It's been a while!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I realized that I have not been very good about updating this blog.  I am sorry for that, but 4 kids make things quite busy around here!

Well, EJ's first Christmas in the U.S. didn't go as expected - she was sick.  She caught a bad cold with a fever and has been down for 3 days now so she missed the Christmas Eve program and Christmas Day festivities but she seems to be on the mend this morning. (hopefully!) She was pretty sad about having to stay home, mostly because she loves to play with her cousins on my mom's side of the family.  :)  Poor Greg ... he missed Thanksgiving home sick with Cade and now Christmas home with EJ.  We have delayed our gathering on Greg's side so that we hopefully have healthy kids to celebrate there and don't get the little cousins sick.  (Braden now has a touch of it so we will be waiting it out with him, Cade had a cold start last week and hopefully Caris, Greg & I somehow skate through without catching it ... although I don't know how that is possible given the amount of coughing and sneezing that has gone on here in the the last week!)

Overall, EJ's adjustment has been going pretty well.  Some things are great for her - like school & food adjustments.  Some things are really hard for her - like daily routines, staying focused  & having to go along to watch her sibling's sporting events.  Greg & I constantly have to remind ourselves that it's only been 5 months.  We tend to expect a lot and need to be patient with her but it is really hard sometimes.  Hopefully some of those things will continue to get better as she gets more used to us.  She absolutely LOVES school and she will tell you she doesn't like the weekends.  (multiple soccer or basketball games on Saturdays and sitting quietly in church on Sunday are NOT her favorite things!)  I know most adoptive families of older kids will tell you that the happy child you see out and about is not at all the child we see at home when her guard is down.  Don't get me wrong, she is normally happy at home but we also see the other side of things too.  These last few weeks have been especially hard and sometimes frustrating for all of us.  We were told by other adoptive families that we'd hit the point where we'd ask ourselves "What have we done?  We've screwed up our nice little family".  Yep.  We're there.  Just being honest.  We know it will all get better and we have a great support system of family and friends.  Thank you all!

In November EJ had her large umbilical hernia fixed.  She was a trooper and recovered really fast and she loves being able to see a belly button on herself now.  :)

Although she is getting used to it, she is not a big fan of winter and has asked multiple times when the warm weather will be coming back.  ("a LONG time yet" is normally our answer!)  This month we had our official state of Wisconsin re-adoption so after I change her name with Social Security I think our portion of the paperwork in the adoption process may finally be finished.  There will be several more visits with the social worker who prepares reports to send back to Ghana's social welfare department, but that is mostly on their shoulders.  I'm glad to be at the end of the road with the paperwork!

So, that is the quick version of what is going on here at the Dirkse household.  We hope you have a very happy & healthy 2015!

Robin

Go karting with Dad in Wisconsin Dells

A normal sleeping position for our restless sleeper

Celebrating EJ's baptism

Eager to shovel the first snowfall after church ... hasn't shoveled since!

Re-adoption 12/12/14

Settling In and Starting School

I took a whirlwind trip back to Ghana to pick up Emmanuella since Greg & I had just been there for our visa interview appointment.  In the last post I did, we knew her birth mother had been interviewed and then we couldn't get any answers as to where the case stood at the US Embassy.  Well, on Monday morning we got word that her visa printed and could be picked up!  Amazing!  The Bethany Christian Services workers in Ghana went and picked it up yet that afternoon.  On Tuesday we confirmed that everything was spelled correctly and all looked good so I booked my flight back to go get her!  I flew out of JFK on a Thursday night (Aug 7th), arrived in Accra at 1:30pm on Friday, and flew back out with E at 10:30pm that same night.  We arrived to JFK very early Saturday morning (Aug 9th) and then flew to Chicago and arrived at 11:00am.  All of the flights went very smooth and E traveled great - she slept for about 8 of the 10.5 hours on the first flight during the night!  We were greeted by our family and a bunch of great friends that surprised me and all drove the 2 hours to Chicago to be there for us.

Ready for our 2nd flight to Chicago

The gang that greeted us at the airport

Here we come!

Meeting brothers and sister for the first time

1st family photo

The entire Veldboom side and Greg's parents were at the airport.  (Greg's brother and his family live in CA so we'll give him a pass on this one;) 

It's been 3 1/2 weeks now that Emmanuella has been home with us and things are going really well.  She has raised the love in our hearts and the volume level in our house about 400%.  :)  The first few days were really rough for everyone (mostly due to the time change she wasn't getting near enough sleep for those first few days and was not very happy!) but now she has adjusted and is doing very well.

School started yesterday for all of the kids.  Braden started 7th grade, Caris 4th, Cade 1st and Emmanuella is doing Kindergarten even though her age would put her in 1st. She wasn't ready for 1st grade socially or academically and Kinder will be a great fit for her.  I accompanied her to class yesterday and she did great so I did not go back with her today.  (I may or may not have spied on her from the parking lot during her morning recess time ;)  May I just say that teachers are amazing?!  I do not know how they do it all day ... so many needs and levels in each classroom and they just nail it.  Emmanuella's teacher is a good friend of mine so I already love her dearly on that level, but after spending a day in her classroom I have a whole new respect and admiration for her.  These people are truly gifted by God to be doing what they are doing!

Our Elementary students ready to go!

Braden is up early and ready for 7th grade

We had a great last 3 weeks as a family of 6.  I think Emmanuella said it best when we were leaving the house on Labor Day to go out to the lake waterskiing again.  She said, "we just have fun everyday"!  I was glad to hear her say that because it's not all roses for every part of our days - there are many lessons for her to learn and she doesn't usually like being corrected or told "no, we don't do that in the US" or "no, that is not acceptable in our home".  Most things are just cultural/environmental differences so repetition will help with those things.  The minor behavior issues we've had the first week have really subsided with more sleep at night after adjusting to our time zone.  She is a happy, giggly, LOUD and outspoken little girl so it is quite obvious when she is angry, mad, hungry or tired.  I guess that is a good thing - not a whole lot of guess work involved with her!  Her English is really good but we have had a few laughs over it as she learns.  (English is so confusing as so many words are the same but have several different meanings!)  Take for instance on the way to school today - we pasted the Christian School in town on the way to her school which is a public school.  She said "that is not my school", I said "nope, that is the Christian School, it is a private school which means the parents have to pay for their children to go there".  To which she answered, "they have to pay to poop & pee at that school?"  Can you tell we've had many conversations recently about being "private" in the bathroom?  We don't realize how many words we have with dual or triplicate meanings until you have to explain everything to a 6 year old learning it!

She is adapting well to food in the US also.  There isn't much this girl won't eat although she curls up her nose to nearly all things at first.  Luckily, she is very willing to try most things with urging and finds out she loves them.  Corn dogs, pizza, PASTA, hamburgers, chicken tenders, ice cream, PASTA and more PASTA.  She gained 2 lbs in the first 2 weeks she was here!  (operation portion control is beginning soon;)  So far the only things we found that she doesn't like are green beans, peas, lemonade & applesauce.  If we throw onions on just about anything she'd eat it.

The 3 bio kids are adjusting well also.  Caris is like having another mother in the house.  She likes to help her pick out her clothes and she plays with her often.  Braden & Emmanuella have been also getting closer as she learns to trust that big guy more and more.  They will swim together and play Uno & Connect Four often.  She loves to rough house with the boys ... it's just hard for her to learn where to stop so it doesn't always end well - but she comes back for more nearly every day!  Cade and E get along great but I think he struggled to find his new role in the house the first 2 weeks.  We seem to have our happy little guy back now though and he was excited about 1st grade after his first day yesterday.

Learning to play Uno at Grandma & Grandpa D's house - a Sunday night tradition.  She LOVES the game and would play constantly if we let her!

Learning to pedal & steer ... it's going to be awhile.  ;)

This was about 20 minutes after getting home from the airport - 1st time in our pool.

She loves having Caris paint her nails!

First time skiing with Dad - she has no fear behind the boat.

First time tubing with Caris

E with her friend and neighbor, Kallie.  She has been great to E over the last 2 weeks!

Thank you so much for your support the last few weeks.  We have had people bringing us meals and taking our 3 big kids fun places the last few weeks of summer while we bonded with E at home a little while - we really appreciate it!  Please continue to pray for our adjustment and attachment as a family.  There is still much that needs to happen but we have learned through this process to trust in God even more - he's got our back and will see us through.  :)

Update ... with little information

After going to church today and seeing many people at Braden's basketball tournament this weekend I realized that some of you are waiting for an update as to where our case stands at the US Embassy in Ghana right now.  Truthfully, we have absolutely no idea.  We know that Emmanuella's birth mother did go to the Embassy on Thursday and was interviewed, so that was amazing that they were able to track her down and she agreed to come so quickly.  After the interview was over, the officer handed our POA a slip of some sort that said he would be contacted.  I spent all day on Friday trying to get clarification of what that slip meant and no one,  either at the US Embassy or Bethany, answered my emails with any specifics.  So, we have no idea if the "investigation" that they were doing to confirm E's status as an orphan is completed after speaking with her birth mom or if the interview raised more questions and concerns and the US Embassy is going to continue the investigation for several more weeks or months.  We are completely frustrated at the lack of communication with our own government right now.  We will try again tomorrow.

While this is so frustrating and doesn't seem to make much sense to us, I really have felt peace the last few days.  I truly believe that I had not fully prepared myself as well as I could have (mentally) to be bringing her home last week.  I was also questioning if we had prepared our 3 bio kids as well as we could have for the little "tornado" that will be hitting our house when she arrives.  I feel like when I do go back for her that I now have a better handle on it and I have realized that I am going to need to find a whole lot more patience for many things with her and around the house.  I get it Lord, lesson learned.  Now I'm ready to go back for her.  :)

So, that's it.  Nothing much to report.  Hopefully we will get some answers in the next few days.

Robin

Not as we hoped...

Well, today did not go as well as it did in my dreams and it has been a rough day for us.  We did not pass our visa interview.  We arrived at 7am and waited in the very long, rainy line outside the Embassy.  Around 8:15 we finally got inside and waited to present our documents.  We left around 10:00am without the magic "blue ticket" to return for the visa.  The lady that interviewed us said that we had all of the proper documentation and proof, but that in order for her to process her visa she wanted to interview the birth mother.  We could not have provided her more paper proof than we did, she was set on a face to face interview.  We don't really know what she wants to ask her, but we are assuming that the Embassy will make sure that the birth mother knew what she was doing when she relinquished rights and that she fully understands the significance of that.  We are already legally Emmanuella's parents so that cannot change, the Embassy just wants to make sure that everything at the relinquishment is legit and there was no coercion.  (we thought the proof we brought in should have been enough!)  It's hard to understand the "why's" of it all, but we realize they are just doing their job.  We know of many cases that made it past their interview with the same documentation we had ... it just wasn't our day.  Our agency contacted the Dept Of Social Welfare in Ghana right away and they believe they have located her birth mother and she may be able to come to Accra yet this week for the interview.  (they would see her on any Monday, Tuesday or Thursday)  But, after weighing the odds of that happening plus the visa actually being printed anytime soon we decided that we will travel home as planned tomorrow evening.  Well, not "as planned", we planned to have Emmanuella with us when we booked it all.

We stopped over at Andy & Katie's again after our interview because they are staying only a few blocks away from the Embassy.  We enjoyed lunch with them and it was nice to be able to discuss it all with them.  We got to also share in their joy when their email arrived that their daughter's visa had finally printed.  (and it was handy that our driver was there and could quickly get him over to the Embassy to pick it up!)  They have been in the country for 2 weeks now and have 2 boys back in Montana so it has been really hard for them to be stuck here waiting for the computer program to be fixed.  While we were devastated (and frankly a little shocked) that we didn't pass we could still experience great joy for them.  They are on a plane home tonight and will be reunited with their family tomorrow.

Emmanuella had a hard day all around.  She was tired from getting up early so was already not very happy even before the interview.  You are not allowed to bring food, water, or electronics into the Embassy so even though she had a little breakfast in the car she got hungry inside the Embassy and this girl's mood changes considerably when she is hungry or tired.  Then, after we explained to her that the Embassy did not say "yes", they said "not yet", she shut down even more.  She perked up slightly with some lunch but then shut down for quite awhile again this afternoon.  Tonight was nice though, she played and was happy all night.  (we watched "Frozen" tonight - she liked it but the concept of cold and a snowman to a Ghanaian child is missed!)

While we surely do not understand the reasons behind us not passing the visa interview, we are trusting in God's timing.  We will still go to her school tomorrow morning and drop off all of the gifts we brought but then we will have to leave her at her foster mom's again.  Hopefully I will return to get her in just a few days, but it could also take a while, we have no idea.  In the meantime, we will try to place all of our trust for the timing in Him.

Monday in Ghana

A big hello from Ghana!

Today, for the most part, we had a  low-key day hanging out at the hotel and just bonding with Emmanuella.  (we were only gone for about 2 hours this morning as we went to the Bethany offices to get all of our original documents and go over everything for our interview tomorrow)  Emmanuella is always with us on this trip so it's a bit more exhausting - we are always "on" with intentional parenting.  That's something we haven't really experienced in many years!  Plus, it's so hard to know how to parent her right now when we are away from home and really have no sort of "normal".  Do we correct certain behaviors or just let them slide for awhile, etc.?  For the most part, we let them slide and just try to correct big things, but I can see she is already testing us.  If I say "no" to something or say "please don't do that", she will sometimes do it again purposefully.  She is a smart little girl so I am sure she is testing the waters to see what we will do.  I don't think it will take too long before she figures out that we are pretty consistent and our no means no.  She is so fiercely independant and I am a mom that pretty much has done most things for my kids so it is hard to decipher her good independence vs. letting us help her as a type of bonding & attachment.  In so many ways I love that she wants to do so many things on her own, but she also needs to learn that we will provide for her needs and she can trust that we will help her.  It's hard to know what is right but we'll figure it out as we learn more about each other.  We definitely saw again today that when she is tired she completely shuts down. Luckily, we could get her to take a nap today - she didn't wake up any happier but it only took 15 minutes or so and she was talking to us again.  We had a small glimpse today of how hard this is going to be for all of us, just getting used to a new child in the house that does nearly everything differently than we do.  (this will not be easy for our other 3 kids either who are pretty set in their ways!)

The day contained a whole lot of coloring, puzzles, doing the Barbie's hair, drawing/sketching, some iPad games, more coloring and a bath that gets the whole bathroom wet.  :)  We ended our day Facetiming with the kids back in Oostburg and Emmanuella seemed to understand it better tonight and she was excited to see them again. 

We ate our meals at the hotel today and for supper she finally ordered Banku and Okra Stew ... one of her supposed favorites but she never ordered it before on our first trip.  I gave it a try.  I cannot imagine having a whole softball sized helping of it like she had - it is just like eating sweet bread dough, it must sit like a rock!  She polished it off though and ate nearly all of the stew with it.  (you dip the banku in the stew to eat it and then she ate the meat out of the stew)  Her mood greatly improved after having some food in her belly also!

Our bodies have not yet adjusted to the time change and we are having trouble falling asleep at night.  (Greg fell asleep with E around 9:00 but woke up by 10:00 and we couldn't get back to sleep until after 1am - it doesn't help that we are sharing our queen bed with a 6 year old - I don't know how cosleeping families do that!)  We need to get up very early tomorrow morning to make it to the Embassy in time for our 7:30am interview.  From what we have heard, we have permission to come at 7:30am, but that just gets us in the doors and you wait to be called up to the desk for your interview.  We should be out of there by 11:00am or so and then we plan to head over to Andy & Katie's since they are very close to the Embassy and we will have lunch together with them.  At least we'll have one piece of the puzzle answered tomorrow, whether or not we pass our interview will determine if we are heading home on Wednesday night or rescheduling flights and waiting for a visa!  Please say a prayer that our answers and documents will be sufficient and we will pass this interview tomorrow - whether or not we bring our little girl home on this trip will be determined at it.  

For those who are wondering about how Greg's foot is doing - it was pretty swollen & sore after the flight since he couldn't elevate it at all for nearly 36 hours, but it has returned back to just the swelling it had before and has remained stable since then. (it hasn't gotten worse so that is fine by us!)   It's still not back to normal, but he's a trooper ... even though he forgot to pack his sandals and only has his tennis shoes along.  :)  Now he's coming down with a cold though.  :(

So, prayers are appreciated and if you wake up between 2:30am & 7:00am say a prayer because we are probably at the Embassy trying to pass our interview!  Thanks!

Wonderful day!

This morning Greg & I arose to a big crashing sound in the hallway around 6:45am (it sounded like they dropped someone's breakfast room service delivery in the tile hall right near us).  We decided to fall back asleep thinking there was no way they would bring Emmanuella to us until near lunch time - we remember how "Ghana Time" works, it hasn't even been 2 months since we were here the last time.  At 8:40am we awoke to a quiet knock on our door and guess who it was??  There was a gorgeous little gal at our door!  What a wonderful wake up call to see that face in the morning.  :)

She jumped right into looking for the iPad and going through the suitcases to see what we brought for her to play with.  Unfortunately, since we hadn't been up yet, I hadn't hid any of the things away for surprises for her down the road.  She pretty much either saw or played with nearly everything I brought for this whole trip today!  That's ok, she seems to love some repetition.

We ordered some breakfast (which E said she already ate at home) to be brought to our room.  Guess what?  She ate most of ours like usual.  She definitely liked Greg's omelet with all of the veggies in it over my plain scrambled eggs.  She also wanted tea but I had only ordered coffee for Greg so she tried that instead.  I have never seen a person add that much sugar to coffee ... needless to say, she only had a few spoonfuls! (yes, spoonfuls, she ate it like soup)  Then, we flew a kite in the parking lot ... because it wasn't hidden away and she had it in her head that we needed to.  We were grateful we were able to keep it away from the power lines in the strong winds today!  A little bit of swimming happened - the weather was very comfortable today ... not really that warm and the pool was cold. (we think they must have drained it and started over since the last time we were here because it's actually clean and the water is much cooler)  Then we headed back to our room to finally shower up and do some nail painting and coloring.  This kiddo can color for a LONG time ... that may come in handy on the airplane!  At 3:00 we had a taxi arranged to pick us up and bring us over to where Andy & Katie (the other Bethany family that is here stuck waiting for their daughter's visa to print) are staying.  They are in a very nice home of a US couple and there were several restaurants we could choose from to eat at tonight near there.  We chose to go to "ChurCheese" - it is the Chuck E Cheese of Ghana.  (the lettering on the outside was a complete knock off of Chuck E Cheese too - funny)  Don't really think Chuck E Cheese in your mind though ... this was a tiny room with a few games (most of which were not even in working order), a small carousel (like the ones in the old indoor playlands when we were kids) and a trampoline.  Emmanuella thought it was fabulous! We shared a pizza with Andy & Katie and bought our girls some chicken and fried rice.  The food was really good - even the pizza was pretty normal by my standards.  It was another nice night getting to know them better, they are a wonderful couple with a sweet new little girl to join their family.

We came back to the hotel tonight and we were able to Facetime with the kids back home.  They could finally see and talk with Emmanuella!  She had a hard time figuring it out - at first they would ask her a question and she would ask it right back.  I think she thought the computer was prompting her to ask the questions.  ??  She was pretty shy but it was great for us to see their faces and for them to finally see her. (and Grandma & Grandpa D too!)

We had a few "firsts" today for Emmanuella that showed just how many things are going to be new to her.  For instance, we brought along a bottle of liquid handsoap for the bathroom.  We had to teach her how to pump it order to get the soap out.  That's one of the many, many things that will be so new to her.  Can you imagine?  I just can't fathom being taken away from all I ever knew as home to a whole different world where everything smells different, tastes different, IS different!  She is very excited to come to the US and told us she is ready to leave with us, but really, how long until the newness and excitement wears off and she realizes that everything is different and it's the new normal.  Now you get a little idea of why we need to hang at home alone for awhile when we return with her - there is so much to teach and do and her immediate family needs to be the ones to teach her so she learns to trust us and learns that we will provide for all of her needs.  Honestly, I can't wait to show her!


Tomorrow we get picked up around 9:00 and will just head to the Bethany office to make sure we have all of the correct paperwork, etc. for our interview on Tuesday.  Then, we expect the rest of the day we'll just hang out at the hotel.

Back in Africa

Hi Everyone,

Well, after our overnight flight last night we made it to Ghana this afternoon tired but all in one piece.  We got to our hotel around 3:30 local time and settled in to the exact same room we had in May.  It's a nice large room but the a/c is leaking all over tonight and making weird noises so hopefully that can get fixed tomorrow and we don't have to change rooms.  We have a/c, water, internet and electricity tonight so I am NOT complaining!  We also have a bonus light bulb in the little chandelier this trip, 3 out of 5 work now, so there is an ever-so-slight increase of light in here at night.  :)

Emmanuella is going to be brought to our hotel tomorrow so we have a chance to get some good rest tonight before we have her inbetween us for the rest of the trip.  :)  We were able to meet up for supper with another family that has adopted a little girl through Bethany, passed their interview on July 21st and is stuck in country while the US Embassy computer system is down and visas cannot print.  It was great to have dinner with them and get to know them.  They moved out of the hotel today (they've already been here 9 nights so they made arrangements for some free lodging with an American couple who lives here in Ghana right near the US Embassy)  We made plans to see them again tomorrow night.  I like having plans of something to do each day so that is great!  We will swim (the pool is blue this time and not green - hip hip horay!) and play here at the hotel for awhile and then we will head over there by mid afternoon.  On Monday we will meet with the Bethany workers and get more info on how the interview day will go on Tuesday.  Wednesday we hope to bring all of the gifts to Emmanuella's school and visit with her foster mother.  After that it is all up in the air depending on what happens at the interview on Tuesday.  If we don't pass we will fly home Wed. night ... if we do pass we are stuck here until the visas start printing again.

The family we met with tonight has had good contact with the Embassy (they went several times this week to try and get the visa) and they feel confident that the workers there are prioritzing the adoption cases and these will get processed quickly once they are functional again.  The embassy workers plan to work a lot of OT to make up for the backlog - we just have no idea when that will be.  It has already been 2 weeks that the US Embassy system worldwide has had this "glitch" and they claim they are working to fix it with high priority.  It's hard to believe that there is no "plan B" or another way to print (or handprint!) visas in situations like this.  Feel free to contact the US Department of State (http://www.state.gov and click on the small red "contact" button to send a message) to urge them to get this fixed or develop a "plan B" immediately!  There are US citizens worldwide that are stuck out of country because of it - it's already been 2 weeks and they still don't have a fix or backup plan in place.  If we pass Emmanuella's interview on Tuesday, we will be one of those families!

We are looking forward to seeing Emmanuella again tomorrow.  Her smile, her laughs & her energy will be uplifting to us.  She is so fun!  God has already ordained our days here in Ghana and we will trust in Him for our strength, energy, and provision.  Please pray that God moves mountains at the Embassy so that all of us in this adoption process can get our families all together on the same continent!

Hoping the internet is working again tomorrow so I can keep updating.

Robin