A letter to my son

My Dearest J,

I love you with all of my heart. And then some. My love for you has tripled since we added Sister to our family. You do know that we give you the majority of the credit that she is now with us, right?  Your Dad and I had hit our emotional limit several times throughout the years with this adoption. We had a handful of stop dates marked on our calendar, but when we would tell you that we were stopping, your little soul appeared to shatter. You would cry the most genuine tears for hours at a time. You were a boy who needed his sister and was determined to see this through, so we continued on.

Being an only child for 7 years, we predicted struggles you might have with the transition of an instant 3 year old sister, but never could we have dared predict how much of a trooper you would handle it all! I know.... sometimes she is not very nice to you which leaves me to wonder if you did not get (as a sister) what you bargained for, but you tell me that you understand why she is the way she is. You say it is because she has never had a sibling and has always had to fight with other kids for what she has received and that we just need to work hard to teach her.  Even when I go to hug you (after she's kicked you in the shin), you will whisper, "Mom... now go and hug her so she does not feel left out!"

Yes, your former undivided attention has now been divided, but you never seem to care. Luckily, I have taken time off of work to spend all of my energies on you and Y.  I know you appreciate that I still try to give you equal 1:1 time still - if not more than before. It is during these cherished alone times that I share my concerns. How are you? Did you feel sad that she pushed you 3x today? Are you getting enough time on your own? I had to attend to her needs after dinner and could not hear out the story of your latest adventure, so did that hurt your feelings? He will always answer as "No". He will always say he understands all of it and that he is more happy that we have Sister (even though that means less attention comes to him) than being just alone. You have never complained.

I have seen you mature before my very eyes these last three months. Sometime I will almost reach my breaking point (after having a little one hang on my pant leg for 10 hours straight) and sensing this, you'll swoop in without asking to divert her away to an activity alone with you. You did not blink when we almost entirely cut out electronics because you said that this will just motivate you to play with Y more. As part of your maturity, you have had the tendency to want to smother and care-take her a little too much. You possess a wise-beyond-years empathy for others, but you are learning and understanding when enough is enough. I have heard you now ask for hugs and then say, "Oh, I can see that you don't want a hug right now, so I will wait." For anyone that knows your big huggy heart, this is huge for you to be able to step back and understand this!

It warms my heart each day when you tell me how much you love her and how happy you are that Y is your sister. Not a day goes by that when after you barge through our front door after school and call out for Y so that you can get right to playing, I don't think how fortunate I am to have you. To have her. That you both have each other. We are complete now - which is something you verbalize often.


Last but not least, how can I not shed light on your silly, rascally antics and how you have strengthened you and your sister's bond by tapping into her silly and rascally side, too. You have taught her her how to make zany faces, tooting on command, Lego men launches, ballet with attitude, snorkeling in the hot tub, couch trampoline, and how to promote dad's immaturity (just to name a few examples). Bellow is a glimpse into a now typical chaotic dinner prep with an "(I want an) Avocado! Avocado!"

Even though Y does not always know how to show it yet, I can tell that she is crazy about you. You are her totally awesome big brother! How can she not be nuts about you? You are the best big brother that was even born in January, 2006. And, in general, you are just the best boy EVER. To my little music maker, dancing maniac, wildly creative, clever as a whip, dramatic king, and silliest bug.... you make me proud in more ways than I can list. I love you!

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO - Mom

Feeling charitable this holiday season?

Oh my, the holiday season is rapidly approaching! This is a time that you might be brainstorming on a nice gift to give to others or even hope that you receive! For our family and what we have recently experienced through adoption, we are entering this holiday season from a different prospective. First, we have spent time in a country of beautiful people who experience extreme hardships on a daily basis. A place where little monetary value for us could go a long, long way for them. Second, due to the hardships that one mother, our daughter's birth mother, has had to face in her life resulting in her need to give up her little girl to adoption, we feel a combination of great remorse, gratitude, and motivation to make a difference. Whereas we cannot change the situation that has happened in Y's  mother's situation, we hope that we can make a little difference in preventing similar situations happening to other families.

So, instead of giving a nice new sweater to someone, think about possibly putting that money toward
sponsoring a child in school for a month or making a donation that will buy 10 new books for  library? I am betting that the spirit of giving will shine brighter for both the giver and receiver with such a gift. :)

The charitable opportunities in Ethiopia are endless, but I am highlighting a few that I feel to be top-notch. I am pretty tuned in to the adoptive community and in contact with women who feel strongly about giving aid to Ethiopia. These non-profit organizations (many grass roots) have very little or zero overhead costs and seem to come up frequently as ethical organizations that do a lot of good. I will continue to add to this list as my research continues, but here is a good start. I encourage you to click on each link and see if one stirs you!


1. Lola Children's Fund  www.lolachildrensfund.org
 I put this as #1 on my list as this is the one we will be contributing to. This organization is located in our daughter's birth area of Mekele. This organization gives orphaned children who are affected by HIV a chance to receive residential care, medical care, and schooling. They also support families who are at-risk due to HIV. We will be doing the $35/mo child sponsorship program. They also have just one time donation opportunities.

2. Ethiopia Reads  ethiopiareads.org
Many adoptive families are dedicated to this cause and even make personal trips to see the benefits that this organization provides. Check out their informative website to see all that they do. Their primary focus is to build schools and libraries (including mobile libraries via motor or donkey) as well as in-service and trainings for locals that will be involved with these projects.

3. Roots Ethiopia rootsethiopia.org
This organization's main focus is providing kick start grants (to primarily women) so that they can start their own income generating businesses. Love this! In addition, they also have a school sponsorship program. It is possible to make a one time donation to a general fund or a monthly school sponsorship donation. The founder, Meghan Walsh, said that I can share my email with you all if you have specific questions meghan@rootsethiopia.org. I hear nothing but good things about this one and when we get more $$ in our pockets again, we will also be contributing to this organization.

4. FAYYE Foundation www.fayyefoundation.org
This organization was founded by a fellow WACAP adopter, Jamie Lynn Grumet. I think she is a powerhouse and I put my trust in her compassion and cause. This foundation focuses on micro loans, maternal mortality, and clean water projects.  

5. AHOPE  www.ahopeforchildren.org 
This is a school/family sponsorship program for children living with HIV. This is a long standing foundation that has a stellar reputation.

6. TESFA  www.tesfa.org 

For all my athletic friends out there, you might like this one! This foundation focuses on school construction, education, and sport development programs. They have a housing and training program for teen girl runners. You might also want to click on this movie clip: townofrunners.com  to check out of some of the good they contribute to.

7. WEEMA www.WEEMA.org
They just do a lot. Check them out!

The following are Christian school sponsorship programs that carry good reputations.

8. Embracing Hope International www.embracinghopeethiopia.com

9. Bring Love In  www.bringlove.in

10. World's Greatest Beans worldsgreatestbeans.com  These folks partner with Bring Love In and 20% of proceeds go to their foundation. Buy some beans! Support a cause!

 

The Flight

 Any travel that lasts 48 hours (25 hours in the air) is bound to contribute to an interesting story, but sprinkle in a terrorist threat, stomach flu, hysterical kid, and rude flight attendants, well, it is the makings for a novel! (Don't worry - I will just make it a cliff notes version).

As if we did not have enough to worry about flying with our scared little girl the day before our departure from Addis, we opened our email to a flood of warnings from US security that the VERY DAY we were to be flying over and staying in the middle east, there was a serious threat of a terrorist attack. All US embassy's were to be shut down the morning we were flying out. We decided to ditch our overnight hotel plans in Dubai and instead get a hotel inside the Dubai airport. We figured not traveling outside of security and into public transport would ease the stress, just a bit. 

On the morning of our departure, we knew it was going to be a struggle. Now that I know Y's personality, she was sensing that there was going to be a big happening coming up that she did not trust or understand, so she was going put herself into 100% fight or flight mode. For her, that is displayed by means of stubbornness and defiance. I get this. I really do. She was scared and confused. No doubt, any and all people might act similar in the same traumatic situation. Again, I have compassion for her experience as I share how we all struggled in this situation.

Despite prepping her for days about the concept of a seat belt, she was not going to have it in the cab ride to the airport. This was our first glimpse that we were about to enter the gates of hell.  Getting out of the cab, she went into 100% survival mode, so this meant that every single item we had that she perceived as hers (which was pretty much everything), she was not going to part with. Of course she  had to be this way... as she desperately had to hold on to all that she understood and had control over. She was going to carry/drag/push almost every piece of luggage that we had with her through the airport. Of course, she could not, so this created quite the scene for all Ethiopians in the airport to witness. If this photo above could talk, you would hear her screaming at me "NO! Y!" as I was 5 steps ahead with the rest of the loot. There are understandably mixed emotions from Ethiopians regarding Westerners coming and adopting out their children, so to be making such a huge spectacle of ourselves in such a public place was uncomfortable, to say the least.

We finally boarded the Emerits plane with our kicking and screaming child. This photo captures the brief 15 minutes that she was happy before take-off. The sweet flight attendants (on this flight) showered her with gifts to calm her down, so she had a moment of distraction. I remember mustering this smile both out of relief thinking that she might be manageable on the flight and that we were finally on the plane to bring our daughter home. About 5 seconds after this photo was taken (as you can tell, I was actually going in to snap that blasted seat belt), the following 5 hours in air to Dubai was seriously the worst 5 hours of my (our) life. She kicked and screamed in protest of her seat belt the entire time. She hated that anything had to hold her down - that a stupid rope thing had so much control over her! She fought so hard that her little body would wiggle right out of her belt. There were times that I physically had to lay my body on hers to keep her from harming herself. Beads of sweat poured off of all of us. Our neighboring passengers (in first class, nonetheless) glared at us. To make it even more unbearable, she had learned that indicating she needed to go to the bathroom meant she could get out of the belt. Stupid us did not pack pull ups, and since she was having he runs, we had to honor her requests - only to find that most of the time she would just sit on the toilet and laugh or actually go and then make sure to punish us by managing to get her feces on her hand and then on to us. Again, her need for control in her world that lacked understanding.

Alas, we landed in Dubai and learned that there was a sweet mercy in that our hotel room was literally above our gate.  Hubs deposited us in our room and left immediately to go and plead ask the airport pharmacist if there was any sleeping medication we could give our child. I can just imagine what went down. "Please Mister, don't you have anything that you can give me to put a child in a coma-like-sleep for 48 hours? Anything at all? Sleeping pills? An anesthesia drip? A pint of vodka?" (Ok, those specific requests might be exaggerated a wee bit, but we were almost feeling that desperate). Much to our demise, the answer was no. Much to our gratefulness, Hubs was not dragged away in straight jacket due to his bizarre request and his looney demeanor.

As Hubs was on this mission, I was mustering the strength to cuddle in our bed with Y to look at our photo book and explain to her best that I could that if she wanted to go to her new home tomorrow - to her bedroom, new bike, and her brother - then she was going to have to wear that seat belt. She screamed and cried some more at this information, but then we slept (for a minute) and morning came.

This photo was taken as we were just about to board our flight in Dubai and we were already realizing that things were going MUCH better. First of all, there was the realization that we were not bombed that night. That was a good thing. Next, she was chipper and laughing and then.....

she plopped her little bottom down in that airplane seat and said, "Mommy! Belt!"

That sweet little stinker insisted that belt go on and and stay on! From then on out, things were a million times better. Not perfect - as there was still the the challenge of keeping a 3 year old occupied for several hours of air travel, but much, MUCH better. I truly think she turned a corner that night and accepted that she can't fight it any longer, so just to trust and go with it. That is how she seems about life now, in general. She is such an awesome kid. :)

This is also a very good thing because about 4 hours into the flight was when my first wave of nausea hit. There was a suspected tummy bug going around our guest house and it appears that little bugger followed me home. It did not help that we had a bunch of rude flight attendants that seemed to have a personal mission statement that said we must keep the dinner trays in front of the passengers until their next meal is served so that we can be most efficient. When I asked if they could please take the stinking tray of curried lamb away after 2 hours, they rolled their eyes at my inconveniencing request as they snatched it away. After 4 hours of puking, I went back and interrupted the attendants' social hour and asked if they had any anti-nausea pills on board. When I told them I thought I had a virus, I got an "Oh great, now we are all going to get this for our return flight." They had the pill, but said I did not meet the requirement to take one, so instead shoved a glass of flat Coke in my hand and shooed me away. Husband sat next to Y and entertained her the remaining hours that I ached and shivered from fever in my seat.  So lucky that our sweet girl sensed I was not well and stepped it up even more on her good behavior. And she also got a good 4 hour nap in.

Fast forward now to rerouting flights in the US (flew from DC to San Fran to Phoenix to Salt Lake) and We FINALLY MADE IT!

By this time, Husband and I had maybe slept 2 hours of 48 and were practically hallucinating, but the joy we felt seeing our son again and experiencing him meeting his sister for the first time made it all worth it!!! 

 

The Truth About Addis (Part II)

Disclaimer: I have to apologize for the typos and embarrassing grammatical errors in advance. I want to get these memories documented before they fade - but I don't see my lack of time and fuzzy-headed-sleep-deprived mind letting up soon .... possibly for years. I pretty much have it in me to do a quick read-over then hit publish. Oh, and also, you can click on the pictures to view them larger.

A few days into our stay at the guest house, despite spending 80% of our day in the bathroom and/or in intense power struggles, Y and I were maintaining, but it was clear that she was trying her hardest to show me that she did not like me and I was gravely concerned in that I was not feeling very fond of her, either.

Besides that, there were other challenges. The one husband (that was to help out by getting food) was facing hardships of his own. My sweet adopting mama friend (his wife) became bed ridden with intestinal stuff (no thanks to the brave attempt of eating a questionable sandwich), so he was juggling infant twins and a 6 & 8 year old on his own. I didn't feel it appropriate to say, "By the way, mind heading out to get me some eggs and bananas in your spare minute?"  Pretty much all of us were facing our own set of challenges. Instead of those happy communal dinners, we were dodging each other throughout the crammed quarters of the kitchen and living areas, each on a mission to maintain our own personal crazy chaos. Because Y would bet set-off by seeing me eat food, my adrenalin kept me going just enough to focus on her eating and care taking needs in the daytime hours. The only nutrients I was getting was when I consumed my Laura Bar and a tequila shot/s at 10:00pm. Those mini bottles were the best thing I packed! I don't even like to take shots, but they became the only aide I had in helping lower that adrenalin and allowing myself to relax enough to get a few hours of sleep.

Thankfully she was a sound sleeper, so when I finally got her to sleep, I would frantically try to fix the situations that failed that day. For example, one night I had to move clothes out of her hand's reach up to a storage area above the closet. Having access to so many clothes triggered huge anxieties. She would have to change in and out of every single clothing item - then end up needing to somehow wear them all on her body. Understandably, this little one was just wanting to protect each new thing that was being established as hers, because she has had so little in life. When we left the room, just knowing that she had clothes (and other belongings) being left unsupervised was extremely difficult for her. No doubt she was used to coming back and not having them there anymore. Toys, books,  and photos were also a trigger for anxiety, so I had to strategically stash the toys where I could sneak a new one out on the sly - and at a rate that would not heighten her anxiety. She started to feel comfortable leaving a few things in a little drawer in our room, but besides that, she had a talent of stashing things in her tiny backpack, clothes, crook of her neck, armpits, between her legs, behind her ear. Pretty much every nook and cranny imaginable. 

Another thing that was very difficult for Y was my husband not being there. We were her unit, so when he did not show up with me on the second trip, the tone was set for challenges stemming from her confusion. One man, in particular, passed through our guesthouse en route to the north. He did resemble Husband and she was certain that he was Dad. It was very upsetting to her that he was not responsive to her and that I had to tell her that he was not her dad.

And as sort of an off topic side note, I can't leave out the fact that the weather was just the icing on the cake. Just scrap that visual of all of Ethiopia being hot and dry. Addis is actually the 3rd highest elevation capital city on earth! It was the rainy season and extremely cold! I did not bring appropriate clothing and because of the rain, laundry being hung out to dry never did dry, so we were wearing the same few warm (and eventually disgusting) clothes day after day after day and shivering most of the time.

After 4 days of all of this, I sent Husband an S.O.S email. Get. On. That. Plane. NOW! Thankfully he could bump up his flight a few days earlier.

Things got a little better when Husband first arrived. I could finally eat some food and even get us all out of the guesthouse confines for little walks. She was hysterical if either was out of her immediate range, but was manageable with one parent within earshot in the kitchen or bathroom.

 

The dynamic that was soon created by having him arrive started to turn problematic, however.  In those first 5 days, just the two of us had started to establish consistency and a routine. When husband arrived, he was understandably excited by her excitement of seeing him and the two of them went right at it with playing ball, chase, etc. In her eyes, he was simply now the entertainment while I was the provider and rule enforcer. Along with this came even more lashing out and rejection of me. I admit that this was the hardest time for me emotionally. I felt I was doing all of the hard work and getting the most defiance and abuse (bruises as proof!). It was equally difficult for Husband to see this happen, so when he tried to step up his assertiveness and she started distributing her defiance to us both - this is when we hit rock bottom.


One night, after a particularity difficult night, we got her to bed around 11:00pm, then the two of us literally laid in bed, curled up in a fetal position and bawled. Seriously. These random thoughts came out of our mouths between sobs: How could we feel so beaten down and defeated by a 25 pounder of a 3 year old? Had her life thus far damaged her for always? Does she have R.A.D? Are we going to be the best parents for her needs? Will we ever love her? Will she ever love us? Will she always reject me? Will she always be this hard? Was this a huge mistake for our family? Can we do this? We went in to the adoption knowing that this is the reality for some adoptive families, and we were certain that we got ourselves into a desperate situation.

But....

We did start to turn the corner. Hallelujah! A few days before we boarded the plane for home, I  attribute these 4 things to helping us start to move forward.

1) I started a crash course in Tingrainia. I overlapped at the guesthouse with a very smart and prepared couple that learned the language before they took custody of their two older girls. After I  face planted Y into bed gently lulled Y to sleep at night, I would meet this couple on the porch for my language lesson. Between tequila shots, I furiously wrote down in my little black moleskin book essential phrases (Bathroom? Poo? Pee? Eat this. Hungry? Careful! Danger! I don't like that, I really don't like that, I love you, this is not a toy, enough already, It is OK to do that, Great job! etc.). I would then stumble back into my room and rewrite these phrases in big writing on construction paper and taped them on the wall so they could be quickly referenced. Finding a common ground for us to communicate was essential. I eventually realized that much of Y's behaviors were due to her lack of understanding. I have also learned that she really wants to do the right thing - she just needs to understand what things are about and what is expected of her.

2) My wise and experienced adopter friend there with me - the one who landed herself in the hospital (and mended quickly!) - gave me words of gold in advise. "I think you are figuring out that this girl is smart and how she ticks. Your sweet and gentle attachment parenting approach (one that my social worker schooled me on as the only way to parent an adopted child) is working to an extent, but now maybe you should parent with your instinct. What would you do if your son were to spit at you? Would you gently say that it is not okay with you then just give him a replacement activity? That is part of it, but also make sure that she is clear of what your boundaries are instead of glossing them over. I think your little girl really needs this." I had wanted to act more like the parent that I really am with her, but was scared that it would be detrimental to our bonding . With her advise in mind, the next defiant act was met with a look in the eye and a pissed off stern voice, "I do NOT like that, that is NOT ok, and you need a time-out!" Her time-out (called a time-in) was a little different than my son's, in that I sat with her against the wall and cradle hugged her for 15 seconds. It then ended it with a smile, a cuddle, and a "let's try that again". Wowza - was this ever effective! After her first time-in, her stunned silence was followed by the deepest, most mournful cry. It was like she just then figured out that I was the real deal and someone to take seriously. It only took a few more time-in's to start to make progress. Toward the end (and even now), all I have to do is give a warning - "If you do that again, you will get a time-in" and she will almost always stop. In fact, this sweet child of mine will actually now smile and nod at me like ohhh.... so that is not OK, well, I sure am glad you let me know! At the time of writing this, she has only had one time-in in the last two weeks! A miracle!!

3) I taught her how to count to three. "1...2...3...Becca (enough, all done!)" She totally got this and this statement is still used to stop an activity.  After a reasonable amount of time with an activity (such as washing hands), a simple "1...2...3...becca" started to help our transitions nicely - turning those 1 hour bathroom trips turn to a smooth 10 minute routine.

4) Allowing myself (ourselves) to slow down so that we can give her independence within our routine. Things such as dressing herself, carrying the grocery bags, brushing teeth after every meal, and setting the table with the same place settings (fork, cup, spoon) can be painstakingly long and taxing on the patients, but it is so essential to her independent soul.

After almost 2 weeks, we were making strides with our attachment, but then there was embassy to contend with. I won't go into detail, but so many things had to fall in place with precision that last week so that we could get on our return flight. To make matters worse, our travel agent was sending us frantic emails stating that if we did not get on our scheduled flight that very day, we would be stuck there for at least 3 more weeks as every single flight was booked. I  badgered the embassy to push us through. Finally, we did reach the very end - the embassy interview. This is when we take Y to the US Embassy and meet with personnel to wrap things up and to get our travel documents. I thought for sure they would look at our lunatic faces deeply imbedded with stress and tear stains and prevent the adoption from continuing. We secretly thought... maybe that will happen and we will luck out?
 



THANKFULLY, they did process our paperwork and two days later, we boarded our flight home. I can't imagine anything going differently now. As I continue to document the truly amazing girl that Y is, I look forward to starting to share how the behaviors she displayed in Addis were simply glimpses into her brilliantly strong, loving, and resilient mind and soul. She was displaying those traits in very appropriate ways; such as showing her anger, fear, independence, confusion, and loss. We just had to learn about each other is all.

Stay tuned for the next post: Addis to Dubai, Dubai to San Fran, and our flight from hell.

The Truth About Addis (Part I)

It has been as hard for me to sit down and write about our time in Addis as it is equally difficult to comprehend. Was that really only two months ago? It feels two years. It is surreal the progress that we have made and the different little girl we have now - and the different parents that we are now to her.

As a friend put it ... of course it took us so long for this adoption to happen because SHE was not adoptable yet. This one is meant for us and we are meant for her. Each day we are falling more in love with each other and she is fitting more into our family like that missing piece of our puzzle. It is still work parenting this child, but the progress we make each day is remarkable.  It really just feels like we now have a toddler with an adoptive/attachment spin to it. There are now many more hugs and laughs than hard times, and when there are hard times, we are approaching these situations from a place of love and compassion rather than a place of fear and frustration.

The scared, angry, defiant little girl that she was in Ethiopia, however, makes sense. Being removed from the situation in Ethiopia now and having the time to analyze what took place, my heart breaks for her and how it all must have seemed from her point of view. She did what she does best and what has made her transition into our family so seamless. Survival. She is a fighter. She's an independent, smart, relentless fighter. She was fighting against us and now she fights for us and finding her place in our family. She continues to fight to make sense and gain acceptance into this new life of hers.

And then there was (is) grief. I think. Honestly, I wish I understood if and how she was (is) grieving - or if she has even needed to. Being able to process grief is an important thing, so I continue to try to understand what this is for her. From what is seems - and even from what her caretakers in ET mentioned - her life was hard. Very hard. They claimed that she was bright enough to verbalize that she did not want that life she had for herself. Hard to believe a 3 year old can think this way, but really, I almost think she did. ? . She has only had one night of crying a cry that resembles grief, but that is it.  Even then, I felt she was more grieving that her independence was being compromised more than the grief from a world she was loosing. Nine months ago this girl was on the streets finding her own food and shelter. Then, being thrown into a situation that was beyond her control, there was all of the sudden some weird lady with funny skin, smells, and clothes hovering over her and essentially dictating her life in a way that was completely foreign. I am sure that was hard for her! How could that not be?
 

Who Husband and I were in Ethiopia also makes sense. We were parents that realized our limitations were being maxed and were fiercely protective of our marriage and our precious son at home. She was fighting like hell not to love us as we were fighting like hell to love her. Really, it is so hard to explain unless one is in that kind situation, but trust me, it is a place of raw and scary fear.
 
 For numerous reasons, Husband and I decided that I was to go to Addis Ababa (Ethiopian capital) solo to take custody of Y a week before him. We would then all fly home together a week after he arrived (if all went accordingly with Embassy). We felt confident in this plan because we had left our sweet, kind, mellow, happy little girl just 4 weeks before. How hard could she be? Piece of cake! What made it even better was that I was going to go and join my new adopting mama friends as a sort of an in-country-newly-adoptive-family-support-group. We had decided prior to travel that we were all going get our children from the orphanage and stay in a guest house together while we worked on wrapping up embassy. We were discouraged to go out with our children beyond our little neighborhood in the daytime and anywhere after dark, but no problem! Two out of the three of us women had our husbands joining the week later, but one woman's husband came with her. They brought their two sons that they had adopted a few years earlier and were now adopting twins. Thankfully, as part of our master plan dictated, this one husband would be the sole food fetcher. It all just seemed fool-proof.  It would be just one big, happy two week bondfest with fun craft activities and communal dinners! It would be like a college trip with the roomies - only with our newly adopted foreign children on our hips. Yippee!

 Upon my arrival, I also had a well thought-out plan in the works. I would spend the night of arrival and the next day orienting myself, stocking up on food, and resting off some of the jet lag.  The day after my arrival, I would just make a brief visit to Y's orphanage while using translators to prep her of her departure the following morning. But as best laid plans go, it did not quite happen that way.  I got a ride to the orphanage at 9:00 am the next morning after my arrival. At 9:45 am, I was driving back to the guest house with Y on my lap! She was not going to have it any other way. The moment I stepped out of the van at the WACAP house, she saw me and we ran into each other's arms, hugged, quickly played a little game of catch the ball, then she disappeared.  A few minutes later she marched out of her room with her little backpack on (containing all that she owned), marched up to the van, looked and me, pointed to the van, and said, "Nay (come). Mama. Nay." So, that was that. She did a brief, unemotional good-bye to her temporary caregivers (only at this transitional orphanage for a month) and we were on our way to our new lives!

In retelling some of our experience and her behaviors in the guesthouse, from the outside looking in, surely it seems I might have been insensitive to the reasons for why she did what she did. As I mentioned early, I have emerged from the situation with great compassion for her experience. She was frightened and on hyper-throttle-survival mode. I wish more than ever that I could get in her head and tell this story from her perspective, but I obviously can't, so I will be sharing from the difficult perspective of our situation.

The first night was interesting, to say the least. It all started with our first trip to the bathroom. I mean, come on! A toilet that flushed, toilet paper, a sink with soap, and a towel?! All in one place? It was just too much! And from that first bathroom trip and then on forward, this is pretty much how the first three days went: Sit on toilet. Pee and squirt poo. Unroll entire toilet paper... but wait! Toilet paper was a scarce commodity, so mom had to control the toilet paper distribution. Through many hours of sweat and tears, we figured out that it was okay if I put toilet paper bunches in each hand (and then quickly hide the roll without her seeing). I then had to lift her up to the 4 foot high pedestal sink and let her take the soap from the dish, wash her hands, rinse, turn off the faucet, dry with the towel, and then turn off the light - all on her own. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! No joke - that first bathroom trip took one hour and ten minutes. From then on, the average trip was 40 minutes. That would be okay if she were to only go a few times a day, but rather, she would leave the bathroom to go and binge on food and water to then only have to go 10 minutes later. The last few days of our stay we got it down to 15 minutes, which was a cause for celebration.


Honestly, if someone asks what some of my most vivid memories of Addis Ababa were, I would have to say that it was the stuff that happened in those two bathrooms that we used. Major intense stuff happened within those tiled fortresses! It was always a delicate dance of allowing her independence and the establishment of our boundaries and expectations. As hard as it was, I don't regret the hours we spent there - as it was there that we figured some important things out.

 In or out of those bathrooms, if something was not done exactly the way she wanted it in the time she wanted it during the bathroom routine... or a play activity, how food was presented to her, how we walked down the stairs, what she wore, what I wore, how I looked at her, if we did not use the same cup, fork, hair band....the result would be a dreadful tantrum or an eruption of intensely defiant behaviors. 

 And then there was the testing. Her brightness shined as she figured out from day one, despite my neutral affect that I had mastered from teaching the kids I have taught, what triggered me.


"Mommy!" .... look at me hold this piece of china in the air. Now watch me smash it to the floor then laugh like a hyena as I walk on the glass shards with my bare feet.

"Mommy!".... come here now so I can kick you in the leg.

"Mommy".... watch me try and yank down this 5 foot mirror that's suspended by one nail on top of me.

"Mommy!"... watch me get into your chapstick and lotions and rub them all over your clothes.

"Mommy!" ... let me look at your reaction as I put poo on my hand and try to rub it in your face.

"Mommy!"... look how funny it is for me to take this fork and jab it down my throat. Don't care it gags me and makes my throat bleed as it is totally worth getting a reaction from you!

"Mommy!.... let me just catch a glimpse of your slight reaction of horror so I can laugh hysterically when you show me a picture of my brother and then I do the sign like I am going to slit his throat.

"Mommy!".... let me just see if I can spit far enough across the room and have it land on your face (which it would) and then wake you at night by leaning over your face and dropping spit balls on your nose.

"Mommy!" .... guess what? Pretty much if you try to hold my hand (down the slippery marble stairs - this house had about 300 stairs and was anything but child proof), hold me from jumping out the window, dare cut my hard boiled egg so I can't shove it whole down my throat, or basically do anything other than what I want, then I will glare at you in the eye and say, "Tit-tu-ma!" (I hate you!), kick you, spit in your face, then laugh like the devil. I will - just try me. I dare you.


Thank God there were occasional giggles and smiles in between to recharge our batteries. When I felt like her spirits were up, we would go down to a common area and visit with other adopters and their children. When I could see her run and laugh and interact with the others, then optimism would flood over me. I would see glimpses of the fantastic kid that she is and that we did have a good little chemistry about us.

Stay tuned for part ll....

Update - the shortened version.

I was informed today that I have kept many hanging without updating my blog upon our return. I have had the best of intentions, but as we are trying to get our bearings on this new life of ours, time alone to type my thoughts has been of the essence.

Here's the skinny.... it has been SO much better than we expected! Yay! Hooray! Three cheers for AWESOME!

I am not going to lie. Our time with her in Addis this last trip was pure hell. I sugar coated it in my posts, yes I did. I did not want to lure people into the complete panic mode that Husband and I were feeling every second of every minute of every grueling 15 days. You know it is bad when one starts to wonder just how much jail time we would actually serve if we were just to return her to the orphanage and jump ship, never looking back, and that if we got a sentence of under 10 years .... it might just be worth it. Of course we would not have, and truthfully these thoughts only ran through my head (dared not ask what Husband was thinking), but when you even think of doing something like abandoning a scared little child, then you know you have hit rock bottom.

But then somewhere in the span of the 12 hour delay in Dubai (after a flight that seriously should have had made an emergency landing to boot us and our hysterical kid off - details to come in a future post), something clicked within Y's head. I think she figured out that these pink people were the real deal, so why fight it? Or maybe it was our karma shinning down on us. I mean - anyone that knows our story knows that we have had to endure a lot of a lot to get our family, and we try to do good unto others, so maybe this was our payback? A child who has embraced our love and the gift of letting us embrace hers? Nice thought, anyhow.

And there it is. From that day forward, it has been 1 step back and 300 steps forward.

She was the golden child for the remaining 22 hours of travel. Thank God, because those 22 hours involved a plethora of goodies such as a stomach virus, rude flight attendants, a terrorist treat, and the desperate search for Tums (again, future post).

We have now been home for 2.5 weeks and this little firecracker has just hit the ground running with our family. She has firmly attached to me, coming along nicely still with Husband, and is becoming more tolerant and loving of her brother as the days pass. She really just seems HAPPY to be here with us. Each morning I wake to her leaning over my face with a big smile and an expression like Oh my gosh! That lady I am now calling mommy is still here! She really and truly is!  She averages only one mini tantrum a day - lasting no longer than 3 minutes. She sleeps like a dream, naps, and eats about all that is edible. Yes, she can be a bossy grump, but makes up for it in her cleaning skills, which she would take doing over any toy! Starting two days ago, she let me start leaving her with Husband for a short grocery run. That right there is worth more to me these days than a $1,000 bucks. She even participated in a Little Gym class! Granted, she looked through the glass every minute to check I was still there (which is a good thing - establishing trust), but despite not knowing English fully, she is a keen observer and did all that was asked from her teacher while participating with her group for a full hour!

The resiliency that this little one has to pull from to adapt this well to her new environment is outstanding, really. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and it probably will. Maybe. Little hurts from her past make themselves known here and there, so we will watch and wait and step in to help with the healing when needed. There also must be some grief in there somewhere of her losses and I do hope that she lets that out eventually.

In truth, this little one feels the perfect fit for our family and we think we might have won the jackpot.

I have many topics swimming through my head that I intend to include in future posts. These include:

1. Ethiopia. Addis to Dubai. Our experience. The hard-core truth.
2. Food and what that means to a child who has never had enough.
3. Dubai to San Fransisco. Mom's flight from hell.
4. Bonding - it's a two way street.
5. How to parent a 3 year old survivor.
6. Poop. And a smell that can peal the paint from walls. And what this means.
7. A little girl and her brother.
8. Stuff and what our daughter has already taught us about it.
9. Ethiopian food - who knew?
10. Attachment parenting and the path we choose to take... and that has made all the difference.

HOME AT LAST!

Just realizing today that many of you don't get my Facebook updates, so wanted to just drop a quick note to share that we have been home now for 4 days! For those of you who have brought home children, you know that we are currently in the trenches of insanity, so I will post more details later. I can share now, however, that it has been a 2 steps forward/1 step back process in transitioning this little firecracker into our family, but overall, things have been going better than expected! This little spunky girl truely feels that she belongs in our family. When I get my head on straight and a little more time alone to work through my thoughts (and download some pictures), I look forward to sharing more about our new little habesha daughter and sister!

Here in Addis with Y!

Hey friends and family! Just wanted to let you all know that I arrived safe and sound in Addis 3 days ago and have had Y with me for two of them. All I can say now to all of those that have been through this first 48 hours... I get it.

The things that make Y such an awesome little person with attributes that will serve her well in the future is causing an intensely wild ride between the two of us being tucked away in a guest house together. And we don't speak the same language (though have been getting pretty good at my Tingrania!). And she is a strong-willed 3 year old that has had to be used to fending for herself. Need I say more? It was also surprising very difficult for her not to have Husband with me, as in her eyes, we are her unit. This has been the most confusing. She is still looking for him all day and if a car pulls up and beeps it's horn, she goes, "Eh? Daddy?" She carries our family book around with her all day and look at pictures of us (mostly him) like 3,000 times.

Realizing that I am not superwoman to help her through this confusion and all other things challenging that are sprinkled in, we have had Husband bump up his flight and he will now be here in three days. Whew! I am so fortunate to have some wonderful other people here going through the same thing, so we are being a good support team for each other in the meantime.

This silver lining to CRAZY is that  the attachment seems to be going pretty well and she was very ready to go with "Mommy Yo" (my mommy) the second I pulled into the orphanage. :) And when she is being hard, she flashes a smile that melts a heart and revitalizes my spirit.

Please, everyone throw out your best wishes and prayers that we will have our embassy paperwork completed by the 4th of August. There is a good chance, but if not, it appears all flights are booked out of Addis for MONTH of August, so we would have to show up daily for stand-bye tickets - and  frankly that would be the pits!

I know, she really is the cutest little 3 yr old EVER!

 

A sneak peek at her goofy and charming personality! We could just gobble her up. The first day, she was a little hesitant and shy, but by day four, she was totally digging us. Our hearts were going pitter-patter for her. She seems curious, playful, inquisitive, assertive (textbook 3 yr old behavior), and had that entire orphanage wrapped around her tiny 3 year old finger. She also has her dad wrapped around it, too. We heard that when she flew down to her new WACAP orphanage, there were a bunch of Italians on the plane that kept saying "Bella! Bella!" I can totally believe that.

We have 100's of other pictures that have other kids at the orphanage in the background (a no-no to display publicly). We'll keep working finding some pictures to share, though!

And why did your daughter not get to fly home with you?

I know it seems nuts. You meet your soon-to-be daughter, you play together, you giggle, you hold her little hand in yours, you let her sit on your lap and get to squeeze her little tummy, you gaze at her sweet curls, you start to get little pecks on the cheek, your hearts start to merge heart-to-heart, and she starts telling her nannies that she is going up in the sky in a plane with her mommy and papa. After 4 days of this, you go to court and the judge announces that she is now your daughter....... and then you leave her there and fly off half way around the world. She is flown to a new "transitional orphanage" (a temporary orphanage provided by our agency in the interim of court and embassy) with a new nanny and is set up in her new home without you. She is there with new nannies caring for her without you. She will start to establish new relationships, norms, routines, all without you.

We are now here. She is now there. Was that whole experience last week real? Was is just a beautifully nutty dream? That is sure is what I am wondering. Betting Y is, too.

Sounds messed up? You bet it is! It is unnatural. It is torturous. It goes against that primal, maternal instinct. And for lack of better words.... it just sucks.

But, it is how it is and this is why. The US Embassy and the Ethiopian High Court has this screwy system worked out where the Ethiopian Embassy determines that the child is legally orphaned, you are considered appropriate parents to adopt that orphan, you get to go and meet your child, the courts let you legally adopt her, AND THEN the US Embassy decides to do their investigation of the case to make sure they feel the adoption was on the up-and-up (aka ethical, moral, no buying of children, no potential unrealistic and deceitful promises to birth families). 

And this can't be completed before the child is considered adoptable and then actually adopted? The investigation of the US Embassy is a very important step, don't get me wrong, but before people. DO IT BEFORE THE ADOPTION TAKES PLACE, people. The ironic thing is that the US Embassy can't void your adoption if they think if smells fishy. That can't keep you from you child forever, but they can sure as hell make it extremely difficult to get your child a visa to bring them home. Luckily, not issuing a visa is an extremely rare thing to happen, so the Embassy process should take just about 4-8 weeks after court.

Are we worried that the embassy will find a glitch? No. We were extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to not only meet the birth mother, but spend the entire day with her. The details of that day and her story will be locked away for Y one day, but I can say that I feel very at peace with the situation. We talked clearly with the mother about the adoption, what this meant, and what the future holds. We feel at peace with how this adoption came to be. At the end of the day, this mother and I sat side by side, arm in arm. She told the translator that she is happy that we will be Y's parents. That was an insanely emotional experience - and that is an understatement.

Flying back, I could not imagine that I would do anything other than step off that plane and book another ticket to get right back on that same plane to get back to Y. But then reality hits. I have a son here that also needs me. We have to factor in that the guesthouse that we would be staying is isolated and very expensive, drivers are expensive, getting nasty little tummy bugs is oh-so-easy. Trying to venture out to find food to feed myself and Y sounds daunting. Would taking custody of Y then cooping us up in a tiny little room of a guesthouse really be the best things for 4-8 weeks? Probably not. That little 3 year old would probably be mortified and want to un-adopt me, as I would be a grouchy claustrophobic mommy that really liked to sit on the loo almost all the time.

Sooooooo, here's the plan. I, as in only me, will be flying back on July 20th to take custody of Y. I hope to only be there 1-3 weeks. The two of us will then honker down in our guesthouse, start our bondingfest, and try to get that embassy paperwork expedited. Our return ticket is for August 4th, though am hoping I can get things squared away and move the tickets up sooner.

We were going to have the entire family go back, but decided against it. As beautiful as Ethiopia was, it was hard. A little harder than I think J could cope with right now. I would give him one day to forget and accidentally put his toothbrush under the faucet, or start whining that he can't actually see the monkey that is supposed to be in the tree, or complain that there are only Ethiopian soap operas and cheap budget horror films on TV (really he would be whining that I would not let him watch a mutant vulture puppet bird gouging out eyes out of a styrofoam human head),  or he'd get sick of eating only injera - which would be all I would allow him to eat as I swear it only takes looking at other food to get a parasite.

As for Husband goes, thinking that I might potentially be there for 3 weeks, we thought it best that he stay back with J and pick up the slack when I return with Y completely beaten down from that beastly 40 hour flight. Another reality is the price of those plane tickets. This was a totally unexpected blow (peak travel season, increase fuel cost, last minute purchases) and we felt that it is worth just having me give it a shot. If I get there, however, and it is too hard, he will be jumping on a plane ASAP.

We feel so fortunate to have a met group of fabulous adopters there in Addis/Mekelle. One woman, in particular, was my email buddy for months before we met in Mekelle. I knew I loved her though email and was totally smitten with her (and her husband) when we met. Her family, along with two other couples, are all flying back over the same time. We are all staying at the same guesthouse with their adopted children (friends from the same orphanage) and we will all be going through the same process together - while supporting each other along the way. We had good mojo and this is priceless folks. Seriously!

As always, I will be keeping you all posted, but imagine blog to be a little slow before the crazy begins again in a month!

Introducing our daughter....

Today we passed Ethiopian Court! She is now ours and we are now hers. We are family. Introducing our daughter, "Y".

Above is her referral picture. Our hearts skipped a beat.

               More to come on this amazing little girl that has already captured our hearts.

We got us a court date!

We are in hyper-insanity mode right now as we are frantically making plans, but wanted to take a quick break to share the news!

All has been going accordingly with the courts this week - which means that she has been officially made a ward of the state, or a recognizable orphan, or whatever they call it. Today we got word that our court date is on June 14th! We hope to be leaving on the 7th or 8th. Husband and Travel Agent are madly looking at all ticket scenarios (that won't break the bank) as I type this.

**UPDATE: Most tickets were sold out, or were a million dollars, but managed to get one on the 6th that did not totally bust us. It is a direct flight from DC .... meaning we will be in the air for 13 hours straight! This thought puts me in hyper-freak mode.

Holy cow - this is really happening! 

Happy Mother's Day!

I want to wish all of my dynamic, amazing, rockin' mothers out there the happiest of days!

Each day, I feel so grateful for the gifts of my life - mainly my sweet son. Being a mother to him has far exceeded my wildest expectations and dreams. Somehow he just gets it on Mother's Day - meaning he is on his best behavior. He's not demanding nor a rascally pest, rather just doting and loving. It is a much appreciated day when I can just sit back, be loved on, and take some time to think about how amazing my life is being his mom.

Of course, I am also thinking about little Y. I've heard that she is an active, playful, 27 pound firecracker. What is she doing right now? Is she jumping, laughing, hugging, crying? I have to remind myself that I won't officially be her mom until she lands on US soil, but as my son put it this morning, "Mom, even if maybe-baby-sister does not ever get to come home to us, she is always going to be a sister in our hearts". I agree with him completely.

I used to read about adopted mothers' feelings toward their child's birth mother, but I could not really understand the magnitude of that feeling until I saw her picture for the first time. Somewhere out there, there is a mother that needed to give up her child for reasons that I am assuming are circumstance beyond her control. Maybe she could not feed her, maybe she is sick, or maybe she has a new husband that does not want former baggage. Regardless, I feel certain that 6 months ago, this mother was the bravest person in the world and her heart hurts beyond imagine for what has happened.

We anticipate the chance that we will get to meet her. We will learn her story and the story of how Y came to us. We will lock that story up in our hearts, and being attune to Y's needs, share with her when she is ready to hear it. When I meet Y's mother, I want to grieve with her. I want her to know that I will always honor the sacrifice that she made so that I could mother her child. I want her to know that her life will always be honored in our lives. I want her to know that she is always #1 mother and that I will always be #2 mother, and I am very much at peace with that.

We got us a court date!!!

Woot Wootin' Willy!

Three cheers for Atu Teklo for working so hard to get the courts to move Y's family member's court hearing from July up to May 28th! As in the very month that we are in right now! Like in 22 days!

What does this mean for us? That means that we will most likely be on a plane in 1 month to meet and adopt our daughter! As in the very next month from this one! As in 30 days from now!

                                                              ........ GULP .......  

In layman's terms, a family member or "finder" gets a court date and then the adopting family's court date (that would be us) is typically scheduled 10 days after. In adoption lingo, an emphasis is always placed on "typically" because even though that is the norm, it all is just crazy unpredictable. Because of this, the really sucky thing is that we will not be able to book our tickets until the family member goes through court and we officially have ours assigned. Before we have our court date, we will have to fly to Addis Ababa then up north to Mekelle to spend some time with our sweet little Y, then fly back down to Addis for court.

To have all of this sequence just right, this essentially means that we get a court date then pretty much need to be landing in Addis 6 days later.  Six days! As in, 1..2..3..4..5..6! Ummm... has anyone priced last minute tickets to Ethiopia lately? Because I have not and I am scared. Very scared.

But holy hell  - it will be so worth it!!!!

(clarification: we will actually not be able to bring her home this trip, rather we will have to come home to the states without her for a short time while embassy does it's thing, then we'll fly back "typically" in a time frame of 6-8 weeks. BUT, this first trip is the most significant by far, as the adoption will take actually take place.)

I will keep the updates rolling as they come!

So, how does it work from here?

Okay.....Okay.... enough of the mushy referral story stuff and time to answer the most common question we are now getting, which is, "When do you actually get to bring her home?"

Well, the good news is that we could have her home in 4 months. The bad news is that we could have her home in 6 months. I'll try and break these scenarios down to see if it makes any sense.

1. Our dossier (a packet of paper that looks innocent enough, yet actually costs hundreds of dollars sprinkled atop with some physical blood, sweat, and tears) is now sitting in some office in ET waiting to be assigned a court date. It seems like they process all of the collected dossiers for court dates once - maybe twice a month.

2. The first court date is for either the family member or the "finder" (person who found the child) to come in just themselves. In our case, they will transport Y's family member from Mekelle down to the capital city of Addis Ababa. This is where in a court of law, they understand that their rights are terminated, that the child will live out of country forever, and that the family/finder's part in the adoption was in ways of ethical practices. This part made Husband and initially nervous thinking that maybe some new info will crop up or the family member will change their mind in court, but our agency basically said it is almost unheard of. Thankfully, they have tried everything to keep the child with the family (...and this is a very good thing), so when we get to this stage, the family member is pretty determined to follow through with the adoption. Also, they have thoroughly investigated the case and local officials have already determined it to be ethical and legit. Statistically speaking, having a family member change their mind in court has only happened in 1/300 of WACAP cases - and was more or less the bio father making the choice to rather have his ill daughter live in an orphanage for the rest of their life :(

Here's the bad news: The first court date has been getting scheduled out for 2-3 months. So for example, on April 10th, folks that had their dossiers sitting in that ET office got news that their first court date was scheduled for June 15th. WACAP told us that if this happens, plan on having our first court date in the first few weeks of July.

Here's the good news: Our WACAP ET representative (Atu Teklo) has been working tirelessly to petition the last wave of folks to get pushed up, so about 1/2 of the last bunch that had their June court dates got moved up to today. That is 1.5 months faster! There is no rhyme or reason as to why some got bumped up and the others did not, but he will try for ours. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that we might get to be there much sooner!

3. After this first court date, ours will be made the same day. This is typically 1-2 weeks afterward (yes - the thought of buying international plane tickets one week in advance does make me have a mini stroke). For our trip, we will first fly north to Mekelle to meet and spend time with "Y", then fly back down to Addis for our court appointment.

4.  After court, we will have officially adopted her, but there is a whole other wave of paperwork that has to be processed through the Embassy. This is typically 2 months. I imagine that the most difficult part of all of this whole experience will be spending time with her, adopting her, then leaving her for 2 months! We have decided that if school is back on, I will fly out a few weeks before the boys to start bonding with her. The boys will then come out a few days before to do a little bonding (and sightseeing with Jaden) before we all come home together. Together as a family of four!

Hopefully this process is now just as clear as mud ice!

Part II: How our referral came to be.

Let's just back up a little before our "almost call" on April 1st. For several months, we had been hearing rumors that there was a 4-5 little girl that they were just finishing up paperwork on. Since we had decided to turn down a referral back in September for a girl this age, we felt pretty certain that we would be turning down this referral for the same reasons.

As we had been feeling discouraged by this soon-to-be referral, we'd found ourselves saying on many occasion, "If only we knew they were getting the paperwork ready for a 2-3 yr old, then we might feel very differently right now." Since I hit the big 4-0, I realized that my baby urges dwindled away with my 30's; however, we still wanted to to adopt as young as possible (yet potty trained, thank you very much!) and felt that this age span would be the makings of some pretty sweet mojo between big brother and little sister.

So now let's jump forward again to April 1st. When our WACAP caseworker made that "almost call",  she told us it would just be a day or two until they had all of her (the 5 yr old) information to share with us.  A week went by, and on March 8th, the phone had still yet to ring. Not surprising at all. We'd lost count of how many times we had walked down this road of empty promises. Along the way, we've become fluent in the dialect of adoption - a few days really means a few months....a few years.

It was on March 8th that I decided that I was going to call WACAP to tell them we were really dropping out. That morning Husband had confessed that he was done with the adoption and just wanted it to stop. He could not go through this one more day. Predicting this might had been how it was going to play out, back on the April 1st, we had granted ourselves a 1 week extension. We were already feeling in our hearts that the figment of this little girl was not meant to come to our family, so why keep the torture going beyond then? Before the end of that work that day on the 8th, I was going to call. I was really going to do it.

I was sitting at my work computer when my phone rang from WACAP. I did not answer it. I couldn't deal with what that call was about at that moment, so I let voice mail pick up. I can still hardly believe that I continued to work and forgot that there was even a message! On my lunch break, I remembered and thought I better listen, and indeed the message indicated that this was "The call!". I then nonchalantly texted husband, which apparently he saw,  but also did not want to acknowledge that it existed. Fast forward through all of this nutty hesitation and I ended up in Husband's office at 4:30 .... almost 6 hours after "The call!".

If I were a fly on the wall, I think it would have been too sad to see what we looked like there at his desk, chairs facing each other, the phone in hand ready to call WACAP - or to not call WACAP. Surely we looked beaten down, depressed, discouraged, anxious, and angry. We felt that it had come to this.... after 6 years, we were going to be presented with a potential daughter and we were going to turn her away and then shut down our adoption dream. We weren't even going to listen to our caseworker's narrative, rather start the conversation as, "Hi WACAP. We are done. Send this girl's referral on to the next."

But instead, it went something like this....

W: Hi T and J. I know that this has been such a long and painful process for you, but I have information on a little girl and I feel that this might be the one for you! Do you want me to share a little about her before I email her information and photo?

Husband and I looked at each other and surprisingly said, "Sure".

W: "Well, we somehow ended up getting the information today for a little girl that just barely turned three years old......"

Needless to say, Husband and I looked at each other stunned as we continued to listen to the details of her story. We then agreed to get her info emailed to us and a few minutes later, we saw her photo for the first time. The photo of our daughter.

Heart. Be. Still.

 She was the cutest little thing you could even imagine! Her eyes looked bright and spunky. In one of her photos she was wearing a little Elmo shirt and cargo pants with sandals that looked several sizes too big.  From the little info that has been presented, she appears to have been well fed and has no apparent illnesses. She has only been living at the orphanage for 5 months and seems to have healthy attachments to people. This is big, big, big!

We read through her report, medical labs, and photos silently. All of my impulses were taunting me to jump up in song and dance, "There's our daughter! Woo-hoo! There she is!" But instead, I looked over toward Husband whose affect was still unwavering, but with maybe a little more seriousness and matter-of-fact. He leaned back in his chair and proceeded to confess his innermost fears that I had yet to hear. He feared what this could do to our family and even our marriage in the future. How life really would be for us from that day forward. He feared that we would have a long and painful road ahead.

Naturally assuming he was talking about our future with bringing this little girl home (that could potentially have challenging behaviors), I swallowed a huge tear and told him that we are 100% in this together, so if he truly felt this way, then we needed to call back and decline the referral.

"Huh?" he said quizzically. "What do you mean turn her down? I was talking about our future without her!" 

So there it is. We continued to look into a few more things that week regarding her medicals and hearing first hand accounts of people who had spent time with her there in Mekelle  - all glowing and promising! On April 14, we sent off our official acceptance documents and broke the news to J and family/friends.  Such a glorious day! We finally started to feel this huge weight on our shoulders begin to lift.