In addition to this miraculous blessing, we began to see Cora blossom, even after spending just shy of a week with her. By the time we left, she could hold her bottle momentarily, could pick up and feed herself Cheerios, could copy some of our vocalizations, and was showing an interest in toys. Looking back, I think it was a blessing that we didn’t get to see Cora on our first Haiti trip, prior to committing to her, because the delays might have scared us off then. The way things happened ensured that she would make her little way into our hearts and lives.

Since Cora came home in October of last year, she has continued to make amazing strides. When she reached us, she could crawl... more

Once we got to the hotel and spent some time with her, we began to see that she was a happy, delightful baby girl. But we also discovered that at 13 months, she was VERY delayed, not able to bear weight on her legs, hold her own bottle, eat solid foods, transfer objects from one hand to another, or engage in any sort of appropriate play. I began to panic. The low vision and nystagmus I’d been prepared for, but not this. I started to balk. I began to question whether the decision to adopt her had really been inspired. Doubts crept into my mind about whether I could parent a child with so many needs, what her future would be like, heck, what OUR futures would be like! I began to think... more

As I said in my earlier posts, I knew a little about albinism because of my involvement in a discussion group for adoptive parents of Chinese children with special needs (our Sofie had a congenital heart defect, hence my membership in the group). There were many adoptive families in the group with children with albinism, and I’d caught enough bits and pieces of their discussions to know that people with it have low vision and needed to be careful in the sun. Once we got home from Haiti, I asked for pictures of the baby, but weeks went by and no pictures came. My husband and I prayed about what to do, and in the meantime, we finally got a single photo, taken from an odd angle, that showed... more

As I mentioned in my introductory posts about our family and adoption experiences, the idea of adopting from Haiti was something that just kind of fell into our laps. We’d been planning to adopt one or two children from Viet Nam, but through an interesting series of events, we found ourselves starting at our Lulu’s picture and accepting her referral as well as that of her newborn baby brother, whom we’d not yet seen. Shortly thereafter, we learned that they had a sister, roughly age three, who was part of the sibling group. This was a surprise to us, but after prayerful consideration, we decided to go ahead with our plans and adopt all three children. Not long after that, we received the... more

Over the coming year, I plan to do occasional entries on the various types of special needs that are most often seen in waiting children, particularly those in international settings. It is my hope that other families will open their minds and hearts to children who have such needs, and that hearing other families’ stories will help them envision special children in their families. I’ve chosen to start with albinism since we have personal experience with it, and I hope to touch on heart problems next (also one we have personal experience with). And just a note... more

We're home from our trip and I thought I'd sum up our little travelog with some of the experiences we had with people's perceptions of our family. And just for fun, enjoy a photo of us with my paternal grandmother, taken at my in-laws' house. She's the proud grandma to 20 and great-grandma to 53, not counting any "on-the-way" kids. Amazing.

The Good:

Several times during our trip, people stopped us to tell us how impressed they were with our children and how well behaved they were. Our kids certainly aren’t perfect and... more

The park closed shortly thereafter (at 6:00 – I don’t know why!) so we decided to head back over to Disneyland for the remainder of the night. We had grand ideas of finishing out the evening over there, but by the time we got there, hit the Matterhorn and had dinner, we were completely pooped and decided to close the curtains on our Disney experience. We watched a little bit of the parade from afar and did some quick last-minute souvenir shopping. I took Joshua and Zoe to buy some things Joshua had seen earlier over in Tomorrow Land and sent Curtis and the rest of the kids with the B family to wait for the shuttle. We hurried as fast as we could, but just as we were leaving the Disney... more

Since we couldn’t go on the roller coaster, the B family opted to go see a couple of shows in the Bug’s Life area, and we headed off to go on a few rides. The older kids and I went on a smaller roller coaster I can’t remember the name of (something about the streets of London and similar to the Wild Mouse at Lagoon) and it scared the heck out of me. I didn’t like being whipped out over the edge of the track and jerked from side to side, and Zoe hated it as much as I did. We gave Curtis and the boys the rest of our Fast Passes and Zoe, Maizie, Sofie and I decided... more

Today was our one and only day in California Adventure. I know some people recommend two day there, but I honestly don’t think we could have taken another day. Both sets of kids (and parents!) had been reasonably happy and easy-going for the first two days, but on the third day of “amusement,” we could all sense that everyone’s patience was wearing just a tad thinner. We didn’t have any major blow-ups, but we were definitely approaching the limits of what two large families can do in three days! ;)

We started with an early morning ride on Grizzly... more

Later we went to see “Honey I Shrunk the Audience,” which is a 3-D show that includes all sorts of tactile and smell effects during the movie. Sofiie got scared at quite a few parts, but most of the kids really enjoyed it and if nothing else, it was great to get off our feet for a while. My feet were screaming at me! Wendy came prepared with a bag of Advil, so we both popped several over the course of the day to keep ourselves upright. I don’t think I could have made it otherwise!

Later that afternoon and into the evening, we got Fast Passes for Rides we’d missed the day before and wanted to redo. We got Passes for Indiana Jones and then went to see the requisite Tiki Room show,... more