Stitch

“Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind…. or forgotten.” ~Lilo & Stitch

I like to say that music is my job and movies are my hobby. I speak in movie quotes often. Different emotions and circumstances will dictate which quote I hear in my head through this adoption journey, and I will share them with you.

Walt Disney’s Lilo & Stitch has a lot of meaning for me. It was the last of the hand drawn Disney cartoons, and the art design team was lead by my professor’s husband. This was the reason we named our cat Lilo, years later. Lilo has not been with us during our entire 13 year marriage, but she has been here for the most important changes. (If you don’t like cats this may be a good time to check out a different adoption blog)

My husband and I have such a long history which started at 15 years old. We had a plan and by 19 we were married and entering our sophomore year of college. We knew that we were not ready for kids yet. 6 years later we had both graduated and had stable jobs and a nice apartment. We thought this was the time. It took us about a year to get pregnant. Our son Max was beautiful! However, we learned early on in the pregnancy that there were complications. More specifically he had Walker-Warburg Syndrome. Our doctors monitored everything closely and our family and friends prayed for a miracle. The survival rate is very low with this syndrome and best case scenario is that they are alive for 2 years.

Max came early! We held him and loved him for 16 days before his little body couldn’t live on the machines anymore. I wouldn’t trade those days for anything! We were surrounded by everyone who loved us and so many people had been praying for Max and sharing our story all over the world. He was an amazing little 16 day evangelist!
Then my husband and I grieved. Unfortunately, we grieved separately and grew apart. Just over a year after Max had passed away we finally had our day of crying, anger, guilt, etc. together. We knew we weren’t ready to start again or what that might look like, but our dream of what our little family would look like was gone. I didn’t know before that how important that dream was to me. Our future was unsure and we didn’t have a plan anymore.

All the while Lilo was following me around, sitting next to me when I cried and using me as an outlet for needing to be nurtured. When kittens are feeding they knead their mother’s tummy. Lilo began to knead my tummy after the pregnancy. This is a reaction toward me she had never had. She doesn’t do this to oscar or anyone else, just me. I often thought that God was trying to tell me that I’m still a mommy because I have someone small who needs me (or kneads me). I needed someone to nurture because I had all of these mommy feelings without a baby at home.
We surrounded ourselves with even more awesome people who loved us and supported us at a new church. We even moved into a big town house with a few of them. Finally we felt that God was moving through us again toward family thoughts. We decided to get a few tests done to check for WWS. Although we got pregnant first! Our doctors knew our past and checked for any signs.

Blueberry only made it to a few weeks after the pregnancy test before we had a miscarriage. We refer to him as Blueberry because that was the size he was on the chart. I feel that this worked out for the best because our timing is not God’s timing, and getting pregnant before our scheduled genetic tests was not a part of the plan.
It’s hard not to be mad at the doctors or nurses. Experts can prepare you for every possible scenario and explain that anything is possible until they are blue in the face. All you want to know is a straight answer. We wanted to know if any more of our kids would have WWS. They couldn’t say for sure. “It’s not like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s more like trying to find a specific needle in a needle stack. Each stack is a set of chromosomes.” Our genetic counselor spelled it out perfectly.
Our tests came back negative for WWS. We couldn’t be more excited. “Max was an anomaly!” I kept saying. A few months later we started trying to get pregnant again. In less than a month I was carrying Maverick. Lilo knew first and was immediately protective of me. We didn’t know much about our new baby or what his future would be, but we were thrilled. Each moment of happiness had a shadow over it. Our announcement photos were actually taken while I was pregnant with Blueberry. My blood pressure was high anytime I went for a sonogram. Was he moving enough, was I eating right, was Max’s fate my fault?

The gender ultrasound revealed that Maverick was showing the same signs as Max. I prayed harder than before. I know of others, even within our own church, that God used as a miracle. Maybe He would use us too. Bits of denial and bargaining stuck in my head as I began “nesting” because I wanted to keep him. Just like his brother, Maverick came early and by C-section. He breathed on his own for 12 minutes and then I he was gone too. Twice now we left the hospital without a baby. Again Lilo was there treating me like her mommy. She slept with me every night in the recliner while my incision healed.
Before Blueberry or Maverick, we had discussed our options and knew that adoption could be good. My 3 older siblings were adopted. The idea wasn’t foreign to me. The process was! We had a long talk with someone from church who has 3 adopted kids and 2 foster kids. She said that the best place to start is by finding an agency. “How do we know what agency?” Her idea was so simple, “post a status on Facebook asking people what agencies they recommend.” I posted my question on November 19. All responses came back Bethany Christian Services.

I did my research and looked up a bunch of other places. I also researched the differences between state adoptions and agency adoptions. I sent a few emails and Bethany got back to me right away. This process will be full of ups and downs, but our little family is ready to grow!

“This is my family. I found it all on my own. It’s little, and broken, but still good. Yeah – still good.” ~Lilo & Stitch