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!
