Moving Forward....

How do I begin.....Most of you know that we had to turn down our referral. It has been a long and difficult road. After so many years of infertility I had to let go of the precious little girl that grew in my heart. I spent many days, and nights sobbing trying to find what God's path was for us and this little girl. I felt crushed, and guilty. My dream of a daughter seem to crash at my feet, and the guilt of leaving her in China was very overwhelming for me. I prayed for answers and peace....yet God seemed silent to me. I questioned my faith and if God even cared about the pain I felt. My husband stood strong in my battle of faith and direction. My husband assured me that God did in fact have our daughter waiting in China, and that for some reason beyond our own understanding Leanna was not meant to be our daughter. I fought that truth with myself, with God and with my husband. I begged him to just go get Leanna. I was ready to take on what ever her condition was. I sobbed daily. My husband could not see it...He was firm on what he felt God's path for us was. Through the months of pain, I slowly came around to what God has planned for us. No amount of prayer changed my husband in what he felt God had for us. I know that God does not close one door without opening another. So here I am loving Leanna, and trusting God. My husband and I have realized how much this has touched our hearts. How we long to help the ones still in the orphanages. Through Leanna God has planted a seed for missions in China. My husband and I talk a lot of about doing missions in China. We both feel this is something God has called us to do. Leanna will always be my daughter in my heart and in my prayers. We have recently received a new referral. Which was another test of my faith. Her site is http://steens2china.blogspot.com/. We are moving forward, and I would like to thank all who have reached out to support us. My email is steenjks@yahoo.com if anyone has questions or needs to talk. I have been through so much emotionally, and would love to help anyone else who may experience these things.

Update

Last week we sadly announced that we had to turn down our referral. In the middle of all of this our update from Lady bugs in Love came in. We ordered it Sept 1st. The pictures we received did not quite match the update we got from the CCAA. But through more investigation, we found that she does have some medical issues that are severe. We are very sad as she is only 12lbs at 15months old. She was the same weight when she was 7months. This has been gut wrenching. As she will always be our daughter. I will be posting some more of her new photos here soon. As updating her page is very difficult for me. I can barely see through my tears to type.

Our Daughter

Yesterday we received an update on our daughter. It seems that during her cleft lip repair surgery she suffered some trauma to her brain. She is no longer responding to people. She seems to be in a coma like state. She no longer sits, can not move her arms to reach for toys. She does not smile and she is no longer speaking or making any sounds. She does not show expression when held or played with. She was very tiny and under weight to begin with and her update says she has lost muscle tone. I can only imagine how thin and tiny she is now. With this new news and her declining health we have stopped the adoption. We are very sad, and heart broke to share this with everyone. We still consider her our daughter and love her very much. But know we can not take on what she requires, and at this point not sure if she will make it. Please keep our little angel in your prayers. We hope to continue another adoption sometime in the future, but for now we are still trying to gather our hearts around what is happening.

Travel Information

We had our travel meeting with our agency yesterday. We are waiting on our TA, but our agency believes we will travel around Nov 5th. We are very excited. We have requested an update from China. We found out that her lip has been repaired already, we are still waiting for new pics.

LOA TODAY!!!

We just got our call we got our LOA today. So travel will be in the next 4 to 6 weeks... so the end of September begining of October!!!!! We are so excited!!!!!

Herer she is..... Our daughter..
We got our PA yesterday we are so excited!!!!!!

Chinese has been removed, as of 12-17-09.

Guangzhou city, Guangdong

WE GOT THE CALL!!!!!!

YES!!!! we are camping in our cabin in WV when we got the call. We got our special needs referral... She has cleft lip... her birthdate iS June 2, 2008.... She just turned 1yr old. We are so excited... I am waiting on an up to date medical a few concerns but no big deal... I will post later I had to drive down the road to get internet service....What a camping trip... WE WILL NEVER FOR GET! FINALLY OUR DAUGHTER.

NO Baby Yet

Well another SN list came and gone in June. We did not get matched. Not sure when the next list comes out. We are praying for the begining of July. It seems that travel time for SN is going very quickly. So we are praying to be matched soon. We would love to have our daughter home before Christmas. Well the begining of July is only a few days away so we are getting very excited. Though I try to keep myself from getting to excited as to the chance we won't get matched, but it is so hard. Hopefully my next post will be about our daughter........

Our paper chasing process!!!!

I am posting my dates for China........ We first decided to adopt from China late Oct of 2006. We started our paper work January of 2007 and put all things on hold in March of 2007 when my father-n-law passed away. After some time we got back to work on our paper chase in August of 2007 and mailed our dossier to China the begining of December of 2007 and received our LID of 12-27-07. In March of 2009 we switched to SN and are currently waiting... we have done updates for our I-71H and our homestudy...... As we wait we pray we will be able to complete our adoption before we need to update again. I just thought I would post our dates for paper chasing for anyone that is starting the adoption process......

Still Waiting

Well I talked to our agency and they told me today that it still might be a couple of months about 2 or so before we get matched. I am very sad...... It seems that the special needs list that they match from has a lot of agencies looking for the same age babies with the same special need as us. So the wait is growing. Not what we wanted to hear, but we are getting closer. The next list comes out end of June/ July. So another month we will wait for our daughter. She will be worth it all I know. We love her so much already. The waiting just gets harder.

No News, But Getting Closer!!!!!

No news from our agency, but the next special needs list will be out in just a few weeks. So if everything goes as planned we should be matched to our daughter very soon. I am very excited and the days seem to trickle by. We have updated our homestudy for KY and have mailed for our free extension from the USCIS. We are styaing busy with our kitchen remodel, my step son in graduating from LHS in May, so that has kept us busy planning his graduation party. I am hoping we will be matched by then so we can show off her picture at the party. I hope time speeds up. this waiting and waiting is really getting hard..........

Well we got some great news from our Adoption Agency. It seems that for the special needs list there is only 2 or 3 people a head of us. And they believe they will be able to match these families in April. Meaning that we will be up to be matched in May. I am so excited, it is finally happening. She also gave us the great news that we should be traveling in September or the latest November. We should have our little princesses before Christmas. I can't even explain the joy..... Though now comes the rest of the paper work and endless purchasing of baby items and traveling necessities. Planning for what, who and where my other children will be for the 2 weeks we are gone. So much to do, but it will keep us busy during the last part of our wait.

Well another couple of days have passed and the new special needs list for China was most likely updated already and we still have no word. So we are waiting for the next update which should be in about 2 or 3 weeks. Waiting and waiting thats what we are down to. I often think about the call from the agency and how overly excitied we will be. Well the good thing is that during this waiting time God has blessed me with 3 other children that keep us busy. Corey our oldest is graduating this spring from Highschool, so we are quite busy with graduation party planning and senoir pics, and all that stuff. As for Kayla our middle child she is not doing any sports this spring but is very active with friends and her social life. Our youngest is playing soccer for the 6th year he started at 3yrs old. So hopefully the days will fly by till we hear something from our agency. Well I gotta get back to the house and the kids.

Our Adoption

As many of you know we have been on the long awaited path for our daughter. The CCAA seems to moving very slow. So as of March we switched to a special needs adoption from China. We are very excited as they seem to be updating the special needs list every couple of weeks or so. This means our chances of being matched soon ( the next few months) is very high. This is wonderful news as we have waited almost 2 years already. We are more than ready to bring our daughter home. It is getting close to update time of the special needs list so I think about every couple of weeks I will be sitting on pins and needles waiting for our agency to call. It is like a pregancy test that takes a month or two to show a postive sign......So you walk around with it in your mind and giving you butterflies everyday. Waiting and waiting............... So here we are waiting and waiting.........