I know I haven't said a lot about Pryor since we got him last September. I'm always blogging about Boone. Boone is little, cute, funny and charismatic, and he loves me. :) Pryor is older and much more quiet. In short, he doesn't create a lot of blogging material by going around cracking me up like Boone does. That is a good thing since Pryor is two years older, and if he acted like Boone it would be a little weird.
When we started the adoption process, I found Boone first. But ever since China started letting you adopt more than one at a time, I've felt like if I could "save" more than one, I was going to do it. And Mike has agreed the last two times we have adopted that we should bring home two kids. He feels about like me - there are hundreds of thousands of orphans in China, and if we can bring home two with one trip, we should. From the start of the adoption process, I was praying A LOT that God would let me get two. But I didn't spring it on Mike until just the "right" moment that I was working on two.
I did ask Mike to request permission for two child visas when he filled out the initial papers that have to be sent to U.S. immigration services - you know just in case something crazy happened like hitting the Powerball. : - ) But right after we sent off our papers to immigration we were driving down the road and Mike said something like, "Oh man! I forgot to put down two kids when I sent off the papers!" Amazingly, I didn't freak. I said something like, "Oh well." Seriously, "well" was the only four letter word in my response. To myself, I thought God had answered my prayers and was telling me He didn't want us to get two kids this time. Mike felt so bad, though, that he took it totally on himself to call Fedex and ask them to send the package back. At first FedEx told Mike it would be no problem, but then they did a 180 and told us it was too late, the package had already been delivered. That was the end of the week and we both just dropped it. Once again, we thought God had spoken! But then God did speak. The next Monday, Mike called me from work and said FedEx had just called him and told him they were able to intercept the package after all and it was on its way back to our house!!! What?!! God really had just spoken.
So Mike changed the number of visas requested from a "1" to a "2" and resubmitted the application to U.S. Immigration. Honestly though, we didn't have enough money for one adoption, and here I was trying to throw in another one. We had already adopted 10 times and money has never come easy for us. Still I know God loves, loves adoption. God does not care how many bedrooms we have like so many people do. People ask us all the time if we have enough bedrooms in our house or say things like,"do you know these kids all have to got to college?" I want to say,"Do you know my husband is an attorney and an adjunct university professor, so he probably does understand a little about education. What are you, stupid or something!?" I'm open to suggestions for a more tactful response : - )
Unlike the money, the paperwork went smoothly (other than the immigration mistake that God fixed for us) although it was slow (all the red tape and paper chasing usually is slow). But finally, we were DTC (date to China!). That means we were done with ALL our never ending paperwork. I felt the time was right to find the (second) perfect boy to bring home. One problem I had to figure out was how to get a boy in a city we would already be traveling to. That meant either the city Boone lived in or Guangzhou, where the U.S. consulate that issues visa is located and every adopting family travels to. If not one of those cities, we would have to add the expense and time of traveling to yet a third city and staying an extra week. I knew Boone's city was not a good possibility, because he was in a very small orphanage and they didn't have many kids. So the other option was find a child in Guangzhou. There are a very few women that endlessly advocate for orphans. It was on one of their webpages that I read about an 8 year old boy. He was cute, made straight As, had an easy special need (mild heart issue) and spoke Cantonese. Because of the fact he spoke Cantonese, I knew he had to be in or near Guangzhou! I inquired, and we were on our way to getting Pryor.
But we still had the money problem. We prayed a lot and through a variety of extraordinary ways, God overcame that obstacle as well.
I know for sure God wanted Pryor here. I did need an easy child, because, well, I have a lot of kids. Pryor is smart, minds well and gets along with all the kids plus me. : - ) I took him to our Children's Hospital just the other day to have his heart checked out. The top heart doctor said, "You have yourself a healthy boy!" He had no heart problem whatsoever. Why am I not surprised?
