My face is blue....

...from holding my breath! Supposedly, referrals are starting to flow from Ethiopia again. They actually started up a few weeks ago. I know this, because I look (very) frequently on the main ET adoption blog board (blogs from other agencies) to now see the words, "REFERRAL!" or "GUESS WHAT WE GOT TODAY?" or "FINALLY!" Twice, throughout the last 3 weeks, our agency has implied that there is referral storm-a-brewin. So, naturally, I navigate to our agency site (yahoo group) to look for good news about a dozen times a day only to find no referral announcements. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It is like I have been holding my breath for a very, very long time for an inch of movement; two and a half months, to be exact. I can't even imagine what it must feel like for that poor family that is next in line for referral all of this time!

I decided that I must hast have PTAS (Post Traumatic Adoption Stress) because there was a time, about 3.5 years ago, when we were also told that we were very close to referral for our Taiwanese Princess. I looked on my email numerous times a day, and then eventually, a month passed, then a year, then two years, then three. I can't help but to have that panicked feeling creep back up again - like this will just never happen.

What am I doing in the meantime to keep sane? Hanging with the boys, of course. Also, working at my job, working at my home, dreaming about what colors to paint our huge, blank white walls, learning the ins-and-outs of autistic teenage boys (I have an oddly large number on my caseload this year), blowing a lot of nose, coughing a lot of cough, hanging out with friends, attempting to cook again, and deciding what to name our daughter. I am not revealing the name just yet, but I will give the hint that the top contender(s) seem to all be starting with the letter M. Oh, and I did paint my first canvas painting! It is not too shabby, but not worthy to adorn one of our main living area walls. It found a sweet little spot downstairs on a hallway wall.

Good day, Sunshine!

I would just like to share with you all that my spirits are lifting. The last few posts have been so gloomy, I know. But the day after I wrote those, I woke up feeling much better (health wise), the sun was shinning, and I had a great morning hanging out with my friend (and now practical neighbor!) named Cori. Even though Cori and I have not been able to actually "talk" much without distractions, I am so renewed when we do get the chance. I think I will call her my Buddha Mom. She simply speaks with clarity for what I feel and encourages my heart.

I now have had this renewed sense of being regarding this adoption. There has been no referral movement this week, but that's okay because at least I am excited again! I feel happy again! I am extremely lucky to have a such an amazing circle of friends that are there to pick us up when we fall down, dust off our clothes, put band-aids on our ouchies, then scoot us on our way.

Our house has been bugged

Not recommended to share a straw with your son knowing darn well that the flu has hit his school, then the next day start to drink that nastiest drink EVER to make your insides squeaky clean for a colonoscopy, then start puking, then have your son start puking, then start cleaning puke whilst continuing to drink that nasty crap, because despite the fact your are sure your son has the flu and that you have the same symptoms, you keep telling yourself that you just have a reaction to the drink and you MUST.... KEEP... DRINKING....THE....NASTY..... until you have puked it all up again and/or you feel "cleansed", and then no matter what, after 24 hours of this, be sure to drag yourself to a butt doctor because you have taken the day off of work for it, to have him find you are so dehydrated that they have to give you an extra IV bag to do the procedure, but still be determined to follow through, and when all is done, have them put an extra dose of anti-nausea in the IV so that you can have the energy to go home, cuddle with your son, then shortly after clean up his projectile vomit that literally covers you from head to foot. No, I would not necessarily recommend this to anyone else but YOUR WORST ENEMY!

WHEW!

Seriously, I am now better, and my insides look just swell (in case you were wondering), but our poor little duder has been puking for 3 days now.

"You are never happier than your saddest child." I totally get that now and sure hope he feels better tomorrow.

Getting Spooked

Out there, there are over 10 million orphans needing a family. Right here, there is 1 family that has been exhaustively waiting for over four years to bring one of those sweet children home to raise in our love. Why does it have to be so hard??

We (leaning more toward "me") have been questioning lately if we should even continue. We are older. And, we are older. Sucks. So much time has passed and there is no end in sight. All of this mixed in with a few little health glitches lately (not serious, just most likely related to our aging, rusting bodies) have spooked us a bit with continuing.

I have been doing a lot of stomping around with my little tantrums the last few weeks. "If all had gone as planned, we would have been sending our little one to nursery 3's this year instead of waiting to get a baby nursery ready!" Like this is really doing a hell of a lot of good.

HOWEVER... our mantra lately has been that this little bump in the road is too little to create a permanent road block. We are fighting to resist our insecurities daily because we know that if we call it quits now, we will go against our hearts and alter all three (four) of our life courses forever. Sure, we have our little comfort zone now and could be okay, but envisioning a future without "her" just seems so sad! We also have to tell ourselves that 40 is the AVERAGE age in international adoption. Like us, many others have had a very difficult path to building their families - hence the later age. I know that many 40+ and even 50+ women bring home their babes, despite similar fears, and are head-over-heals with their new additions.

Getting spooked (Part II)

There is also the Kid to factor in to our decisions. In fact, if anything, he is like our little beacon that has helped shed the light down our path, so we can't just disregardingly blow out his flame. I have hung out with other "only children", and they seem ambivalent to having a sibling. Before the Kid was privy to our adoption, he expressed his desire for a sibling.

It has often been easy to forget how invested he is in all of this. Without a doubt, he will be the most amazing big bro. Friends and teachers alike comment on how intuitive he is to younger children. He can be surrounded by 5 year old activity, but if a toddler falls down across the room, he will leap and bound over to that child to help them out. If my friends are over with their babies, he will just sit there and gush over them. I mentioned before that he has a little dark skinned doll that he "takes care of" and talks about his sister from "Epiopia" daily.

We tried to shield him from the whole adoption concept, but last summer when referrals were shooting out right and left - moving us up the referral list at rapid pace - we let down our guard. And after all, if you read one of my earlier posts, he was pivotal in our decision to switch to ET as one day he walked up to me, handed me a beautiful shade of brown from Crayola's People Colors and said, "I want a sister THIS color." It was hard to resist not letting him share in the excitement of it all and I hope and pray that we did not make a mistake by doing this.

The other day in a moment of weakness after a day of exceptional freak-outs, I was in the Kid's room helping him clean up. He brought up his future sister, and I - no doubt projecting - told him that we are thinking of moving up our age limit to a toddler. I then foolishly proceed to tell him that getting an older child would mean she might be really mad, hurt, scared, and cry a lot for a long time, and that might not be any fun at all.....

I think I half expected him to agree so we'd really have incentive to cut the cord, but instead he looked at me speechless, for what seemed an eternity, with a (oh no, mom, you are NOT backing out of this... are you?) fearful, loaded expression that I will never forget. Eventually his verbal response was, "Well, I will just give her one of my stuffy's, hug and kiss her, and tell her it will be all right. I'll just love her really bad."

I went into the other room and cried. Of course that is what we'll do, Kid. This boy needs his sister. He has it figured out for us. The joys of innocent clarity.

Undigging those heals!

So, adoption saga number 1,487. Yes, the delay on referrals continues. I had a nice long chat with our case worker last week. She feels that we will have some delay, but not too much (in adoption lingo, "not too much" can translate to months). She said that instead of looking like a late winter referral, it might be more like late springish/early summerish .... that is, until adoption saga number 1,488.

There is a feeling in the air. I think all waiting families are feeling this. Ethiopian adoptions might look a little more positive today, but based on former experience from other countries, there is a feeling that ET adoptions might be going down the tubes. Like, none of those innocent, legitimate orphans will be eligible to be adopted... at all... in the near future. Vietnam, Taiwan, Nepal - they have closed their adoption doors. Ethiopia seems to be possibly falling down that same slippery slope.

The ET government has tightened their adoption reigns for now, though, which is a good thing. It really, really is for the sake of those children being taken from their families and shipped overseas under false pretenses. But at the same time...

We. Are. Tired. Of. Waiting. Period.

I kind of feel like we are hanging on to this by the nails of our pinkies at the tip of a fine, silk thread.

This may sound trivial, but I think we are going to up our age limit to 18 months. I know, it does not sound like much of a jump from 12 month, but in terms of attachment, a lot can happen to that developmental part of the brain in that 6 months. Raising a child with RAD (reactive attachment disorder) brings on a unique set of challenges that we have frankly been concerned with our capability of handling. Mind you, the majority of kids 18 mo. and older are not affected by RAD and are truly delightful, but each month older does increase the risk. Challenges include tantrums, lack of bonding and boundaries, hard to change bad behaviors, etc. Many families only request up to 12 months for this reason.

I am going to let you all in on a little secret. I have always had a desire to adopt an older child. It can be scary as hell, but the thought of bringing a toddler home just sits well with me. A baby would be wonderful, don't get me wrong, but now that the Kid is older, I just sort of like the idea of having them closer in age, and I confess, less time dealing with diapers and sleepless nights.

The fears of RAD mostly stem from Husband. Those required homestudy courses shook him up a bit! Yes, there are more risks with older children, but I think we can ride whatever storm comes our way. We raised (continuation) one challenging child and I know we can muster up the energy again. We will have our family, so together it will be a process that I know we can work through.

Having these new referral delays has brought this discussion back on the table, as upping the age may bring our child home faster. I am pleased to say that I think Husband might be digging out his dug in heals, so don't be surprised if my next post titles. "0-18, Baby!"