Are you praying about adoption?

I'm sitting on the sofa typing this post and when I look up I can see my son.  He's watching a television show and laughing.  He loves to laugh and sadly he likes television way more than we want him to.  I cannot believe it has been 3 years since he officially became our son.  He is all boy, a 7 year old ball of energy and has more questions than any human being who ever lived.  He is a question asking machine, he can fire question after question without taking a breath.  Our lives are so full of joy and love because of the blessing God gave us in our son.

If you are praying about adoption, please continue to seek God's will.  Don't be afraid to say Yes to giving a child a forever family.  Adoption will change your life, it will rock your world and it will be worth it!

David

Meetcha and Adoption Day Anniversary

This week marks the one year anniversary that we traveled our first trip to Ethiopia to meet our son for the first time. We can not believe how fast this past year has went. To relive those moments of us first meeting Jadon you can read here. Today as I was sitting in the school cafeteria eating Thanksgiving Lunch with Jadon (he was dressed like an Indian) I couldn't help but reflect on a year ago this week remembering where he was and what kind of life he would have had if we had said No. I am so humbled by God's grace and blessings through our journey. Jadon is such a blessing to our family. He has been an all-star kid the past ten months of adjusting to a whole new life. Thursday, 11-17 is our Meetcha day anniversary and then Saturday, 11-19 is our Adoption Day anniversary. We will celebrate our Gotcha day on 01-03. We are looking forward to celebrating our first Thanksgiving Holiday with him next week. He has the cutest impression of a turkey gobbling! There are lots of thoughts to process and I will share those at a later time when I have a litte more time to type them out. For now...enjoy our adoption journey video.

New purpose for the blog!

First, let us say thank you to all of you for reading our blog. Our journey to our little guy has been a blessing and we have enjoyed sharing this journey with you all. Our prayer for our blog has been that through sharing our journey others will be encouraged to take the next step of adoption no matter where they are in the process.


Recently we have not been sharing much on the blog about our son and our family. We have held back on sharing a lot out of adjusting to life with our new addition and mostly out of respect for our sons privacy. Our conviction for not sharing more on his new life in America is simply we feel that from this point on his life is his story to share. We will still post proud moments that any parent would post. We will still post things about our journey of adoption, things that we struggled with, celebrated, experiences of the power of our awesome God.


We believe we have been called to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, the orphans. We believe our blog should be used to promote adoption, orphan care and support for those in the process of adoption or thinking about adoption. Our blog should be a voice for those who need a voice.


Lily's Prayer has been answered with a little brother of her own, an orphan with a forever family, but she doesn't stop praying and neither do we.


The Scott Family

Bonding Finally!

All through out the adoption process David and I both knew it was likely there would be some bonding/attachment issues with adopting any age child but especially with an older child. I will be totally honest... I thought for SURE I would be the parent Jadon would attach to the most because boys are suppose to love their mommas and be momma's boys ...right?? Well, quickly after the first full day with Jadon in our custody while still in Ethiopia I found out things were not going to be as I had imagined they would be. It was Daddy, Daddy, Daddy all the time! I would sometimes get so excited when I would hear Jadon say "Mommy" to only turn around and realize he was talking to one of the sweet Ethiopian Mommys around. Jadon would call ANY and ALL females Mommy whether Ethiopian or not! This was hard to swallow. I had waited ELEVEN years to hear a sweet little one call me Mommy again and reach up to be picked up and cuddled but this wasn't happening. In fact, David had to STRONGLY encourage that he let me play with him at times. Now when it came to bathing, dressing and meal time Jadon had no problem with me doing things for him but it was only in a "Nanny Care taker" way.

This was emotionally hard to swalllow but I knew I had to continue to trust in God to continue to carry me through this journey. It was a very clear reminder the adoption journey didn't end as soon as we arrived home to Tennessee. I did begin to feel some pressure because I had only six weeks to bond with Jadon before returning back to work. The first two included David and Lily being with us so technically I had only 4 weeks to bond with no competition. We would have some good days and a lot of not so good days. There was a huge language barrier obviously during this time too. Jadon could really be stubborn and completely shutdown if he didn't want to do something, especially when it was time to ride in his car seat!

I had a few meltdown days myself at night because it seemed no matter how hard I tried or how hard I attempted to nurture him, play with him, give him special treats, etc the love was not returned. I remember one evening after meeting with our small group that God just gave me this sense of peace about my relationship with Jadon. He brought to mind my relationship with HIM. When I was adopted by my Heavenly Father I was older than the norm and I didn't exactly know how to receive HIS love and how to bond with HIM. For years God had blessed me in so manys that I did not deserve but HE always continued to love me through it. It was actually about nine to ten years after my adoption that I came around to know and love my heavenly father and understand what it was to truly have a relationship with HIM. Of course I didn't want it to take that long for Jadon to love me back but I was ready to wait however long it would take.

Finally just six weeks ago which was about three months after being home with Jadon there was a break through! I will never forget the FIRST true hug I got from Jadon with NO prompting! This hug was so different than any other. He used to not hug back. He didn't know how to embrass and receive hugs when he first came home with us. One afternoon I was standing near Jadon about to walk out to another room and he just ran over to me throwing his arms around my legs to hug me and then reached up for me to pick him up! Oh my the tears were streaming! I was so excited to reach this milestone. And just like someone had flipped a switch I was getting hugs all the time after this point! Something had finally clicked and this little guy loved his new and forever mommy! During this time he also began speaking English better and understanding better. I was able to talk with him about all the "mommys" who had cared for him in Ethiopia over the last three years of his life and then explain that I was his special mommy because I was now his only mommy forever. I remember in this conversation he told me I was his special mommy because I was his friend. My heart melted like butter!

This part of our journey has really opened my eyes to how important it is to have communication in a relationship especially with my relationship with God. Jadon was able to bond with his daddy through play communication but all he knew about me was that I was going to make him do things he didn't want to do like brush his teeth, and ride in his car seat that he hated! He didn't understand that I was doing those things because I loved him and that I was his special mommy. Our relationship has grown by leaps and bounds over the last six weeks. For the past two weeks I have finally been able to hold him and cuddle with him while rocking him to sleep. He is finally able to openly receive the love and nurturing he has missed out on for so long. These are such sweet and tender moments for us.

Now granted Jadon still stays two steps behind his daddy but he makes room for mommy now too! As I was writing this blog my sweet little boy woke up and came straight to me to give me big hugs to start his day! I am so blessed to be on this journey!

Bad Tonsils

When we received the referral for our little guy in June of last year, we were told that he had chronic tonsilitis. They would give him rounds and rounds of antibiotics and those tonsils would just continue to give Jadon fits. We knew we could get him to a good doctor to get that taken care of as soon as we could get him home. To us it was a minor illness that could easily be taken care of here in the U.S. but we were not the ones living with it. As more time went by and we would receive updates on him the tonsils were still hurting him. When we met Jadon in November his tonsils were very swollen, poor little guy. It broke our hearts having to leave him behind when we left Ethiopia, but it hurt worse knowing that he was in need of medical care. Don't get us wrong our agency has a wonderful nurse at the transition home and she took really good care of him, but we knew that he needed those tonsils out.

The first night Jadon stayed with us we were amazed at the snoring ability of this little guy. He snored like a grown man. His tonsils were so swollen they were almost touching but Jadon sure didn't act like they hurt him. We had already scheduled a doctors visit for him before we left to pick him up. Four days after coming home he was at the doctor, Jadon was a healthy young boy with the exception of those tonsils. The doctor scheduled a visit to the ENT right away.

Two months later after a super strong round of antibiotics and a delayed surgery schedule Jadon had those Bad Mean Tonsils taken out.

Recovery was rough, but the snoring was gone right away and the tossing & turning in his sleep has stopped. Now 2 months after surgery no sore throats, he is gaining weight and has a lot more energy. The procedure was easy, the recovery was rough, but the results are great. We now have a healthy young, growing boy!

David

First 3 months...

Wow, it has been 3 months since we brought our little ball of energy home. Our lives have changed so much in these months and our awesome boy is growing so fast. I now have a shadow that follows me everywhere I go, he says daddy about a zillion times a day. I wouldn't change it for anything, Jadon brings so much joy to my life. I am one blessed man, God surely blessed me with 2 wonderful children and I am so grateful to Him. Jadon's sentences now are almost all English with the occasional Amharic word here or there. It is kinda sad that he is forgetting his original language but we knew it would happen.

Jadon do it.--- I'll do it

Sleepy stand up--- Tomorrow

You finished--- I'm finished

I love this little boy and proud to be his Daddy! David

Airport Fun

The Bole International Airport was almost empty when we arrived. We said our good-bye to our driver and made our way into the building. We were told to be at the airport by 6:30 pm for a flight leaving at 10:15 pm, yep 3 hours and 45 minutes early.

When we made it through all the check in points and found a seat to wait. We re-united with the others that were adopting from our agency and Jadon had his friends to play with while we waited.
Now in the Ethiopian airport you will go through an additional check as you enter the gate for your flight. Previous experience helped in this area, once you enter your gate you cannot leave and there are no restrooms inside the gate. Travelling with a pre-teen and a 4 year old it would not be good to be early in the gate. So we held off as long as possible and it was a good thing we did. Our flight was delayed 2 hours, so yes we were inside the gate for about 3 hours total. Fortunately no one had to go, if you know what I mean.


It was an absolute joy to watch Jadon and his friends as they had an absolute great time talking about the plane. One of his friends had flown from his orphanage to Addis Ababa and he was telling the other 2 all about it. It was hard to understand the exact words they were talking about but one thing I do know is they were discussing how the plane has toilets. It was so cute to see them get so excited about the plane and the bathrooms. As the time came to get on the plane the excitement grew and these children were ready to go to America.


Jadon's excitement was priceless to see his little face light up as we boarded the plane. His excitement was huge in helping him stay awake for an additional 2-3 hours after we took off. Basically he stayed awake until about 3-4AM ET time which was so good because he then slept for the next ten hours making the plane ride home so much easier than we had expected. It also helped him switch to our time zone easier too (9hours difference). Our total first flight home was about 16hours. We then had a few hours in Dc before we flew to Cincinnati and then HOME to Nashville. Jadon was amazed by the airplanes. He loved getting to sit next to the window both times on the short flights. He would constantly point at the window and say "America??" with the biggest smile.



Arriving in Nashville was the most exciting thing for us! We couldn't wait to see our friends and family waiting for our special homecoming moment. This was the moment we all had dreamed about for months. Even though we had had custody of Jadon for over a week, it was this moment that seemed to make it official. We had a huge crowd of people waiting for us to welcome Jadon to his new home with his forever family. We were also blessed by a sweet lady that worked at one of the restaurants who was from Ethiopia and could speak Amharic. She came out to meet Jadon and was able to talk with him in his native language. This was a huge comfort for Jadon after traveling for so long.

Jadon was a total rock star coming out of the airport! It was such a sweet ride home in our car headed to our home as a new family of four! Jadon was so excited about his new room and bed that first night at home!


As you can imagine, many joyful tears were flowing that night after tucking him in the his new bed and just standing there in amazement of the work God had done in our lives to bring us this precious boy we now call Son!