Will we be cocooning once we're home?

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We get home TODAY. Friends in the know about adoption have asked if we'll be "cocooning."

Maybe, maybe not.

Before I explain that, let me step back for those of you who are wondering what butterflies have to do with our return to Raleigh. Cocooning is a big thing in the adoption world. You stay home a lot, meet all your child’s needs so they learn to trust you, and stay away from anywhere with a lot of stimuli, like church and restaurants and the grocery store and so on. The intent is to keep your child's world small in the beginning so that they learn to trust you and learn what family is and learn about all the newness within a controlled and limited environment.

But?

That would be hard for us. And I don’t think it’s necessary.

For starters, we have cocooned here in Uganda. Almost six weeks of time together has helped our children understand each other and understand how our family works. That’s not to say they’ve learned all there is to learn, but they’ve learned enough that the introduction of other people will not be detrimental in the way it would have been after week one or two with us.

the terrorism threats provided some forced cocooning at times too...

Next, we are homebodies anyway. After having spent half of October and most of November away from the comfort of home, we are ALL ready to stay away from any place with a lot of stimuli.

Furthermore, we’ve had a rough go of it here in Uganda health-wise. We’ll need a lot of appointments in the beginning – our typical physical and occupational and speech therapy appointments for Zoe and Robbie, the pediatric infectious disease specialist for our child with HIV who has also had an infection here (suspected to be typhoid), the pediatrician for Zoe who had malaria here and another of our Ugandans who has still not fully recovered from a bout of malaria that almost killed her a couple months ago, and the school system for Patience, who is anxious to get started with school and whom we’ll probably be starting sooner than we initially planned.

Finally, church is a big part of who we are as a family, and I’m not sure we’re really teaching our newest children what our family is about without being immersed in our local church. Will we immediately drop them off in Sunday school? Probably not. For Philip, though, he’ll go to the same class as Robbie once it’s time, so it won’t be the same as just leaving him on his own. For Patience, we expected kindergarten to be an appropriate placement for her once she starts school, but we’re realizing she may be better suited for 1st grade with ESL support. We’ll see what the school system says, but if that’s the case, then she’ll join Jocelyn in Sunday school too. (Anyway, our children’s ministry team is absolutely amazing, so they’d be fine with Patience starting in the 1st grade class and moving later if that’s best for her transition.) So that only leaves our two year olds in different classes, and Patricia will hang out with me in an Ergo or sling for the first month or two at church.

Plus having Angie with us for three weeks helped the newest ones see that Mommy and Daddy could still be Mommy and Daddy with another grown-up helping too.

So will we cocoon? Not in the truest sense of the practice. We’ll do what works best for all of us, and we’ll switch up our plans if and when we need to.

That said, we do have one request. If you are in our home or see us out, and we seem to be struggling with discipline for one or more of our children (especially the Ugandans, but also the other three since they’re in the midst of major life changes), there are some ways you can help and one way you could possibly make things harder. You can help by offering a smile to encourage us; that gesture means more than you know. If you have time, you can help by loving and engaging the children who are not having a rough time in that moment so that we can focus on the one who is. The one thing that could make things harder for us is trying to help with the child who is struggling. Doing so might undermine our role as parents for that child. More importantly, we know the trauma they have experienced and the emotional maturity they have or lack. We respond to misbehavior and disobedience through that lens, so our parenting style might look different from what you expect and be different from how you might respond in an attempt to help.

For example, you might see an almost seven year old girl having a toddler-like tantrum and a mother who is having a hard time physically with her daughter, but we need to get through that struggle together to grow in our relationship. We know some of where she’s been and how she’s hurt and what progress she’s already made, and God has used all of that knowledge to equip us to be the best ones to meet her needs. For the sake of our child’s privacy, I won’t offer more details than that, but please, trust us.

In ways I won’t begin to describe, other than to mention that our first three children have experienced serious sickness while here in Uganda, please understand that all six of our children might act from places of trauma in the beginning. Please be patient with them and with us as we adjust.

And, since we’re not cocooning so much, some of that adjustment phase will be much more visible – and thus much more humbling – than it would be otherwise. Thank you for the grace you’ve extended to us so far and for the grace I know you’ll extend to us in the coming weeks.

I love y’all.

introducing Dingle, party of 8 {plus an invitation to the airport welcome home party}

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We have our children's visas. Hallelujah.

We'll be leaving Uganda late tomorrow and coming home to Raleigh on Friday, arriving at 3:45pm on November 22 at RDU via an American Airlines flight from London to Raleigh. Friends who'd like to come out to greet us as we come home, we would LOVE to have you! We'll have to go through customs and immigration, and we don't know how long that'll take - might be fast since RDU isn't a big international hub, might be slow since RDU isn't a big international hub. So sometime after 4pm-ish, we'll be there.

We'll be texting Heather and Angie to keep them posted of our immigrations process, so someone at the waiting place will be in the know about our arrival.

But? I bet y'all care far more about meeting the kids - virtually for now - than about the logistics at the airport, right?

Meet Patience, our spirited and smart and sassy and spunky and social and strong six year old.







Meet Philip, our friendly and formidable and fearless and funny and fierce and free-spirited four year old.








Meet Patricia, our teeny and tender and testy and tough and trusting and transparent (and sometimes trying) two year old.









Meet the Dingle family, party of 8.






i hate typhoid. {a post from a couple weeks ago}

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My last post was one I wrote a couple weeks ago. This post is one I wrote one day later. Thankfully, our child is on the mend from the suspected case of typhoid, but the fear I experienced in the night described below... the memory of that will linger.

When I wrote the last post, I said I was scared.

I didn’t know scared then.

How do you learn what is means to be scared?

When a little one with HIV, who just became your child the week before, spikes a fever and headache and body aches, and you have to rush to a hospital in the middle of the night for help, and the first hospital doesn’t have any nurses or doctors there at the moment, “scared” takes on a whole new meaning.

As you hold your dear one, burning up and lethargic, on your lap down dirt roads and past boda boda stands, it doesn’t matter if you’re not much of a crier. Tears fall.

As a kind man who has become a friend comes with you into the second hospital, you are thankful, even without knowing that he asked your husband’s permission to stay with you and protect you since it was dark and late and could be dangerous. The same dear man walked an hour to a different hospital two nights before because his baby had croup and he didn’t have the resources to get a ride there. The same dear man walked to another hospital a few years before with a sick baby who died in his wife’s arms during the two hours before the doctor arrived to see their child.

Yes, I learned what it means to be scared, but my friend taught me a greater lesson about kindness and sacrifice. I learned much more too…

How callously I treat the riches available to me at home.

How spoiled I am to be able to reach an on-call nurse or doctor when I need help in the middle of the night.

How blessed I am to be able to quickly and easily go to our local children’s ER whenever my kids need care, knowing that everything medically possible will be done for them.

How little difference it makes if I carried a child in my womb for nine months or in my arms for a few weeks… my heart hurt in the same way as it would have for Jocelyn or Robbie as I waited for medical attention for the one I carried through the hospital in the dark.

How encouraging social media can be, as I returned home to find that our internet had run out but still had ten comments to read that had come through on my phone before the web cut out.

How thankful I was for a medical experience that, despite not meeting the standards expected in the US, was perfectly adequate as professionals did what they could with all the resources they had.

How the 37,500 Ugandan shillings – roughly 15 US dollars – were a small price to pay for seeing two doctors and two lab techs, getting test results quickly, and leaving with two prescriptions.

How precious it was to return home to one sleeping baby girl and four awake children who couldn’t sleep without kisses from Mommy and assurance that their sick sibling was home safe.

How exhausting and joy-filled parenting can be, all at the same time.

i hate malaria {a post I wrote a couple weeks ago}

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I wrote this a couple weeks ago. The good news is that Zoe's health is restored, except for a little more fatigue than usual. Our passports have been received, though not in the timing I hoped for when writing this. The children's IOM medicals are complete, and we will have our interview at the US Embassy in Kampala today and should receive our visas on Wednesday. 

 If all goes according to that plan, we will fly out at 12:45am on Friday morning (really, more like Thursday night) and, after a stop in London, arrive in Raleigh at 3:45pm on November 22.

We knew there were risks in bringing our first three children to Uganda to bring home our newest three.

And now, Zoe has malaria.

We caught it early. We’ve started the medicine as directed by a Western doctor here and our pediatrician back home. We’re doing all we can to keep her fevers down and keep her comfortable.

I’m not going to lie. It’s scary.

I haven’t cried much while we’ve been here, but upon realizing that our baby girl is ill because we chose to bring her to Africa with us, the floodgates opened.

I hate malaria.

Malaria almost took the life of our youngest Ugandan a couple months ago. Now, malaria is visiting us once again.

Did I mention that this is scary?

God and I have had a lot of hard talks lately. I’m glad he can handle it. I trust that he has a purpose in all the struggles we’re having here in Uganda, but it’s still hard when we dwell in such uncertainty and illness in this beautiful country.

Pray with us.

Pray for us.

For health, not only for Zoe but also for those in our family having stomach issues. For our three Ugandans’ passports to be ready today, even though we’ve been told that’s not a possibility. For grace from the people we’ll deal with for the kids’ immigration medicals and for our embassy appointments for their visas. For strength and endurance for us. For God to let us in on what he is doing in all of this, because we ache to see the purpose in the pain.