This is the Day :)

Our good friends are adopting from the same Ministry in Taiwan as us. I posted pics of Caysen and and their baby girl, Leia, together a while back- we thought it would be fun to have their picture taken together while they are in Taiwan since they are practically going to be cousins! Leia's family got some very wonderful news today about their waiting baby girl. Go here to see them share their wonderful news!

10K. Done and Done.

Since February 24th (the day we got our referral), things have been pretty crazy and exciting; but I've still been finding time to get a run in here and there. Today, I accomplished my first 10K. I had actually only run 4 or 5 miles at most before doing this run so I was hesitant to sign up for it; but I decided to just go for it. I have two wonderful friends (Andrea left, Chloe middle) who are very encouraging and made me feel like I could do it and I did!!!

It's always scary to commit to a run, but I feel like such a rock-star once I cross the finish line :)

Trust

It became pretty clear to me a while back that God has been giving a lesson in patience over these past few years since Lance and I decided we wanted our family to grow. I'm not a patient person by nature and I definitely have a long way to go, but I do think I've learned a lot about patience and am much more able to accept God's timing than I was before this experience.

I was reflecting back on everything today and realized that this adoption has taught me more than just patience; it has taught me about trust:

When I drove up to Denver to find out that the computers were down at the secretary of state's office, I walked out of that building and asked God why he would let this happen. No more than an hour later, the computers came back up and everything worked out fine.

We didn't receive a letter in the mail inviting us to get our federal fingerprints done like we were supposed to. I started to panic and worry that this would greatly delay the whole process...but God didn't let that happen. It's all been straightened out and we'll be going to get our fingerprints done soon.

When Caysen was in the hospital, once again, I started to doubt God. Only a few days passed, and Caysen showed great improvement.

Before we got our referral, we started to feel something in our hearts. We felt that it was God telling us that Caysen was the one for us. We had many fears knowing that Caysen was born so early and had some major complications, but we decided to just follow God and trust his plan.

I don't know for sure what Caysen's future holds. So far, the tests have all come back great (all things considered), and I hope that he is a healthy and happy boy. With that being said, I trust that God is carrying out his plan and that he won't give us anything we can't handle. God won't always work it out the way I think it should be, but he WILL work it out the best way so I just need to put my trust in him and let the magical plan unfold.

Mochie-Roo

I just have to brag about these amazing watercolor paintings of our puppies! I've included a scan of the painting and the picture I provided to the artist so you can see how talented she really is. I am still blown away at how much the paintings look like the pictures...but I can tell you they are real watercolors (not prints) because I've seen the artist in action! You can check out her blog in my side bar, Mochie-Roo, or you can go to her website here. I don't want to give away any secrets, but let's just say it might not be long before she is painting pet portraits for all of Hollywood!!!

Puerto Rico!!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from our Puerto Rico Babymoon:

This was right out in front of the house we stayed in, Beautiful!!!

Where we stayed.

Here we are on one of the many beaches we enjoyed :)

In Puerto Rico, they like their butter and fried food! This organic foods store was the only thing that kept us from starving!

This was just down the street from where we stayed; Aguada, PR.


For any Lost fanatics, we decided this looked like a Dharma station ;)


Aguadilla, PR

Buye Beach, PR

Buye Beach, PR


Too cute, they're still little boys at heart :)

Here we are waiting in the airport in Newark for our flight to PR. Can you tell we were excited ?!?

We had a great time on our last vacation that was just the "two of us" (and two really good friends). Hopefully our next plane ride will be to Taiwan to get our precious baby boy and then it will be three :)

Happy Boy!!!

Caysen is feeling great after leaving the hospital. Here he is wearing the jammies we sent him, so cute :) He's up to 11.9 lbs which is almost two lbs. gained in two months! Could he be any cuter!?!

Home Sweet Home

Caysen got to go home from the hospital on Monday in Taiwan and he is doing much better :)

I received an update this morning with some pictures of his stay at the hospital. Poor guy, he looked pretty miserable; but at least he's feeling much better now.

We have been working on getting our fingerprints done for the Department of Homeland Security, but there has been confusion because we applied right when they were completely changing the process.

Today, we got everything straightened out and we have been given an appointment in Albuquerque in just a couple of weeks. Once we get our fingerprints done, it shouldn't take very long at all until we get our 171-H which is the final step (as far as the US is concerned) before we can go get our boy!!!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers. Please continue to pray for other (adoptive and birth) families going through the adoption process, all of the orphans around the world, and please pray that the rest of our adoption process goes smoothly and we can go get our sweet boy soon :)

8

Happy Eight Months Caysen!! We love you and can't wait to meet you :)

News :)

When you have a son on the other side of the world where day is night and night is day, you might tend to wake up during the night and check your phone for new e-mails (especially if your son is in the hospital). When I woke up around 12:30, this is the e-mail I found:

"Dear Leslie and Lance,
Home for a minute, so I wanted to drop you a quick note. Caysen looks soooooo much better this am and his temp is trending lower and lower. We were there about 3 hours and he looked great and smiled and talked and snuggled bunches. The neurologist came in with Caysen's pedi and we all talked and he decided that due to his marked improvement they would NOT tap his shunt today. Praise the Lord!!!! :) It is just so amazing to continue to see His hand moving on Caysen's behalf. He will have his blood retested tomorrow and if his white blood cell count and his CRP are going down then he will not need the tap. He will continue on IV antibiotics for the next 72ish hours and possibly go home on Monday if all continues to improve like it is now. We will keep you updated.

Blessings,
Trena"

Things are definitely looking up for our little guy! Please keep praying that he continues to get better and that we can go get him soon :)

He's Pretty Tough

Caysen wants to show you that he's doing just fine, and he's enjoying his new "toy" that the nice people at the hospital gave him:

"Hi mom and dad, don't worry about me, I'm great."

"I've even got a hand to hold just in case I get scared."

"All of this extra attention makes me pretty happy."

"Do you want to look at my new toy? It's pretty amazing!"

We got an update on Caysen and he's still his usual cheerful self. His fever isn't going down as quickly as the doctor had hoped, so they are reconsidering checking his shunt for infection. All of the tests they have done have come back ok. They show that he has a bladder infection and kidney infection, but that these should not be recurrent problems. If they decide to check his shunt and find infection, they will put him on antibiotics specific for that kind of infection and he should be just fine :)

We also found out that our documents have been filed in court in Taiwan so now we wait for a court date and pray that the judge sees the case quickly and makes his final decree so we can go get our sweet boy!


I will update again as I find out more...

Please Pray

I woke up this morning and checked my phone to find the following, not so good news:

"Dear Lance and Leslie,
We wanted to let you know that Caysen is in the hospital. First before you read any more, HE IS OKAY. That out of the way, last night, Caysen started running a fever. He did not have any other symptoms that we could attribute his fever to and none of the other babies were sick, so we decided we had to play it safe and take him to the hospital to rule out a shunt infection or blockage.

He is at the hospital where his neurologist works and it is a great children's hospital. At this time, the doctors do not think he has a shunt infection. He has a urinary tract infection and his white blood cells are pretty high. They started him on I.V. antibiotics right away, and he will stay in for at least 3 days... He will not be left at the hospital alone, without one (or more) of his Aunties. :)

...

He is doing great. Even when his temp is up he is still sweet and tries to smile. They put his I.V. in his favorite arm and he seems to think we have just attached a toy to it for him. He constantly plays with the tube and looks at it. :) He really is such a sweetheart, even when he feels terrible.

We know that it is hard to know that he is sick, but we wanted you to be able to pray for him. We will let you know if there are any changes in his condition and e-mail often till he gets out of the hospital. Holly took some great pictures of him last night in the E.R. looking at his I.V. We will send those to you so you can see for yourself that he is doing just fine.

Blessings,
Holly and Trena"

To any prayer warriors out there, I am asking for prayers on Caysen's behalf. Please pray that he will be ok; please pray for wisdom for his doctors; and please pray that he will be able to come home to us soon. God is the one who can heal him, so let's lift Caysen up and ask for healing.

I will post his hospital pics when I get them and I'll update when I know more.

Update!

I've been fairly quiet lately because I've been incredibly busy with adoption paperwork, etc. Today, I finished everything up and now the only thing we have left to do is get our federal fingerprints done and then we wait. So, here's what I've been up to:

We went to Puerto Rico (which was wonderful and I will blog about it in detail soon) the last week in March:

Two days after we got home, we received all of our documents from Taiwan that we needed to have authenticated by the Secretary of State and by TECO (Taiwan Economic & Cultural Office). I was planning on mailing our docs. to Denver since it's a six hour drive from where we live, but when I got on their website, I realized they would not expedite the process unless I came in in person.

We received the documents Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday morning, I was headed up to Denver. If you know me in real life, you know that I DO NOT like to drive in the snow...not at all! Well, of course it was snowing like crazy over wolf creek pass, why wouldn't it be snowing and chains required? I mean, it is April!?! This is what it looked like going over Wolf Creek:

I know, taking a picture while driving was probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, but we were seriously going 5 mph (no exaggeration) because the wind kept coming up taking visability down to zero.

Luckily, once I got over the pass, it wasn't too bad the rest of the way. Unfortunately, creeping over the pass at 5 miles an hour ate up some serious time so I wasn't able to get into Denver before 5:00 when the Secretary of State closes.

My brother and sister-in-law live near Denver so I just headed straight to their house planning to get everything taken care of in the morning. The next day, I headed back down to Denver feeling brave about facing traffic right in the heart of Downtown:

I successfully navigated my way around the one way streets and crazy intersections and found a parking spot with ease (I know, kind of surprising). When I got to the secretary of state's office, they informed me that their computers were down and I would have to come back on Monday (it was Friday). I was pretty bummed...ok, I was more than bummed, my eyes were filling with tears; but I knew there was nothing the nice lady could do for me so I just gave her the docs and told her to call me as soon as they were done.

I got about half way back to my brother and sister-in-law's when the secretary of state's office called to let me know that their computers had come back up and I could pick up my documents afterall! What a relief!!!

Once I got the documents, I sent them to their next destination, the TECO office in Kansas City. TECO received my documents on Monday morning and called to inform me that I had overpaid and they would be sending me a refund; I didn't mind that part ;)

Our documents were overnighted back to us yesterday and we got them today and they have been sent back to Taiwan so the ladies at His Hands can apply for a court date. It was overwhelming for sure, but we got it done and I know it will be completely worth it when we get to see Caysen IRL for the first time.

I mean, really, how can you not love that sweet face? I could just eat him up :)

Another sweet one of Trena loving on Caysen...and Caysen loving on his Giraffe, and the puppy loving on everyone :)

He Is Loved

It's hard not being able to snuggle our little guy, but it brings us peace to know that he is so loved by those who are taking care of him until we can bring him home.

This is another favorite picture of mine; Caysen's "Aunt" Trena is the one snuggling him here. If that isn't love on her face, I don't know what love is...

Nope, no lack of love and attention here :) What makes it even better is knowing that God is holding Caysen and watching over him too! Our sweet boy had a really rough start and I have no doubt that it was God who carried him through and continues to watch over him and take care of him every day!