Our Best Friend, Charlie

*(I know this blog has, for the most part, centered on our adoption. However, this post Is about our family. If you’re interested in adoption-only posts, then feel free to skip this one. No hard feelings. --A.B.)

 

                Before I had a wife, a kid, and a mortgage, I had a ball of fur for a roommate who we called Charlie. And when I say “ball of fur,” it’s not only said with affection, but it’s also quite literal. As a puppy, this dog was almost perfectly round, like some little furry, worm-infested orb of pure cuteness. Sure, he seemed a lot less cute after he cried for 2 or 3 nights, but it didn’t change the fact that he was, quite possibly, the cutest puppy in the history of puppyhood.

                The circumstances that led to Charlie joining me were different than how most normal people get a dog. I had made the innocent statement to my (at the time) girlfriend of how someday I’d like to have a dog and I’d name him Charlie (Charlie Brown, get it? Clever, I know.). Based on that single conversation, I started getting emails sent to me at work almost every day with pictures of shelter dogs, all of which asked the same question, “Could this be Charlie?” (She something similar with pictures of engagement rings. I guess she’s 2 for 2.)

Finally, there was a dog at the shelter in Madison, Indiana that I thought, maybe, could be Charlie. We went and found a litter of 4 puppies sitting in a pen outside, 3 of whom were excited and happy to see us and one that hid in the one shady corner of their pen. We looked at the 3 happy ones, but the loner in the corner intrigued me a little. I mean, I have to respect a dog smart enough to get in the shade on a 90 degree day. I picked him up, held him up to my face and said, “Are you Charlie?” When he answered by licking my face, our friendship began.

 

                Tomorrow morning, as I write this, after a painful fight with lymphoma, we’ll take my friend Charlie to the vet for the final time. As much as I want my buddy to stay with me forever, this illness has become more than he can bear. Charlie is a huge part of our family, and to watch him struggle with this has been one of the most difficult things we’ve ever had to deal with.

                One of the most painful aspects of this process has been the fact that our son won’t get to know Charlie. In our minds, Charlie was going to be the perfect big brother for Will. You couldn’t pick a better dog for a little boy than Charlie if you could design one yourself. Some of Charlie’s favorite things in the world to do were to play ball, run around in the yard, and swim. What kid wouldn’t love a dog like that? And Charlie was great with little kids. Whether it was with family members or people he’d never met, Charlie was always able to play without ever getting too rough. Maybe we were just blinded by the image of Charlie being Will’s best friend when he got older, but we never really saw this coming.

                Part of the reason was because this dog was indestructible. I mean, I saw him once run on a dead sprint after a ball, get to the end of his rope and get pulled by his neck up into the air, did a full flip and land on his feet as if nothing happened. Most animals (or people) would break their necks doing that, Charlie just kept playing ball. This is a dog that as puppy tore down a Cincinnati Reds flag on the wall (sorry Reds, still love you), then proceeded to eat the push pins that had been holding it in. And this was when he was still the tiny little ball of fur! This dog is the sweetest/toughest animal on the planet.

                I’m not the smartest person in the world by a long shot, but I believe God gave us Charlie for a reason. We saw tons of dogs, but I think He set this one aside just for us because we needed this dog far more than he needed us. He taught me how to care, everyday, for something that depended on me for its very existence. Having him with me taught me to be a better husband, a better father, and a better person. And because that’s what I believe, I think that maybe Charlie has finished what God sent him to do for us and that’s why he’s leaving us now.

                It’s hard for me to imagine getting up in the morning without Charlie. I’ll miss him every day, but the memories of him will never make me sad. Whether it’s remembering how he hid behind the couch when I tried to put him in his room and made me late for work, how he used to freak out when I’d try to put a hat on him, playing hide and seek with him, or a million other memories, they’ll always make me smile. I don’t think I was ever good enough to deserve this amazing dog that God blessed us with. His time with us isn’t going to last as long as we’d wanted, but we know that we were fortunate to have him at all. Remembering Charlie will never make me sad, it just makes me sad that my son won’t.

 

Finally! A Blog Post!

     There was this idea of a blog post that was supposed to be done last Monday or Tuesday, but now it's a full week later and we're finally getting around to posting. What happened? Well, have you every driven 7 hours round trip only to get home and immediately be attacked by the stomach flu? If you haven't, then just let me assure you that it puts a bit of a wrinkle in your plans. Regardless, we haven't updated this blog in 2 months now, for some reasons that we hope will become a little more clear, and we needed to let all of you know what's been happening.

     First of all, when we last left you, we were matched with a birth mom and waiting on her delivery date. We're happy to tell you now that on January 9th, we finally met our little boy. We got the call that afternoon that she was in labor and immediately got our things together and got ready to leave. He was about 10 days early, so we weren't totally ready yet, but we were able to get out the door pretty quickly. Despite driving through a bit of a snowstorm and having to navigate the 12 inches that was still on the ground in central Illinois, we were able to get to the hospital about 45 minutes after he was born. We spent most of the evening in the room with him and our birth mom before heading back to spend our last childless night at our hotel. After getting some sleep and debating on how early is too early to show up to the hospital, we went back to see our little man the next morning. He wasn't released until that evening, so we were able to spend a good portion of the day with him. After some paperwork he was released to us to take to the temporary home that we would grow to hate, the Danville, IL Sleep Inn.

     Now don't get me wrong, the hotel was nice and the employees there were great. If you were going to spend some time in that town, you could do a lot worse than the Sleep Inn. The problem was that we wanted so badly to be home and, due to paperwork that was pending with the state of Illinois, we weren't allowed to bring the baby across state lines. What made it worse was that this particular hotel was within about 200 yards from the Indiana border. We could eat breakfast downstairs and look across a field into Indiana, we just couldn't go to Indiana.

    We stayed in Danville for a few days before moving to another hotel, this time further south in Illinois. (We were allowed to drive a few hours to southern Illinois, but not allowed to go 200 yards to Indiana. Go figure.) We thought that going further south would make it easier if any of our family wanted to make the trip over and see Will. That was our idea anyway, but I'm pretty sure that his grandmothers would have tunneled in from China if that had to so they could get to see their baby. (By the way, that's happened also. He's "their baby". Not ours. Weird.)

    We ended up staying in our second hotel for a little over a week before finally getting the word from our attorney that we were cleared to go home. We got the call around 8 or so on a Monday night. It was a little late to start that drive, and we'd already paid for that night in the hotel, but we pulled off the quickest packing job in history and headed out the door. No disrespect to Illinois, but we're Hoosiers and it was time to go home.

     We crossed into Indiana probably around 10:30 that night (at which point I started singing "Back Home Again in Indiana"...badly), and finally got Will home for the first time a little after midnight. The dogs were interested, although not super excited yet, to meet their new little brother, but introductions had to wait until morning. We were all ready to sleep in our own beds.

    The weeks since have been filled with doctor's appointments, 2 baby showers, and grandparents/aunts/cousins who all "just happened to be in the neighborhood" stopping by and it's all been great. We've had more visitors at our house in the last 5 weeks than in the previous 2 years we lived there and it's been awesome. And our church family has loved him more than we could even have imagined (somehow he's become "their baby" too. I don't get it.) It probably has something to do with us having the cutest baby in the history of babies.

     We're not done with the adoption yet though. The coming weeks and months are going to bring a lot of hoops to jump through, but we're excited to get through them and to the point where he will officially be a part of our family, even though he already is. Just this week we the first of our 3 post-placement visits from our case worker and we were able to meet with our birth mom again (who's been great) when she signed the last of her paperwork. There will be a few more meetings with our case worker and lots of legal paperwork to be done, but we're marching full speed ahead toward our finalization.

     We're also looking forward to having another fundraiser on April 12. We reserved the date for this fundraiser before we were matched with a birth mom with the idea that there was no way we'd have a baby by then. Oops. Regardless, this fundraiser will go towards finishing up our adoption expenses as many of our fees aren't due until finalization. It will be a pasta dinner and silent auction and will be held at Syria Christian Church in Orleans. We'll have more details coming in our next blog and on our facebook page, so keep checking things out there. We're looking forward to celebrating this night as the completion of our adoption journey and hope that you can join us.

     Again, sorry for the long wait between posts, but we wanted to wait until we were home and things settled down a bit to update you all on what's been happening. We're so thankful to so many of you who have read this and encouraged us along the way. Please keep reading and we'll keep posting. We can't wait to see you all on April 12.

Better Late than Never

     We’ve been writing this blog, first weekly and now monthly, for over a year and, with a few minor exceptions, it’s been on time. You could plan on it, every Monday (now the first Monday of the month), you could count on the fact that we’d be posting a blog. If you’re not someone that we get to talk to a lot, you’re probably wondering what happened. I mean, why is it December 17 and we’re just getting around to posting something? Are we not adopting anymore? Did we get moved into the witness protection program? What is going on here?!?!

    Some major things have been happening since our last update. First of all, we found a birth mom! We were fortunate enough to make a connection with a wonderful young woman in Illinois who decided that she wanted to place her child with us. We’ve stayed in close contact via email for several weeks, but we were able to finally meet her face to face last weekend. As awkward as a dinner with someone you’ve never met can be, our meeting was fantastic. We’ve been really blessed to get to go through this process with such a great person.

     The other major thing that’s going on (although it’s a part of the same thing, I suppose) is that she’s due pretty soon. Really, really soon. Like “5 weeks from now” soon. So sometime in mid to late January, we’ll be welcoming a wonderful baby boy into our home. The fact that this is all happening so suddenly is another reason we’ve put off the blog a little bit. There have been several nights when we’ve had to contact lawyers and adoption agencies, not to mention our birth mom, and also make sure we have plans in place for when it’s time to go meet our child. There’s a lot to do and a short time in which to do it, but with a lot of help, prayer, and hard work, we’re getting there.

    So, if any of you were wondering, that’s why there’s been no blog. We’ve been busy, but we also wanted to wait until after we met our birth mom. As stressful as things have been at times, we’ve really been blessed that God has put us in this situation.

    We’ll keep updating the blog over the next few months to let everyone know how things are going. We also still have a fundraiser planned for April 12 that we’ll keep you updated on. When we picked the date for the fundraiser, we never imagined that we’d even be matched with a birth mom by then, let alone have a child. I guess God had some different things in mind. Regardless, we’re going to go ahead with the fundraiser which will hopefully cover most of the remaining adoption costs. So go ahead and mark your calendar.

    Finally, we can’t say enough how much we appreciate all of the support and prayers you’ve given to us throughout this process. The feedback you’ve given us, both through the blog and in person, has been tremendous and has kept us going. We look forward to keeping you updated as we finally meet our child, and seeing many of you on April 12 so we can introduce you to the newest addition to our family.

From us (all 3 of us) to you, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and an amazing New Year.

Orphan Sunday

    
     November is probably my favorite month. The weather is great, there’s Thanksgiving, and the start of college basketball season (Go Hoosiers!). But another great thing about November is that it’s National Adoption Month, the highlight of which is Orphan Sunday. Orphan Sunday is a day of celebration and adoption awareness started by the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO). On Orphan Sunday, churches around the country talk about the cause of orphans and the biblical calling for the church to embrace adoption. The sad part is that I’m willing to bet most of you didn’t hear anything like that in your church service.

      Let me clarify a bit, I’m not calling out anybody’s pastor. Our church is like many of yours in that we have a dedicated and caring ministry team that does amazing work both in the church and in the community. They are a true blessing to anyone they encounter.

     So why didn’t we hear anything about the orphans? (If I may borrow from Shakespeare) “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” We (the church) have to make a bigger deal about adoption. To rely on our pastors to have to “remind” us about adoption issues is a negligence of our duties as followers of Christ. James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

      The people of the church need to make a big deal about this. Orphan Sunday should be something we circle on our calendars every year. We should put it on t-shirts and billboards. We should have huge adoption-related events at the churches. In our homes we should share those little annoying facebook links until they fill up our wall and drive our friends crazy! But we don’t do any of that. We don’t do it because it shines a huge spotlight on an issue that we’d rather keep in the dark; the fact that we aren’t doing enough for God’s children.

      Adoption month should mean more to Christians because we are all adopted. When we proclaim ourselves to the world as children of God, we acknowledge our adoption into His kingdom. What does it say about us if we ignore the rest of His children in their time of need?

      This isn’t intended to put anyone down or to criticize their church, but simply to ask a question that many of us are afraid to ask ourselves, “Can we be doing more?” If it were your child who was homeless and alone, you would stop at nothing to get them home where they are loved and cared for. Should we care any less when it’s God’s child?

October Update

     Now that we’re knee-deep in the unbearable waiting that our adoption journey has become, we find ourselves doing strange things. Things that we couldn’t imagine ourselves doing just a few weeks ago seem to make sense now. For example, we shopped for baby beds this weekend. Of course, we haven’t been matched with a birth mother yet and, even when we do, we’ll have a few months to get everything ready for our child. But still, for some reason, it makes sense for us to go shopping for baby beds. I’d like to say that’s the only thing we’ve purchased, but I’m not that great of a liar.

     The other unusual (for us) thing that we did this month was walk in our adoption agency’s annual 5k fundraiser. We’ve never been in a 5k before, so we weren’t really sure what to expect, but we ended up having a great day. We were fortunate enough to have beautiful weather and that, combined with getting to walk in a great park and with the wonderful people from the Miriam Project, allowed us to really enjoy our day. Even though it meant waking up at 4am on a Saturday and driving over 2 hours each way, we were very happy that we went. And we’re hoping to take a bigger group with us next year, so start getting in shape. You have a little less than 50 weeks of training time left.

     In the meantime we’re planning our next fundraiser. We’re still working out some of the details, but we’ll be having another dinner on April 12. We’re hoping to also have a silent auction, so if anyone has items they would like to donate or would like to help in any way, please let us know.

    Between planning for a fundraiser, thinking about becoming 5k runners, and purchasing items that we aren’t possibly going to use anytime soon; we’re staying pretty busy. Is it a bunch of stuff that we’ve thrown together just to keep busy and make the waiting more bearable? Yeah, probably. But in all the stuff we’ve been doing, we’re still having a lot of fun with the process. Don’t get me wrong, the waiting sometimes makes me want to pull my hair out, but we know that in the end it’s all going to be worth it. God has our child already picked out for us and His timing (even though sometimes we get frustrated with it) is perfect. Then again, if He wants to move things along a little quicker, you won’t hear us complain.

No August Happenings

We’ve been away from this blog for about a month now, so I’m sure you’re ready to hear about all the progress we’ve made since early August. Are you ready to hear about all you’ve missed? Well here it is….not much.  Like we’ve been for a few months now, we’re still dealing with the waiting. While we wait though, we’re consistently trying to find ways to educate and prepare us for the rest of our adoption process.

     Like we’ve done since we started considering adoption, we’re still reading every kind of adoption material we can get our hands on, listening to adoption podcasts, and watching things on TV about adoption. Recently though, we heard about a national adoption conference that will be in Louisville this year, which is great for us.  We’re looking forward to spending the weekend at this event in October, so hopefully we’ll be able to share a lot of the material from that weekend with you when we do our next blog update.

     As we told you about in our last entry, we’re also preparing for our adoption agency’s annual 5k fundraiser. At the time of our last blog entry this seemed so far off, but now that we’re a week and a half away, I’m starting to get a little concerned. I mean, surely I’ll make it, right? I’ve seen people in worse shape than me who say they’ve been to a 5k, so I like my chances. Plus it’s walking and I could probably walk all day, I suppose. It did help though when Ashley explained to me that “5k” didn’t mean 5,000 miles.

    As far as our actual adoption goes though, we’re still stuck in what seems like an endless amount of waiting. Granted, it’s only been a few months since we’ve finished our home study, and we’re aware that sometimes people have to wait much longer, but the waiting hasn’t gotten any easier. Of course, we hope that by the time we update this blog next month, we’re full of information about all the progress we’ve made to get closer to our child. However, until then, we continue to appreciate all of the support and prayers that you’ve given us. Thanks again.

The Last Till September

    We’ve written this blog every week for just about a year now. In that time we’ve gone from knowing nothing about how the adoption process works to being the self-proclaimed experts that we are now. Not real experts, mind you, just experts in our own minds.  Seeing that we’ve gone that far, we thought it was time to take a bit of a break. We’ll still update the blog when we have any progress to report (so hopefully a lot), plus we’ll update it once a month, usually on the first Monday, so keep checking our facebook page and we’ll make sure everyone is aware of any new posts.

    But before we take a little break, there are a couple more things we wanted to remind everyone about. First of all, we wanted to remind everyone about the Miriam Project 5k run/walk in Anderson on Sept. 14. Registration remains open until September 5, so if you or anyone you know would be interested, go to miriamproject.org and fill out the registration form. The Miriam Project is a great agency full of people who’ve been wonderful to us from the very start and, if you chose to take part in this event, they would greatly appreciate the support.

     Secondly, we’ll be placing another t-shirt order this weekend. They’re the same shirts that we’ve posted on here before, so if you’ve never seen them, the pictures are here on one of our first few blog posts. The shirts are $20, so if you would like one, please let us know as soon as possible and we’ll get your order in. Whether you’re local or we need to ship a shirt to you, we’ll make sure you get it.

     Finally, we’ll be having another fundraiser in a few months that we wanted to make sure we reminded everyone about. We'll have more details as we get closer to the date, but the plan so far is to have a dinner and silent auction. If anyone wants to help out in any way, or if you have auction items that you’d like to donate, please let us know. We’re hoping to make this a big event that will help us cap off our fundraising efforts and we hope to see everyone there.

     Those are all the updates we have for now, but hopefully we’ll have a lot to tell you very soon. We’ll try to save the blog for any real news, but if you want to keep up with what’s going on day to day, make sure you follow our facebook page. Ashley tends to keep that updated pretty frequently, so you’ll know what’s happening between blog posts.  

    Thanks again to all of you who read this. You’ve blessed us more than you know in the last year. Even the waiting has been made easier because we got to share it with friends.