We've got nothing but love to prove (Faith Hill):

Isn't it amazing that love should have to be proven? How do you measure it? Well according to the Dark Side, they have their own system of measurement... which of course they won't share, but we have somehow to prove that we have enough love for 4 children and that we will not cause them any undue risk by introducing a sister into the fold. How do you prove that? How do you argue that?

We are it seems a "healthy family". Why oh why would we want to introduce such a risk into our healthy family? Because we have the capacity to love, learn, teach, laugh and grow together... that's why. But that doesn't seem to be enough... just not enough.

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of fire
Those dreams that tie two hearts that will never die
And near the flames
The shadows play in the shape of the mans desire

This desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

And now she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothings as it seems

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes
The rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of love

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

Sweet desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

Sweet desert rose
This memory of hidden hearts and souls
This desert flower
This rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of love

(Desert Rose, written by Sting)

It went awful... just awful. It was a confrontational meeting right from the start, and we were on the defensive from the get-go. Yes, its clear to us what her mandate is: no way, no how should anyone be allowed to adopt. No way, no how should anyone be allowed to adopt an older child. Just because children are available should we be able to choose this path. Just awful....

Today is the day - we meet with our new psychologist this morning at 9:30 am to be evaluated again for an older child adoption. I of course have to wake up with a migraine and this feeling of dread: are we wasting our time this morning? She is just going to figure out some way to say No in the end, because the Dark Side does not support older child adoption.

Greg feels that its the first step - my dream would be that Sun Yu knows that she has a family before her 8th birthday in September. I really hope this comes true for her and for us... but sitting here listing to my three boys scream upstairs, I'm not sure how to do it.

Need some purple power - hence the purple guitar. Will try to think of Greg playing this beautiful guitar for us while we go down this path.

Happiness

Paris Hilton is freeeeeeee!!!! Happiness.... NOT! Why is it that she is the lead story on so many news sources? Who cares where she is, just as long as she isn't driving her cars around anymore!

Had an energized day. Man, it is so nice being off sugar - day 2 went well with 2 lbs of water gone in 24 hours. I had so much stuff going on today, that I didn't get to do what I really wanted to do: call the Children's and start setting up my preemie mom's night out. I did however contact the Career Counselor at work today to volunteer as a mentor, but guess what? She is off until July 30th! Man, foiled by summer holidays.

The other exciting thing is that I got confirmation that the worms are back from space, and everything seems to be a go!

Tomorrow is the big day - if our boss walks in with a smile, we are good. If he isn't smiling, we have a lot of fun coming our way with our business planning exercise. After what I learned last week, I will be smiling because I can!

Just back from a week in Ottawa on training (again). This time it was Leading Transitions - rather appropriate considering what we are going through at work and at home. This course is about looking at yourself and your feelings, and recognizing what you may go through in a transitional period. It was all about....

Rough week for me- Kami and Marie-Claire forced me to go to a place I didn't want to go and I think in the end it was exactly where I needed to go. Met a lot of wonderful people including Nathalie, Korian, Kami - the triple L threat Each is a powerful leader in her own right, and I was inspired and touched by each lady. Wish I had a camera, would love to post a picture of our team... but alas, didn't think of it at the time.

I also had a chance to go to the Museum of Civilization to see the Treasures of China. What a great exhibit: two highlights for me were the tapestry with clouds (clouds are considered a good omen in China, as they bring life) and the final painting done by an artist who is from Jiangsu - a mix of modern and ancient China. I felt like our daughter was right beside me the whole way. Oh, and I mustn't forget to mention the jade - what amazing workmanship, with such a hard stone.




Now, back to reality. Finally got on the scale and discovered to my horror that I have gained 27 lbs since the last weigh in. I can believe it, given the head in the sand routine I have been using of late. So back on the diet again...today was day 1, and so far everything is good. Spent the afternoon cooking with Greg, so I have enough food for lunches and dinners all week without having to panic about what to eat and then devouring whatever I see. Thank heaven's its summer time and the fruit is just wonderful and cheap!



We all went for a bike ride or two yesterday Needless to say, our butts all hurt :o( Jacob sat in his new bike seat and would yell out "Wooohhhhooooo" whenever Maman would start pedaling or going down a hill.

Great News about Jacob that I have to share: he is now in the 25th percentile for weight and, are you ready for this... 50% percentile for height!!!!!!!! And this is for his real chronological age, not adjusted (in other words, don't take the three months off of prematurity).

We have our first appointment with our new evaluator for our update!!!!!!!!!!! Its June 28th in the morning (if everything goes well for DH and he doesn't have to work some crazy hours again). We will have a second meeting later on, where she will meet the kids and see their rooms, the house, etc. Should be a hoot if she wants to ask the baby what he thinks about having an older sister!

Everyone, please, fingers crossed, prayers please... we need all the help we can get to move things along in a positive direction.

Perspective:

While doing something on the computer today, we stumbled upon some video's of Jacob in the NICU. I caught my breath, not realizing that we still had those films - I had, quite honestly, forgotten about them. Then I realized just how far we have come since that terrible, terrible time back in 2005.

To help you all understand where we have been and where we are now, take a deep breath and look at these two pictures of our little blond angel:

Jacob at 3 days old (28 weeks gestation)

Jacob at his 2nd birthday party

Perspective..... perspective.

Well, I did a cool thing so I thought and it didn't work - I found this neat sound player and somehow it caused some source code problems so I deleted it.

The NeoEarth thing is really cool - I had no idea that people all over the world were coming in and reading my blog. So HI to everyone and welcome to my little piece of cyberspace. Don't be shy to leave comments, I love talking to people! I'll make an effort to keep up my postings a little more now... I honestly thought no one was coming over... duhhh.

A few little updates:

Moved our ticker to the top, because I thought it would be easier to track our long wait if it was up top.

A few people have asked how long? Rumors are rampant that The Wait will go to between 2 years or even 3 years for NSN. We are also in the SN stream, and while I was going over my blog entries I noticed that I had written that we were waiting for a new batch of SN files to arrive at our agency. Well, a batch did arrive in late April but we were #3 on the wait list, and there were only 2 girls files that arrived. So we missed that batch of babies... which in the end was a good thing. It gave us time to think about and research adopting an older child, still from China. When I say an older child, I mean a child between the ages of 6 to 8 years old. We decided to pursue the adoption of such a child, and we were in principle "approved" by our evaluator after a thorough grilling. However, the Dark Side won a battle and we have since been fighting to exercise our rights. We took a serious blow to our Courage a couple of weeks back, but after a wonderful and inspirational evening of listening to Dr. Maya Angelou and talking with various adoptive mothers, we have decided to continue our battle for our daughter who will be between 6 and 8 years old.

We have notified the Dark Side that we wish to continue, and we got a bit of good luck: we have a new Evaluator who has come highly recommended (professional, trustworthy, honest) by several people. So we have hope again, and my Courage is back up - thanks to the wonderful Rainbows in the Clouds that have been surrounding me and hoisting me up to go back into battle. DH isn't completely there yet, but I have enough Courage for both of us right now. This just feels right, and we are really on the side of the Right - we are following our values, honestly and passionately. Our agency is also very much behind us - the Executive Director has a meeting with the boss of the Dark Side to bring our case and another 2 cases from other families that are having the same problems we are.

I have found our daughter's bedroom furniture, but we are waiting to buy it as it is mucho dollars... which we don't have right now. I have been quite good at not buying any clothing yet either. This has been extremely hard, as I do believe in Retail Therapy (to copy from Doris). My compromise it to buy hair stuff for her and particular dolls/toys that I know are hard to find. Clothing will come when I have a better idea of her size and the season when she will come home!

Tristan's surgery went well on Friday, but he did not react well to the anesthesia so we had a sick boy on our hands for a few hours. He is duly distracted by his new Gameboy and PS2, and I am able to get him away from those games to color from time to time - but it doesn't have the same effect as the games, unfortunately. He is still in pain and it definitely hurts to swallow, and he still has a fever today. It will be a slow march back to health... poor baby.

Zach goes to school tomorrow for the first time! My babies are growing up so fast, I can't believe I will have two in school come September. I also can't believe that I have been out of school for close to 17 years now.. yikes... sighhhhh.