months from now, but we're not holding tight to that.

Then what....

we wait some more.

How long...

3/4 more months-ish.

And....

we GO GET HIM!!!!!!

Merry Christmas!!

What Love Is This....

This weekend, my family had the honor of sharing our testimony for Advent during our church's worship service.  When Maggie, our children's ministry director, first asked me if we would - I may have teared up a little...or a lot.  Being able to share about our adoption journey and glorify God and all that He has done just about makes my heart explode with joy.  Our family stood together in front of the church and this is what we said...

In January of this year our family started the journey of adoption.  It’s a journey that will lead us to a little boy in Colombia, South America….you might’ve heard of it J

It has been a long year full of home study interviews and paperwork.  Our family has been so blessed by all of the encouragement we have received from our family, church, and friends.  Watching God provide close to $15,000 to our family in less than 6 months was nothing short of miraculous. We continually stand in awe of all that He has done not only for us, but in us this past year.

We are now in the agonizing part of this journey where all we can do is wait – we wait for approval from Colombia and then we wait to find out just exactly who our son is.

About 2 months ago, we thought the wait was over.  Our social worker presented us with the file and picture of a precious 2 ½ year old little boy.  Almost immediately – we said ‘Yes! We want to be his mommy and daddy.”  We believed we had found our son and it was so sweet to look into his eyes.  We promised him love and a family – two things he had not had in his short little life.

A few days later, we found out that we would not be able to adopt this sweet boy.  There had been miscommunication between the Colombian government and our adoption agency.  Our family rejoices for this sweet boy – he couldn’t be ours because he was already being adopted by another family.

But our hearts were broken…crushed under a weight of grief that we could not explain.  We had been told to guard our hearts and not fall in love too quickly, but you can’t commit to being child’s mommy and daddy without loving them with the full force that comes from a parent’s heart.

But even in the midst of that experience and knowing that it could happen again, we have felt peace.

-    A peace that surpasses all understanding.

-    A peace that tells us to stay with God, to remember who He is, 

to trust in His plan, to know what He is for

-         A peace that comforts our broken hearts

-        A peace that we ask God to surround our son with at this very moment

It is the peace that came to this earth on the night Jesus was born.

Luke 2:11-14

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying. “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and good will toward men.”

Even though Jacob and I were both terrified to be up there, speaking into a microphone, it was very special for us and our children...who wanted to know why they didn't get a turn to talk in the microphone =)

But then the most special part happened....

After the service, a beautiful young woman came up to me and called me by name.  She said she wanted to briefly tell me her story.  She said her mother brought her home from Honduras 31 years ago.  She said she was not the first, second, or third child her mother had tried to bring home.  She said her mother's heart was broken and her journey was tough - but she knew that God had ordained her mother to be her mommy.  She encouraged me in that God knows who our son is and that He has the big and perfect plan, no matter how painful it is.  She said her song for her mother is "What Love Is This"...which is one of my all time favorites.  

What love is this, that you gave your life for me
And made a way for me to know you
And I confess you're always enough for me you're all I need

This song is written about the love Christ has for us in that He laid down his life to make a way for us to be in a relationship with Him.  She said, "You know...my mom did that.  She laid her heart down for me over and over again so that I could be hers.  Hang in there, you will get to the son God has chosen for you."

I couldn't thank her enough for her encouragement and for sharing her beautiful story with me.  

The Apparent Project - A Win/Win Fundraiser

I am so incredibly excited about this last fundraiser for 2013.

The Apparent Project is absolutely wonderful.

In an effort to prevent children from becoming orphans due to poverty,

The Apparent Project teams up with local mothers and fathers in Haiti.

These men and women create beautiful, handmade bracelets.

The Apparent Project then purchases these upcycled bracelets from the artists,

giving them the ability to provide for the basic needs of their children...

food, clean water, clothes, shelter, education...

things most of us take for granted every single day.

The Apparent Project's passion...

"Our name reflects our passion: We want to see Haitian families stay together. Skill development and employment addresses the needs of families before they are at the point of desperation, driven to give their children to an orphanage because of exteme poverty. After all, the vast majority of Haiti's "orphans" have not been orphaned by parental deaths, earthquakes, hurricanes, or floods, but are children of living parents who gave them up simply because they knew that an orphange could feed their child. Lagging adoptions, overcrowding, and lack of accountability has made many orphanages less than adequate homes for children, who often develop severe emotional problems such as reactive attachment disorder. This is why we think of our artisans' guild as an "un-orphanage." We are finding creative ways for Haitians to be self-employed so that they can take care of their own children with dignity and joy."

This fundraiser is a total win/win situation.

When you purchase one of these beautiful pieces of jewelry, you are helping 2 families.

You are helping one family overcome extreme poverty and STAY TOGETHER! You are helping

to PREVENT A CHILD FROM BECOMING AN ORPHAN!

However, as we all know, there are children who could not stay with their families, like our son.

And there are families who are adopting these children, like our family.

Purchasing a bracelet also helps to bring our son home to us, forever!

The bracelets are $8...$4 to the artists to keep their family together and $4 to the adoptive family to help with expenses.

Each bracelet comes with a tag featuring the actual artist who made the bracelet and his or her story.

Each bracelet is multi-colored, beautifully crafted and upcycled from cereal and cracker boxes, oil drums, and trash paper.

These bracelets would make great teacher gifts, Christmas presents, stocking stuffers...

or a "just because I want one because they're so pretty" gift to yourself!

To order:

Click the "Coleman Adoption Fund" - PayPal "Donate" button to the right.  In the comments section, please enter how many bracelets you want and the address to mail them to.

Send me an email at:

jmalcoleman at gmail dot com

Find me on Facebook and shoot me a message

Or if you see me at church or around town, let me know and I can meet up with you!

Shipping is 50 CENTS per bracelet.

Thank you so much for considering a bracelet as an amazing Christmas gift! You're gift will not only be to the person you love - but also to the mother or father who created the bracelet, their children, our son, and our family.

Merry Christmas!!

PICTURE SOURCES

Christmas Shop for Us!

Hey, friends!! The Christmas shopping season is almost here...I absolutely cannot believe this year has gone by  SO INCREDIBLY FAST!! It's been quite the year.  November 1 - January 1 is my favorite time of year...gearing up for Thanksgiving celebrations, quality time with family, no school for a week, and then whipping right into the Christmas season with hot chocolate, snowmen, Christmas trees, Christmas carols and best of all, remembering and celebrating the birth of Christ.

This year, while you're shopping online for Black Friday and Cyber-Monday deals - and throughout 2014! - you can shop through a couple of links to the right of my blog and a portion of your purchases goes back into our adoption fund...A WIN/WIN!!

I think most of us are familiar with the amazing deals through Amazon for just about any product you can think of, so if you click on the Amazon button to the right, you'll be immediately shopping under our Amazon Associates heading...and then you simply shop as normal!  We get email alerts letting us know that purchases have been made and how much has been added to our account!

I only recently learned of the PureCharity organization a few months ago.  When you create an account with PureCharity (totally FREE!) and install their plug-in to your browser (free and easy!), it will show up anytime you shop online through a PureCharity supported store.  The logo will simply appear in the top right corner of your screen, it looks like this...

...you click on it, it reloads the page and you shop! A portion of your purchases go back into your account and you can pick what charity, organization, or family you wish to support.  There are TONS of great organizations to choose from, but we would be especially honored if you chose our family! You simply find us on there through their search button or come here and click on our button to go straight to our page! Then you choose our family to send your donation to.  All donations are sent directly to our adoption agency, Lifeline Children Services.  Pure Charity works with a lot of major retailers such as Apple, Target, Wal-Mart, Priceline, Gap, Forever 21, Pier 1, Bass Pro, Babies R Us...oh my goodness, just looking through the list makes me so excited! It even has a "shop local" option so you can help support local businesses in your area and our adoption at the same time!!

These are simple and great ways to make the most of your Christmas shopping this year!! We are praying hard that this will be the last year we spend Christmas without our son! Your purchases through our links will help to cover our travel costs to Colombia and our time spent there on things like hotel accommodations for 6-8 weeks, food, translators, in-country attorneys and paperwork, and our flights HOME!!

These links will be available on my blog until our adoption is funded, so please come back through here to shop Amazon or chose us through Pure Charity for any and all online shopping!

Please share this link with your friends and family to help us spread the word about these great ways to support our adoption during the holiday season.  You can share by clicking any of the social media buttons at the bottom of this post or sharing my link from Facebook.  

If you share it, shoot me an email at

jmalcoleman at gmail dot com or 

a Facebook message or

comment here or

comment on my Facebook post

and on December 3 (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving) I'll pick a winner for a $10 iTunes gift card!

(Please be sure and leave an email address or a way to contact you if you win)

Happy Shopping!!

PS - We will also be starting an Apparent Project soon as they come in the mail.  I canNOT wait to tell you more about this amazing ministry that helps sustain families in Haiti, preventing children from becoming orphans, and also helps adoptive families!  More to come next week!

When It's Really Hard - Part 2

As I was reading back over my post from last night, I realized I just kind quit writing.  When I started out, I had no idea how long or how much I would write...I was just gonna do it until I couldn't do it anymore.  If you missed out on last night's post, you can read it here.

I ended up talking to Beth, our social worker, that afternoon for a long time.  It was more like I sobbed, she listened.  I tried to talk, she encouraged me.  I'm not sure I've ever felt that pain before.  Jacob and I were talking about it a few days later and I asked him if he thought it hurt the way it did when we lost our first baby.  He said no...it hurt worse than that.  After thinking about it for a few minutes, I agreed.  

The next morning, after our heartbreaking news, I received an e-mail alert from a waiting kids website that I follow.  I rarely check the alerts, but that day I did.  As soon as the window popped up on my computer screen....I saw him.  Again.  I couldn't figure out what was going on.  "V" was not available for adoption, but here he was...waiting for a family.  I immediately emailed the listing agency on the website and called Beth.  She promised that she would talk with Raul (our in country attorney), but she told me it was most likely that his file had not been removed yet.  That did end up being the case, but I could NOT let it go without at least asking.

That week was stinkin' hard.  It hurt.  It made me mad.  I went for a run one morning to try to deal with it all. I needed to figure out who I was mad at.  God? The Colombian official who'd mistakenly sent his file in the first place? The website for getting my hopes up again?  Then it hit me - I was mad at the whole dang situation.  I was mad because a precious 2 year old little boy should NOT have to look further than his front door for a family.  I was made because that precious little boy should never have been an orphan.  I was mad that there was even a need for adoption because it's NOT FAIR that every child cannot grow up and live with their birth family because in a perfect world, that's how it would be.  So I was not mad at anyone...I was mad because there are kids without families.

Even though I hadn't held this little boy in my arms and I had only seen his picture, I could so strongly imagine what it would be like to hold him.  He was about Creek's size.  And he kinda looked like Creek, too :)  I would pick Creek up and hold him or rock him at night and think, "Wow....this is what it's going to feel like.  This is the size and age of "V"."  Yes, they are two different kids but I could absolutely imagine what it would be like to play, hold, rock, and love on "V" the same way I was doing with Creek.

I cried a lot that week.  Jacob and I talked a lot and grieved together.  Finally, at the end of the week I had to force myself to move on.  I had to delete everything I had on sweet little "V".  It wasn't fair to him or to his new family for me to have such private information on him or to dwell over his adorable face.  It wasn't good for my heart, either.  Over the next few weeks, he would come to mind from time to time.  Sometimes I would think about the heartache and cry a little, but I would also rejoice that he has a family...that his days without them are limited.

And then Monday of this week, I got another email alert from the same waiting kids website.  My heart hit the floor when I, again, saw his sweet face.  He had been taken down after my last email...I had checked every day until he was gone.  But here he was again.  In times like this, there's no such thing as "guarding your heart".  Because you can't look at a child and say, "Yes, I want to be your mommy!" and not immediately begin to love him as your son...as his mommy.  In an instant, there was a bit of hope that he would still be mine.  It was just as fierce as it had been a few weeks ago.

Long story short...we emailed them, again, and had our adoption agency check into the situation.  We got a sincere reply from the website telling us they weren't sure what happened, but no - he wasn't available for adoption...his picture and file should not have been added back to the site.

And our hearts crashed again.

I don't want anyone who is considering adoption to think that it's easy. Or to think that it's only about paperwork, fingerprints, and interviews with social workers.  Or that it's a walk in the park.  Because it's none of those things.  It is REALLY HARD.  We lay our hearts out there for a timeline that doesn't really exist.  We know it could get trampled on a hundred times over.  We don't like it, but it is what it is.  And you know what - I'd go through this every single week of this entire journey if that is what it takes to get to my son.  Because here's what I think...I think that as hard as this is on me, and my heart...

HOW MUCH HARDER IS IT ON THE HEART OF AN ORPHAN? 

I have a family and friends and a community that love me and that I am thriving in. I have my Jesus who defeated death for me and loves me unconditionally. I know where my next meal will come from and I grew up being tucked in every single night by a mom and dad whose world revolved around me and my sisters.  That is the kind of life we are giving our children.  So if it's this hard on me, with all that I have - how hard is it on a child who doesn't understand the world that he's in? Who has to wonder if there is more to his life than being grouped together with a bunch of other kids his age and living in a concrete building?

Yes, it's hard on adoptive parents.  And so many times I've heard people say - "I couldn't do it, I couldn't risk getting my heart broken." Or something along those lines.  But guess what...my heart's been broken - as have countless other adoptive parents - and those hearts healed and yours will, too.  But what about the little girls and boys who go to bed every single night with a broken heart...they sure didn't choose to be an orphan, to be alone.  What about their broken hearts?  Who goes after them?

What if God had the same thought when He put His great plan into motion to send Jesus - His ONLY Son - for you and me?  What if He decided He just couldn't risk getting His heart broken?  Well, His heart does get broken every time someone denies Him, turns away from Him, refuses Him...and yet, He'd do it every second of every minute of every hour of every single day if that is what it took...

So how did we cope with this?  We held tight to each other and trusted in God and His plan.  I kept on singing "It Is Well With My Soul" - and sometimes I believed it.  I had friends checking on me, letting me talk through it.  I remembered my friends Daniel and Emily and how their hearts had broken, and yet God carried them through and has pieced a beautifully amazing family together.  I read in Isaiah over and over that God's "thoughts are not my thoughts" and that His ways are higher than mine.  I asked Him to use me and my heartbreak in order to comfort others who share this experience.  I asked Him to help me see what we could learn from this.  And He answered that prayer.  We grew and trusted more and learned.  For that, I am very thankful.

God took such good care of us....even people we hadn't shared this with, would call or text and say, "Hey...I was thinking about you.  Are you okay?"  He provided a dear friend, a foster mom, who took me into her arms within an hour of receiving our heartbreaking news and she just held me tight.  She knew and understood my pain and she acknowledged my grief. Even this morning, He sent the perfect words to me through my SIL, Bekah..."Only He can make it right.  But it won't be right until Christ comes again.  Until then...we just have to hold on for dear life." And so that's what we will do...we will hold on for dear life and we will rest in the fact that God is taking care of us.

Thank you, friends, for letting me talk it out here on my blog.  It's part of my process.  We know that so many of you are praying us through this journey and have been very encouraging to us the entire time.  If you think of us and want to pray for us about these past few weeks...please also rejoice with us for sweet little "V" and for his family who is working hard to get to him.  Please pray the rest of their process would go smoothly and that everything would fall into place.  Pray that he would transition well into his new family and home.  I sure hope that someday, somehow...maybe in a way that only God can orchestrate...he knows that at one point in his life - after 2 years without a mommy - that for just a few days, he had two mommy hearts that loved him to the fullest.

Adoption...When It's Really Hard (Part 1)

First things first...so sorry for such a lapse in updating you guys.  It's not that we haven't been super busy with the adoption, it was just that not a lot happened for a few weeks to update about....just waiting on paperwork to go through so we could submit our dossier.  Then, suddenly - it was time for a major update. I've promised this whole time to be transparent with you about our adoption and I have kept my word.  So far, there have been a few twists and turns to our journey - but nothing majorly hard.  Nothing to make my heart want to crumble under the weight of it all.  But the truth about adoption is that it's not always warm fuzzies...sometimes it just plain sucks.  And sometimes it's worse than that.

On September 27 - a Friday night - my phone rang around 6 pm.  Since I was in the middle of cooking supper and my kids were going crazy (and Jacob was at work), I planned to take a quick glance at the caller ID and keep at the tasks at hand.  But there it was...it said "Lifeline".  That's our adoption agency.  That's my social worker.  She's calling me after hours...on a Friday night.  It's either really good or really bad.  And it's too soon for this to be really good.  So it must be really bad, right? I finally stopped the inner dialogue and picked up the stupid phone.

I can truly barely hear our social worker, Beth, over the pounding in my heart - and the screaming squeals of joy coming from the smalls - when she tells me she has a file of a 2 year old little boy who seems just perfect for us...do I want her to send it to me? ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY! She walks me through the steps to download "Dropbox" and then all of a sudden, there's the file.  I pull it up and I scroll as fast as I can to the first picture.

And there he is...this beautiful, precious, so adorable that he has to be mine little boy..."V".  She gives me the quick rundown of his file and explains the next steps should we pursue to adopt him.  As much as I love talking to Beth, I don't think I could get off of the phone quick enough so I could pour over his file.  She gave me her cell and promised me that it was okay to call her with any questions at all or to talk about anything regarding this little boy over the weekend...that's another reason why she's the best.

I immediately called Jacob.  We were both floored.  We had no idea this would happen so quickly.  The excitement was building.  The love was exploding.  I gave him the shorter rundown of what Beth had told me and tried to send him a picture of "V" - poor Jacob...his cell isn't exactly this decade, but he rarely complains.  He couldn't see the picture - so he was going to have to wait until he got home at 6:30 in the morning.

All night, I translated his file in Google translate...did I mention this 70+ page file was in Spanish? And that I don't read Spanish? Did I mention my eyes were crossed and my head was pounding after 4 hours of copy/paste/translate/read/repeat?  Or that I didn't care how long I had to stay up to learn as much as I could about the little boy who I believed with every passing minute was going to be my son?

Y'all....this sweet, little boy.  So innocent.  So precious.  The brownest eyes.  The cutest smile. The darkest hair.  And so much to process about the things he had been through in his life and the events that led to him needing a new mommy and daddy.  My heart could not help but to start processing and protecting this child I had never held.

As soon as Jacob got home the following morning, I showed him "V"'s picture.  The look in his eyes...I've only seen it 3 other times - the first time those eyes landed on Anna Beth, Lynnsie, and Creek.  I knew in that moment that we were going to pursue this little boy.

Jacob tried to sleep that day (after working all night), yet he couldn't.  He tossed and turned. He got up.  He laid back down.  I tried to stay busy, but really - nothing could take my heart away from "V".  It would just hit me that I had most likely met my son.  The one I'd prayed for and longed for and ached for and filled out a small forests worth of paperwork for over the last 7 months.  I had texted a few friends and our parents, so they could pray with us.  One friend, Mary, said - "Wow...finally...the little boy we've prayed for!"

Finally, Jacob gave up on sleep and said let's talk about "V". Um...okay! Then he basically said, "It's him.  This is our son.  What do we do now?" And just like that - it felt like our family was on the way to being completed.  I immediately called Beth - who was ecstatic - and then typed up our Letter of Intent to send to Colombia's central authority.  The LOI tells them that you intend to adopt a certain child once your dossier is approved.

I couldn't believe it, y'all.  We finally knew him.  My mommy heart immediately grew as I began to take on all of his life experiences and grieve for him and with him what he had been through.  I vowed in my heart that he would NEVER experience those things again.  He was no longer an orphan.  He was my son and I was on my way to get him.

It'd be so awesome if right now I could share a picture of him with you.  It'd be so awesome if the update only got better from here.

But, like I said above, sometimes adoption just plain sucks.  In fact, I'd argue that most of adoption sucks - but that's an entirely different post.  Anyway....

A few days later, Beth calls me back.  I knew that she had to double check his file to make sure our LOI was the first one submitted, but we really weren't worried about that being a problem.  But I could tell in her voice as soon as I answered.  I could hear the sadness and the dread in what she was about to have to tell me.

We could not adopt "V".  Colombia should have never sent her his file.  It's really, really great for "V" because he was actually already being adopted by another family.  Beth wasn't really sure where the mistake came in, but his file should have been locked because he already had a family coming for him.  Pure joy and excitement for him.  Total heartbreak for us...

Next post, I'll write about what we felt and went through, how we processed everything over the next few days.  It's taken me a long time to write this because...well...it hurts.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to burst into tears right now or that the pain didn't come back as I revisited this experience.  It hurt.  It still does.  It probably will for a while.