Team Huss

Eden Recap: month 9 of life; month 2 home

Whew! All of those parents are right when they say that time really flies and kids grow up way too fast! June brought several milestones in our house: I went back to work (part-time for now) on June 15^th, Eden turned 9 months old on June 17^th, we celebrated 2 months of being home as a family of 3 on June 23^rd, and Ben turned 30 on June 30^th!!

That means it’s time to document Eden’s next scrapbook installment...

Physical/Medical
You’ve gained a few ounces (heehee!), so you’re approximately 15 pounds 9 ounces and you are healthy as can be!

You got your first teeth! 2 little ones on the bottom. And man, they are sharp!

You had a double ear infection this month (second time since we’ve been home). The good news is that they don’t really seem to bother you. You don’t get a fever or get fussy or anything. The bad news is that means we don’t really know that you have an ear infection unless we happen to be at the doctor for something else. Kind of makes us feel like bad parents when they tell us you have an ear infection and we didn’t even know anything was wrong. Oops!

We think we’ve got your dry skin and scratching under control. We just keep your fingernails cut short and keep your skin hydrated with lots of lotion. Thankfully you can show off your cute clothes without a bib now! (We used to keep one on you 24/7 to prevent you from scratching your chest).

Temperament
You are still a very content, happy, smart, and playful baby. We are totally lucky!

You are also a bit impatient. For instance, if you catch a glimpse of us making you a bottle, you immediately start fussing loudly for the bottle. Thus, we have to hide the bottle from you until we’ve got you in our arms ready to feed you. It’s a fun game—keeps things interesting!

You’re also very impatient with diaper changes. We think you don’t like to be naked and exposed (yay for modesty!). As soon as the diaper comes off, you start kicking like crazy and fussing until we get the clean diaper on you. This is not such a fun game, but it definitely keeps us on our toes!

In response to your impatient nature, we sing the “be patient” song to you (which will probably irritate you as you get older). Here are the lyrics…“Be patient, be patient, don’t be in such a hurry. When you get impatient, it’s then you start to worry. Remember, remember, that God is patient, too. And think of all the times that others had to wait for you.” Yeah, we’re pretty sure you’re going to hate that song when you’re older…

Development
You are easily sitting up on your own—no more bobbing over anymore. Your Uncle Adam says you have great posture! J You are even pulling up on things to stand!

You are starting to crawl. The only thing keeping you from a full crawl is that pesky right leg that you can’t quite get out from under you when you’re in “crawl position.” We’re going to start baby-proofing the house because we know you’ll be crawling soon!

You use your little fingers all of the time. You love to feel different textures and you grab all sorts of things! It’s so cute to watch your little “pinchers” (pointer finger and thumb) exploring the world around you.

Communication
You talk a lot! You say baba, dada, mama, hi, etc. And you love making sounds with your mouth…clicking with your tongue, motorboat with your lips, etc.

We’ve decided that your first intentional word (and only one so far) was Mama. That makes your mama very happy! Your daddy is a bit jealous.

You don’t do your “trill” much anymore. Hopefully that’s because you’re not as frustrated as you were when you first came home. Haha!

Food
You still drink 4 bottles (approximately 6 ounces each) a day, but you’ve graduated to eating more chunky foods instead of just purees. You still are a great eater and are not picky at all! Avacados and bananas are among your favorites, but you even liked the curried red lentils you tried recently!

At every meal we give you your own spoon to hold and it’s fun to watch you learn how it works. You typically will follow one of our bites that we give you by putting your spoon in your mouth. Recently we watched as you used your spoon to scoop up a piece of avocado and get it to your mouth. You are so smart!

You crack us up when you try something cold. With ice cream, you make a terrible face when the coldness hits your mouth, but you love the taste, so you always go back for more.

Sleep
You are still consistently taking a 1 - 2 hour nap in the morning and the afternoon, which is awesome! Your nighttime sleep is a bit inconsistent, but it’s getting better. You typically wake up at least once a night and are up for an hour or so before you go back down. The good part is that, when you’re awake, you’re happy (the only exception to that is if your tummy or your mouth hurts). The bad part is that you’re awake at 3:00 in the morning! But we make the best of it and get a lot of snuggles in while you’re up.

We’ve found that our slings are magical! If you are truly tired, but are just fighting sleep, all we have to do is put you in one of our slings (we both have one) and you instantly calm down and eventually give in to dreamland. Awww, you must love the closeness to us! And the fact that your arms are restrained when you’re in the sling probably has something to do with it as well!

Loves
The things you absolutely LOVE haven’t changed much since last month. You still LOVE…

Jumping! In your jumper, in our laps, wherever you can make your legs go.

Water! Splashing, dunking your face under, being sprayed, anything involving water.

Dogs! As they lick your face, when they walk in the room, when their tail whacks you in the face, anything involving dogs.

Soothie! You’re really attached to it (your pacifier). It’s awesome now, but it makes us nervous for a year or so down the road.

Books! Your love of books really developed recently. You love to sit and have someone read you a book. You actually pay attention for a long time. You are so smart!

Daddy! You love to play with Daddy. And you love rubbing his head (we think you like the feeling of his buzzed haircut on your hand). You’re not fond of being surprised, though (Daddy learned that the hard way when he made you cry because he plopped down beside you and said “boo!”).

Mommy! You love your Mommy. If she’s in eyesight, you reach up and say “mama, mama!”

The Rest of the Story

There is a piece of our adoption story that we have withheld from many people until now. The reason for withholding it was simply to protect our child from hurt and discrimination and to allow her the ability to decide who she wanted to tell when she was older. It was against our "open book" nature to withold information, but we knew it was the right decision at the time.

However, due to recent happenings, we feel ~~comfortable~~ excited about sharing it with you now. It’s a huge part of our journey to Eden and we hope that it answers some questions…but more importantly, we hope it challenges your thinking.

Sorry to be so mysterious. Here goes…

The calling that we felt on September 16, 2009 (sidenote: the 8 hour time difference meant that it was September 17, 2009 in Ethiopia—one year to the day that Eden was born—you can’t tell me God doesn’t care about the details!) was very clear to us. Adopt an infant. Adopt internationally. Adopt right now. We based all of our decisions (what agency, what country, what age child, etc.) on those 3 things. If there was a decision we had to make that was not clear based on those 3 parameters, we prayed and researched and went with the one where we felt God’s peace.

When we first submitted our adoption application, we had to select whether or not we were open to a child with special needs. (Note that “special needs” is a broad term that covers medical needs, physical deformities, chronic diseases, etc.) Ben and I talked a lot about it and decided to say “no” and thus submitted our application for a healthy baby.

A big change: Fast forward almost one year. I (Lauren) hadn’t exactly been feeling at peace with that “healthy” selection. Through a series of things including another blog and a small group study, I felt challenged to consider adopting a child with HIV (you might need to give that a moment to sink in, but please don’t be scared!).

The discussion: Ben and I spoke about it over dinner on September 3, 2010. Ben mentioned that he could definitely see us raising a child with some sort of special medical need—he just didn’t know what kind of special need, and he didn’t anticipate it being our first child. But he said that if God was speaking something to me, he was certainly willing to listen! In order to stay true to the 3 things we felt called to, we decided that if it would delay our process at all, we wouldn’t do it this time around (because of the “adopt right now” calling). We left dinner that night feeling excited and nervous of the possibilities.

Slam dunk: God knows what He’s doing, people. His timing is perfect. And if He sees His children needing confirmation of a calling, He’ll give it to them. When we got home from dinner that night, our agency’s update email had come to our inboxes and the headline was “Introducing AGCI’s Positively Chosen Program.” There you go. Our agency had decided to have sub-program where you can adopt children who are HIV positive. The SAME day that Ben and I had our discussion. And after talking to our case manager and finding out that it certainly wouldn’t delay us—if anything, it would speed us up, that just sealed the deal.

More education and paperwork: In the following months, we completed a long list of training and eligibility requirements for the Positively Chosen program and got all of our paperwork updated to reflect our change in parameters. We had an overwhelming peace about our decision and were certain that this is what God had called us to do. We went into this knowing there would be additional challenges we would face, but firmly believing that God would provide in every way for our family.

Tough road: We only mentioned our change in parameters to immediate family members and a few very close friends. As you can imagine, HIV is a very sensitive topic that many people are scared of. In fact, you might be looking at Eden in a different light just from hearing our story thus far… Well, we encountered a couple of very tough responses regarding our change in parameters and simply prayed (and cried) to God that He would be glorified and that He would protect our child from any discrimination once he/she was home with us. It was a very tough road.

Best Christmas ever: As you know, on December 22, 2010, we got a phone call from our agency with a little girl they had in mind for us. We were told that her birth mother had HIV, Hepatitis C, and TB—the “triple crown” of infectious diseases, our pediatrician said. After that phone call, and officially accepting our referral, we were on cloud nine! Edeneku was SO precious and we couldn’t wait to share the news with our families for Christmas!

Prayer works, people! To say that we had a lot of people praying for Eden would be a drastic understatement. We were seriously SO blessed to have so many people praying for her! And let’s just say, it worked! Long story short, Eden is healthy! When we were matched with her, we knew she didn’t have TB. Before we even traveled to Ethiopia to meet her, we were told that her bloodwork came back negative for HIV. And now that we’re home, our pediatrician can’t even find anything that would lead him to believe she has Hepatitis C. He said he couldn’t explain it. We said that anything could happen through prayer—that’s explanation enough for us!

Bottom line: We love Eden no matter what her health status. We had people praying for her health in general (they had no idea of any of this) and for God to protect her. And, of course, we prayed that our child would be protected from harm of any kind and we trusted that God would take care of our family. God chose for Eden to NOT have these infectious diseases and for that we are grateful. However, please understand that health status does not define her—or anyone.

Be open! We ask you to approach this with an open mind and open heart, just as we have. If reading this made some emotions come up that you want to talk about, please reach out to us. We have a TON of great resources on HIV and how it is and isn’t transmitted (if you think you know, you’re probably in for a surprise). This 3.5 minute YouTube video and the Project Hopeful site it mentions are our favorite—check them out! And obviously, this blog is a very short version of the entire story, so let us know if you have questions, comments, concerns, etc.

Our takeaways:

Give God complete control,

be obedient to what He says,

allow Him to show off, and

give Him the glory!

Oh, and pray with persistence and confidence!

Here's an example of the blessing that came from our obedience in this situation...

What's been missing

I finally figured it out. There was something missing in my life. Don't read into this too much and get concerned. I'm completely in love with my husband and my daughter and I love life as a mommy. It's just that...well...something was missing. I guess I was having somewhat of an identity crisis or something. But "crisis" makes it sound dramatic, which it wasn't. So anyway, it was just a void, I guess.

But I finally figured out what was causing that void.

A lack of reading.

I love to read. And, while I've been reading a LOT of books lately, not a single one of them has been for fun. I've been reading books about adoption, books about parenting, books about how to still be a good wife while being a good mom, books about how to be a better servant and a better steward, books about how to live life like Jesus wants me to.

And all of these have been good books and appropriate books and challenging books. But what was missing was the fun. You know, leisure books. Turns out I hadn't read a single "for fun" book in a LONG time (for sure since we started the adoption process in October 2009).

So, I went out and bought one. Sisterhood Everlasting. It's the sequel (is that the proper term for a book?) to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It's obviously in the "just for fun" category, as there is not much to be learned from it.

And I'm LOVING it!

I decided that I would carve out some "me time" every night just before I fall asleep. Eden is asleep, Ben is usually playing some type of game or watching a show in the man room (that's his "me time"), the dogs are winding down for the night...so I decided that, instead of doing the dishes or washing clothes during that time, I would just read.

And that is EXACTLY what I needed! Feels good to be reading for fun again!

Drop me a comment with some book suggestions if you've got any. Just remember--I don't want to be challenged or learn anything from these books! ;)

"Oh, I could never do that!"

Those words kind of annoy me. I feel like it's a way the person is trying to sound nice while they actually think I'm crazy. Like when a Southern woman says "bless her heart." Or it could also be that they are trying to justify why they aren't doing the thing they are referring to. Like a defense mechanism. Or it could actually be a compliment--inferring that I am some kind of super woman because I do that thing.

Either way, it annoys me. (just being honest)

Here is a real-life example for you...we use cloth diapers on Eden. Yep, cloth diapers. You can imagine that I've received at least a few of the "oh, I could never do that!" comments on this topic. And I get it. It sounds very hippy / granola / old-school / gross / hard / time-consuming / June Cleaver / whatever. You know what I say to that? Don't knock it til you've tried it! Seriously. The modern cloth diapers are NOT what you might be picturing. I hadn't even considered it until a couple of mommy friends of mine mentioned a class they went to and the brand they chose. So I checked it out and, guess what? I decided to try it (after convincing Ben I wasn't crazy)!

Our main reason for using cloth diapers is for the cost savings. You buy your diapers and inserts ONE TIME and that's it! It's already been a HUGE area of cost savings for us! Especially because most of our diapers were gifted to us! The added benefits are that it's much better for the environment (none of our diapers will end up in landfills), it's better for Eden's bum (only soft fabric touches her skin), and they are super-stylish (the cute colors are adorable).

Another point I want to make is this: don't assume that because I'm using cloth diapers, I'm against disposable diapers. I think some people give me a defensive type of response because they think that I think they are a bad mommy for using disposable diapers. That couldn't be further (or is it farther?) from the truth. In fact, we do use disposables on Eden every now and then. And when she's in nursery or daycare, we will likely have to use disposables because many programs do not do cloth diapers.

The bottom line is that every parent should make decisions based on what is right for their own family. I see a lot of moms get into a bad place with this type of thing--comparing to other moms. It can be about breastfeeding, sleeping habits, schooling, working away from home or staying at home, you name it. You know what I'm talking about. You've heard the tense, awkward conversations between moms before ("oh, you're homeschooling?" "wow, your baby still doesn't sleep through the night" "you know that breastfeeding is best, right?"). Here's my stance: it's ok for moms to be passionate about these topics and share information if it is solicited; however, we MUST be encouraging to other moms and respect that their choices are just that--their choices.

Moms unite. Build each other up. Don't judge. And definitely don't do the annoying passive style of judgment with not-so-subtle comments as I've mentioned above. And on the other hand, don't be a super-defensive mom who thinks every other mom is judging her.

And P.S. If you're not a mom, it's probably best to NOT chime in on these topics. You don't want to be "that girl" who thinks she knows how she's going to do it when she's a mom. Believe me...I speak from experience...sigh.

Click here if you want to see the brand of diapers we're using. And if you want more information on what cloth diapering looks like for us (what our "routine" is), please ask!

One final note about the "oh, I could never do that!" comment: many people have said that to us regarding our adoption. Please, please, please understand that you CAN do that! We LOVE talking about our adoption journey so that others will you can see just that! So please ask us!

Our Fundraisers

We will be wrapping up our adoption fundraisers soon, so we wanted to give you the info in case you want to put a final order in.

T-shirts: we're closing out our "store" at the end of June, so if you want one of these awesome t-shirts (they aren't all adoption-realated), you need to place your oder by June 30th. Check it out here!

Coffee: we're leaving this "store" open until our post-adoption social worker visits and adoption-related paperwork is complete, so you still have plenty of time to order. Check it out here! Even when we close ours, I encourage you to still buy your coffee from them, as there are plenty of other adoptive families doing their fundraising on this site. And, let's be honest, the coffee is AMAZING!

Thanks so much for all of your support!

Can you even imagine?

Be thankful that you don't live with this type of fear each day...but also do not forget that this DOES still happen around the world. Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours.

The LRA (rebels out of Uganda) are terrorizing children in Sudan, then taking them as soldiers and sex slaves. (Read more on this blog and this BBC article.) Please pray with me for Sudan. Pray with faith and pray with persistence.

What you REALLY want...

Sorry that I didn't put any pics in the last post. I put so many on facebook that I forgot about putting them on the blog. I'm going to redeem myself here....

Water Lover