Ethan: "One who is Steadfast and Strong"

I feel that names are very important and hold a lot of value. When my father named me "Misty" it made him think of the refreshing mist that rises from a waterfall. He used to tell me that my name meant "One who refreshes others". My middle name is Ann meaning "Grace" so I have taken this a step further and consider the meaning to be "One who refreshes others with grace". My name has been a beautiful challenge to live up to on a daily basis.

In naming my own children I have kept this in mind. We had chosen the name Ethan a while back but I recently rechecked the meaning. Ethan is Hebrew and means "permanent and concrete; enduring, firm and steadfast" Ethan is the author of Psalm 89 which talks of God's mercies.

As I began to evaluate the name I realized how fitting it is. Our Ethan was born to a mother with HIV yet God was merciful and he did not contract the disease. Ethan was born with Hydrocephalus and has been untreated for it. The majority of children would have died or been severely handicapped by his age, but, by God's mercy, he has pulled through with virtually no side effects. Our son is a fighter. He has been strong and, with God's mercy, has endured. It is my prayer that some day he will be able to "sing of the mercies of the Lord" and will be a young man who is "strong, firm and steadfast" in his spiritual life as well.

Another Update

Our second updated picutes came on June 13.

This is Ethan with Huynh Thi Ngoc Truc,

a little girl on the waiting child list with our agency.

Updated Pictures!

Our first updated pictures were taken on May 31.

What a cute little guy!

I love the curled lip and raised eye brow in this picture!

Waiting to Travel

Now we wait to travel. During this time there are several steps that have to be completed in Vietnam before we are allowed to bring Ethan home. The main thing is the preparation of his paper work, which includes a police investigation to find the birth mother.

When all of this is complete they will set up what is called a Giving and Receiving Ceremony (G&R) in which he becomes officially ours!

The estimated time for this process is 3-5 months from the time our dossier (our paperwork) has arrived in Hanoi. We sent our dossier to Vietnam on May 21st. After being translated it arrived in Hanoi on June 15th. At this point we hope to receive travel dates in October.

The Past

At 3:20 pm on September 7, 2005, a young mother gave birth to a little boy at the Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. The young girl was only 24 years old and was infected with HIV. She claimed her name was Doan Thi Thom and the father was Nguyen Minh Thinh, but no one knows the accuracy of this. She also claimed to be from the northern province of Thanh Hoa, again unconfirmed. We do know that she chose, for whatever reason, to leave her child in the care of the hospital.

The hospital named the little boy Doan Phu Loc. He weighed 7.04 lbs. and was diagnosed with hydrocephalus. He continued living at the hospital for the first month of his life.

On October 20, Loc was taken to Tam Binh 1 orphanage where he has lived since. On that same day, half way around the world, another young mother (the same age) was bringing her son home from the hospital. These two little babies, a month, and half a world apart, would someday become brothers.

As for Loc's mother, we will never know her story. She was young, infected with HIV, and probably unmarried. Perhaps it was poverty that kept her from keeping her child, or maybe the stigma of being an unwed mother. We will never know. But whatever the reason, God was watching out for this little boy and already preparing a family for him. It is through this young womens loss that God has chosen to bless us with our son...Ethan.

Love at First Sight

First picture we saw
May 7, 2007 was the day we first saw our son. We had officially been on the waiting list for a "healthy" child for 8 weeks. On that day I went to the waiting child list (children with special needs) and saw a beautiful little boy. His name was Doan Phu Loc and his birthday was September 7, 2005, making him only a month older then Evan, our son. I had been hoping for a child the same age as Evan so, as you can imagine, I was excited.

I began to research his condition (hydrocephalus--sometimes known as water on the brain) and Tyler and I prayed hard. One week later we requested to formally "review" him. Our agency emailed us his other pictures and medical report. At this point he would be ours if we chose him.

What can I say, it was love! We knew it wouldn't be easy and his medical condition had many unknows. We knew he would have to wait till he was home for medical treatment and that presented a big risk...but we also knew this was our child. God made it clear that this was the path He had chosen and we could hardly wait!

On May 21st we accepted the referral and Doan Phu Loc became our Son-To-Be!

Starting Out

In November of 2005, Tyler and I (Misty) began to think about adoption. We had two children at the time and knew we wanted more. God gave us a desire to adopt the next child and I began to research international adoption for the next year. On November 1, 2006 Evan had recently turned 1 (the required age for our youngest child before we could begin the process) and we applied to adopt from Vietnam through Children's Hope International (CHI).

We had originally said that we wanted a child "as young as possible". We then changed our minds and said up to 12 months old, then 18 months, and eventually 2 years. We knew we would get a boy because we were open to "either" and there are more boys available in Vietnam.

Why Vietnam? I don't know. At first it was because we couldn't adopt from the other countries we were looking at because of some of the rules they had. To us, Vietnam seemed to be the best fit. But in the end, I believe it was God leading us to our son. Now, even though I have never been there I am in love with Vietnam. It is a beautiful land and I look forward to the enrichment it's culture will bring into our home and lives.

Application For CHI

Introduction

I have another blog that tells all about our family as well as the adoption. However, this one is dedicated to telling of our journey to Ethan...our beautiful son.

Our other blog will be linked on the side. You can also get to it at mistyandtyler.blogspot.com