Introducing our focus for August: Raymond!

Raymond

Here's Raymond. He just had a birthday a few weeks ago and is now five years old. 

The only picture we have of little Raymond is a blurry one. Here's what I can tell you having been in the AMC community and seeing the different body types: his wrists look good. A large percentage of AMC kiddos have wrists that are clubbed. They look hooked like this:

Note the bent wrists.

The baby in this picture is my daughter. She could touch her fingers to her forearms. It made holding things very hard for her. It took serial casting and daily stretching and nightly splinting for those wrists to come to neutral (straight). Raymond won't need any of this. His wrists look good. Notice also that the infant's shoulders are inverted. You can tell that the palms of her hands face away from her body. Go ahead and do that with your own arms and see how your shoulders feel. That takes a supination stretch to undo, or a supination splint (a giant wrap-around thing) to train the arms to work in a way they can be used. Raymond will not need any of that either as far as I can see. That's wonderful! 

So what will he need? What I'm seeing for Raymond is clubfeet which will require Ponseti serial casting.  

And I'm also going to guess his knees are stuck in that bend. That may require casting or surgery. I know about knee surgery from what my daughter went through. Here's the link to her knee results after surgery or you can see this graph:

What I'm saying is that Raymond's AMC is HIGHLY treatable. He is getting zero treatment for it now, but he could really shine in a new family. I see walking in his future. But not where he is now.

Raymond is our focus this month. We'll not just focus on his AMC or how treatable it is, but we'll also try to really see Raymond through this blurry picture and get to know the little boy there. I have a soft spot for Raymond. You see he was born the same year as my daughter, and right now my daughter is running around with walking sticks and playing and laughing while Raymond is trapped in a crib. He is destined for life in a tiny prison. That does not make sense to this mama's brain. Please consider donating towards his grant fund by clicking here. Or please consider sharing his picture on Facebook. He needs people to really see him, through his situation, through his terrible picture--see the little boy who wants a mommy and has SO MUCH potential. He needs someone to make up for five missed birthday parties. He needs cute little glasses to make all the ladies swoon. He needs straight little feet that a couple months of casting can provide. He needs a chance. He needs a mom. And we need to stand in the gap between a life in a crib and finding his family. We need to share and donate and scream and holler and yell and panic over his fate.

We are needed!

Thank you for helping the Morrisons win the matching grant!

From Kelli:

"I am thrilled to personally let everyone know how incredibly thankful we are to all those that helped us to meet our matching goal!!! We raised a total of $1015!!!!!!!!!!!! We have been blown away this week with the love and generosity of so many that we know and don't know!!! Thank you does not justly express our gratitude to friends and family, but even more so to God above who is making it all happen! We can't wait for you all to meet our precious baby girl one day soon!!"

Thanks so much everyone! But the month is not over! If you want to give your $12 to the Morrisons who are 100% committed to bringing little Lily home, please still do so! They need it!

Matching Grant to bring home Lily!

Lily!

We have a matching grant for Lily's adoption! From now (RIGHT NOW) until Friday, July 13th, at noon (PST) every dollar you donate will be matched up to $1,000!!!

So your $1 becomes $2.

$5 becomes $10

And our usual $12 donations become $24!

If we only raise a few dollars then the matching grant will only match a few dollars. But we could raise $1,000 together!

Please go here to donate.

Lily's brothers are waiting for her to come home.

Lily's parents love her already.

Please help us use up this matching grant and get Lily home! 



Focus for July: Lily!

Todd and Kelli Morrison

Ususally we put a picture of the month's featured AMCer, but this time we're doing it a bit differently. This time we're focusing on the parents who are adopting little Lily from Thailand.

Now we just had AMC Awareness day on June 30th, and then most of us just got back from the AMC convention that just wrapped up last week. It's been a busy time for us AMC families. As for the Bring Hope core group, well one of us just graduated from college, another just got a full time crazy-wonderful job helping children in a hospital and one of us is traveling to adopt their AMCer this month. It's been a little nuts. Hectic in fact. And you'll have to excuse our late start for July. Most of the issue was that we wanted to make sure we would have a grant in place for this family so that we would not "waste" their month as they want to bring home their child around the first of the year and have a bit of fundraising to do between now and then. (Good news on that front. We have a grant! I'll post about that separately.)

Todd and Kelli are adopting a little girl they will name Lily. She's three years old. She has arthrogryposis. The Morrison family already have three boys at home who are waiting to meet their little sister. We know Kelli from her proactive steps to contact our AMC support group and learn more about arthrogryposis. Whereas many moms find us through a new diagnosis, you'd be surprised how many adopting moms find us and express the same fears and emotions as the new moms. No matter if they are choosing this or not, it's still a process and a journey for everyone.

We are short one week of advocating for this family. Please do us a favor and help us make up for that week! Share their GoFundMe page (http://www.gofundme.com/MorrisonAdoption) with your friends and family. Post it on Facebook and Twitter. Let's help this family cover their expenses so that nothing stands in the way of bringing home this little girl!

Introducing our focus for June: Elizaveta!

It is a bitter-sweet privilege to start our focus on nine-year old Elizaveta. She would have been the focus our very first month in business had she been available. You see Elizaveta disappeared somewhere within the system of her birth country, and without an exact location she was unlisted from Reece's Rainbow. Recently she resurfaced and we were allowed to advocate for her once again.  We got a small heads up before she was relisted, and there was a small flutter of excitement among those who care about her. Once her (updated) picture was safely on Reece's Rainbow we all let out a long-held breath.

This June reminds us of the June two years ago when we begged a family to choose her. You can read about that here. 

It's said in Elizaveta's birth country that the size of the little girl's head bow in her profile picture reflects the amount of love and favoritism of the orphanage nannies. I've seen this true time and time again as children adopted off Reece's Rainbow with these giant, bigger-than-their-head, bows seem more well-adjusted, happier and healthier than the average child in that situation. She was loved. She was lost and she was transferred.

But look at her now:

No longer the small girl, but the nine year old girl with the small smile. She seems confident. She's tough but not hard. Love does that.

She also shares my lack of pigment (or visible eyebrows) so forgive me if I imagine her in her new family discovering make up with her mom.

From the millions of blogs we posted on Awesome Alexis you probably get the idea of how much these kids want to be adopted. They want families and parents. Aging out of this system is not an option, it's death.

For June we hope to raise $5,000 for Elizaveta. We need donors. We need you. Please help us.

And we BEG you to share her picture. We found out yesterday that a friend of a friend of a friend committed to adopt one of our AMC kids based on something shared on Facebook. It happens and it's real and you can make a difference.

To support Elizaveta please go here. Right now she has $50 in her account. That's just a couple zeros short of our goal. :) We can do this!

If you would like to offer a gift towards a matching grant please email us at bringhopeto12in2012 (at) gmail (dot) com. We currently do not have any donor for Elizaveta.

Remember that for the children without committed families any gift over $20 has 10% taken out to help all the children listed. For the $12 donations we're asking, this does not effect your gift and 100% goes to Elizaveta. For those more generous consider spreading out $12 gifts throughout the month or contacting RR.

Thank you!

We did it!!!

Thank you!!!

The chance to win the $500 grant was posted late last night. I really didn't know if we could do it. Clearly I underestimated you wonderful people! During the night people started giving. Early this morning (or late this morning for you east coast guys) we found out we'd done it!

In one night! Just one night!

Thank you thank you thank you!

I've got to say our donor was surprised and happy too!

Alexis is up to $4,551!

We're still hoping to get Alexis' family up to $5,000 by June 1st. We have two days to do it. They are so close. If you were planning on giving, please still give! Alexis' family is going to be so surprised!

Thank you all so so so much!

$500 gift has been offered, but we need your help to get it!

BREAKING (middle of the night) NEWS!

We just heard from an anonymous donor who read about Alexis' story on our website. This donor has given to charitable causes in the past, orphans specifically, but ONLY if certain conditions were met. (And I know one case where those conditions were not met!) So here's the deal: If we can raise the Duval's Family Sponsorship Page from $3,044 where it's at now to $4,000 before June 1st then this anonymous donor will give $500 towards Alexis' adoption costs! If we don't reach $4,000 then no $500! This donor made it very clear that they won't be giving it unless we reach the $4,000 goal. I think they want to see who cares about this adoption. (Read all about adoption, living with arthrogryposis and Alexis herself in the posts below.) It would take 80 people giving their $12 gifts to reach this amount. We have 84 people following us on Facebook as well as many visitors on this site, but many of you have already given your $12!! Can we do it?! I told the donor we'd like to try and we are always thankful for the oportunity to raise these much needed grant funds.

Would you all please do me a favor and share this! We'd love that extra money for this family! (Our goal is still to reach $5,000, but with only two days left in Alexis' month, $4,500 would still feel mighty good.)

The Duvals just arrived back home with their son tonight (5/29). He's sleeping in his own bed and surrounded by family for the first time in his life. I can't imagine. It's a big adjustment, and for those who have known institutional living, well, being home makes little hearts full and heavy all at the same time. It gives me goosebumps to think of the unloved being loved and valued, needed and wanted. What a deep hole this love must fill!

The Duvals head right back out to get Alexis (who begs for a family) as soon as they are allowed. We would just love to step alongside this exhausted family and show them that they are not alone. For someone who has needed to raise adoption funds myself, it's very encouraging when others help in this way. It keeps us going.

To donate please go here. It's tax deductible.


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Note: Bring Hope to 12 in 2012 does not have a set list of donors. We rely on others! If you would like to contribute towards a giveaway or present a matching grant or gift, please contact us at bringhopeto12in2012 (at) gmail (dot) com. Donors are free to set their own conditions and deadlines. We are happy to facilitate you in any way we can. Thanks!