Robby had to travel to Krefield, Germany last week. He left on Sunday and returned on Thursday night. Of all the trips he has taken over the years, this was probably my least favorite. First our government issued a travel alert for Europe, especially German. They had received news of a possible attack on Germany by the Talliban. So this made me a little anxious and ready for the trip to hurry up and be done. But mostly it was so hard because we were not able to talk on the phone and his emails to me were spotty - not from his lack of sending them. I also have a new found appreciation for single moms. You girls rock!!! Although I am a stay at home mom, I realize how much I love having Robby around at nights to help with bath time and bedtime. Thanks Robby for you do to help me with Marissa. It sure was nice to see my best friend drive his truck into the driveway on Thursday night.
Two weeks ago, we received a phone call from Holt International, the adoption agency we have used for all 3 of our children. The kids and I had just sat down to supper when the phone rang. It seems that Kyle's birth mom has had another baby - a girl - born on 9/3/10. Because they try to put siblings in the same family, they were offering us a chance to get this little girl first, even though Kyle is no longer with us. Wow!!! A half-sister to our sweet boy! By the time I got off the phone with Holt, Robby was home and I shared with the family what I had just heard. My heart was bursting with excitement! But as the night went on and Robby and I had time to sit down and process this and really talk about it, we knew that we were not in a position to raise this little girl as our own. To say I have had a rough year with surgeries and my health would be an understatement. We don't have family around who can help us when I have surgeries. All our family lives in and around Arkansas and it is such a long trip for them to leave their families to come take care of ours. We also know that I will most likely have to have another transplant in the next several years and Robby is going to be tested to see if he can be my donor. So we would be down after the surgery. How could we take care of 2 little ones? C said she would "step it up a notch" and help out but she is 14 (almost) and I don't see that happening (not that it would make a difference) Sigh!!! So with a very heavy heart, I called Holt the following morning and told them that we would NOT be adopting this sweet baby girl. I think I actually cried every day for the next 3 - 4 days.... wondering if we had made the right decision. I feel like our decision might have been different if Kyle was still alive. I would want him to have his little sister in his life. Or maybe if this call had happened during our long wait for M, our decision might have been different. But then we wouldn't have this sweet girl, whom I love with all my heart. So my head was telling me that our decision was the right one. I just need my heart to catch up. The good thing is that Kyle's little sister is being placed with a family in South Jersey somewhere and they are open to having contact with us. So maybe at some point they will share her picture(s) with us and we can share some pictures of Kyle with her. I am praying for this little one and her new family to be. May they be as blessed with her as we were with Kyle.
So Robby got home Thursday night and he was so jetlagged. Poor guy! But he wasn't able to take a day off from work to recover as duty was calling him back to work. He had thought that he would be able to take off early on Friday but it was not to be either. Oh well, he could just catch up on his rest over the weekend. Yeah right! His lovely wife had plans for him to work on C's room and get it all put together since it is for her birthday (and Christmas). And work we did --- YES I even helped... as much as I could with little M "helping" us too. We taped off the trim boards and around the windows and doors on Friday night. And as always happens when we do a project, it turned into a bigger issue. C had put something up on her wall a year or so ago with some sort of sticky stuff. When Robby tried to pull this off the wall... yeah you guessed it, it took the sheetrock with it. Which meant Robby had to fix this BEFORE we could paint the following day. But my ever resourceful hubby fixed it up and it was dry by morning. He painted the room Saturday morning and shortly after lunch we were able to start working on putting her new Ikea furniture together. (NOTE: If you buy furniture from Ikea, be aware that the instructions are only pictures, no words. This equals a lot of frustration.) I bet it took us 4 hours at least to get the bed put together alone. We bought slats for it instead of box springs (big mistake). The next step showed how to put the slat together. I inserted them SLOWLY (not by choice). My hands hurt so bad once we got the first half done. I ran out to get us something to eat for supper. When I came back Robby told me he had bad news. Even though that step showed us how to put the slats in, the next step showed that before we put ALL the slats in, there would be some slats that needed to boards in each hole. Geez!!! But it is all done now. Her walls are a mint color and her accent colors are orange and a blue color. I think the blue color is going to be a no go as she doesn't think it looks as good as she thought. She still needs a few things for her room (shelves, lamp, trash can, etc) but those are things that will have to be for Christmas and go under the tree. Otherwise she won't have any presents on Christmas morning. So here is the finished product:
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