The Nose

Hello? Hello? Is anyone still out there?

I know. I KNOW!! I haven't blogged in FOR-E-VER, FOR-E-VER, FOR-E-VER (just a little reference to the movie The Sandlot...sorry if you haven't seen it). Really, the only excuse that I have is it just takes too darn long to create a post if I want to include pictures. And we all know that I like me some pictures in my posts. Honestly, and I'm totally not exaggerating here, if I want to post more than 3 pictures, I can pretty much guarantee myself about 2 hours waiting for everything to upload. It is ridiculous. So, I just end up neglecting my blog. Which stinks, because I truly do enjoy writing it. I finally made the decision that I'm just going to have to be super picky about what pictures I post and to keep them to a minimum...even though that isn't as much fun...but, whatever.

Ok, on to the good stuff. A Ben update! We are in the very final stages of waiting. We could get "the call" next week....or 6 weeks from now. I'm thinking it's probably closer to the 6 weeks though. The waiting is starting to become pretty difficult now because his room is very close to being finished and we have quite a few baby "items" thanks to a couple of wonderful baby showers that my mom had for us. Not only that, but Greg's co-workers are throwing us a shower next weekend and Greg's brother, Mike, is throwing us one the weekend after that, AND some friends of ours from church are throwing us one after that! We are so incredibly blessed to have such caring, supportive friends and family in our lives who share in our excitement and anticipation of Ben's arrival.

We received his most recent medical check up results via email yesterday. Looks like we're going to have a short little chunker on our hands :-) He is in the 75th percentile for weight (22.9 lbs) and between the 10th and 25th percentiles for height (28.2 inches). He is doing really well developmentally. Not walking yet, but he is pulling up to a standing position, so I'm sure walking is just around the corner. He just turned 10 months old earlier this month so he seems to be right on target, especially given the fact that he was born prematurely. Here is a pic from when he was 8 months old...



Now, you're probably wondering what the title of this post has to do with Ben. The answer to that is...nothing. The title was inspired by an event that occurred on a recent trip to Colorado. Greg and I went on a 5 day trip to Denver last month. One of the days we were there, we decided to visit the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It was breathtakingly beautiful and we decided to be "at one" with nature by going on a hike. We were about half way through our hike when Greg noticed a pile of poop that he swore was left by a mountain lion. I disagreed. An argument ensued. It went something like this.....

Greg: Brooke, come look at this, I'm pretty sure it's mountain lion scat.

Brooke: That is NOT mountain lion scat. It just looks like dog poop. Mountain lion poop would be huge.

Greg (grabbing a stick and poking at the pile of poop): NO, this is NOT dog poop. Dogs don't eat rocks. Look at that, there are rocks in there.

Brooke: Those rocks are probably from the ground. And why would a mountain lion eat rocks???

Greg: Oh my Gosh. There's a NOSE in there. It's a DOG nose!!! Look at that!!! Now do you think it's dog poop??

Brooke (getting uncomfortably close to the pile of poop): Holy crap! That IS a dog nose!! I can't believe it.



Brooke: Give me that stick!

I then proceed to poke around at the "nose" to completely separate it from the poop (there's a sentence I never thought I'd type), only to turn the "nose" over and see that it had a plastic piece on the back that is commonly used to sew on to a stuffed animal. Yes, it was a stuffed animal nose. And we were looking at dog poop. Or, if you are Greg, you are convinced it was the poop of a mountain lion who ate a child AND his stuffed animal.

What can I say, we live exciting lives.

Love,
Brooke

Drumroll please.....

If you're on Facebook, then you probably saw these last night or sometime today. For those of you who haven't seen these yet....here is our son, Ben. Quite the handsome one if I do say so myself. The first pic was taken when he was 6 months old and the second when he was 8 months old. As you can imagine, we can't wait to get him home. He should be here in another 2 to 3 months.





And I also really wanted to post this song video. I hear this song a lot on the Christian radio channel I listen to and I just love it. Once you listen to it, I recommend looking up the lyrics online and then listen to it again. It's such a beautiful song. And so, so true. One thing though...before you play the video, you'll need to click the pause button on the music that automatically plays on my blog. Otherwise, both will play at once and you'll want to poke your eyeballs out.



Love,
Brooke

It's a Boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, that's right. We have a son!! I wish I could post his pics on here, but I'm still unclear on whether or not it's okay for me to do that. I promise I will post pics if it's okay with our agency.

Before I give you the details on Ben (we are naming him Benjamin), I need to give you a little background on how this all came about. When we first began the adoption process last October, we chose Nepal as the country we wanted to adopt from. Then, that kind of fell through because of political instability in that country, so our agency let us switch to Thailand. However, they also let us put our names on the "waiting child" list in South Korea at the same time. Then, whichever country matched us with a child first would be the country we would adopt from.

The waiting child program in Korea is for children who aren't completely healthy when they are born. South Korea is extremely picky on what they consider completely healthy. If a child had low birth weight or was premature but otherwise healthy, they would go on Korea's "waiting child" list as opposed to their standard program. The good thing about the waiting child program is that prospective adoptive parents can choose exactly what conditions we are open to. We marked what conditions we would be open to on their form and really didn't think much of it after that. We weren't open to much. Just a few minor/correctable conditions. So, we really didn't think we'd ever be matched with a watiting child from Korea before we heard from Thailand.

Boy, we were wrong. Just 3-4 short months after we put our name on the list, we were contacted by our agency on June 12 and asked if we would review the file of a 6 month old baby boy from South Korea. After they told us a little about his medical "conditions" we agreed to look at his file. They emailed us a couple of pictures, along with a detailed doctor report for every month of his life after he was born.

We had a pediatrician in Omaha (who specializes in children that are adopted internationally) look at his file to get his opinion on his condition. The doctor had very positive things to say. Although Ben was born prematurely and had low birth weight, he has grown extremely well in the past few months and is currently in the 25-50 percentile in height & weight and was at a 5-6 month developmental level at is 6 month doctor visit. Wonderful news! Also, he has a minor thyroid condition that he is currently on medicine for, but the doctor said the condition he has is almost always temporary and most babies are completely weaned off the medication by the age of 1 year. Even if it turns out to be a life long condition (which is highly unlikely) he would just have to continue to take medication. No biggie. Well, after the doctor gave us his opinion, we quickly contacted our agency and said "YES"!!!!

We've had to wait to post this news until we had Ben's legal papers in hand. That is the point at which it's basically considered a "sure thing". Now, we just have to wait another 4 to 6 months and he will be home!! South Korea gives the option to either travel there or have an escort bring him over. We flip-flopped many times and it was a VERY difficult decision, but we decided to go the escort route. We would have loved to go to South Korea and meet Ben's foster parents (babies in South Korea don't live in orphanages, they live in foster homes). However, with all the instability with North Korea in recent months, we decided it best to have the escort bring Ben here.

So, that's the big news! We couldn't be more thrilled. I still don't think it has completely sunken in for either of us. It just doesn't seem real. We praise God for getting us through all these challenging years of trying to have kids. We prayed that He would join us with the child He has chosen for us and we are so thankful for His answered prayers. Also, we are so thankful for all of you...our family and friends...for supporting us and being there for us over the years. We are truly, truly blessed! We can't wait for Ben to come home and to introduce him to all of you!

I'll keep you updated as we know more.

Love,
Greg and Brooke

On a Mission

Yes, I'm still alive. I know I've been falling behind in my blogging duties lately but the summer season usually equals busy, busy, busy for the Reynolds household.

Over the last few weeks we've spent time preparing for and going on a missions trip to the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Our small group from church coordinated the trip for ourselves and several high school students that also go to our church. There were 8 adults and 11 youth total. The Rosebud reservation is a large reservation in the southern part of South Dakota. We stayed and worked specifically in the town of Parmelee for the whole 5 days we were there. And it was quite an eye opener to say the least. This is going to be a long post, but I really want to share our experience.....

Parmelee is a very, very poor community. The entire town consists of about two streets and has a population of around 700. It is quite common for them to have 15-20 people living in the same house together. And the houses are small. Most of them have no air conditioning and some don't even have running water. It was hard to believe we were still in the United States. The town looked like part of third world country. We stayed in a run-down community center that had no air conditioning. Luckily, they had two working bathrooms and each one had a shower. That was a relief! Our purpose for going was to put on a vacation bible school for the kids in the community. Beyond that, we were there to just hang out with them and help out with whatever we could such as fixing things around the community center.

When we first got there, kids from the community ran over immediately. Several groups visit the reservation each year, so they know that when vans or large vehicles pulling trailers show up at the community center, people are there to play with them. And they get soooo excited! It was shocking how young some the kids were that would just wander over by themselves. There were a couple of three year olds and a few four year olds that came every day. Their parents never escorted them anywhere. Unfortunately, that's how it is there. Many of the adults in the community have alcohol problems and a few of the kids told us that their parents would hit them. It was very sad. Many of the children showed up in the same clothes day after day. One little boy wore the same outfit the whole time we were there....even though he had vomited on his clothes one evening after dinner. On our last day there, we decided enough was enough. A few of the guys from our group washed him and we found some donated clothes in the community center for him.

The kids from the community were just amazing. Most of them were so sweet and just wanted someone to give them love. They would run up and give hugs and kisses and would hold our hands. They just wanted to spend time with us. They seemed to really enjoy the vacation bible school activities too. On our final day there, they kept requesting to sing more and more worship songs. On the first day, we sang 3 and on the last day, we ended up singing 10!! They just loved it. It was a joy to watch them sing about Jesus and dance around with huge smiles on their faces.

One morning, we decided to take a break for a couple of hours and venture outside of Parmelee to check out some other places on the reservation. We went to an Indian artifact museum and, while we were there, we were invited to attend a nearby pow wow. We were a little apprehensive about going because we weren't sure if we'd be welcomed or not, but we decided to go anyway. We were so glad we did. They couldn't have been more welcoming. A few guys came up to our group and introduced themselves and one of them asked if we'd like to participate in "grand entry" part of the pow wow. The grand entry involved several adults and children from the community dressed in their native clothing. They entered the main circle two by two and made their way around the entire circle while performing native dances. We got to walk in behind them and make our way around the circle as well (we didn't dance though). It was incredibly cool. A great experience!

Something else we got to do that was unexpected was attend a church service in Parmelee. One of the older kids that had been coming to the community center every day invited us to come with him to church. Several of the kids came with us. It was a tiny little church and we were crammed in like sardines but it was wonderful. I don't get "choked up" over a lot of things, but I was just overcome with emotion at the church service and had to fight back the tears. I was just so happy to be there in that moment. That may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip.

When it came time to leave it was extremely difficult. All of us had formed bonds with the children that none of us had expected. The youth from our church had the hardest time with it. They were all bawling when we had to leave. It was so hard knowing what kind of an environment we were leaving them in. And the looks on their faces when we told them we had to go was heart-breaking. One little boy I had hung out with quite a bit asked me to play a game with him a few minutes before we were leaving. I had to tell him "no" because we had to leave but that if he asked one of the other kids to play, I'm sure they would. He just looked up at me with the saddest face and said "but I want to play with you". Ugh....I felt TERRIBLE!!!

Before we headed back to Lincoln, we spent a night in Sparks, Nebraska where we did a debriefing session. We also had some fun time and went tubing down the Niobrara River. That was a riot. A couple of the high school boys from our group decided they were "pirates" and jumped into the river and ambushed many of us on our rafts. It was pretty funny. I'm not so sure the high school girls found it as funny though.

Whew, so that was our first experience with mission work. It was emotionally and physically draining, but it was so worth it. We feel so blessed that we were given the opportunity to go to Parmelee and spend time with the children there. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera on the trip so I don't have any pictures that I can post on here, but if you're on Facebook there are a few pictures that some of the others from our group shared with me that you can see in my Facebook photos. Our group plans to go back to Parmelee. We would love to go with them, but it will all depend on where we're at with the adoption.

Speaking of the adoption....we have some news, but can't quite share it yet. I know, you probably want to hit me for leaving you hanging like that, but check back in a week or so and we'll have the details!

Love,
Brooke