Good News!

I got an email today from my case worker, and she said we were approved for one trip. This has been something that we have been praying about since this summer. When we originally started the adoption process there was a one trip requirement. This summer the Ministry of Education in Kyrgyzstan made some changes to the adoption program. One of the changes was that some families may need to make two trips. The first trip you would go to see the child and then if you still accepted your referral a court date would be scheduled. Thirty days after the court date you would then go back to pick up the child. Our fear was that they may require two trips for us and that would mean prolonging bringing home our baby plus the extra expenses. I started worrying about this when we first heard of the two trip requirement in some cases, but then I knew, I just had to give it over to God and he would prevail. God so did prevail, and we are just rejoicing. We are now waiting to see if they will accept our paper work, with some of it expiring this week, we are not sure what will happen since it is already trying to be processed in their court system. We should hear word on that soon. Once again we are hoping they will just push everything through the way that it is, because if we have to redo paper work, that could hold things up by several weeks to a month. Once again God is in control!! We just can't wait to see what God is going to do!

His Name!

Well we got a call from our case worker yesterday, and she said she needed to know a name for the court proceedings right away. We have been all over the board about this. We all thought Turat is a pretty cool name that had a lot of meaning of who this little guy is. We didn't want to take that away from him, unless there was a name that just stood out as "the one". We have been talking about his name since we got the referral, but until yesterday we didn't know what we wanted to do. I told our case worker that we would have a answer for her by the next day. So last night our girls, Cain, and I discussed our options, and then Cain and I discussed our options till 10:30 at night and we finally made a decision. Our little boys name is going to be Turat Andrew Stahnke. Andrew means love and that so explains everything. We have been told that Turat means standing, and it is a Kyrgyz name, so together his name means standing love. We thought that was so cool! We can't wait now to meet our little Turat. Hopefully we will have a court date and travel dates soon.

The Referral

Well, we finally got the call on Wednesday, October 17th, the referral we have been waiting for!!A little boy named Turat who was born on April 2, 2007. However, our kids and us felt a since of uncertainty after looking at the medical history and being buried in medical terms that we didn't understand. All I can say is thank God for the internet. After a few days on the internet I felt we had a better handle on the medical history. We then made an appointment with a pediatric Dr. specializing in adoptions, and the adoption agency made request for a few more medical test to be done. We then received a video of Turat on Tuesday October 23rd. We all instantly fell in love with him. Turat was smiling, responding to voices and toys, holding his head up, rolling, and even getting up on all fours, (much to all our amazement). After a week and a half of waiting for the test results we heard the news that we were waiting for. The heart condition that Turat has, which is a defect of the interventricular septum, wasn't that bad. He has just a small hole in the wall that separates the right and left ventricles. The Dr. said it may heal on its own as he gets older, and if not it will take a common heart procedure to close it up. We accepted Turat into our hearts and our family on October 26. We are now praying for a quick court date and travel dates. I know time will be going so slow now, but I can't wait to see what God is going to do. We have already seen so much of his hand in this process.

The Room Is Done

The room is done and ready for our baby. We choose the theme of planes for his room because we felt it was so fitting. Planes symbolizes the journey we will need to make to bring home this baby from his country, but also it symbolizes the new journey we are making in our lives with this new addition to our family. I think I personally had a little to much fun decorating it.

I searched for the perfect toy box, but I couldn't fine one I liked anywhere. So I bought a white one, and painted it the colors of the room. I then put chalkboard paint on the front of it. I've caught my girls a few times in their drawing on it. Here is a picture that Alisha drew for her baby brother!! It says, Alisha is the Coolest Sis!! Megan of course disagreed with her!

Still Waiting

Any day now we will get the call for our referral. Everyone keeps asking, and we say we are next on the list. We are just waiting for that phone to ring. Hopefully the call will come soon, and we can start telling everyone of our travel dates.