We are complete!

The boys are home!!! We left to pick up the boys November 29 and picked the boys up from the institutions on December 1st! We were in country until December 11th and the boys met their siblings on December 12th. The boys did pretty well on the plane ride, but the airport is a different story. They must not have been use to walking so much and being around so many people, but we made it home safely! Adjusting has been very interesting, with having four bio children at home and adding two older kids who have never had a family has made this transition difficult. Not impossible but difficult.

It has taken me a while to update simply because we started home school and doctors appointments. Life is busy, but enjoying every day. Ryan is starting to speak some English words and Roman is allowing hugs. I will try to update my blog more often.

Adoption is a long, stressful road and the transition isn't pretty but so worth it!!
This is our vehicle now, every seat is full.

Missing my boys

It has been 9 weeks since we left Roman, and 8 week since we left Ryan! Gosh time is not going by fast enough!! Not a days goes by that my boys are not on my mind. We are slowly adding more and more clothing to their closet, which I am not sure if it will fit them or not but it makes me feel better buying it now so I feel like I am not leaving them out. I wonder if they remember us or if we have been labeled as such another person to walk in and out of their life. Which thinking of that makes me sad, if they only new and understood what we are here doing, working to bring them home. As far as paper work goes we are done with all the paper work for our part unless the judge decides they need more items. So basically we are just waiting to get assigned a judge which will then assign a court date. Unfortunately we are stuck for now since the boys country "shuts down" for summer break. Which of course makes the process seem so much longer :( 


They kids are also anxious to have their brothers home, they ask almost every day when they will be coming home. Which doesn't help me since I already stock my email all day every day except on weekends. Time please speed up!!!!! Sincerely an impatient mama

Update

Ok so it has been over a month since my last post, a lot has been going on!! So we traveled to Europe to meet our SONS!! Yes you read right we are adopting two boys! Yes they both have down syndrome and are both in double digits age wise. These boys have my heart just like my bio children do. Our little guy Roman is the newest addition he will be 11 in September, yet he is so small and doesn't know how to feed himself or chew. His mental institution social worker said that when he was transferred there 2 years ago he was still being bottle fed!! Can you imagine at 7 years old still drinking out of a bottle? So the fact that he is being spook feed is a big accomplishment. I was able to feed him and it was very hard for me because I was told they feed them fast so when I started feeding him I was taking my time because I didn't want him to gag and get as much food as possible,  it he was not use to that so he was getting impatient so he hit my hand so I would hurry up. I didn't change my speed in his feeding and he eventually got it, that it's ok for him to take his time while eating. I'm sure that day his tummy felt more full and stayed that way longer then other days. He also started showing me towards our last visit that he remembered us!! We would play catch with everyday and count 1, 2,3 then trow it. He would sit on my lap and I would hold his hands so he could throw the ball to my husband. We'll on the 4th visit he cam and stood I front of me and put his hands out to catch!!!!!! I nearly cried when he did that, that was the first time HE initiated catch!!! Usually at the end of our visit a worker would come in and take him away and he was fine just leaving is, nut on our last visit the worker came in and he did not want to go!!! He held on to me tighter and would giggle, then my husband got him to say "see you later" and he did the same thing!!! It was so hard leaving him there! But we had to go to see our other son! Ryan is very opposite of Roman, he is silly interacts   With everyone, feeds himself, expresses emotion, shows interest! He is an older version of our bio son!! He loves cars! The first day he met us he was asking us to take him in a car! Our visits with him were harder simply because he would ask if he was going to leave with us everyday! One day he actually cried at the gate as we left. His social worker said its because he is not use to one on one attention, I like to believe its because he likes our company. All the children would say we are his mommy and daddy but I don't think he understood what that was, he didn't call us mommy and daddy but I'm ok withy that. He has never had a family and  I don't expect him to call us mommy and daddy after just 5 days of meeting us. That is something we have earn! When we bring both boys hoe, we will show them what a family is what mommy and daddy are. Now we are home finishing up the last bit of paper work that is needed for court. Of course now this wait is harder because we have spent time with our boys and we miss them everyday. So I am using shopping as my therapy. I buy the boys something almost every day. So far I have started buying them clothes, they have 10 shorts so far and 2 pairs of shoes. I just hope they fit them when we bring them home. We are all so excited to have our boys home, we pray it will be before this Christmas!

Travel Dates!

The moment we have waited for over a year for will be here in 11 days!!! We leave for Eastern Europe in 11 days to finally meet our son.  I am excited, nervous, anxious and scared all at once. I have so many thoughts running while that it's almost overwhelming! But I can't wait to finally hug him and see his beautiful smile! We will be in country for almost 2 weeks, I will try and update as much as possible while we as there. I think the hardest part will be having to say see you later to him and hope he knows we will be coming back to bring him home. I have a bag full of things to do with him while we are there, I also have some stuffed animals for him and a photo album that we can hopefully leave with him. My 6 year old asks me almost everyday "are you going to get brother tomorrow?" And I have to say "no baby maybe by Christmas he will be home." We all feel like this is taking so long, but we know that it's all in HIS time. For now we must be patient and trust in HIM.

In time

We received verbal referral almost three weeks, which means our dossier has been approved and we are just waiting on the minster of justice to sign it and issue our first set of travel dates!! It usually take three weeks for this to happen and this Wednesday will be 3 weeks!!!This wait is  killing me, last year on Easter is when we knew "Kyle" had to be a part of our family!! That was one year ago and we have yet to meet this little boy that has our heart. Hopefully by mid to end of May we will be in Europe holding him for the very first time!!!!!! Everything we do already involves him, this weekend we went to Seaworld and we talked about our little guy the whole time an we got him a souvenir for when he come homes. It wouldn't feel right if we hadn't done that, he is our son even if he isn't here. Its like when you are pregnant you start buying items for your baby to have once they make there arrival in this world, its no different to me. I buy things for him every chance I  have so he can have things he hasn't had in his 10 years of life. I know it's all material items, but he already has my heart! So i have started packing a bag with items I plan on taking on our first trip for him to play with and we will hopefully get to leave him a photo album with pictures of his family and new home. Once we visit him we have to leave him and come home for 4-6 months while our adoption is finalized, so we leave him to photo album in the mean time, then we will travel one last time to bring him home! This can't happen soon enough. I know this is all in Gods time, but the wait is still very hard.

Coming together

A lot has happened since my last update. Ryan "Kyle" on RR turned double digits this month!! I also had a birthday this month. Lots of sick kids and parents this month with this weird weather. So our deadline to submit our dossier was this month an we were still short around $1200, but a anonymous donor donated the full $5500 to our adoption agency which we needed to submit our dossier!!!! Praise The Lord!!!! We are still in shock over this and are happy to say our dossier is in Eastern Europe going through translation and will hopefully be officially submitted this upcoming week. Once it is submitted we wait for approval then referral and travel dates. So hopefully by the beginning of this summer we will finally meet our son!! It has been one year since I saw his picture and felt the instant attachment and need to bring him home. It's incredible to think one year ago I inquired about him and received his medical information and pictures and cried every day thinking about this little boy who had just turned 9 living in a institute all his life, this little boy who had yet to experience the love of a family. Here we are now, one year later and he has spent his 10th birthday in that institution, which will be his last birthday there!!! How I wish he knew he has a family doing whatever is necessary to bring him home. Soon we will get to hold him and tell him just how much we love him and have prayed for him and are so happy to call him our son. Every day I think about the moment I get to see him, hold him, hug him, and bring him home to his brother and sisters. Our daughter who is 6 talks about him every day almost has if she knew him from birth, everything includes him!! Brings joy to my heart knowing they think of him as their brother. Soon Ryan you will be right here with us and all this will be a blur all the pain and sadness you have endured will be in the past. I know whatever you have gone through will be unforgettable but we will do our best to love you and help you move forward in our family. We are ready son!!!

USCIS!!!

We received an amazing email that said our USCIS application was approved!!! Which means that once we get that in the mail we will send it to the state capital to get apostilled the we can send it to our adoption agency. Which will then send it to Europe with the rest of our dossier! Unfortunately it's not that easy, in order for us to submit our dossier we have to send $5500!! In December we were given a 3 month extension to finish our dossier, which will expire in March. If we don't have our dossier in country by March we will be forced to release our son and our adoption journey will end, and our son will be stuck an orphan! Just the thought of that makes me suck to my stomach. We are so close!  I hear a song on the radio almost every day and it keeps me going "Don't quit don't give in you're an overcomes!"  By Mandisa Overcomer. I'm staying in this until the final round! 

Another step forward

Last weekend we were out looking for a new vehicle we spent all day at the car dealership with our 4 kids and had no luck. I was feeling really down about it since we are needing a vehicle with more space soon. We got home around 8:30 pm Saturday night and I checked the mail, guess what was there?!! Yes our biometrics appointment for USCIS!!! I thanked god it's like he knew that was going to make everything better and it did!!! The stress of that day flew out the window. We are getting the last few documents apostilled for our dossier and then we will send that to our child's country to be translated and the only thing that will be left is our USCIS approval which we pray we will soon get. Which means we will hopefully be traveling to meet him the end of April or beginning of May. We are so grateful for everyone that has prayed and donTed to our family to help us bring our son home. This journey has been full of stress and tears but it will all be worth it. We are all anxiously waiting the day he walks into our home and life's forever.

New Church... Faith growing

We attended a new church December 22nd, 2013 and we truly feel welcomed. We have only attended 2 services but everyone is so nice and friendly and the service is great! They have a great band and sing Christian songs, songs we have never heard before. It could be because we have not actually look for Christian music, but either way they are amazing songs that just seem to fit exactly how you feel. They played a few songs that touched me, one says "Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Savior"      This song just makes me think of how we have jumped into our adoption with no questions asked. Yes in the beginning our big fear was coming up with the funds we will need but we soon started getting signs that this was meant to be. This is our SON that has waited so long for us to find him!!! My faith is growing every day!! At the end of this Sundays service we received a personal prayer specifically for our adoption which made my husband and I feel an indescribable way, almost like gods reassurance that he was with us through this and it will be fine. God will not lead us this far and fail us, he has a plan and we are following it. With that being said we have sent off our USCIS application, which takes about 90 days, at the most, to receive approval. We pray it goes a lot faster and that we can raise the funds to submit our dossier as soon as we can. We appreciate all the prayers for our family and our son that is oceans away! We are also selling silver plated book marks for $5 they are made by my daughter and myself. If you are interested just send me an email mrzanzaldua@gmail.com. Thank you!!

One Less

Update..... Since my last post we received our finalized home study got it apostilled and sent it to our adoption agency and we got it to Eastern Europe just in time! What I mean by that is that we had 6 months from the time we committed to "Kyle" to at least have the home study part of our dossier done and we got it there the week it was due!! I would be lying if I said I didn't have an anxiety attack at the post office when the gentleman said it wouldn't get to my case worker until Monday (which it needed to be in Europe by Tuesday). But somehow someway we got it there on time. So now we have sent a few final documents to be apostilled for our dossier and the next step is our I 800a application which is over $500. But we have been blessed and an awesome women I have never personally met has sent us a donation to pay for our I 800a application!!!! She is an amazing advocate for these children and is also the same persons that helped raise a large amount of the funds in his grant through Reece's Rainbow, which we will get to use for his adoption once we get our travel dates. This is a very long stressful process but I know it will be worth it in the end when we get to bring our son home. I did some calculations this weekend, added up the total cost we have paid so far and we really don't know how we have done it!! But we thank everyone for their donations, support and prayers! I am truly amazed at what this process has done for my children also, everything they talk about includes their Brother! Every little penny they find goes to his jar they try to figure out different ways we can raise or save money! It really shows me that we are doing something amazing and my children are learning from this experience.  

Winner!!

Ruben drew for the winner of our $50 gift card giveaway, which we posted the video on fb, and Alysha won. She has been so kind to donate the card back to our adoption fund. We are so blessed to have support from her. She was "Kyles" prayer warrior a few years back and is so excited to see he will soon be coming home to us. Now I'm thinking of our next giveaway or maybe an auction, just have to find some items to auction off. Hopefully that will have a good outcome also. I know my past few posts have been somewhat short, but right now we are just waiting on our home study to be typed up for us to able to send to our agency. :)

My reason: Thoughts

My reason: Thoughts: I'm full of thoughts tonight. Why is adoption so expensive? Why can't we be rich? Why don't we win the lottery? I would be happy...

On my mind

Our last home study visit was this past Monday and we are really cutting things close. Our home study has to be in our little boys country by December 10th or he will no longer be "on hold" for us. This has me very worried and stressed that it won't get there in time. Not only that but we will also need to pay our next adoption fees to our agency which is $6000! So you can imagine how stressed we are right now. This was definitely a leap of faith we have taken and pray it will all work out. So I ask you to please keep our family and our little boy in your prayers. Also all donations are appreciated more then you will ever know and remember no amount is too small. He has been on my mind so much lately and dream of holding him for the first time and how he will feel to know that he is loved! That I haves loved him from the first moment I saw his picture and new from that moment on that he IS my son! Hang in there little man we are working hard to bring you home!!

A little info

Reading through some of my previous blog post I've realized that I really havent giving much information on our little "Kyle". So here goes, I'll star with he his in Eastern Europe. We are not able to say what specific country he is in nor his real name to protect him. He was born March 2004 and had several surgeries shortly after birth for heart defects and anal atrisa. Then he was put up for adoption, it's hard to say why but it was more then likely due to his diagnosis of Down Syndrome. From 2004 to 2008 he was in a orphanage right after his 4th birthday he was transferred to a mental institution where he is currently and has been for most of his life. A mental institute is not the place for a child to spend the rest of their life. I can't even imagine being 4 years old and living in a mental institute,can you? This little boy is almost 10 years old and has never known the love of a family! God was preparing us for him and now we are ready! All these surgeries he had he never had a mother or father next to him when he woke up,  no one to hold him when he is scared and no one to tell him he is important! What stands between us and him(besides oceans) $27,000 approximately. That's his ransom!! That's what is needed to save him!! To bring him home to his brother and sisters who already love him and include him in everything they do by talking about him, saying what he would be doing with them. All we can do his pray and raise the funds so he can come home.                                                                                                                 
With that being said we will do our very first giveaway! Hopefully we receive support from many so when can do another giveaway shortly after that.                                                   
We will be giving away a $50 visa gift card, what we need is 11 entries for $10. Once we receive the 11 entries we will have Ruben draw for the winner!!
Why the number 11? Well that's his birthday!

We need these entries to our paypal account, anzadoptfund@gmail.com, to help with upcoming fees. Once we receive the 11 entries we will have Ruben draw for the winner and we will notify you!! Please make sure you put your name and email in the information on pay pal so we have a way to contact you. If you want to email me your receipt you can do so to the above email address! We hope to the draw for the winner soon!!

This is the picture of our " Kyle" when he was probably 4 and its the picture we have hanging on our living room wall right next to Sandra's pictures, since they are only 2 years apart. Sandra is happy sharing her side of the wall with is pictures too. We can't wait to have a family picture with all 5 of our kids together.

Been a while

It's been a while since I have blogged, have been rather busy. We have received new pictures and a video of "Kyle" which brings him to life!! He has such a beautiful smile and Ruben loves to watch the video over and over. The boys room has been painted and we have his bed ready! We are still working on our paper work to finish up our home study, but we have been getting other items out of the way so once the home study is finished we can put it all together to receive USCIS approval. We pray it will all come together since we have faced a small obstacle which we hope to resolve asap! I'm not much of a writer I like to get straight to the point, I've had this issue since high school I always had a rough time trying to make my research papers long enough. So please bare with me since this is all new to me. Just know we are working hard to bring our little guy home, every time we get one thing accomplished we look at each other and say " Oh Kyle if you only knew you have a family working hard to bring you home" 

Moving forward

These past few days have been very exciting for our family. We sent in commitment paper work for our adoption. Whe can officialy say that we are adopting "Kyle" on Reeces Rainbow! He is no longer classified as a waiting child yesterday he was under My Family Found Me (MFFM), and today he has been placed under New Commitment!! Our social worker has scheduled our home study and so we begin the many piles of paper work. We have no doubt that this process will be long and stressful, but it will be all worth it when we get to hold our son for the first time! We know there will be plenty of challanges once he is home, but we have our mind set and are ready for it all! Our kids are so excited to add a brother to our family and they have been saving every penny in our "Kyle" jar which sits on top of our intertainment center. We show Ruben the picture of his brother and he smiles and tells him hi. We know they will be the best of friends. Kyle is on the left and Ruben on right.

Our journey

We began fundraising a few days ago and are at our $300 mark today!! Thank you to all the wonderful people that have donated and to all that our praying for our family. We hope to soon be able to share the face of this adorable little boy that has stolen my heart. The adoption process is very long and involves a lot of paper work and patience. So far we have submitted our application to the adoption agency and a social worker to begin our home study. The home study can cost a little over $2000 and the commitment fee is $3500 once we have paid our commitment fee then we can share to you all the name and face of our future son. Then it will be more paper work. We are all very excited to begin this journey and save this little boy. Bring him into our own and show him what it's like to have a family. Mark and I have already thought about what it will be like to travel to his country to bring him to our home and show him his own bed!! I can't help but picture him smiling, which I have seen his smile in a picture, and feel sad because I don't know if he has anything to smile for right now. It's amazing to think he is there living his life day to day not knowing there is a family doing whatever they can to bring him into their family. He has no idea that there is wonderful, giving people helping us for HIM and that we think about him every day!! One month ago I saw his picture and now he is forever in my heart. We have set up a Paypal account if anyone would like to make a donation. anzadoptfund@gmail.com, prayers are also greatly appreciated!!!

Adoption

Some people may wonder why we are wanting to adopt. Well here it goes... It's not because we can't have children of our own, because we do we have 4 beautiful children. It's simply because we fell in love with this little boy we saw on Reece's Rainbow. I don't know why I was on the website looking at children, but when I found his picture it was like looking at Ruben and haven't stopped thinking about him. I wonder how is day was if he ate if he has his own bed, and if he knows that somebody loves him. That somebody thinks he is perfect just the way he is!  I pray that one day soon he will know that because we will tell him!! He has never had a family nor know the love of a mother/father. I want him to feel all the love Ruben feels every day. I love this little boy unconditional as I do my own kids. I feel god prepared us for him by sending us Ruben. I feel Ruben was sent to us to open our heart and mind to children with that extra something, that extra chromose that makes Ruben so special. Yes it was hard for me to see it when we first discovered Ruben has Down syndrome and yes I was angry with god, but god doesn't make mistakes and now my eyes and heart are wide open! I was angry because I didn't think it was fair for my child, my SON, to live his life feeling "different" but he's not different he is just like us! He just has an extra chromosome which he uses to give us extra love. I am glad that god has made all of this clear to me now. Now I want another child with that special chromosome to know just how great he his! This road may not be easy but I know it will be worth it, when I can hold that little guy in my arms and tell him just how much I love him. To see him smile, that smile that makes everything better, those almond eyes that see no evil and that heart so willing to love all.