He has a name!

First of all, we want to ask that you bear with us a little bit, because we haven't gotten the "look" of this blog updated yet. It still has the very feminine theme that we were using for the girls' adoption. Updating this so that it is more appropriate for our son is on our list of things to do. It just hasn't happened yet.

Now, for the really exciting part of this post - we have chosen a name for our new little boy. Greg and I spent several days discussing options, and in the end, it was Josiah who suggested the first name that we chose. We have decided to name him Jonathan Zechariah. Jonathan means "Gift from the LORD," or "The LORD gives," and Zechariah means "The LORD remembers." We know that there are some aspects of his diagnosis that are uncertain and a little bit scary. Caring for an autistic child might be the most difficult thing we have ever done. In light of this, we wanted to chose a name that made it very clear that we consider our son a valuable treasure and not a burden. No matter what lies ahead for us, he is a gift. It also seems to us that he is very sad and that he feels all alone. We imagine that he feels forgotten, and we want him to know that God has never forgotten him, and has had a plan for his life from the very beginning.

We have been working hard on the adoption process, and we have made pretty good progress. We finished the packet of documents to send to our agency in order to request provisional approval from the Chinese Adoption Authorities, and are hoping to hear back from them any day now. We have also finished the initial application to our home study agency. Once they process that paperwork, they will send us the longer formal application packet. There is still a lot of work ahead of us, but we are thankful for how much we have accomplished already

We also got our first donation! Someone left an anonymous gift for us at church last Sunday. We don't have any idea who you are, but thank you very much! It was nearly the exact amount needed for our application fee to our agency, and it was a huge encouragement to us. We are praying for more donations, because we will need nearly $3000 soon to pay the first of our large agency fees, and then almost $2000 shortly after that to pay for our home study. We don't have any idea where this money is going to come from, but we are trusting God to provide it in His perfect time. In some ways, these early fees are the most difficult, because we will not be allowed to apply for most grants until after our home study is completed, and we have not had any time to pull together elaborate fund-raising events.

We do have our very first fund-raising opportunity running, though. Many of you may remember that we had a store front set up with JustLove coffee during the girls' adoption. It did not bring in a ton of money, but every little bit helps. We contacted the company, and they have given us permission to raise funds through them again. The link to our store front is in the side bar of this blog. Right now it probably still says that the proceeds will benefit Isabelle and Hallie. We will get that updated with Jonathan's name soon. We are also hoping to set up and Amazon affiliate link soon. Stay tuned for more details about that.

Big News!!

As the title of this post states, we have some really big news. First though, I'd like to give a quick update on each of our kids.

Josiah (6 1/2), Gabriela (5 1/2), and Matthias (almost 4) are all doing very well. They are healthy and developing well, and the older two are really enjoying their school work. Mikaela is 5 1/2, and continues to amaze everyone. She speaks in complete sentences, or at least long phrases, almost all of the time now. Isabelle is also 5 1/2, and her progress in the last 18 months has been incredible. She doesn't even seem like the same child. A few months ago, she had surgery to correct the alignment of her eyes, and this seemed to improve her vision quite a bit. She has transformed from the awkward, anxious child that we met in China to a beautiful, confident, happy little girl. She and Mikaela are constant companions and best friends, and the keep us laughing most of the time. Hallie is still much more of a baby than the other two, but she is making progress as well. Her eating continues to improve, and her favorite foods are now macaroni and cheese and yogurt. She is not quite walking yet, but cruises everywhere, and often takes half a dozen steps at a time. She still does not talk much, but she is learning some sign language, and has just starting stringing signs together in short phrases. Victoria is now eight months old, and she is a happy, social baby. She eats well and plays well with the kids. The biggest challenge with her is that she still is not sleeping all the way through the night. After eight full months, I would love a night of uninterrupted sleep!! We were able to get an updated family picture this fall, and it really shows how much the kids have grown.

And now for the big news -- We are adopting again! We have just committed to the adoption of a little boy in China who will be three years old next month. That makes him exactly one year younger than Matthias, and Matthias has already announced that this little boy is his new best friend. I can't wait to see the two of them together. The agency is calling him Lewis, so that is the name that we will use until we have chosen his new name. Lewis has an extra thumb on his right hand, unilateral microtia, and possibly autism. His challenges will be very different from anything we have faced at this point, and we are a little bit nervous about that. More than anything else, though, we are excited about our new son and eager to get him home.

As with our other two adoptions, we are starting this process without any of the funds that we need to complete it. We don't have any idea how we are going to raise the $35,000 it will take to bring our son home, but we know that God will provide everything we need to follow His leading. As always, if you feel led to help us with this, you can make a tax-deductible donation to The Shepherd's Crook Ministries. Just be sure to mark your donation for "Lewis Godwin."

Please pray for us as we walk through this process. Pray that we will work quickly and diligently so that we can get through this process soon. Please pray for our son as he waits in an orphanage so far away.

Easter

Last Sunday was Isabelle and Hallie's first Easter, and it was probably the nicest holiday we have had since the girls came home. I have mentioned in earlier posts that Isabelle struggles with a lot of stress. She gets stressed if she feels like we don't approve of her. She gets stressed if she feels like mealtime is going to be late. She gets stressed if other people get second helpings before she does. Or if she is the last one to get her shoes on in the morning. Or if Greg steps outside and she can't see him. Unfortunately, she spends a lot of her time stressed. We have seen a lot of improvement in this area in the last few months, but one thing that has still caused lots of anxiety for her is any deviation from our normal routine. Even if it is a fun change, she ends up distressed and unhappy. I don't think she enjoyed anything about Christmas this year. Decorating cookies made her stressed. Cutting down the tree made her stressed. And so did decorating the tree. And opening presents. And visiting with family. Everything about it was different than her normal routine, and she did not like it. Valentine's Day was a little better, just because it is a lower-key holiday, but she still didn't enjoy it. When I tried to help her decorate her Valentine's bag, she just wrung her hands and shredded stickers all over the table. I wasn't expecting Easter to go well, but to my surprise, she did great! She is really learning to trust us for her stability, instead of needing such a strict routine, and it is exciting to watch that happen.

She loved dying Easter eggs with the Rosenow kids.

She loved her new Easter Dress! As soon as she saw it, she began clapping her hands and trying to jump up and down (still doesn't quite have the coordination for that yet), and told me, "Oh cute!"

She even enjoyed the Easter egg hunt, although her poor vision made it difficult for her to find very many.

Hallie has always been more relaxed about holidays than Isabelle, and she did great, just like we expected. She wasn't crazy about dying the eggs, though, because she is still really funny about touching food of any kind. You can tell by the look on her face that she thought we were crazy for expecting her to touch the egg in the strange-looking liquid.

She also looked super cute in her "Easter dress," which some of you may recognize as the same dress she was wearing last year in Guangzhou. It was too cute not to use again.

She didn't really want to look for Easter eggs during the hunt, but she had a wonderful time playing on the swing while the other kids hunted.

And finally one group shot of all the kids. Gabriela looks like she is crying, but she promised me that she wasn't sad; the sun was just in her eyes.

Happy Easter!

World Down Syndrome Day (a LONG update)

It has been about four months since I have updated this blog, and our life has changed in many ways. We have been so busy that I haven't thought much about blogging, but it just seemed wrong to let today pass without some sort of an entry. I remember March 21 from last year so clearly still. Our paperwork had been submitted to China, and we were stuck waiting. It was a pretty sad day for me because my girls were still so far away, but I remember looking forward to this year when all three of my little ones with Down Syndrome would be together. I promised that there would be cute pictures on 3-21 of this year, so here they are. I will combine a brief recap of the last four months with a few pictures of my girls.

Many of you already know the big family news, but just in case anyone hasn't heard yet, we are expecting a baby in June. We are having a little girl, whom we are naming Victoria. I was really sick for the first few months of the pregnancy, which is one of the reasons that I wasn't able to update this blog, but I feel much better now.

Update on Mikaela:
We really don't have a whole lot to report about her. She is thriving in every area as always. She is fully potty-trained, both during the day and at night. Her vocabulary grows almost daily, and I think her articulation must be improving as well, because strangers are occasionally able to understand her, and that hasn't been the case before. She is learning to play memory games and really enjoys that. Her big obsession right now is The Little Mermaid, and most of her Christmas presents were Ariel themed in some way.

Update on Isabelle:
Isabelle has made incredible progress in many areas since November. Just before Thanksgiving, we finally got her fitted for a pair of glasses, and she has blossomed since then! We had strongly suspected that many of her difficulties were vision related rather than motor or cognitive, and that has certainly proven to be true. Her walking improved almost overnight once she could see where she was going, and she is far more confident in every area. The first morning after she got her glasses, she spent all of breakfast time looking around at everyone and smiling and waving. I think it was the first time she had been able to see all of our faces clearly. She still has essentially no depth perception, because her eyes don't work together at all. We are now patching her stronger right eye for half an hour each day in an attempt to improve that for her. If this doesn't work, she will probably have to have surgery at some point in the future.

In December, Isabelle had her heart repaired in a simple surgery. She only spent one night in the hospital, and doesn't even have a scar from it. The nurses all fell in love with her, and one of them even gave her a stethoscope to keep.

Isabelle is also potty-training. We didn't have any intention of trying this with her until she learned a bit more English and was more confident in our love for her. Once she saw us potty-training Matthias, though, she was emphatic that she wanted to potty train too. Every time I put him on his little potty, she said, "Mommy, me pot!" Finally we bought her a little potty and let her try. She is amazing! I would say she is probably 85% of the way trained during the day now. I remind her to go every so often, and she rarely has more than one accident in a day. For the past three days, she hasn't had any accidents! I am hoping she might be all they way there by the time the baby comes.

Yesterday, she had her first dental cleaning, and did great! She doesn't have a single cavity. This was a shock to us, because her teeth had never been brushed before she came to live with us. I don't think I have ever heard of a child being adopted from an orphanage as old as she was without any cavities at all. We are really thankful for this news. At the end of the cleaning, she was allowed to choose a toy out of the "treasure chest" and picked a little tiara. She is becoming quite a girly-girl, and really enjoys anything pretty and shiny. I love seeing her personality emerge.

Update on Hallie:

The biggest news about Hallie is that she is eating!! We have been working with her since the day that she came to live with us to try to get her to eat anything by spoon, and she is finally doing it. She actually eats three meals a day now, and takes one or two bottles. She is still pretty thin, but we are starting to see her fill out. We can tell she is healthier because her hair is growing thick and soft now, instead being thin, coarse, and rusty-looking like it was when she came home. She continues to be happy and affectionate and is an absolute joy to be around almost all the time. She is very emphatic about being Mommy's baby, and we expect that she will have the most difficult transition once Victoria arrives. She does not like to share my attention or my lap.

Happy World Down Syndrome day!

The Transforming Power of a Family

I wrote this last week, but decided to wait until after Sunday to publish it. Some of the people who read my blog go to our church, and I didn't want the whole thing to be a repeat for them.

As many of you know, November is National Adoption Month here in America, and many churches choose one Sunday in November to be Orphan Sunday or Adoption Sunday. They dedicate some portion of the service to celebrating the miracle of adoption and encouraging members to follow God's command to minister to the orphans in our world. Greg and I have been able to participate in several Adoption Sunday services this year in a very small way. This coming Sunday, November 17th, is the Sunday that our church has chosen, and Greg and I each get to give a brief talk as part of the service. As I have been rolling my talk around in my head, I came to realize that it would make a pretty good blog post, and decided to lay it out here while my thoughts are fresh.

Children who do not have families are delayed physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally. Without the family dynamic, they don't have the ability to experience so many of the things that we take for granted every day. These delays look different in each child. Some children may be nearly on target in some areas and very, very weak in others, while other children may be just slightly weak across the board. Children who come from institutions where they are given more attention and care are generally far less delayed than children who are badly neglected, but all institutionalized children are delayed to some degree. One of the most exciting things about being an adoptive parent is to watch the child transform as they become part of a family. This is a gradual process, and it is difficult for both children and parents. Sometimes, particularly with older children, it can be painfully slow. But it is also a beautiful process, and the transformation from an orphan into a beloved son or daughter is striking.

We were first a part of this miracle in 2010 when we adopted Mikaela from Ukraine. Mikaela has Down Syndrome and was significantly undernourished at the time of her adoption. She was 11 months old, but developmentally was more like a 3 month old baby. She couldn't sit up or crawl and didn't have any idea how to play. She spent most of her time lying on her back in her crib dangling something over her face for stimulation. When she couldn't find anything to dangle, she just waved her fingers or scratched herself.

Those were the only ways she knew to entertain herself. Because of her very young age, Mikaela's transformation was quick and smooth. She bonded with Greg and me quickly, much like a newborn baby does. She learned to nurse and that helped her to gain weight and grow stronger. After a few months, she learned to sit up, and then a little later, she learned to crawl. She began to laugh and play and talk. And finally with much work Mikaela learned to walk right around her third birthday. Now, after three years as part of a family, she is on target or advanced in every single area for a child of her age with Down Syndrome. We are so proud of her, and we love her so much.

Last year, God made it clear to us that He was calling us to adopt again, and this time He led us to Isabelle and Hallie. When we met them in China in August, Hallie was far more delayed physically and developmentally, but Isabelle was struggling more with emotional delays. She genuinely didn't seem to have any idea how to express affection for others. She played well with children and adults, but had no idea how to hug or kiss at all. She didn't even seem to know how to be held. When we held her in our laps, she sat with her body stiff and held away from us. Their transformation is just beginning, and we look forward to watching these girls blossom in their family. In my last update, I shared more details about the progress that they are making. We are encouraged, but they both still have a very long way to go.

One of the most beautiful and unexpected blessings with this adoption story has been watching Mikaela with her two new sisters. All four kids have done great and welcomed them, but there is something especially touching about watching Mikaela with them. I know that she can't have any conscious memories of her own adoption because she was so young, but she seems to have some clear idea that there is something that she has in common with Isabelle and Hallie that the rest of the family doesn't share. She is like a little ambassador. She is eager to share her toys and is almost obsessed with making sure they are never left out of any activity. She tries to explain things to them, she "reads" books to them, and loves to teach them new things. She taught Hallie how to blow her candles on her birthday last week.

My favorite Mikaela story happened just about a month after we returned home from China. I had taken the three little girls out somewhere by myself and had just returned home. I unbuckled Mikaela and helped her jump down out of the van onto the sidewalk that leads up to our house. She took off at a happy trot, eager to go inside and see the other half of the family. Next I unbuckled Isabelle and set her down on the sidewalk. She started up the path with her slow awkward steps, holding her hands out in front of herself in case she fell. I then turned around to get Hallie. By the time I got her unbuckled and out of the van, Mikaela had noticed how much Isabelle was struggling and had turned back to help her. I looked just in time to see her take Isabelle's hand and say, " 'mon Bibel. 'mon." Slowly and patiently, Mikeala helped Isabelle all the way up the sidewalk to our back door. I stood there holding Hallie and watching the other girls with tears in my eyes. Mikaela was once so weak and helpless and broken that she couldn't do anything for herself. Nothing. And now, by the grace of God through the love of her family, she is so strong, and healthy and full of love that is is able to reach out to her two new sisters and bring them into the family as well. If that isn't a picture of the miracle of adoption, I don't know what is.

An Update on the Girls (But no pictures this time :-( ).

Isabelle and Hallie continue to blossom in our home, and it is now hard to remember what life was like without them. Hallie, especially, seems happier than she has ever been before. She is showing affection toward her brothers and sisters more and more readily, and seems to love each of the members of her family now. She is making both vowel and consonant speech sounds now, and even tries to say a few words. She will even initiate games of peek-a-boo or pat-a-cake with me or the other children. It has been wonderful to watch her grow and learn. Her feeding training is going slowly, but we are continuing to see progress with that as well. She will sit and watch me eat, and pretend to crunch and chew when I do, but she isn't interested in having any of my food in her mouth. She is willing (and sometimes even eager) to suck on pizza crust, crackers, or cucumbers now, but she doesn't try to bite it. We are so pleased with all the progress she is making, and we are having so much fun working with her and watching her.

Isabelle continues to do very well too, and she is a sweet and obedient child, but we both feel like she is a little bit uncertain about how she fits into our family. She doesn't seem as confident as Hallie in her interaction with us. She seems to hesitate a lot more before initiating play or affection with us, and she constantly looks back at us to see if we are approving of her. Many times each day, she asks us hopefully, "Good girl? Good girl?" No matter how many times we tell her that she is a good girl and that we love her very much, she seems to worry that she is not pleasing us. We feel bad for her, but we know that the only way to help her through this is to continue affirming our love for her, and that eventually she will be confident and secure with us all. It has been a little bit challenging to figure out how to treat her sometimes, because in some ways, she is so grown up, and in others, she is still quite a baby. We are struggling to find ways to let her be a big girl helper, because she seems to derive a lot of pride from helping, while still nurturing her as a baby. We have started giving her a little bottle of milk each night before bed, and she loves that. She curls up in my lap, and it is some of the best time we have together each day. It is the only time that she relaxes fully in my arms and snuggles with trying too hard. It feels so good to hold her when she isn't worried about trying to cuddle the "right" way.

All in all, they are both doing great, and we are so thankful for both of them.

Four Weeks at Home

How is it possible that we've already been home for four weeks? It seems, in some ways, like we just stepped off the plane a few days ago—the memories of the trip home are still so fresh in our minds—and yet our time in China seems like it belongs in another time-stream altogether. We were there for three weeks and were able to set up something of a normal life in each city we were in, but now that feels like a lifetime ago, even though it hasn't even been two months since we left! I think that part of the reason for this sense of disorientation is due to the fact that God had us jump back into our regular life with both feet almost as soon as our feet landed back in Cincinnati. The first week home was pretty restful, but the past three have gone at a nearly break-neck pace. That has made us feel like we never left, and in some ways, that has been good for us and for our kids. We've seen with them (and, indeed, with us) that the more routines we can maintain in daily life, the better everyone does. Day-to-day life isn't always predictable or consistent, but there are a few weekly rituals that we do that help to keep us somewhat grounded (e.g., church on Sunday mornings, pizza and TV all together for dinner on Friday). Most of those weekly mainstays are back to where they were before we left, and that feels inexpressibly good.

I want to say, too, that we wouldn't have survived this past month without our church. A few days before we returned home, a close friend of ours came over to the house with a couple of Kristie's sisters to clean our house and get things ready for us. But she didn't stop there. She cut our grass and then decorated our front and back porches with paper streamers and balloons, which brought both of us to tears when we saw them. Then, our church—small but growing church plant though it is—has blessed us with three meals a week for the past four weeks, and with all of the things that we have had going on, there is no way that we can properly thank everyone for this. We still have some meals in our refrigerator and freezer, which will carry us through this coming week. This has been unbelievable, and we are deeply grateful for their care, support, and friendship all throughout our adoption journey.

As for the girls, what can I say? Every time we think that we have them nailed down in some area, they surprise us. We might have mentioned this before but based on our time with them in China, we would have sworn that Isabelle would be a whirlwind that we'd struggle to keep up with, and that Hallie would be pretty calm and docile, if for no other reason than her immobility. Oh, how wrong we were! Isabelle's mobility has continued to progress nicely. She's walking more of the time, but she is very, very calm, sweet, and laid back. Kristie mentioned in her last blog post that Isabelle wants to be a big girl, and we've seen more of that from her, as evidenced by her ever-growing interest in having her hair fixed like Mommy, Mikaela, and Gabriela, and she has even asked Kristie for make-up on at least one occasion. Surprisingly, she has turned out to be a girly-girl. And she continues to surprise us in other areas, too. During our time in China, we began to suspect that she might not actually have Down Syndrome, but maybe some other syndrome. She didn't have the classic signs of Down Syndrome—her muscle tone is quite good for a girl who spent four years in an orphanage, her tongue control is nearly perfect, her enunciation is very good, and she is an incredibly quick learner—but there were some apparent physical abnormalities that we thought might possibly indicate another syndrome altogether. It got to the point where we were almost convinced that she didn't have Down Syndrome, but her chromosomal test conducted by the children's hospital here indicates that she most definitely has Down Syndrome. This surprised both of us, but apparently Isabelle is just a high-functioning kid with DS, and it'll be interesting to see what she will be able to do in her life. Based on discussions with therapists, Mikaela seems to be very high-functioning, but it's possible that Isabelle's ceiling is even higher than her sister's. We can't wait to see how they're going to challenge, encourage, and push each other over the years. Isabelle has already grown very comfortable in our family. In fact, she and Hallie both slid in almost without notice. If God hadn't made their transition as smooth as He did, I don't know how we would have gotten through the past four weeks. Both girls have bonded well with us and their attachments continue to deepen, and their sense of belonging here in our family with their brothers and sisters is quite strong. We thank and praise Him for that incredible blessing.

Hallie has also surprised us, as she bears almost no resemblance to the lethargic, frail baby that we met just seven weeks ago today. In that time, she has gone from sleeping 18-20 hours a day, being emotionally withdrawn, apparently having no idea how to play with any toys, being completely immobile, and being able to take only one 8-oz. bottle (packed as full of grains and nutrients as we could get it) in the course of a day, to an effervescent girl who sleeps like a normal three-year-old, laughs and giggles and coos readily, plays with a number of toys and initiates play with others, scoots and crawls all over the house with lightning speed, and takes four nutrient-packed bottles each day. She loves to disassemble things and to empty bins of toys from various parts of the house, preferably right after the rooms have been picked up. She is such a funny, charming girl, and it's a joy to see her true personality shining through. Her determination will serve her well as she'll have to work hard to close some of the developmental gaps that she has, but it also means that she can be a bit of a stubborn stinker. We've seen that from her at times, and we know that as hard as that can be, it shows that there's a good trait at root; it's just a matter of praying for her and trying our best to help her direct that trait—determination—to a good use. We're just happy to see how much progress she has made in such a short time.

I'll close this now, as it's midnight and I'd like to get some sleep before the morning. Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks, and I hope to post more in the coming weeks.

Hallie having fun at home

Isabelle coloring at our celebration dinner

Watching Beauty and the Beast

Gabriela's 4th birthday party