Love Makes Us Stronger: Our adoption story

Last week we got an update on our boys. It has turned my daydreams into nightmares. Adoption isn't easy but it is worth it. Every life on this earth has worth. They have meaning.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like for a disabled child to grow up with no mom or dad. NO ONE to care for you. No one to make sure you are fed. No one to hold you and keep you safe. No one to read to you or teach you about touch and new smells. What if you were NEVER taken out of the crib. And from birth just laid staring at a dim ceiling. And this Never was a forever kind of thing where you spend your entire childhood trapped in a body that doesn't even move and if it does you'd find yourself tied up. Only 15% of disabled orphans live more than a year in this Hell of a life. Because they DIE! Imagine the odds of surviving 2, 3, 4 years of this ....... Now 16 years. It seems almost impossible. What if it took 16 years before someone truly saw value in you and you managed to exist .

This is what happens to unwanted special needs children, they simply exist. I am pro life and that means more to me that not killing the child. I can show you what happens to those kids. And it will make you sick. I thought about sparing the world. I even told others not to share this picture after showing them in private. But the world needs to know... Everyone needs to see and do whatever they can to stop this from happening to kids. If we ignore it and keep it secret it will keep happening.

I love this child. I see value in him and I know he deserves more than to exist. This child has survived the impossible. It is a miracle that he is alive. He is beautiful and deserving. And in less than a week I will travel to make him my son. He will escape the bondage.

Do you all realize we leave NEXT WEEK?

I can FINALLY say we do!

And as some of you already have heard Ricky is no longer available for adoption. This is the kid that started it all for us. We might not have met him but we called him our son. We anticipated him, got his room ready in our home and started dreaming about the day he would truly be our son. Sadly that day will never come. He has been transferred out of the orphanage and now is in trade school. He has never had any kind of freedom and it feels good. So good that the boy desperate for a family decided he was better off alone. I don't think he realizes that he only has a 15% chance to make it outside of the orphanage walls.

When I first commit to Ricky I was so lost. I had no idea anything about adoption. I searched on YouTube for hours hoping that maybe one video would have him in it and would give me a hint to where he was. I never found him in any videos but I did keep seeing two precious sweet young boys(Maya's Hope Cutie pies) Over and over I saw their beautiful faces and I felt their pain but I saw hope in the spark in their eyes and the smiles that lit up the rooms. It was a pain that dug to the deepest pit of my being coupled with a love that was like no other It was almost to much to take. But I didn't know anything about them or what Maya's hope was. But they were cute little boys.

One late night I decided to look through pictures of other children in the same country as Ricky and I stumbled upon Elizabeth. A child with the same disease as my biological children. A disease that kills more young children than any other genetic disease. I know to much about spinal muscular atrophy and exactly what was going to happen to her. She will die. I struggled with those thoughts for months. It was a struggle that consumed me and I could see her when I looked at my own children. And then one night my son who has no muscle mass fell out of his chair and hit the floor. I tried to catch him but I was to far away. He was shaking and crying and he looked at me and he said Mama "why didn't you catch me. You are supposed to catch me." I am not sure what it was but I dropped to my knees and as I held my son crying... I realized that it is very rare that my son would not have anyone there to catch him but there would NEVER be anyone there to catch Elizabeth. She was not only going to die but she will die alone. As I held my son I knew I had to adopt her too.

And then we saw Beth. I remember the day I first saw her video my husband grabbed the computer out of my hands he said'' Who is she?'' The way he looked at her was the way he looks at our daughter. A week later he came home from work and he said that he had to know she was safe and the only way to do that was to adopt her.

Months went by and we prepared our homes and our hearts for our family to grow.

AND THEN IT HAPPENED.

Someone posted on Reece's Rainbow about a boy...

And the next day Another....

I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES!

Those were the boys that I had dreamt about , the boys that I cried for and fell in love with when I had searched on youtube for Ricky. I was in such shock I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to feel. So I started advocating and sharing their story trying to find them a mama. As I learn more I realized that those toddler boys I saw were actually TEENAGE boys and one would age out in only a few months. My dreams of them became nightmares as I realized exactly their situation and the Hell they were living. I discovered that those cute sweet videos was a time from the past. Just two years had past and they had dwindled to almost nothing. It was shocking to see new photos of them. What shocked me most was that they could be adopted and NO ONE was coming for them, and it was very obvious that they would die of starvation long before any disease/disability got them. As time moved closer and closer to the older child aging out I decided to secretly commit and I was starting the process to adopt them. We would come home with our 3 children and I would turn around and go right back for 2 more. And thanks to Reece's rainbow and their waiting child grants we were going to be able to do that.

But then I got an update on the boys It was very bad. I realized I would never make it. I didn't feel like they had any time to spare and so much could go wrong and us not get to go back as fast as I would hope. My heart sunk. It was a couple weeks later when someone reached out to me and told me that another family would like to adopt Beth. We also heard in the SAME week that Ricky wasn't sure he wanted to be adopted. My mama heart didn't know what to do but we decided to bring the boys home NOW after talking to our social worker and getting the go to add a 4th child. Now we couldn't be commit to 5 children and only approved for 4 so we had to make a tough choice. We had two options. Give Ricky a chance to say Yes and hope with all our hearts he does and let the other family adopt Beth. OR.. Throw Ricky to the wolves and adopt Beth. The choice seemed clear.

Now that Ricky has said No. That means that we are only coming home with 1 of the original 3 children we had planned to adopt. What a roller-coaster. Oh how we LOVED Beth. Giving her up was one of the hardest things we have ever done. But if we were going to save the boys we had to make a choice. It still hurts us deeply and I don't know if it will ever go away but I am not her mama. She will always have a very special place in our hearts. Her family is almost done with all their paper work and she will be in country to adopt her before I leave with my children. She will have a big family and lots of siblings to call her own. We really wanted Ricky to say yes. I wish he would of said yes but he didn't. So what does that mean for #4

We had a backup child in mind encase something were to happen and we can't bring home one of our 4. Because honestly we just want to make sure we can do all we can to help children find families and despite all the pain we can find happiness in knowing we can still help a child find a family. We are adding a child from Reece's Rainbow called Matt he is 5 and still in a baby house. His future was said to be bleak. Doctors said he would never sit up, and never walk. He can do both because he is in a great place where the Nannies and Therapists care but that all ends when a child turns 5. Matt would go to an institution like my boys where he could face a life similar to their fate. We truly believe that if you can help. You should help. so we are. I can't believe we leave NEXT WEEK for 3 sons and 1 daughter. Before the end of the year I will be a mama of 7!