Matthew Paul McDowell

We finally decided on an official name! Bryon and I have discussed names a few times, but we knew with him being "Paulius" for five years, that we should keep Paul as part of his name. Matthew was the first name that we both agreed on for his first name. We have now submitted both our I-800a Supplement 3 to update our home study and the I-800 application. They were sent about a week apart and we just received the I797c stating the the first has been received and in the process of being approved. I learned that our agency's branch license comes up for renewal on 11/30/11. If our I800 isn't approved and submitted to Lithuania and a court date not assigned by 11/30, then we will have to wait for the agency to go through their annual audit and renewal process! This would destroy any hopes of our son coming home before Christmas. My heart just hurts thinking that we could have to wait another 3-4 months as a result.... our agency has costs us so much precious time and been the source of months and months of delays! Our 3rd caseworker quit on Oct. 14 and now our case is up in the air yet again! We have not been assigned a new caseworker yet. This is driving me crazy! While I will always be an advocate for adoption, I can not recommend our agency to anyone with a good feeling in my heart. It just makes me sick to my stomach to think of people getting involved with such as unstable organization while children's lives are at stake! I will just keep praying that we encounter no more delays and can complete this soon so we can graciously part ways.

On a happier note, I have a huge praise report! We received an anonymous donation from someone through our church. It was such a huge blessing and God couldn't have picked a better time to lift our spirits and show us that He will remain faithful and complete this work that He has begun in us. One thing that I have learned is that you should never enter into something like this without seeking God through every step. If not for faith in what God has planned for this little boy and our family, I would have given up months ago! I know we have many, many more challenges and we work hard to bring healing to our son... yes, healing! This is not some "oh, you are so sweet to adopt this little boy" mission. It is not that simple. Children from institutions like where Matthew has grown up have many challenges ahead. Many have never bonded with an adult and find any physical contact uncomfortable... imagine it taking months before you can even hold or hug the child you have adopted! This is just one of the realities that we could face. Families that adopt need months and months of prayer and help from friends and extended family. It is not easy, and it can take months... even years before an adopted child learns to trust his/her adoptive parents. Some may never feel truly safe in their new environment and could need years of therapy to help them overcome their painful past. These are some things that we would like our friends and family to be aware of and be understanding of as we approach Matthew's homecoming. I am also one that likes to do everything myself and never likes to ask for help. Let me just go ahead and throw this out there... please don't wait for me to ask for help. Don't even ask me if I need help. I will probably tell you "no" and that everything is fine, but let me tell you, I will probably be lying. Just don't give me the chance. Please, this is my plea now because I know I may be too overwhelmed when Matthew comes home or too ashamed to ask (because I feel like a failure when I can't do it all by myself!) Just show up and help where and when you can... pick my kids up from school, bring us dinner, help my kids with their homework so that I can focus on Matthew. Yes, this is my shameless plea for help down the road. I know I will need it and I know I will not ask for it, but for my sanity's sake, I am going to go ahead and ask now while I am strong enough to admit my weaknesses. :)

I hope to have more happy updates to come soon. I sent a letter with the I800 application pleading for them to expedite approval due to medical conditions. We are also gathering letters from the genetics team at Vanderbilt and from school explaining the necessity to get Matthew home as soon as possible so we can petition the judge to waive the appeal period, which requires us to return to the US for 40 days and then travel back to Lithuania to bring him home. We hope to have this second trip waived so that we can bring Matthew home on the first trip. A second trip would also require massive fundraising right over the Christmas holiday when most people are spending all their money on gifts. I am not confident that we could come up with the money for a 2nd visit as we still have about $5000-6000 left to raise to fund our first visit.

Please continue to pray for us, pray for Matthew and pray for our girls as this is not going to be any easy adjustment for them. The closer we come to travel, the closer we come to the reality that we are leaving our children behind for at least two, but likely three weeks. I hurts to think about being away from them that long... it kills me to think about it! Thanks for all the prayers.

Love,

Kellye

REFERRAL!!!

This week has been a roller coaster! On Monday, we received our official referral for Paulius. I am still so amazed at how fast things are moving on the Lithuania side of this. This really spins us into whirlwind with making updates for USCIS, but things are moving along. We received some new pictures of our son along with a lot more information about him. He has three siblings.. one older sister that has been adopted by a family in Lithuania, one older sister that is being fostered by family, and last year on Abigail's birthday, he had a new baby sister that was born. She is still with the mother, who is apparently mentally impaired, so I am praying that his baby sister is being taken care of. Paulius has never been within the care of any family members. He was abandoned in the hospital where he spent his first month of life before being transferred to the orphanage that has been his home now for 5 years. His mom visited him a hand-ful of times, but no one from the family has ever expressed any desire to care for him. This just breaks my heart! I cannot wait to get him home so he can learn what a family is all about.

The referral also included all of his medical background since he has been eligible for adoption. He has been on the PKU diet since he was a month old, which was when he was officially diagnosed. He has some pretty significant speech delays that are due to physiological problems, not intellectual so much. He also has some short term memory issues and short attention span. Hopefully the best dietary management will help as these are common with PKU that isn't well maintained. I really appreciate that the orphanage caregivers have done their best to maintain his diet and they are so very limited on resources. I have no idea if he has any access at all to low protein foods.

We also have measurements and he is a BIG boy!! He outweighs his sister, Abigail, by 10 pounds and he is close to being two inches taller. I had to explain to Abigail that her little brother is actually a big brother in size! He is a cutie pie! I just love his smile and those kissable cheeks! I can't wait to hold him and I just ache for him to be home. I am praying that we can get through the necessary updates very quickly so that we can get our court date to go bring him home. God is doing great things for our family and I am so excited in how He is working in our lives. I thank Him for the peace he has given me as we reach this very stressful stage, and I pray He continues to provide.

On a fundraising note, our community yard sale was less of a flop than in the spring. We made a little over $200 considering we only had a weeks notice to prepare, but only one day to really get ready. I was reading on one blog how a family in Nashville spent weeks and weeks preparing for a yard sale and collected tons of donations. They raised $11,000 with the yard sale alone!!! I guess we live in the wrong neighborhood for that since we are only allowed to have community sales twice a year and NO notice that allowed us to prepare like that. I have been added to a new Facebook page for Rutherford County Moms. I have sold almost $400 worth of items on that site, so I will keep that up as kind of a "virtual" yard sale. I have also made about $80 with my custom shirts.

Now that we have the referral we are able to apply for the Brittney's Hope Seedling Grant for special needs adoptions. I think we are going to have to just keep praying really hard for grants to pull through for us since we have to still come up with travel funds. The good news is that we have the money to accept the referral and pay for the home study update... that is a HUGE PRAISE!!! Please keep us in your prayers! I am attending the Empowered to Connect conference tomorrow and Saturday to help prepare for some of the hardest parts of adoption... trust, bonding, grieving losses, etc. This is the tough reality behind adoption. Paul looks happy. He looks healthy and he has never know any other life outside of an orphanage. It is all he knows and it is going to be VERY difficult for him to leave it. He will needs lots and LOTS of prayers, as will we all as we adjust. I know that God has an incredible plan for this sweet child, but it is going to be tough for a while, and we just have to hold on to the TRUTH that God's plan is far better than anything we can ever imagine. That TRUTH is my comfort and my strength!

Lithuania is rockin'

We learned on Monday that the AS (Adoption Services) in Lithuania had sent our Bethany representative a letter last Friday stating that we have officially been matched with Paulius!!! It is a sigh of relief as we have been working for over a year with no guarantees... anyone up to this point could have received the referral for him. They also stated in the letter that they were in the process of compiling our referral documents. Our Lithuania rep also said that we have urgent status to have the referral translated and that we should have it in 2-4 weeks! Once we accept the referral, it will go back to Lithuania to be translated and on back to AS. We could know our travel dates as soon as October. I feel hopeful that we will have him home by Christmas! The only negative is that things are progressing so fast now that it doesn't give us much time to raise the money. Many grants require us to have a referral before we apply, and then takes weeks to process. I am concerned that we will not have the funds to travel before our travel dates, but I will keep trusting God. Another adopting mom posted that God funds what He favors and in the Bible, he promises, "I will not leave you as orphans", so I will keep believing in this and praying!

Today, our caseworker visited our home to update our home study. Once she has it typed up, it has to be approved at the local and national offices and then go on to USCIS for approval. It took about 9-10 weeks for the initial approval, but this update will hopefully go through much quicker. It can hold up our travel date if not done quickly.

We did complete the Show Hope grant application and received confirmation that it arrived. Our grant will be reviewed in late October and we will be notified of whether we receive anything by November 15th... about down to the wire! This is such a wonderful ministry and so many families receive some amount. We are also applying for a Brittney's Hope Seedling Grant for special needs adoptions. This grant will require us to raise 1/2 of the amount that they award in effort to pay-it-forward to another family adopting a child with special needs. This is an exciting opportunity!

Our next fundraiser will be in the form of a yard sale. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to do yard sales in our neighborhood unless it is part of the community yard sale. We participated in the spring sale and it was a flop because of the weather. Hopefully we will have good weather this time.

This adventure has gone from a snail's pace to now moving so fast that we can't keep up, but soon we will have our son home. As big of a headache that this has been at times, I know that these have been trials to better prepare us for a future with our new son!

Our Adoption Timeline

I was thinking today about our adoption timeline and realized that I should post something about it just to document the journey so far. So here is how our story began:

May (late) 2010- Received text from my friend, Cassie, with a picture of Paulius. For the next couple of weeks, I would stare at this sweet boy's face in that text message and think of him non-stop! Finally, after a few conversations with Cassie, I decide to talk to Bryon about the possibilty of adopting Paulius. I sell him on the idea, but with some reservations (mainly financial concerns).

June 9, 2010- Inquire about Paulius and his availability

June 11, 2010- Send in pre-application to Bethany Christian Services

June 30, 2010- Met with our first of three caseworkers that we would have through our journey.

July 4, 2010- I tell my family that we are pursuing adoption.

August 27, 2010- A very lengthy, thorough and complicated Formal Application is completed.

Sept. 1, 2010- We receive new photos of Paulius and are over the moon!

Oct. 27th 2010- Home Study is completed on our end. (now with 2nd caseworker)

Nov. 11, 2010- Home Study FINALLY submitted.

Dec. 20, 2010- Dossier meeting (with now our 3rd caseworker)

Dec. 30, 2010- Received a late Christmas present... more pics of Paulius from his Christmas in the orphanage.

Jan. 5th, 2011- National office requests changes to our home study by our caseworker.

Jan. 19, 2011- National office FINALLY approves our home study (you know, the one we finished on October 27th!!! Talk about a test of patience!)

March 18, 2011- After a possible job change, we are finally able to submit our USCIS application.

March 31, 2011- Receive MORE pics of Paulius, and my heart just melts all over again.

June 6, 2011- After one hang-up, we receive our USCIS approval.

July 12, 2011 (my birthday!)- Our dossier is completed, notarized, apostilled and copied.

July 15, 2011- Dossier submitted to Nashville office.

July 26th, 2011 (Abigail's birthday!)- We learn that our dossier has been approved and sent to Lithuania!!! WOOHOO for progress!

August 16th, 2011- Our dossier translation is complete and all paperwork is submitted to Adoption Services of Lithuania.

And so now we are here... just waiting on that referral to come! And trying to fundraise and come-up with the money to accept the referral the absolute DAY it arrives! I will sell everything not nailed down if I have to! I am so ready to bring our son home! I will keep you updated and let you know when the referral comes. You will probably hear me as I shout it from the rooftop LOL!

On the move!

It has been a long time, and I have been no good at this blogging business! A lot has happened since my last post. My interim position for metro was originally supposed to be just while a teacher was on maternity leave. She decided not to come back to work, so I was offered her position through the end of the school year. It was a financial blessing as this made the paycheck a little bigger, but it also extended my commitment to teaching in metro with a 3+ hour-a-day commute. I didn't have any spare time to work on the dossier or fundraise, but I was able to save the money needed to apply for our USCIS approval, get all the paperwork notarized and apostilled, and pay for the first half of the country fee when we submitted the dossier. So when school got out in June, I began working on the dossier. I got it all done in about three weeks, with the exception of a massive run-around caused by one of the doctor's offices! I did ALL of this with two kids in tow! I am so proud of my "dossier diva super troopers"!

Our dossier was officially completed and apostilled on my birthday, July 12th. I couldn't think of a better present! It took a couple of days to get everything copied and organized, but everything was submitted to Bethany on July 15th. They approved everything and sent it on to the national office the following week and went went on a little vacation in Gatlinburg... boy did we need it! We spent the least we could, but enjoyed relaxing at the pool and going to Dollywood.

Our dossier arrived in Lithuania and was immediately sent to the translation team. It should be translated some time this week! Then it goes to Adoption Services of Lithuania who already know it's coming and are waiting. I hope this means that we will get a referral very soon... maybe by Paulius's 5th birthday on Sept. 22nd. We pray that we can complete the adoption before Christmas!

Now I am back in to major fundraising mode. I tapped out the adoption funds with the dossier, so we have to come up with the remaining $5000 country fee and $750 post placement agency fees that must be paid with the referral acceptance... so I am in crunch mode! Right now I am just going through the house and selling everything that we no longer need. I am posting to eBay, Craigslist, preparing children's consignment clothes again and getting ready for a yard sale! I am also hitting the grant applications pretty hard. I really wish I had time to do this before now, but the teaching job and dossier prep, along with taking care of two kids has consumed my time. The kids are back in school now, so I am devoting my days to fundraising! I know that grants can help us with our travel fees, and may be the only way we reach the amount that we need!

I am also continuing with my crafts and selling them. I have gotten a few orders for my shirts that I make and I hope that they keep coming. Bryon is also going to try to get more "on call" shifts so that he has a chance to make some extra money. I have also taken a couple of dog-sitting jobs for a neighbor while they have gone on vacation. I honestly didn't think they should pay me, but they insisted, so I told them that it would go towards the adoption.

Finally, we have started moving the office downstairs so that we can get Paul's room ready. We have to come up with some storage solutions for all my scrapbooking and craft stuff, but I am so excited about decorating a boy's room! It is starting to feel REAL! Like this may finally happen! I just want our son home so we can get to know him and he can get to know us and start to settle into our family. Please keep those prayers coming. Pray for funding, pray for Paul, and pray for us as we prepare for Paul's homecoming.

Ups and Downs

The last few weeks have been like a roller coaster. Some of the highlights have been with the friendships we've made at the Adoption Discovery class at our church. I am so excited that there is a desire to begin an adoption ministry within our church. We also received new photos of Paul, which was exciting as always. The very next day, our USCIS application was returned because a page was missing. I couldn't believe it! I had poured over that application for a week! That night, I just sat and cried wondering why we kept hitting walls and having hold-ups. I decided to check out a blog that someone in the adoption class at church had told me about. It's by a girl from Brentwood that went on a mission trip to teach kindergarden in Uganda following her high school graduation. She decided to make Uganda her home and orphans her life. By 2010, she was the adoptive mother of 16 orphans in Uganda... AT AGE 21!!! I decided to start at the very beginning of her blog with 2007.

I was amazed! Her writing was beautiful (coming from an English teacher), and it was like reading from a prophet. I was so enthralled with her penetrating words and inspiring messages, but more than anything, I was touched by how she spoke the truth of God's love. Her sacrifices were joyous, she labored in conditions that would make most of us catch the first flight back to civilization... but she chose this and she did so with complete conviction and joy in her heart. Before I knew it, I had read all of her 2007 blogs and part of 2008. It was like reading a book you just couldn't put down, and I felt God speak to me with every word that I read.

It was getting late, and by this time I was overcome and exhausted with the roller coaster of emotions of the day. I finally closed my eyes (with my laptop still in my lap) and cried out to God. In my prayers, I asked God if we kept hitting walls because this adoption was not of His will, and prayed that if this was in His plan, that He would strengthen us and please progress this before we give up. I closed my prayer with questions still piercing my heart, "Is this adoption something we should be doing??? Is this truly God's will our our's?" Now, I don't usually get immediate answers to my prayers in such an obvious and in-my-face kind of way. Before I say exactly what happened, I should share a little background. I majored in English and have my teaching license to teach English/Language Arts. When my husband bought my laptop, he set up my screensaver to be dictionary words. When my screensaver pops up, it is a word from the dictionary and it's definitions. Typically, it brings up unusual words that we don't use on a regular basis. However, on this night, it was just a regular word. I had been praying for a while so my screensaver had come up while the computer was still on my lap. I opened my eyes from prayer and to my amazement, the word on my screensaver simply said, "adopt". As chills ran up my spine and tears filled my eyes, I knew I had my answer... we are doing what God wants for us, it is just going to happen in His time, which is always perfect. So with no further question in my mind and no more doubt, we will progress forward as fast as God moves this through, and His timing will be perfect and will make perfect sense.

If you want to be truly blessed, please check out Katie Davis's blog at http://www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com

You will fall in love with her and the beautiful children of Uganda, and you will see the power that God has when He moves us. She reveals God's heart for orphans and lives her life to serve God. Check it out and be blessed!

Rising out of the pit...

It's hard to believe that this journey began more than six months ago! Our case file passed through three people before we completed the home study! The staffing changes at the adoption agency really slowed things down. We completed the home study in October, but it was finally approved at the national office last week! We were starting to lose faith that we would ever make any more progress, and just sort of sunk into a pit thinking it might never happen. The official approval really helped pull us out of the pit and we are so glad to be able to move forward now. We also received new pictures of Paul from Christmas, and that really helped spur us on. He has grown so much since the last pictures, but he is still just precious as ever! He was described as being "sweet, smart and polite". He even helps a friend in the orphanage who has trouble walking. I can't help but think about how hard it will be for him to leave his friends, but we are ready to bring him home!

The only thing getting in the way of our progress now is money. Despite taking an interim teaching position to make money for the adoption, the snow days and Christmas break cost me, so now money is the issue! We have to do some fundraising, and time and planning is limited due to my new job. I am praying that I will be able to pull together some fundraisers to help and am very fortunate to have a fellow adoptive mom who has been through this process several times who is willing to brainstorm with me and share ideas. I am also pursuing some grants, and hope that our church family can assist us with some matching grants.

We need prayers... by the truckload! Paul also needs lots of prayers as well. Once we finally do get to go to Lithuania, it will be very difficult to pull him from the only caregivers, friends and life he has ever known. It will be a tough transition for all of us, but it will be most confusing and traumatic for him. People forget that children living in these orphanages do not know life to be any different, so they may not find being adopted to be as big of a blessing in the beginning. I hope and pray for a comforting transition when that time comes.

Finally... some progress!

I have been behind on blogging for a long time now! Why? Because things have been so sloooow! I finally have some updates. We completed all the application requirements in August and began the home study process. Near the end of our home study, our case worker quit her job and left us waiting on someone else to take over our case and complete the process. Finally, we were assigned a new case worker and completed our home study last week! Hallelujah! It has been a roller coaster for the past couple of months. One amazing thing that happened was that people from the Family Law Center in Lithuania visited the orphanage and took updated pictures of Paulius and sent them to our case worker. I opened the e-mail with new pictures and just started crying... happy tears of course! I was not expected any new photos of Paulius until the referral comes, so this was an unexpected gift! On a sad note, Paulius celebrated his 4th birthday on September 22nd without his family. It was a really hard week for me as I faced the reality of losing four years with our son. It seems like the harder I've tried to get through the process, the slower things seem to move :(

We have also started doing some fundraisers. I held two bake sales, consigned donated children's clothing in four consignment sales, and had a garage sale. Combine the money raised at all of these events and we barely topped $1200! We have our work cut out for us and a LONG way to go before we raise enough money to complete the adoption and travel to bring our son home. Katie did a great job holding a hot cocoa/lemonade stand at our garage sale. None of the garage sale items were selling, but she sold a $100 cup of hot cocoa and a $20 cup of lemonade. Her lemonade stand made almost all of the money the day of the garage sale, which was a total for $477!

I am trying to think of more fundraising ideas that will bring in a little bit larger amounts of money. I picked up some photo Christmas cards from Target dollar area and will be making "Prayers for Paulius" cards to send with his picture and a letter about the adoption. I will send these out to all of our family and friends within the next couple of weeks. I am also making some handmade crafts that I am selling at a small craft fair soon. These bring in small amounts, so I will also be submitting lots of grant requests once I have our completed home study letter. I am starting my new job as substitute teacher for metro-Nashville schools next week. This will be a great way to raise money for the adoption if I can get jobs and hand in there! Some of these schools are pretty tough, so please keep me in your prayers :)

Now that the home study is complete, I will being giving updates more often (since there will hopefully be more to report). Please keep our family in your prayers as we continue our journey to bringing Paulius home. Please keep Paulius and the other children in the orphanage, and the caregivers in your prayers as well. More updates to come soon...

More News...

I received an e-mail yesterday with more information about Paulius, specifically about his PKU. He is "classical" PKU like Abigail and his levels are checked every two weeks! This is great!! They also sent us the results of his last three levels which range from 6 being his last level, but the previous two were at 12.5 and 14 (high!). I was told that he eats his meals with all of the other children and that the caregivers do their best to monitor him, but he does successfully manage t sneak some foods off of other plates. Like any other PKU child, he is curious about what other foods taste like. I bet he has never had low protein breads or pastas made just for him! I can't wait to see what he thinks of pizza or grilled cheese sandwiches and macaroni and cheese. My guess is that he only eats fruits, vegetables and regular breads, pastas or maybe rice. Paulius was diagnosed a month after birth and has been on the low protein diet since then. I am so glad to hear that his levels are checked so often and that the caregivers are doing their best to meet his dietary needs. I honestly expected his levels to be in the 20 range, so it is a relief to know that it's not been quite that high.

I also paid the $550 application fee yesterday so that our file is in the works. I sent Bryon to work with a stack of papers to sign this morning so that we can go ahead and have them put on file. This morning I registered for our Hague Convention Adoption training and completed the introduction and first module. We both have to complete it separately and have 8 weeks to get it done. I think I will have it done in about a week! I also ordered some books about adoption that were recommended by our caseworker. I hope to have plenty of reading time once I get some more of this paperwork out of the way. I feel pretty confident that I will get my part done fairly quick, but Bryon's new job keeps him busy and wiped out during the week and our weekends have been packed! He was able to get an appointment for his psych evaluation on Tuesday night after work. He will be lucky to be home by 9:00 p.m. that night, but it will be done and we can check that off of his "to-do" list.

My house is smelling divine right now. I am baking my first loaf of regular bread in the bread machine. I have only made low protein bread for Abigail in the machine, but I am trying to make regular bread for the bake sale fundraiser we are having this Saturday. I am also making beer bread and trying my hand at honey wheat and amish style sweet bread too. I have been wanting to try making regular breads, so I am excited to be trying these new breads. I will be baking and baking for the next to days to prepare. I have also gotten in touch with my creative side to try to raise some money. I am painting letter wall hangings for baby nurseries and kids rooms, making hair bow holders, diaper cakes, baby shower gift sets and hair bows. I am going to try to open an etsy online store or maybe sell them on ebay or something. We'll see how it goes. If anything, I am having fun making the items! Wish us luck on our first fundraiser! Come see me and get some yummy homemade baked goods :)

Crawl before you walk!

I learned a lesson today! I have been trying to tackle what I felt were the larger hurdles before taking on some of the easier tasks. One thing I have been putting off was submitting the Formal Application online with Bethany. Instead, I have been running all over with my focus on the folder of paperwork and the big checklist! I guess I wanted to get the hardest stuff done first, but that turns out to not be the best idea. Apparently, we should have submitted this online application right after our first meeting with Bethany. The BIG folder is pretty much the same information but with a LOT more detail, so I was assuming it was more important... wrong! They can't even create our file until the online application is submitted. Oops, so we have been running around doing all these tasks and we don't even have an official file set up yet?? YIKES! Now that I know that, Bryon and I sat down tonight and completed and submitted the online formal application. Now I am back to working on the folder of paperwork. I can see us having it complete this week if we can get the VERY detailed financial forms completed. Whew... we are making some progress, it just seems to be taking too long!

I also learned that just because you attend an informational meeting with notepad and pen in hand, ask lots of questions, and take notes the whole time... this doesn't ensure that you actually understand everything, even if you think you "get it". I thought I was doing so good to be making all of this progress, yet I seemed to have skipped the most basic and important step. I just hope these lessons don't cost us too much time!