Day 5- GOTCHA DAY!!!

today, september 30 will always be celebrated in our home as Gotcha Day! the day that raymond officially became our son!! we are now parents of two incredible boys. wow, how fun life is going to be!!! this trip so far has been so amazing, exciting, really hard, painful, actually if you think of an emotion i have probably felt it in the 5 days that i have been here. i am totally exhausted and miss my family so much.

we were suppose to hear our ruling at 2:00pm today, but the judge was a little behind so we didn't hear it till just after 3:00pm. my wonderful friend (who is here with her husband to bring home their son) came along with me for moral support. it was so great to have her there with me. thank you so much kathryn, you guys have been a HUGE blessing to me! we were in the judges chambers for about 20 minutes and it was over, andy and i are his parents.

so now onto the paperwork to get us home. we have to wait for the official court papers to have raymond released to us. they have a court reporter in the room who is hand writing everything that the judge says, she has to later type up the court documents then give us a copy so we can have raymond released to us and a copy goes to the judge to be signed. the signed copy will be used to get raymond's visa. so tonight i had to put raymond to bed again in the children's building. it was hard, i just want to bring him back to the guesthouse. please pray that we get the court documents tomorrow.

so from here we still have lots to do. we do not have a birth certificate for raymond, hopefully by the end of the week. we need to get his passport which i hope is being applied for tomorrow. we have to take him to a doctor to have visa paperwork filled out. we have to apply for his visa after we have all the previous things done. i hope that our worst case scenario is 2 more weeks, but pray that it goes quicker! god has been so faithful so far, so i know everything will happen in perfect timing for his reasons. thanks everyone for the kind words, your support has been awesome, i can feel the love from here.

oh, and today i saw a cow standing at the gas pump at a gas station. just a random black cow. cars just drove around it like it was normal!

Day 4- Court Day

today was the big day i went to sleep at around 2:00am last night and first woke up at 5:30am hoping it was time to wake-up. I tried to go back to sleep but I woke up about every 15-20 minutes. I was really anxious and a bit nervous. finally 7:00 rolled around and i thought perfect, i will go ahead and get in the shower so i can play with raymond for a while before we come back over to the guesthouse to get ready to go! but then i remembered that my hairdryer exploded yesterday and i needed to borrow one and everyone else was still sleeping so i waited some more. i didn't want to bring raymond over before i got in the shower since there is no one to watch him over here. anyways time went by slow this morning. raymond looked so sweet in his court clothes, everyone here was saying "raymond, you are smart".

we had to wait a long at the attorneys office and then a long time at the court house before going into the judges chambers so raymond was already restless, and it was past lunchtime and nap time. i knew it was going to be interesting. raymond kept throwing his cup on the floor so i took it away and he got upset, then he started singing so he was asked to leave. luckily a friend was there for his ruling so he took raymond out for me. everything went smooth and the judge told us to come back tomorrow for the ruling at 2:00pm! YEAH!!! I just can't wait! i don't think there should be any problem, unless court is delayed. A family here that was suppose to get their ruling at 10:00am today had to wait till 1:30pm. hopefully everything will be on time.

after court we came back to the guest house and i made raymond a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and i decided to try to let him take a nap in my room. we we laid down together in my bed, at first he thought it was so funny and he just wanted to play. But i acted like i was asleep and he cuddled right up into my arm and went right to sleep. that was the best part of the trip so far. he didn't budge the whole nap he just cuddled with me for about an hour before i woke him up.

the rest of the day was nice, we just hung-out at the guesthouse, another family here is adopting a little boy that is just a little younger than raymond so the boys watched a movie, played with cars and shared snacks! I did find out that he was calling me stranger when i though he was saying hello. it is a lugandan word that sounds like hello but it means stranger. all the kids say it to all the visitors all the time, and i always thought they were saying hello. raymond says it to me fairly often, he will pull on me and say it, but now i know he is calling me a stranger. i told him today i am not hello, i am mommy! when i put him in bed tonight he started out great, he said bye bye mommy. but when i got outside i heard him start crying. hopefully only a few more days till i can have him with me all the time. tomorrow is another big day for us so keep praying!

Day 3

Check our Raymonds crocs! He LOVES them. I take them over every morning (a lot of the time the kids do not wear shoes), and bring them back with me to the guesthouse when he takes a nap. Then I take the crocs back over after naps and bring them back to my room when I put him to bed. I know they would get lost if I left them. I forgot the shoes this morning and the very first thing that Raymond said to me is "where are my shoes?"!!!

Raymond and I appear in court tomorrow at 12:00 here, which is 5:00am Georgia time! Please pray for us, I already have knots in my stomach. We had a good day today, we are definately bonding. He is getting pretty hysterical at nap time and bed time. He latches himself to me and it is almost impossible to get him into bed. I just can't wait to get the legal stuff over with and have him stay with me! We need your prayers tonight!

day 2 with raymond

good day today! i brought raymond up to the guesthouse for about one hour, we both loved every second of it.

uganda- morning 1

I woke up this morning at about 5:00am. Too early to get started, the children are not even up yet. So I spent about an hour reflecting on the past few days and thanking god for everything he has provided so that we could be here. When 6:00 rolled around I decided I couldn’t wait any longer so I showered and headed over to see Raymond. When I got over to the children’s building they were having their daily devotion and praise and worship, I didn’t want to disturb it so I sat on the steps and just listened to the beautiful music, drums, and devotions. I sat on those steps and cried. My emotions have really been out of control lately. It was just overwhelming getting ready to see Raymond again, being able to hear his voice singing and knowing that he was just on the other side of the door. Finally one of the nannies came out and saw me sitting there and invited me in.

Raymond was standing in the middle of the room when I walked in, he didn’t see me right away. I finally called his name and he looked really surprised. He didn’t get really excited, he just walked over very slow and calm and wrapped his arms around me so tight with such a huge smile. He immediately wanted to walk me over to his bed to show me the picture book that we left attached to his bed. He sat in my lap the whole morning, which is not typical for Raymond. I loved every second of it!

I had to meet with our attorney at 10:30, so I had to say goodbye to Raymond. He had a little bit of a hard time when I walked away, he cried but I tried to tell him I would be back after his nap! The meeting with the attorney went great; our court date is set for Tuesday at 12:00, which is 5:00am in Georgia! Our attorney says we have the “good judge” and we should get our ruling by the end of the week!!! AMAZING! He also told us that they are already working on Raymond’s birth certificate and passport, and that we don’t have to wait for the original immigration papers to get started on the visa. He says that they will start processing the application with just a faxed copy as long as they know the originals are on the way!!! So, everything has been great so far. I made it to the “mall” today to get a cell phone for local calls and pick up some groceries. Now I am just sitting outside the guesthouse watching the rain and waiting for Raymond to wake-up. I think I am going to bring him over to the guesthouse to play this afternoon!!!

a little bit of history

Most of you that are reading this know our history, but for some of our new friends and for the sake of never forgetting this incredible time of my life, I thought I would try to recap our journey to this point.

Andy and I were high school sweethearts. We met when I was 14 years old and Andy was 17. We had a typical high school relationship, on again and off again, but I always knew that I wanted to marry him one day. We dated for seven years before I finally got to marry the man I had dreamed about marring. We had a beautiful wedding in Marietta with our closest family and friends. It was one of the most amazing days of my life. We both felt so much love and support.
After about three years of marriage and several moves we were back in Marietta and I gave birth to our first son, Max. He is now 3.5 year old. Max is an awesome kid! He is very, very active but also so sweet! He is so excited about getting a little brother, although he calls him his little sister! He is a little confused, he has lots of girl cousins and he wanted a little sister so bad. But Max is just as excited about a little boy as he would be a little girl!

I have always known that I wanted to adopt, I guess it has always been in my heart. Since I have known Andy and talked about it he has always been really supportive. Before we found out we were pregnant with Max, we were considering adoption. I had just bought my first book about adoptions when I learned that I was pregnant. So obviously that plan was put on hold. For the past year I had been wanted to grow our family, I kept telling Andy I wanted to adopt, or get pregnant again. I really wanted to adopt, but every country I looked at just seemed like it would take so long. One day about 5 months ago my sister (who has an adopted son from Ethiopia) was with a friend (who is also an adoptive mom) and she was telling my sister about Uganda. My sister immediately thought of us because she knew that I wanted to do something quickly. They immediately got me in contact with another wonderful lady that was in the process herself. I knew it was god’s plan for us that day. Everything felt so right to me, and these amazing ladies that were places perfectly in my life helped me feel comfortable with getting started! It was not so easy for Andy, he wanted to spend more time praying about it and making sure it was the right choice for our family. But obviously God spoke to him too, and told him that our child is in Uganda!

So the paper-chase began!

We had our home study application mailed out the day after we made the decision and started working on all the paperwork immediately. We had a few stall outs when life got busy, but finally finished our home study the night before we left for our first trip to Uganda at the beginning of August! It was truly amazing to see the Lord work in getting all the details in order in perfect timing. We were able to take all of our documents with us to Uganda and have our immigrations application in the mail before we left. God is so good!
Arriving in Uganda was so exciting. It was dark so we really couldn’t see much, but just to know we were in Africa was so awesome. Since it was late we had to wait till the next day to meet the children. The anticipation of meeting the children was overwhelming. The first time we got to see all the children, they were out in the play yard. There were a huge group of kids near a piece of playground equipment, so we walked over to check it out. A bunch of kids were in seats waiting to be pushed around in circles. We immediately noticed a little boy that didn’t want to ride, but wanted to push! I said to Andy “he is just like Max.” We spent the afternoon playing with all the children but just kept talking about the independent boy like Max. So we asked a lady there what his name is. She told us his name is Raymond, but she said his mom worked there and they live on the property, so he just spends the days with the kids. We were pretty disappointed but obviously happy that he had a family too! We really struggled over the next few days, not sleeping at night and feeling the days slipping away. We fell in love with several of the children, but really just kept feeling drawn to Raymond. We finally decided that we needed to talk to talk to the director of the home. She was talking about which children were available and said Raymond’s name. I said no, Raymond’s not available and she said, “YES RAYMOND IS AVAILABLE!!” I had instant tears in my eyes. I knew he was our son. We didn’t ask her that day, we wanted to spend another day praying and spend time with Raymond. But what we felt in our hearts was unmistakable. We went back to the director of the home and spoke with her about Raymond and it was official, he will be our son!

We spent the next day running around, getting the necessary paperwork done, taking Raymond for a doctor check-up and spending some one on one time with him. It was so hard since we only had one day left. Saying goodbye to him was one of the hardest moments in my life. Our flight left at night so I was able to put him to bed. It was easier on me since he was calm. Andy left his bedside before me, but I just stood there rubbing his back and prayed that he will know that we are coming back for him. When I walked back to the guesthouse I just fell into Andy’s arms and cried. We had to leave for the airport immediately. It was just heartbreaking driving away.

When we arrived home we had receipt that our immigrations paperwork had been received at the office and within a few days we got our notice with our immigrations fingerprint appointment. We had our fingerprinting done on September 8th. The normal processing time for immigrations is 30-90 days.

This past Tuesday 9-22 I got an email from our attorney saying that our court was set for early next week, possibly Monday 9-28!!! He asked if I could be there in time. I responded immediately that I would be there, but when do I need to arrive. He didn’t respond till Wednesday morning and he said I need you to be here by 12:00pm on Saturday!!!! WHAT!!! That meant I had to leave within 24 hours to get there on time. So I jumped on the computer and found a flight (the cheapest flights I have ever seen to Uganda)! God is amazing!
And if that wasn’t enough…..

On Wednesday afternoon I had been trying to get in contact with someone from immigrations, but it is impossible to speak with a person so I had been sending emails and leaving messages. Keep in mind that we still did not have US immigrations approval to bring Raymond back to the US with us. I was packing and trying to get everything organized and when I went to check my email I had an email from immigrations saying “your application has been approved”!!!! I burst into tears immediately, I was in total disbelief. Once again God showed us in his perfect time his devotion to us! Just Amazing!!!

So now I am here again, typing this from my bed at the Sanyu Baby Home in Uganda! It has been a crazy few days and an emotional roller coaster! Andy stayed home with Max so I am traveling alone. I can really feel all of the love and support from our family and friends. I get to see Raymond in just a few hours!!!!

Amsterdam

I have arrived in Amsterdam, it was a long flight. I had lots of emotions about midway through the flight, but the people next to me started talking to me and it was a good distraction! 2 hours till my next flight, 7 hours on my next flight, 1 hour drive to Sanyu! Getting closer!

i just boarded the plane, heading to amsterdam. man its been an emotional day. please keep my family in your prayers too.

packing

i just wanted to put up a real post since i have started to let people know about this blog.  my head is still spinning since this is happening so fast, so i don't want to take time to write a long post yet.  we are so busy packing and making arrangements for my travels and for everyone staying here helping to take care of my son, max and my hubby andy!  as soon as i have some time i will write a little history of our journey thus far.  all i can say is god has his hands in this.  everything that has brought us here has happened in perfect time, even when i had my doubts.  thanks to everyone for your support and especially your prayers.  

i am on my way to raymond!!!!!!!  i just want to keep saying it since i still can't believe it!

more to come.....