This Thanksgiving...

We had so much to be thankful for this again year!  We are truly so very blessed!  Nick has a job that he loves.  I have the best job in the world homeschooling our four fabulous kiddos.  And the day before Thanksgiving we were blessed with a call saying that we have full approval to bring home two amazing boys! 

Now, you are probably thinking “Oh, those crazy Cogans!”  You would be right!  We are crazy in so many ways, but this isn’t one of them. 

We always thought that we would adopt again.  Ok, we didn’t think it would be this soon, but life happens!  The three previous Cogan children were ready to hop back on the plane almost as soon as we got home.  They were so moved and overcome with the enormity of adopting Karwen.   Within a few months, Karwen was asking whether we could adopt again.  Her heart was so very heavy with the ones that were left behind with no family.  She knew that we couldn’t bring them all home, but to make a place for one more was deeply important. 

We are definitely what they call a “conspicuous family”.  We catch people’s attention because we’re crazy folks who do crazy things, we have a multi-cultural family, and we have a daughter with unique characteristics that are immediately visible.  Two of those put Miss Karwen in the direct spotlight every time.  Adopting again doesn’t make anyone here less special, it just spreads the special around.  Karwen is also loving seeing the process from this side, bless her sweet heart!  The other three?  Well, they’ve been through the ups, downs and paperwork before and, while patient and helpful, could absolutely live without this part of it.

So, we decided to see what it would feel like to think about adding to the family again so soon.  We were blown away by a precious little guy who had the same Journey of Hope as Karwen and was met by the same person at our adoption agency.  He was born with arthrogryposis like Karwen and we already had everything in place to handle everything that comes along with that.  In his video, he reminded us so much of Karwen!  We saw the same little sparkle in his eye.  He was a bit younger than Kolya and that was perfect.  Kolya was hoping to be a true big sister this time and that is what is recommended.

And then we received a picture of a handsome young man that I recognized immediately.  His picture was four years older, but I knew him at once.  Most of our close friends and family don’t even know about one of the downs that occurred during Karwen’s adoption process.  There were many ups and downs, of course, but this down was the worst.  Karwen was “locked-in” to our family, we had gleefully sent our acceptance letter and gone on for months getting our hearts and home ready for our new daughter.  Then the call came.  She was gone.  She had disappeared from the list, the agencies, she hadn’t been adopted, but she was nowhere to be found.  They looked for weeks calling everyone.  Finally, with heavy hearts and assuming that for some reason she just wasn’t meant to be ours, we asked for another file.  A sweet little boy the same age with a shy smile was sent to us.  So, we started the process again.  Several weeks later, we got a call that Karwen had just popped back on to where she had been before.  No one would say why and her update said that there hadn’t been any changes.  We had to make a very difficult decision.  We had come so far in our preparations for Karwen.  We had felt that she was already a part of our family.  Now, back to the picture of the handsome young man.  In the new updated picture he was 9 and in the old one 4, so he had changed a lot, but I knew him instantly.  Here we were, thinking about adopting again and here was the little boy that we had worked for when Karwen disappeared.  He had updates and was particularly desperate for a family.  He was on the Wonderful Waiting Kids site page run by amazing Annie who had been so extremely helpful many times during our journey to Karwen.  He and Karwen are really close in age, but after many prayers we knew that he was joining our family.

Only we couldn’t get that other little face out of our hearts and minds.  Now, there are many little faces constantly etched in our hearts and minds that we pray for each day as they wait for a family.  This is different.  It would be like we were leaving our child behind.  So, we jumped and asked about the possibility of bringing both boys home.  We were told that it was possible, but that we might not get approval.  After all, we were asking special permission to adopt again so soon, close to our daughter’s age, and now, for two.  We prepared the family for any news.  Then we waited.  Finally, we got the call and they had approved us to bring both boys home!  Crazy?  Ok, I'll admit it, yes.  Perfect?  Yes.  Difficult? Yes.  Worth it?  YES! 

We wanted to wait until we had full approval before shouting it from the rooftops because, we have learned, all kinds of things can happen.  

So, without further ado, our boys!