Words

My emotional adoption journey has been like the changing tides. The water comes in and I am high with excitement and anticipation. Other days - like the low tide - those elated feelings get pulled away leaving me feeling nervous and very scared of the "what ifs".

Sometimes late at night, I spend waaaay too many hours reading blogs from other ET adopters. The majority of them are full of happy stories with pictures of adorable kids. Their stories are like those that are made of rainbows and unicorns. I am thankful they are out there. They can't help but suck me into the excitement and affirmation for this wacky quest that we have found ourselves in. And then there are those others; the blogs written by women/mothers who write from the depths of their souls. They reveal their inner most struggles and thoughts so that we may all learn from them, and OK... I'll say it ... freak out a little.

Husband thinks I am nuts for even reading these at all, and when I do, my tendency to skip over all the mushy blogs and go right to the hard core. The ones that after reading make me put down the computer, stagger into Husband's arms, cup his cheeks in my hands so that he is forced to look into my fear stricken, tear swelling eyes as I clearly articulate, "What in the HELL are we doing?"

Despite this, I don't think I am nuts (well, not entirely). If anyone knows me, they know that I have that kind of mentality; I just leap right over best case scenario and land in the worst case puddle so that I can splash around there for a while. I'm kind of like one of those glass half empty type of gals, so in honor of my depleted glass, I love the fact that those blogs are out there. I almost try to mentally put myself into the blogger's shoes so I can test myself to see if I can hack it. After all, the stuff of attachment (or lack of) and grief are heavy and are all real possibilities when adopting a child - especially babies and children that are older than newborns from other countries.

I confess that I did (and still do a little) feel drawn to adopt a toddler (up to age 3) because there would not be the 2:00 am bottles, closer to the Kid's age, and the fact that there is more of a need for adoption of older kids. The Husband, however, is adamant that an infant is the best for him and us. He stands firm and has never wavered from this in the 4 years that we have been on our wacky adoption (nightmare) quest. Reflecting on our current places in life with the Kid and all, I do have to mostly agree with him.

I really am getting to the point as to why I just jumped from reading heavy blogs to age request (rather than just boring you from my 2:00 am typing spew), and here it is....

One of the beautifully raw blogs I love to read is http://zehlahlum.blogspot.com/. I really like the name as "Zehlahlum" means "Forever" in Amharic (one of the primary languages in ET). I have no idea who the author is of this blog because she is also careful to keep her family names private, but I feel she speaks my words that I often have a hard time verbalizing. They adopted a toddler several months ago and she has documented the struggles she and her family have faced forming attachment with their wonderful yet strong willed daughter who is resisting the trust and love that they so desperately want to give.

The other day I read one of her travel logs that she journaled regarding her thoughts, feelings, and experiences of traveling to ET to adopt her daughter and meeting the birth mother. Lately I have been thinking a lot about the birth mother, too. I am pretty sure that our daughter is now in someone's womb or has been born, and I assume that, being a mother myself, our future child's mother's heart is now very conflicted and hurting with the decision she most likely knows that lays ahead (or has already made). My heart is breaking for her. It also weighs heavy in thoughts that my daughter will not get to grow up in beautiful ET.

When I talk with husband about this, he sees it from more of a black and white perspective. He says that she will be put up for adoption due to circumstance we can not control and someone is going to adopt her and it will be lucky for her that it will be us who will because we'll give her a great life - unlike the hardship she most likely would have faced growing up as a female in ET. Wish I could think like him.... but not I. I am allllll gray and then some.

I emailed the Zelhalhum author to ask if I could quote her from one of her logs, though I did not hear back. Surely her hands are full with her "Little Miss" and has much more important things to do then respond to me (like working on getting her daughter to stop head butting her then spitting in her face), so I am hoping that she does not mind my quote, as I do so with respectful credit to her experience. Her description reads completely true to how I am feeling now and what I think I will feel when I am there. Actually, I probably won't feel this doom and gloom all of the time, but am pretty sure I will feel this a lot.

I copied this from her description of looking out the window of the bus she was taking in route to meet her daughter's birth mother.

"These people are just living their lives. A life that I am sorry to have taken away from my daughter. They are not sitting around their huts waiting to be rescued by America. They don't need that. Yes, there is need for some change, but it needs to be done carefully and with respect. They need support-- yes, but saved? No! I know it's not my fault that Little Miss can't stay here. I haven't caused her adoption and if we weren't adopting her someone else would be, but there's no denying the loss in adoption. Her first mother lost Little Miss. Little Miss lost her first mother. Ethiopia lost Little Miss. Little Miss loses Ethiopia. Adoption is just wrapped around and around loss until we can put a glossy photo on it and tie it with a bow. And somehow I am the one who benefits. I gain a daughter. It feels presumptuous and unfair, but wonderful. For me, just for me though."