Friday, June 1, 2012

Randomness For Your Friday

1. We have chosen a name for our baby boy....drum role please...we are naming him Elijah Ivan Williams! His given name is Ivan which means "God is Gracious", how cool is that?? I would definitely agree. :) They currently call him Vonya which is a derivative of Ivan. We had much debate about changing his name but feel very confident about our decision.

2. I posted a ton of pictures from our trip on Facebook...nothing too exciting since we still can't post pictures of Elijah, but they are Russia pictures none the less. If we're not yet friends on Facebook, look me up! (Lisa Houston Williams)

3. We are so ready to go back to Russia. Surprise I know. This is hard!! I knew it would be and honestly, God is giving us the strength to make it through each day and we can feel Him holding us up...but it's not easy leaving your son a half a world away and not having any idea when you will be able to hold him again. I have an ache that just won't go away...I'm constantly nauseous and don't have much of an appetite. Want a way to lose weight? Try adopting and leaving your child in a foreign country.

4. The biggest prayer request...well there are several...but a pressing prayer request is that our FBI clearances will be processed so so quickly!! We have completed all of the paperwork that is in our control (we worked on it literally all last week...I mean it's crazy the paperwork that is needed!!) and are now just waiting on these clearances (even though we already have had FBI clearances). FBI told me that they are taking about 8 weeks but we have been told by other adoptive families that they have taken about 5 weeks. Regardless, we know that God is bigger than paperwork and can get those things processed! Please join us in prayer that they are processed quickly!!!

5. We miss our son.

6. I have had to be fingerprinted 5 times for this adoption. How absurd is that?? Last week when we got fingerprinted they had to take us back in the holding room at the jail. There were inmates staring at us through the windows on their holding cells the entire time we were back there!! It was really nerve wrecking!!

7. Another thing we had to have completed were psychologicals. Thankfully with my job, we have contract staff that are therapists at a nearby clinic. One of them is amazing and was able to get Barry and I in to see a clinical psychologist there within a few days of calling her. She also cut us a GIGANTIC discount. Such a blessing!! We had to take the PAI and have a clinical interview with the psychologist. I was scared they were going to diagnose me with OCD or something (I have been accused of this by several people...) but thankfully we passed. :)

8. We miss our son.

9. It wasn't fun coming back to work after being out of the office for three weeks.

10. Some of our friends are throwing us a baby shower the end of the month and I'm so excited!!!

11. We've been having so much fun showing off his pictures to anyone and everyone! I mean, we've shown them to our bank teller, the lady at CVS, the police station, our nurse...when we were trying to get paperwork processed quickly I would show him to whoever was helping and it worked wonders!! There's no way you can look at his little face and not want to work hard to get him here!!

12. We painted Elijah's room and it looks great! It was very stressful picking out bedding and the paint color. I mean seriously stressful. I've waited so long to decorate a nursery!! Here's a picture...the rest of the furniture is still in the hall and we're now trying to decide if we want to leave it all blue or if we want to do something else with it...

13. Have I mentioned that we miss our son?


13 comments:

  1. Lisa: The love and heartache I feel from reading your post is overwhelming. You will be wonderful parents! I pray that what has already happened in the spiritual would happen in the physical very quickly! We did not have to go through quite the trama that you and Barry are during our adoption process, but I remember after Connor came into our family Chuck said, "Are we done?" I said I'd love to have another child, but I did not want to go through the adoption process again, I just wanted to enjoy our children. So I said I would love another baby, but God was going to have to plop one into our laps.
    Well, along comes Taylor - plop!!and you know the rest of the story.

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    1. Thanks Liz! God certainly did plop Taylor into your lives! Thank God! When I see pictures of your kids on Facebook I am just in awe at how much they have grown up!!!

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  2. I can't imagine how hard it must be to have actually seen your little boy and to now be so far away. I miss Hannah so much, and I have never seen her or held her. That must make the ache much more unbearable. I love the nursery! It looks wonderful. I know it doesn't feel like it but he'll be here soon and these days of waiting will be in the past. How great will that be?!?!?! So happy for you guys :)

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    1. Thanks Rachel...I definitely missed him before I had even met him, but after holding him, hearing him babble and cry...it makes it that much worse. I can't wait until you have little Hannah in your arms too!

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  3. I love the nursery! Praying everything gets done quickly and you can go back to your son soon!

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  4. I love it that you decided to keep his Russian name - our youngest boys's middle name was Alexander and we, too, decided to keep it. When we brought him home his godfather brought him a medal of St. Alexander - who is the patron saint of adopted children! How did I miss that?? Anyway, your Russian liaisons will appreciate that, as well, and it is important that he maintain some of his heritage because it is a part of his identity. Good luck with everything, and I hope you get to go bring that little guy home very soon!

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  5. The nursery looks great! His name is amazing and I'm sure he will appreciate the thought and attention to detail of it. Prayers are being lifted! And I totally just FB requested you. ;-)

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    1. Thanks for the prayers...and I am glad we are now Facebook friends! :)

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  6. Congratulations! I enjoyed reading abut your trip! We kept our kids names as well and just added middle names. Our immigration clearance for our adoption completed last year took four or five months. In our first adoption, it only took about 6-7 weeks.

    God Bless -

    Tony B.
    Prattville

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