Nathaniel came home from the hospital with round the clock private duty nursing. I would love to write a blog post on how smooth Nathaniel's second first night home went. But it didn't. We were up all night fixing problems the night nurse was creating. At two in the morning I asked her to sit in the living room. She had told me she was afraid to drive in the dark and I couldn't turn her out in the middle of the night.

A full body wiggle and smile greeted me every day

when I arrived at Ranken Jordan. Today we were going home!

The staff at Ranken Jordan determined a second goal prior to discharge was for Nathaniel's trachea to be evaluated and stabilized. Nathaniel had been scheduled for a bronchoscopy in July prior to placement with us, but the test was canceled due to a fever. It was rescheduled for the first week of August, which ended up being our third day at Ranken Jordan. At 5 p.m. the night before his Children's Division case manager canceled the test because there was no court order on file for him to receive general anesthesia. The test was rescheduled again.

I needed Nathaniel. It’s all sugar sweet and lovely to think about adoption simply as orphans needing families and loving families stepping in, but there is more to the story.

We are headed out the door to St. Louis Children's Hospital this morning and it seems the perfect occasion to share who currently makes up Nathaniel's amazing team of doctors. Collectively, we have about two or three doctor appointments a month.

It will be very hard to put into a few words what Nathaniel's eighteen day stay at Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital meant to our family. The hospital specializes in moving medically complex children from acute care hospitalizations to home - a bridge.

I had known since 8:30 that they were coming at 11 o'clock, but when they walked in the door dressed in blue and pushing an ambulance gurney, I stated to sob uncontrollably.

This weekend marks five years that Rich's father has lived with us. We considered waiting to adopt until our season of assisting Grandpa was over. Caring for an aging parent in your home is a unique challenge that only those in the trenches can fully understand. Accepting additional responsibility through adoption seemed... let's be honest... risky? Or extreme? Or radical? At the very least - hard. One of my struggles while taking the foster and adoption classes was the long mental list of the sacrifices I've already made for the sake of elderly care. "Surely God, you don't expect me to take in a child when I'm already giving so much?"