adoption blog

It is finished!

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:21:43 -0600

Selah became a U.S. citizen today and her name was officially changed from Beyenech Ryan to Selah Grace. She is now recognized by the U.S. as our daughter and will receive a MN birth certificate in a couple of weeks. We are thankful to the Dakota County Judicial Center for hearing our case in 2009 so that our adoption could neatly span three calendar years instead of spilling over into four. What a long season this has been!

Ryan’s parents attended the hearing with us and of course Carleen knew the judge because, well, she knows everyone--even in Hastings! His name was Dick Spicer which I only mention because later today I accidentally told a friend of ours that his name was Dick Sprinkles. We have candy sprinkles in our spice rack, so I think I was headed toward Spicer but landed on sprinkles instead. :-)

Anyway, the hearing went well (obviously). Mr. Spicer was very entertaining and the only part of the hearing that gave us pause was when he read aloud the story of Selah’s abandonment and relinquishment. We’ve read the story and the names of her Ethiopian family more than a dozen times, but there was something about hearing someone else read it out loud that made our hearts sink. We’ve gotten so used to Selah being a part of our family and feeling as if she has always been here that we sometimes to forget how close she still is in so many ways to the circumstances that brought her to us.

In any event, what a special way to end the year. Here are some pictures...

Waiting to go into the courtroom...

Taking care of business...

Donuts & hot chocolate!

Dear 2009,
Thank you.

Dear 2010,
That’s going to be hard to top.

Re-Adoption update

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:38:44 -0600

At the end of August we filed for Selah’s re-adoption here in Dakota County. It cost $320 to file some misc. paperwork with the judicial center, and then in November we paid our agency another $250 to complete a report for our court file. Since we were paying people to handle all of the paperwork, we were under the impression that the judicial center would call us to schedule a hearing once our agency’s report made it to our file. When we didn’t hear anything after a couple of weeks, I called to see what was up and was told they were still waiting on us to submit our background checks that were done for our homestudy in 2007. Of course no one ever told us this when we filed back in August, and of course no one called us because that’s just how these things go. We’ve been playing this game for three years now, I should’ve known better.

Anyway, I faxed the background checks over on Tuesday and called again on Thursday when no one had called me to schedule our hearing. They said they never received our fax, so I said something compassionate, understanding, and oozing with patience that went something like this: “All right, fine. Since you can’t handle receiving or filing faxes, I’ll drag all three of my kids out in the sub-zero temps, lug them through security, and hand deliver the background checks. I’ll see you in 20 minutes.”

Thankfully when we showed up the “nice” lady (I have talked to three different people in that office since August and have only had a pleasant experience with one of them) came to the window and my kids sat quietly on a bench behind me (their instructions from me were, “Sit down, don’t talk, don’t move, and remember there are police officers here.”). The woman kindly acknowledged my hassle and said, “I’m sorry, like you really needed one more thing to do today, right?” She then took care of making copies of our background checks and scheduling our hearing for 8:30 a.m. on New Year’s Eve.

So on Dec. 31 we will show up with the entire family, pay another fee to receive copies of our court documents, purchase Selah’s MN birth certificate, and stand before a judge who will finalize her U.S. citizenship and change her name from Beyenech Ryan to Selah Grace.

And just like that, nearly three years of paperwork, fees, and bureaucratic hoops will fade into our memories alongside the year 2009, and Selah will officially and forever be what she’s been all along...ours.

Bring on the champagne.

Progress note

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:37:48 -0600

Perspective gets lost in the day-to-day. This is never intentional, of course, but it’s easy to lose sight of progress being made in between emptying the dishwasher for the second time that day and scooping poop out of the bathtub for the second time that week. Some of you have been there, so you know.

So when I left early this morning to take Selah to her 6-month post-adoption follow-up appointment at the University of Minnesota, the last thing I expected was to be greeted by a team of doctors, researchers, and therapists who couldn’t believe their eyes. “We just don’t see this,” they told me. “Her growth and development is far beyond that of the children we usually see. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it. This is astonishing.”

Given her dramatic bone growth (she started in the -5% for height and is now near the 40th percentile), the doctor told me that Selah likely suffered from rickets when she came home in April. Severe Vitamin D and calcium deficiencies left her with soft, weak bones and a fontanel three inches wide. No wonder she looked half her age and couldn’t sit, crawl, or drink from a bottle without coughing. Now, seven months later, she is walking and talking; her fine motor skills have developed beyond her age; she can feed herself with utensils; her fontanel has almost closed; and she has a healthy attachment to her family. “We wish we needed to see her again,” Dr. Kang told me. “But we don’t. She’s gorgeous and beyond where we had hoped she would be by now. I can’t say enough about how incredible this is...really, it’s amazing.”

And just like that, my perspective returned. Selah could still be starving, but instead she is thriving. She’s come a long, long way, and it’s all because we had the crazy idea almost three years ago that we could somehow change something about the world.

I needed to be reminded of that yesterday, and it occurred to me that maybe you need to be reminded of it, too. With that, I came home and made this video. It’s my attempt to communicate what was going through my mind as I watched Selah walk back and forth in a room she couldn’t even sit up in seven months ago. I hope it encourages you adopt or volunteer or finally do that one thing you know will change something--or everything--for someone.

Oh, and in case you forgot...love wins.

grandpa carstens, meet selah grace

Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:13:18 -0600

(Turn your volume on. The song is dope and it suits this post. Just do it.)

Of all the people who supported our adoption, no one’s support surprised, helped, or humbled us more than my dad’s. And I am by no means simply speaking of monetary support, though that was tremendous.

Ryan and I rarely speak in detail about the July 2007 conversation we had with my dad in his Santa Barbara kitchen, but it’s enough to say that God was there waiting for us, probably even long before I first walked into that kitchen some 20+ years earlier as a five-year-old. Looking back on it, I remember being acutely aware of God’s presence and intention in the room, but it wasn’t until I saw my dad holding Selah in our home a few weeks ago that the enormity of what actually happened that night became clear to me.

If the walls of my dad’s kitchen could talk, they would give verse to some of the most painful realities of my past, including my parent’s divorce when I was 15, and one particularly brutal night in January 1999 when my dad told me to leave that kitchen and never come back. If you’ve heard the rest of the story, you know that I did come back, but not before learning to cling to Christ and understand that forgiveness--like love--is a choice not a feeling; a command, not an option; and it’s something I must continue to choose every time I run into an ache associated with the choices both my parents made in that kitchen more than a decade ago.

What I realized when I saw my dad with his graddaughter is that God literally chose the most painful physical location in my life story--complete with the same outdated wallpaper--to fill with his grace and officially begin our long and beautiful journey toward Selah. He took a place of unspeakable brokenness and suffering and made it whole and new during the span of one late-night conversation Ryan and I will forever hold tightly to our chests. And what’s more is that two-and-a-half years later God brought an orphan to the lap of her grandpa and I was able to hear him say with great joy, “I can’t believe it. It’s like she’s always been here.”

So for those of you who may be wondering, Jesus is alive. Also, the last time I was in my dad’s kitchen, I noticed the wallpaper he and my mom hung in 1989 is gone. The walls are now white. White. True story.

Enjoy these images. They’re brought to you by Yahweh.

“In God we make our boast all day long,
and we will praise your name forever. Selah.” Psalm 44:8

18 months

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:43:45 -0500

Selah is 18-months old today and has been home with us for six months. Here are a few highlights:

Enjoying her carseat a bit more than she used to...

Doting big brothers...

Hairdos: a never ending battle...

Daddy’s girl through and through...

Incessant Papework

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:13:00 -0500

It took two years of paperwork and waiting to get Selah home, but we are still a good six months away from being able to shelf our adoption folder and this blog.

Briefly, here’s the post-placement progress we’ve made since being home 4 1/2 months:

Beyenech Ryan Lunceford has a social security card.
This process was fairly painless and we completed it as soon as we received her green card in the mail back in May.

Three-month post-placement visit and report = complete.
We received our social worker’s 3-month post-placement report in the mail yesterday, and today we’re sending two notarized copies of it and a photo page to AWAA. We have to do this two more times before April 2010. Thankfully we pre-paid for these reports more than a year ago.

Petition for Adoption
We had a “petition for adoption” form notarized today that I will drop off at the Hastings Judicial Center on Monday along with a check for $320 and some supporting documents. Once our adoption petition is filed with the courts, we should receive a court date in Hastings to finalize Beyenech’s naturalization and re-adoption so that we can then change her name Selah Grace and get her an updated social security card. So far it looks like we’ll be able to get through this without an attorney and without needing to file too many more (and expensive) forms, but I’m not banking on that. If I’ve learned anything since going through this adoption it’s that things are always more complicated (and expensive) than they seem at first. So we’ll see.

Medical Exams
We will be going back to the University of Minnesota in October for a routine follow-up appointment. Between now and then we also need to get Selah into an audiologist and optometrist for some standard and specialized audio/visual screening that not handled by the U or by our pediatrician. These screenings are normally done on infants while they are still in the hospital after they’re born.

Finally, I posted this on FB since that’s how most of you “follow” us these days, but forgot to post it here...a summer recap video that pretty much says it all.

Face to face: Finally!

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:16:57 -0500

We were in Chicago last weekend meeting up with two families who walked closely with us through the waiting phase of our adopiton: The Bowmans and the Juvinalls. Run a search of their names through our blog archive, and you’ll likely find them mentioned time and time again as we waited. hoped, and eventually celebrated with them. Their friendship and support was, as I have told them, one of the most pleasant surprises of our adoption journey.

Here are some highlights of Selah and the boys meeting Natalie and Iona:

Selah is...

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:44:13 -0500

Selah is 16 months old today.
Selah is pulling herself to standing.
Selah is addicted to blueberries.
Selah is a fish. Loves the water, insists on backfloating in the Y pool.
Selah is silly.
Selah is happiest with her brothers, Evan in particular.
Selah is not a fan of riding in the car. Should make Thursday’s drive to Chicago interesting.
Selah is the life of the party.
Selah is meeting Natalie Bowman on Friday.
Selah is grace.
Selah is here, with us, forever.

Love wins. again.

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:51:06 -0500

15 month checkup

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:47:16 -0500

Selah’s 15-month visit went well on Friday. She was below the third percentile in height and weight back in April. She is now in the 25th percentile! Even though we transitioned her off the bottle already, we are still going to keep her on formula for another month in case her body decides it needs to continue scaling the growth chart in record time.

The only bummer of the appointment was that the poor baby had to have five shots! Her polio vaccine from Addis didn’t “work,” so she had to repeat that in addition to four other standard immunizations. She did great, though, and the boys were impressed by the body art she came home with:

I have yet to actually capture Selah’s “sassy face” on camera, but let me tell you...the girl has a LOOK and she has recently learned how to use it! This photo really doesn’t even come close to what the face actually looks like in full force, but it’ll have to suffice for now:

Finally, we are happy to say that Kristin, Mindy, Caleb, and Micah Korson made it home this afternoon and will be in our backyard later to play as they attempt to stay up until their normal bedtime to get back on schedule. Thank you for the prayers and encouragement you have offered their family. We are hopeful that the rest of the family will be home on Wednesday.

For now, enjoy this:

Korsons need prayer...and MONEY

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:53:15 -0500

Please hop over to the Korsons’ blog and read what I just posted. They are in a very sticky situation, they need our prayers and, if things don’t go well tomorrow with Jim and the Ethiopian Airlines folks, our money. After you read the updates on their blogs, let me know here or elsewhere if you’d be willing to contribute some $$ to get the seven of them home. I honestly don’t know if they can do this without our help.

freaking awesome

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:26:46 -0500

We don’t refer to the Korsons as our “crazy neighbors” for nothing. Here they are yesterday in Addis. I had to post this. I just had to!

Jesus says that following him, that being a Christian, comes down to two things and two things only: Loving God and loving others. If this photo doesn’t say that much and then some, I don’t know what does.

Freaking awesome. Seriously. I can’t wait until Saturday...and then after that when I can steal Almaz and never give her back. How cool is her straight hair?

3 months home

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:56:32 -0500

Selah is 15-months old now, and today marks exactly three months since we brought her home to Minnesota. She still has quite a bit of catching up to do in terms of getting on track developmentally with other babies her age, but we are so proud of the progress she’s made as of late.

Gross motor
Selah has perfected the “army” crawl and now uses it to get around more than relying on last month’s favorite mobility choice: rolling. As a result, she’s become strong and coordinated enough to go from her tummy to her tush and vice versa at will. When you consider that three months ago she could barely move at all, this is major progress.

Grub
We’re hoping that her pediatrician gives us the green light on Friday to swap her formula for whole milk (gag), but we suspect we’ll need to keep her on formula for one more month. At least we no longer have to stock pile baby food since Selah is eating all kinds of finger foods that are right on track with what other 15-month olds are eating. She eats everything we put in front of her, but her favorite things these days incude blueberries, bananas, and anything in the shape of a noodle. She does have one annoying eating habit to report, though...when she’s grouchy and impatient, she’ll take her food-covered hands and scratch the top of her head in protest. This irritates me to no end, especially when there are rubberbands or a headband involved.

Attachment
Ryan was gone for four days in a row this month, and then three days later I left for four days in a row, too. Both trips were work related, and both were concerning at first because we didn’t know a) how we would survive life 1 on 3 while the other one was gone, and b) how Selah would feel about our absence and being left with other people while we tried to juggle it all. Even while cutting new teeth and dealing with a disrupted schedule, Selah did awesome and now seems a little more confident because of it all. Daddy leaves. Daddy comes home. Mommy leaves. Mommy comes home. They still love me, all is well. Oh, and my Aunt Kristy is soooooo cool.

We knew that our July travels would mark the beginning of being able to leave Selah in the care of others more regularly if everything went well, so we are looking forward to getting back to enjoying weekly date nights away from home...just in time for Tuesday night’s The Fray/Jack’s Mannequin concert!

Everything else
Because we’ve been so busy with work and other things this month, we’ve been dragging our feet re: moving through the re-adoption process. (It’s a lot harder to get motivated to do paperwork when you already have the sweet cheeks in front of you to smooch.) We’ll begin that in earnest on July 28th after our social worker pays us a 3-month post-placement visit and gives us a little more guidance on what the MN re-adoption process looks like...and what it’s going to cost us. Blerg.

Otherwise, i don’t know. The boys are great, summer is swell, and we’re dying to see the Korsons a week from today when they get home with their kids!