Faith to Move a Mountain

In November of 2011, I started this blog as a sort of journal to chronicle the events of our son Quinton's adoption. Quinton is a little boy who was born with an extra special something. Quinton has down syndrome and was given up at birth by his parents because he has down syndrome. His birth parents must not have had any idea what a blessing he would be or I am sure they would not have given him up. Unfortunately in Eastern Europe (Quinton is from Ukraine) people with disabilities are not accepted in society and at the age of 4-6, they are sent to adult mental institutions where most of them die :( Although it breaks my heart that his parents have missed out on such a joyful little boy, God has used this unfortunate situation to bless us with a gift greater than I could have ever imagined: the gift of our first child. If you ever considered adoption-do it! Don't let money deter you. God provided over $20,000 for us to adopt Quinton. We were not fully funded until 50 minutes before we boarded our plane to Ukraine. If you have never considered adoption, go back to the beginning of this blog and read. You will see what a blessing adoption really is. Many people tell us that we are angels for rescuing Quinton, but the honest truth is this: Quinton has given me far more that I will ever be able to give him. He is my little miracle, my silly bug, my baby boy, my love. HE IS MY LIFE!

Friday, July 22, 2011

What's In A Name?

I had someone ask in one of the comments if we ever announced Quinton's middle name. I honestly don't remember if we did on the blog or not, but we did on facebook. Sorry-I forget sometimes that we have different readers on different networks. So as most of you know, in the end we decided on the name Quinton Jonathan Miller, but I don't believe I have told the story of how we came about it.

First things first. The name Quinton came from Reece's Rainbow. The children on this site are listed with alias names. We did not realize this until we were already several steps into the process. We came to know him a Quinton and the name just stuck so we kept it. I'ts cute and the nicknames that went with it were too hard to give up.

The hard part for us was picking out a middle name. We had toyed around with Alexander, but we found out that it is a Ukrainian tradition to give each son a patriarchal name. The do this by using the father's first name followed by "ovich" (I think). We found out that Quinton's birth father's name was Alexander and we were not to fond of keeping his father's name since  he decided to give him away (thanks Mr.-your loss, our gain).  We asked for suggestions from friends for fun and got lots of great suggestions. We thought that we had plenty of time to decide, but we were wrong. We were riding in the car and Marina said "ok, I need to know the child's new name." Hmmm...we had about 5 minutes to decide. Brian pulled out his phone that had an app on it about names and meanings. I told him that I had remembered someone suggesting a name that meant "gift from God" which was perfect. He looked it up and both Matthew and Jonathan had the same meaning. So, we said it over and over again and I still could not decide so I left it up to Brian and he chose Jonathan. Just in case you missed it, later we played a joke on facebook. We explained the Ukrainian tradition and announced his name as Quinton Brianovich Miller just for laughs. (If you don't know-Brian is my husband's name). We got a few good laughs. I also toyed with the idea of announcing him as Quinton Oneless Miller (for one less orphan) and Quinton Minusone Miller (for 147 million orphans-minus one). I wanted to do them all, but in the end we went with Brianovich just because it was the most believable.

The last name was a given :)

So there you have it: Quinton Jonathan Miller

Everyday with Quinton gets a little bit better. We are learning more and more about him all the time. I am hoping that soon we will start to recognize what his signals are: when his little grunts mean his tummy hurts or when they mean he is frustrated or hungry, when his cries mean he is scared or when he just needs to be loved on or....when he is just being a booger. I am pretty sure we had a lot of the latter going on today ;) One of the toughest things is figuring out where to draw the line. He is starting to fuss more and more when he wants us or if he is not sitting facing the way he wants, or if he wants something he has dropped. I am so tempted to give into it all because for so long he has been without. I want him to know that we are here for him, but I know he will have to learn that he cannot have everything he wants. Right now we are not giving him lots of "things" we are just showering him with attention and love and I think it is making him rotten LOL!

Tonight Quinton fell asleep in my arms. Brian came in and asked me if I wanted him to lay Quinton in the crib and I told him not yet. I rocked him in my arms for what seemed like forever until my arms burned and then I sat down with  him in my lap and just thanked God for my precious little boy, for Quinton Jonathan Miller-my gift from God-my match made in heaven :)






We have tickets on the overnight train from Quinton's region to the capital. We are working on booking flights for Thursday of next week. If we get the flight we want, we will be in Charlotte at 3:25 pm! Yay!

5 comments:

  1. ooo that last picture is precious! x

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  2. He is just sooooo CUTE!! You'll get in a routine, and learn all about him when you get home & settle...it's hard to say no, but in the long run, he'll be happy not receiving everything he wants. :D Sounds like you understand that already!

    Rochelle

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  3. I almost miss that place.

    He is so cute, I love his blonde hair. I am so glad he is finally yours. I will be praying for the next few days for you. Oh, you should request the bulkhead seats on the plane, if you haven't thought about it already. They have a bassinet, so he can sleep. It was wonderful for us. And of course there is more leg room too.

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  4. Love his name!It fits him well.His is sooo cute!

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  5. Praise the Lord... you'll soon be heading home - yaaay!!! Quinton is the cutest little boy (that beautiful blonde hair nearly looks white)! I already can tell that you all are going to make great parents, and I'll certainly continue to keep you in my prayers. I can't wait until Quinton meets Anna - and I pray it can be soon. Congratulations on your precious son!

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