Ike Special: Football player wiith Down syndrome scores touch down

Ike Special: Football player wiith Down syndrome scores touch down

Helloooo?!?!?

Anyone out there? Please leave a comment just for me to know I'm not talking to myself :P

Short and sweet

Having re-read my first post, it does look more like a senseless ramble to me now than when I was actually writing it.

Out with trying to seem cool and yet trying to keep from revealing too much :)

The reason I'm here today is this blog. I had read some of Leah's posts on the Downsyn forum, and found her blog about raising her daughter very refreshing and uplifting. I'm afraid I skipped or raced through Leah's first few posts about adoption. Then, by the time she was preparing for her trip to Bulgaria, I followed one of her links to Reece's Rainbow. I was horrified. In the months to come, I've often browsed though the waiting children listings and learned more about the conditions they are forced to live in daily. I have found several other blogs I now follow. My heart has been overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all, and by the sheer joy every time one of the children finds a family. And slowly, I have been changed forever. I now look through the photos with a deep longing.

MY NEXT GOAL IN LIFE IS TO ADOPT.

There it is, out in the open. And when I say MY, I obviously mean OUR. Through the journey to realizing this is what I want and need to do, I shared many blog posts, pictures and videos with my husband. His reaction was very similar to mine. Just to make this perfectly clear, we always intended to have TWO children. We are NOT rich, living on one salary - a small one at that, considering my husbands qualifications, but we have made the choice based on the fact that we want to spend as much time as possible TOGETHER. We have an oldish, smallish house in need of renovations We have a car and a camper (old VW van), both with FOUR seats. We have lots of debts (mortgage and loans). Yet we consider to have a nice, comfortable life. We may not have the latest fashion accessories, or be able to go on holidays nearly as often as we'd like, but we love our little place in the mountains, our animals (will blog about them some day soon), and everything we have achieved together. We are enjoying our girls getting older and having more time for just the two of us (since we don't have family near). We have great plans for the future including what cars we'd like to drive, what cool things we'd like to do to our house, places we'd like to visit... it's an endless list really. So we never in a million years thought we'd do anything to make things more "complicated" (just to put things to perspective, I've been terrified of becoming pregnant since L was born :)).

A couple of months ago I finally came to the conclusion that I had to have a little talk with hubby and tell him what I was going through. Shockingly, he told me straight away he'd love to adopt. The guy just doesn't work like this... he always takes his sweet time before letting me convince him that what I'm proposing is a good idea after all. I think that in the nearly 12 years we've known each other, he's never said "yes" first. It's always no, no, no, hmmm, maybe, we'll see, alright ;) (incidentally I'm very convincing so it does end up being yes in the end most of the time).

Obviously he's more than a little worried about the financial aspects, since we simply don't have that kind of money sitting around nor are we able to set aside any "good" amount each month.

However we are now thinking that since we are not striving for a debt free existence any time in the future, giving a home and a family to an orphan should be higher up on our list than the next big holiday or a new car. As horrible as it sounds, we will be buying a child. A child that is viewed as a burden in her home country, but we'll do our best to come up with a ransom however high it may be.

There are some things we'll have to take care of before pursuing our adoption, and we simply don't have the time or the energy of starting the process just yet. If everything goes to plan, we'll be starting our home study equivalent and some "highly recommended but officially not required" pre-adoption classes after Christmas. Since I am not an Italian citizen, we'll also have some extra paperwork to do and it will probably take longer as well. I'll also need a written permission from my parents to begin the process (yes, you probably did read that well), that we'll be taking care of when we'll be in Finland for Christmas.

Unfortunately we won't be able to adopt through Reece's Rainbow, and special needs adoptions and special requests (we're probably going to express our wish to adopt a little girl with DS) are not really that common over here so we'll have to see how it goes from that point of view, hoping to find a sympathetic adoption agency. There are plenty of children who fit that description out there, unwanted and abandoned, after all...

I guess that was not really as short as I intended, but I do hope you all got the point anyway :).

A little off topic post with all my excuses for not continuing my little ramble until now

Life has been hectic (major understatement!) lately...

My two "little" angels started school two weeks ago. After five years in a small private school, A started public middle school. For the last four years, she had TWO classmates. At her new school, there are several hundred students so it has been interesting to say the least to adjust to the new setting (it has probably been worse on the parents though ;)). For the first time she also has school on saturdays :( (major bummer since both girls go to school in the nearest city a 20 min drive away - when there's no traffic - and we usually stay home all weekend).

L started public primary school - in our country, all children are fully integrated in regular classrooms, but unfortunately special ed teachers or assistants are only provided for public schools, so we could not have her in the same private school A went to. Again adjusting has been very hard on us parents... she is our baby, and she did not go to nursery or preschool. To make things even more interesting, we speak English at home, and school's obviously in Italian. However she seems to be doing very well, her assistant and teachers seem very nice, and she's pretty popular with her classmates :). More importantly, she loves going to school even though it means she has to wake up much earlier than she used to. Funnily enough I was convinced she was going to be exhausted and sleep for hours after coming back home, but she seems to have double the energy in the afternoons these days!

On top of school, A has piano lessons on two afternoons per week (this is actually part of her school curriculum since she is in a music class). We also signed L up for an afternoon program that runs until the end of October, also two afternoons per week (until 6 pm...).

Add my father in law who has some health problems at the moment, basically we haven't had a breather for 3 weeks. Hopefully we'll get into a better routine and things will get easier, since I have all the best intentions to keep up with THIS blog.

Welcome aboard

First of all, I have a confession to make...

I'm afraid I'll be a terrible blogger! Ever since I was 8-9 years old, I've made several attempts keeping a diary, and somehow after a few days/weeks/months I just didn't keep up with it anymore... same thing happened with my sauna blog with a record breaking SINGLE post :P though that is partly due to the fact that two years on we haven't finished the sauna yet :).

I'm hoping this time will be different. I've promised myself this time will be different. For the reason I've started this blog is very different indeed. I've always been someone who knew exactly what I was doing, and why I was doing it, but recently I've been having a hard time trying to figure out what I SHOULD be doing.

I live a perfectly normal and happy life with my husband and our two girls. We know what is important to us (our family, spending time together) and have made our decisions based on those things (career vs family). Then there are things you can't plan for, like becoming parents to a "disabled" child. It made us angry, sad and disappointed. We did not have a clue! Both me and hubby now think of the birth of our younger daughter, just as she is, as one of the best things that has ever happened to us (probably THE best thing). She is a joy (in those rare moments when she's not being a total pain lol). I haven't been a particularly religious person in the past, but I'd definately describe her as a blessing. Which brings us to the real reason for starting this blog:

Although until a few months ago I considered myself an atheist, I think I'm being told I was wrong. Things keep happening that can't be coincidences. I feel like I'm being called to do something specific (that I never thought I'd even consider), and although I'm not quite sure how to achieve it, I feel I'll regret it very much if I don't at least try.

I know it all seems pretty cryptic right now, but I'll be sharing more in the next few days... long story....