Fifteen

My sweet girl may be 4, but I've only been an "active" mama for 15 months so I'm still rather new at mothering.  I say "active" because I feel as though I've been a mother for longer than 15 months.  Very few people know I've had a miscarriage because, well, I just don't like to talk about it.  I miscarried in February of 2012.  We were heartbroken that we had lost our child, but we were excited that we were pregnant ON OUR OWN!  We had undergone quite a bit of fertility treatments and were told we wouldn't be able to conceive on our own. HA!  We had been praying about switching from domestic adoption to international adoption during this same month.  We met with our super supportive adoption caseworker and went over the countries we qualified for.  God kept bringing us back to a specific profile, our precious Rose.  While we still had the heartache from the miscarriage, we knew God had created Libby Rose just for us!

We began the process to adopt Libby in February of 2012, and we traveled to Hong Kong in July of 2013!!!  It was quite the journey itself, but our girl was so worth the wait!  When things are hard, I remind myself that my arms were empty just a little over a year ago.  It helps to ease to stress of being a mama.

Our sweet girl has special needs, and we wouldn't trade them for anything in the world!  In 2008 when we started trying to grow our family, we prayed for a healthy baby that was perfect in every way.  God gave us just what we asked.  No, we didn't pray for a child with special needs, but He worked on us through the journey and led us to international adoption, specifically special needs.  We were scared and still are sometimes.  We're human and we fear the unknown.  We do however, know God is in control and leading our journey.  Our little miracle has several diagnosis; Cerebral Palsy, Microcephaly, Bilateral Hearing Loss, Optic Nerve Atrophy, Thalassemia to name a few.   The doctors are amazed at the progress our girl has made, and so are we!  I'm a planner, but having Libby Rose has taught me that it's okay not to have every little thing planned out.  We still make plans, but they're altered a good bit.

Even though I'm still new to mothering, I'm not a fan of "free advice".  I'm not ashamed to ask for help or advice when I need it.  It baffles me when people tell me how I could help Libby walk, talk more, not be stressed, etc. because I'm doing good to make it through the many appointments and therapies we already do.  This journey has made me think about the words I say to others.  I try to think about if they'll be hurtful or taken the wrong way because words do hurt.  They hurt badly.  I'm not perfect; I still unintentionally hurt feelings and say things the wrong way.  Most of the time people who give me "advice" are trying to be helpful, but I've shed tears and called them buttfaces under my breath for their "advice".

Let's end on a happy note.  A then and now.  Then in July of 2013 and now October 2014.

Then	Now
1 Cantonese word	Over 200 English words and progressing a lot with sentences
Could only sit up and wobbly	Walking about 10 steps at a time and freestanding more
Attention span 1 page in a book	She will listen to "help" read an entire book
Had no sense of ownership	She'll let you know what's hers by saying, "MINE"
Couldn't see well	She now has adorable glasses and wears a patch daily
Couldn't hear well	She now has an amazing hearing aid
0 therapies	6 therapies a week
Couldn't use her left hand	She uses it more and more! WOOHOO Botox