Joy to the World

Joy to the world.

It has been a wonderful Christmas season.  We have been focusing on one of God's greatest gifts.....family.  I love watching how our family has morphed and changed over the years.  Some have gone home to be seen again in the sweet bye and bye and one long awaited little one we will get to meet early in 2013.  Of course, there was a special air of celebration as we welcomed Jacob to his first Christmas season.

We spent Christmas out of town at my sisters home.  It was a blessing to be surrounded by family who has supported us through all stages of our adoption and have enjoyed getting to know our new little man.  Jacob did surprisingly well once our routines were reestablished in our new environment. 

At my sister's and brother in law's church I was especially blessed by the message from Pastor Eric who spoke on joy.  One thing he said has stuck with me and I dwell on it often.....that joy is not a result of our current situation or our emotions, it is a gift from God. 

Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and we cannot know true joy apart from Christ.  He offers a joy that lasts beyond a few presents opened on Christmas day.  Joy is not dependent on one's bank account, health, or amount of facebook friends.  Christ offers a joy that goes beyond the material things that bring us happiness on earth.  It is a joy you feel down to the tip of your toes, you hear in the early bird's song, and brings you life in the midst of fear and shame.  It is a joy that whispers in your ear it's love for you when you don't have the courage to face another day. 

It is hope for our blended and newly created families.  Adopting Jacob has allowed me to experience and recognize even more my sinfulness and unworthiness, but has increased exponentially my gratitude (and my joy!) for my Savior.  My heart is bursting at the seams with the joy given to us that first Christmas day. 

Update on Jacob:

We had a huge week of appointments leading up to Christmas and here is where we now stand:

Early Intervention: Three lovely ladies came out to do Jacob's developmental  assessment.  Let me tell you, these ladies breathed life and love into me as they doted over our son and "oohed" and "aahed" at the things he was doing.  They were positive, encouraging, and great with Jacob.  When the time came to share the results with me, instead of giving me a laundry list of things Jacob couldn't do, they told me, "Well, you qualify for our services and it makes the most sense to send in speech therapy."  Starting early January, she will be coming to our home once a week to work on developmental skills but focusing on speech, oral desensitization, feeding, and she will help work on strategies to wean Jacob from the bottle before surgery.

Pediatric Dentist: Good news!  Jacob's teeth look good.  We will begin seeing him every six months and are blessed that he has a specialty in working with cleft lip/palate children.  We have been able to begin brushing Jacob's teeth and despite that he doesn't like it (and I suspect his mouth is pretty sensitive to just the feel of the bristles), he opens his mouth without much of a struggle.  We will not know if Jacob will get his front teeth but the dentist will help us maneuver these waters when the time comes (I believe that involves a bone graft from the hip and implants but we're just hoping for front teeth!)  He told us to prepare for a good relationship with an orthodontist someday.

Cleft Lip and Palate team: This was a long day at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital.  It started with an ENT where hearing tests revealed mild to moderate hearing loss.  They suspect this is due to chronic ear infections and recommended he receive tubes which they will place during his lip and palate surgery.  They hope his hearing will improve once these are placed.  We then headed to genetics where they educated and prepared us for surgery and gave us some interesting information on institutionalized children and development.  We will be continuing to see them during follow ups with the cleft team.  They also gave us some feeding suggestions and special cups Jacob will need to be using pre and post surgery.  We then headed to see the doctor who has been greatly praised in our community for his work on cleft children in Cincinnati......Dr. Billmire, our plastic surgeon.  He made us laugh the minute he walked in the room and said to Jacob, "Well son, looks like we have a lot of work to do."  After assessing Jacob, he decided he will be trying to repair both the lip and palate in one surgery.  Otherwise, if he starts the surgery and decides not to do the palate, that will be done a few months down the road. 

What about Jacob?  Well, we are all making progress.  I knew this when I was sitting at the salon yesterday in blue foils and a shower cap reading the children's hospital surgical guide.  I couldn't stop the tears when I was reading about the anesthesia and began to think about the procedure.  It was almost unbearable to think about sending him into the OR alone, or surgery for that matter.  We are doing the work of bonding as a family.  Jacob has made his own progress as we have watched him seek out our eye contact in unknown situations and seek out our attention to share his interests. He has an adorable personality and we are working through finding healthy ways to get our attention (he seems to have a "knack" with finding negative ways to get attention.)  We have been blessed to have this time with him and are thankful we didn't rush into surgery when we arrived home.  Lots of work to be done, but God is the provider of the joy in the midst of the work! 

Joy to the world, the Lord has come!