Our Son!!

We have a referral!!!! We have decided to adopt Doan Phu Loc. He is 19 months old...only one month older than Evan. Yea! I get twins! We are very excited but nervous at the same time. He has hydrocephalus and unless treated it can cause serious brain damage. We are praying for fast travel dates so that he can come home and receive the medical help he so desperately needs!

I finally got the last document for our dossier back from the Vietnamese Embassy (they had made a mistake so I had to send one document back to them) and mailed the whole thing to CHI today. After they get it it will be sent to Vietnam and translated. Once translated our wait to travel begins. The wait will be 3-5 months. Regardless, we should have him home for Christmas!

Oh, and we will probably name him Ethan Scott Larson but aren't sure yet.

First picture we saw of him

OK, anywhere else think his hair looks blond?

He really doesn't look Asian to me!

Ouch...look at his head!

But that's OK...

nothing the computer can't fix!

Life Decisions...

I feel like so much has been happening since I last wrote! We went to Michigan for a wedding last week and had a wonderful time. It was a very relaxing trip. Evan loved the pool at the motel!

Anyway, Tyler and I could really use your prayers! We are looking at a little boy on the waiting child list who is 19 months old. He has hydrocephalus (used to be known as water on the brain). He has a speech delay (which could be from being in the orphanage) but is otherwise right on target for his age. He seems to have a very mild case of hydro but we really don't know. The medical report is very...hmm, vague. I do know that any medical intervention would have to wait till he was here and that would be 5-6 months from now. We have no way of knowing what time of brain damage could happen during that time. We have to make a life decision with very little information...in other words, we need lots prayer!!

Tornado Watch

If you were watching the weather channel you may have noticed the big storm in Kansas last Saturday night. Yep, we were in the middle! Friday night there was a town about 2-3 hours from us that was all but wiped off the map. One of our friends had a teenaged daughter there. Fortunately out of the 1500 people living there only 10 were killed. Anyway, on Saturday we had several tornado watches. We went to a friend’s house to hang out in their basement...much nicer then sharing the cellar with a snake and spiders! There were 17 of us in the house (the Wirth's, their daughter with her family of 9, our family and my aunt and uncle who were visiting). Keeping track of Evan all the time was a little scary especially when the lights would flicker leaving it pitch black. We had a tornado touch down about 5 miles east of us and one about 5 miles north of us. We went home around 10 pm but I guess the storm lasted all night. I have to admit I kind of enjoyed the excitment of it all...yes call me crazy, but I would have rather enjoyed trying to get all 17 of us into the little bathroom and all the kids into the bathtub! Hmm...maybe I'm too adventures for my own good!

Tyler's blog

Hey, just thought I'd mention my links on the side. You know...one of them is for Tyler's blog. Poor guy has gotten very few comments...hint, hint. I know he doesn't write much but if you just get on there and say "hi, I'm reading your blog" I think he'd like it. Hmm, I just hope he doesn't read this...

Change in the Waiting Child Program

I just got off the phone with Nikki from CHI and she told me that the waiting children (kids with special needs) are now being handled differently. They have developed a list of families interested in special needs children, which we are now on. Instead of placing children on the "waiting child" site, they will be offered to the first family on that list who is open to special needs. The people on the top of that list are those who have been waiting the longest. At this point the whole list is pretty short (just over 10 maybe) and not all of those families are open to non-correctible things such as HepB+ as we are. All that said, we still have no idea how long our wait will be. However, it is nice to know I don't need to check the list every five minutes as I have today. When we are first on the list and our child comes we'll get a call or email. So yea! for now I can relax and wait like everyone else. I have no control so why worry anymore. Ahh...I can feel the relief. And then again...I now have no control, I'm completely at their mercy...hmm.

Cloudy with a bit of rain

Tyler went on a "date" with Ellie today. They left to Salina this morning and should be back sometime this afternoon. Ellie got dressed up and was so excited! It is very quiet around here without her. I have to admit I've hardly notice Evan. He just quietly entertains himself and hardly makes a sound! I've been doing some cleaning but not as much as I should. I'm afraid I've been on the computer way to much.

The weather is a bit grim today...which matches my mood. I'm a little discouraged with the adoption right now and I've been checking the waiting child list, email, the yahoo group, and anything else that might bring at least a little news. I only know of 2 referrals our agency has received in the last three weeks so no one is really moving up on the waiting list right now. But I know that God is at work. I just wish I could relax a bit and focus on life right now! As my wonderful Nicky (the coordinator for the Vietnam program in the Kansas City branch) just told me "You will go through tough times in the waiting period and your feelings will ebb and flow. Sometimes it will be more difficult, and sometimes it will get easier. This might be a tough spell, but it will get better. I promise." ok Nicky I'm holding you to it! :)

Thanks for listening...I'm sure I'll be back to my normal patient (at least more patent then now) self in a few days! Darn these adoption hormones…