Great News!

Check out those handsome guys! Yesterday we received the letter we have been waiting for. USCIS(immigration) has approved us to bring the boys home! God is good. It was definitely news that we needed to hear. Next, our file is forwarded on to the Visa processing center and then to the US embassy in Ethiopia. We are not completely sure how long it's going to take, but we don't expect it to be too long.
I spoke to someone in Ethiopia yesterday and he told me that the boys are doing well. We can't wait to get them home. Life is about to get extra crazy, but wonderful at the same time! Thanks for the prayers. I will update when we know more.

Not a Fan

As most of you know, Justin and I attend Southeast Christian Church here in Louisville. We are very blessed with two wonderful pastors who challenge us each week. One of our pastors, Kyle Idleman is releasing a book based on a previous sermon series, "Not Fan, Completely. Committed. Follower." The concept challenges Christians to not just be an enthusiastic admirer of Christ, but to live as he lived and love as he loved. We found out last week that Kyle would like to donate a portion of book sales at the book signing to our adoption. This was very unexpected. A few days before we were stressing a little about the continued cost (mostly travel related). Why should we be surprised that God was going to provide?

More than the funding though, we are so happy that adoption will be highlighted. The article in the Outlook did a fabulous job telling our story. I love that the article expressed how we thought and think of Zoey Hiwot, Chera, and Kenenisa as our children even before they became legally ours or lived under our roof. Making the decision to start the adoption process can be very overwhelming. There are so many possible fears; What will our family say?, Can we afford this?, What if the child we adopt has mental or physical health problems?. Can I love a child that is not biologically related to me? We hope that the message of the book will inspire others to step out in faith and let God lead them to something that will likely be difficult, but may bring more joy to their lives than they could ever imagine.

Having our story expressed in an article was and is something that is uncomfortable. We in no way want it to look like we are anything special at all. Thankfully, the article wonderfully focused on God's plan. Our entire journey as parents was led and constructed by God. I know that we are not completely committed followers in every aspect of our lives. There are so many areas of our lives that we could better honor God. Thankfully, he does not expect us to be perfect. If we were, there would be no need for him.

Please join us tomorrow, May 22, 7:30, during a live web cast/book signing that will be held at Southeast. There will be great speaking from Kyle and Lee Strobe as well as fabulous music with Mark Hall from Casting Crowns. For more info about Not a Fan, check out: http://www.notafan.com/

Happy Birthday Zoey Hiwot!

Today we celebrated the second birthday of our sweet Zoey Hiwot. Since Zoey came so close to not even having a first birthday, today was very significant to us. It's very hard to process what a hard start to life she had. We are so blessed that God saved her life and placed her into ours.

Zoey had a great time. She had pizza and cake, two of her favorite things. Thank you to everyone who came out and celebrated with us. Big thanks go to Amy and her fabulous cake making skills!

Click on the picture to see a few pictures of her day:

Surprise!

It's been a while since I have been on here. Sorry! We have been pretty busy. We have an exusce though. We are expecting another addition to our growing family. This time, we are going the traditional route. We found out late last fall that we are expecting. It was a complete surprise. We hadn't planned on getting pregnant until after the boys were home and settled. As we have been made very aware over the past couple of years, God has his own plans in mind. Although it is a little much right now, I know we will look back years from now and see just how perfect his plan was.

I know many of you are saying; Yes, this is not news, its been obvious for a while that you were pregnant!" Thank you for humoring us! For quite a few reasons, we chose not to share our news. At this point, it is pretty much impossible to keep it a secret!

Everything has went well. I have been blessed to have a pretty easy pregnancy. Zoey will still be the princess of the family, we found out that it's a boy.

No news on Chera and Kenenisa. I spoke to our immigration official who told us he/she had not started working on our case yet. They also let me know that the average turnaround time is now 75 days. He/She received our case on March 16. Good news, I spoke to the social worker at our orphanage. He said that Chera and Kenenisa are doing great. He also explained to them about our delay and that we loved them and missed them. As hard as it is to have to wait for them, I am so thankful that they are happy and healthy. Although an orphanage in Ethiopia is not the optimal place for any child, I do believe that all the staff love the kids and take care of them the best they can.

Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement! We are so thankful for how much support we have received from everyone!

Apologies and Thank You!

First of all, so sorry to everyone if I have forgotten an event, not returned a call, not returned an email, or forgotten some other thing. My mind has been all over the place lately and I have been even more scatterbrained than normal. Thanks for your patience!

Also, in my last email, I forgot to thank a few people who helped us get our homestudy done in record time. Thanks to Katherine, Trina, Bill, Alice, Cindy, and Dustin. Also, thanks to Susan for pushing those who needed a little encouragement to speed everything up.

Enjoy a picture of Zoey when Brittney and James visited her a little over a year ago.

Brown Family Update

Check out these handsome boys! A friend was just in Ethiopia picking up his beautiful little girl and snapped this pic for us. He was able to tell the boys we loved them and would come get them as soon as we could. He said they were doing great.

We have had a little bit of a set back in our process. We found out a couple weeks ago that our home study(a document that summarizes our lives and approves us to adopt in the US) had ran out. I got confused, thinking it ran out in 24 months(which was the old standard), but it was actually 18 months. Our home study agency did not catch this either. Along with our home study running out, we also had to update since Zoey is home. All of this means that our home study had to basically be done completely over again. Thankfully, we have finished that part. Next, we have to be approved again by USCIS(United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). I spoke to someone yesterday who explained that we had to start over with this process as well. There is no real way to expidite the process, but she asked that I send the application to her attention. She said she would fit it in her current cases and try to get it done as fast as possible. In a normal circumstance, our application would sit on a shelf and wait for an officer to have an opening. I am very grateful for her willingness to help. I was very worried since friends have not had the best experience when asking USCIS for a speedy process. I sent everything yesterday and it should get there by Monday morning. I don't know why, but you send everything to Texas and it then has to be sent to another location. I have no idea how long it will take to get to the officer I spoke to. We are hoping for March, although we have no real idea how long it will actually take.
Its been such a long process to bring the boys home. Every step of the way has been full of unexpected bumps. Adoption requires so much faith and trust in God. Everytime we get discouraged, we try to remind ourselves that there is a reason for everything. It is of course still hard, but the fact that God is in control gives us hope.

Happy New Year!

This is going to be a long one! I am still processing yesterday, so I may ramble or be overly detailed.

Zoey started the New Year off with a bang! She started the New Year's Eve off with her first sleep over with my mom. She did great. She slept and ate good and had tons of fun playing. I was worried because she doesn't always sleep well in new places, but everything went really well. We were proud of her for being such a big girl.

We picked her up late morning and mom was a little worried that she seemed to have a little chest congestion. When we got home, I took her temperature and it was a little high. I took it again to make sure it was right and it had actually increase by a degree in that short amount of time. I didn't think much of it and gave her some tylenol. Since it was her nap time anyway, we left her in her crib. I heard a really loud and strange sound come from her. I didn't go in immediately, but something told me I needed to check on her. When I did, I saw that she was awake. I picked her up and at first thought she was just really sleepy. Her eyes were open, but she was unresponsive and totally limp. Her eyes were slowly shifting front to back. I immediately felt that something wasn't right. Justin came in and took her as we decided to take her to the emergency room. As he was taking her out to the car, he ran back in because he realized she wasn't breathing. Her lips were no longer pink and were now dark and dull. At this point, it was obvious that she had a seizure. Our neighbor Amy is a nurse and Justin ran to get her. I gave Zoey two rescue breaths and decided I would go to our other neighbor's who is a fireman. While I was running I had another neighbor call EMS. As I was running to get Scott, I felt her muscles strengthen back up and I hear her make a sound. It was the most wonderful sound ever! Scott was not home, so we went back to our house where Justin was frantically looking for us with Amy. Amy thought she was having a febrile seizure since she also had a fever. Since she was responsive now, we decided to just take her downtown ourselves. In the card ride, she was groggy, but more herself again.
Thankfully, Kosair was not crowded and they saw us immediately. They all agreed that it was a febrile seizure and was not a big deal at all. It was not long, probably two minutes at the most and she came out of it really fast. Since they said it was okay, we let Zoey take a nap, which she desperately wanted to do. When she woke up, she was her happy squealing self. The nurse told us "If she is this happy when she is sick, I can't imagine what she is like when she's well!"

We had to have a few tests run to see what what was causing the fever, but she tested negative for everything. Their conclusion is that she has a very minor viral illness. She seemed like she was fighting something all week, I guess it finally hit her. It was nice to know that we didn't have to worry about some horrible, highly contagious illness. I hadn't planned on giving the flu shot to her, but it looks like we are getting it now!

When children have febrile seizures, they are likely to get another one. Good times. Even though we now know that they are not a big deal at all, I can't imagine seeing that again. Many of the adults and kids I work with have seizure disorders, so I am pretty used to seeing them. I have had a few clients that have died after having a seizure, so when I realized she was having one, I was pretty scared. Turns out, febrile seizures are not anywhere near as bad as the seizure most of my clients have. They do not last long, and the babies recover from them really fast. It is very rare that a child would have any brain damage from a febrile seizure. We have some medicine to give her in the rare case a seizure lasts 10 minutes. Now, all we can do is try to be aware of her temperature. But, since it is usually a reaction to a sudden fever, they are very hard to prevent.

It was a rough night worrying about every little sound she makes and constantly checking her temperature, but we made it. She is doing great today. She has a slight fever, but it is controlled since we are giving her medicine to keep it down. She is having a fabulous day eating her favorite foods and doing her favorite things. You really wouldn't know she was sick at all. We are very thankful that this scary event is really not a big deal if it happens again. We are of course praying that it never happens again!

Thank you to our neighbors Amy J, Amy H, Gary and Lisa for your calm presence as we were flipping out!