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.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Part I: How our referral came to be.
Since the holidays, we have been telling everyone that would listen that April 1st was the exact date we would be walking away from our adoption. We chose that date because our paperwork was going to expire and we knew that we simply did not have it in us to renew all of those documents for a 4th time. We also just needed a date which would signify the end of our adoption madness. I mean, what type of sane people hold on to a dead dream for SIX years anyhow? Ahem.... that would be us kind of people. And we are not sane.
As that date grew near, our emotions became more intensified. In order to protect our hearts, we manically started thinking of 101 reasons why adoption was no longer the right thing and why we would be okay with moving forward as a family of three. We started making lists of things we could start doing with the house by spending our adoption nest egg. Hell, we did start to spend that adoption nest egg! I started researching vacation summer rentals on faraway islands. I was seconds away from reserving our Mexican Christmas extravaganza. I even applied to another graduate program. Yes - we had plans and our new mantra was, "We will be OK. We will be OK".
But speaking for myself, I was deeply conflicted on the inside. Husband says the same thing, but he is just one of those more stoic manly-man types, so it was harder to tell with him. Like for instance, when his friends would ask him over for a glass ofwine cheap beer, I don't think he would end up a puddle of tears on their reclaimed wood kitchen table. But he was feeling it. As a matter of reality and then survival, we no longer wanted to listen to what was really in our hearts, and in truth, we had to shut that out and were almost to a point that we knew we would be OK.
In early March, J asked if we could talk about the adoption. I figured I would seize the moment to tell him that the adoption was over. Actually, my exact words were, "WACAP told us there are no more kids to adopt from Ethiopia, so they told us that we had to be done." (I know - total cop out, but I figured it was easier for him and us if I stated it that way). I immediately tried to sugarcoat the situation by telling him that this summer we could go to LegoLand! He could move into the bigger guest room and I will paint in any color that he wants - even black! In a few years I will take him to Europe to meet his cousins! Maybe even New Zealand to see Sage! Nothing worked. He sobbed for an hour with a cry that could only come from a broken heart. He could not be remedied by material things and all that mattered in his little life was that he got his sister (or brother, which he said he would settle for). In the weeks that followed, he never wanted to talk about it about it, though he did start carrying around his little dark skinned doll again and became obsessed with a Disney TV series about two boys that were adopted. His new neighborhood friend has a sister and he asked if it was Ok if he secretly pretended that she was his sister, too.
The week proceeding "the call" was monumental for a few reasons. March 28th marks the passing of an amazing lady - my Grandma Jensen. This was an extremely difficult time for my family. She was so dear to us all and 100 posts could not give credit to the lady that she was. She was a 96 yr old rockstar. She so badly wanted us to get our little girl. A few weeks before she passed, the three of us joined her for dinner and she told us how concerning it was to her that J ("her boy") would be growing up without a sibling.
On April 1st.... let me repeat. ON APRIL 1st (the very day we were going to stop) we got "the almost call". They told us that our ET representative had all of the information in hand for our referral and that he was just having someone translate one document before he sent it on our WACAP office in Washington.
I am all over the board when it comes to spirituality and the mysterious workings of the universe, but it is a nice thought that Grandma, in all of her take-charge-so-her-family-is-taken-care-of glory, stomped right in to that marvelous room filled with God, Jesus Christ, Ganesha, Buddha, Yu-Huang, and whomever else she could rally, put her fist to the table and said, "Now you listen here. My darlings have waited too long to bring their daughter home, so I want something done about this now!"
Thanks, Grandma. :)
As that date grew near, our emotions became more intensified. In order to protect our hearts, we manically started thinking of 101 reasons why adoption was no longer the right thing and why we would be okay with moving forward as a family of three. We started making lists of things we could start doing with the house by spending our adoption nest egg. Hell, we did start to spend that adoption nest egg! I started researching vacation summer rentals on faraway islands. I was seconds away from reserving our Mexican Christmas extravaganza. I even applied to another graduate program. Yes - we had plans and our new mantra was, "We will be OK. We will be OK".
But speaking for myself, I was deeply conflicted on the inside. Husband says the same thing, but he is just one of those more stoic manly-man types, so it was harder to tell with him. Like for instance, when his friends would ask him over for a glass of
In early March, J asked if we could talk about the adoption. I figured I would seize the moment to tell him that the adoption was over. Actually, my exact words were, "WACAP told us there are no more kids to adopt from Ethiopia, so they told us that we had to be done." (I know - total cop out, but I figured it was easier for him and us if I stated it that way). I immediately tried to sugarcoat the situation by telling him that this summer we could go to LegoLand! He could move into the bigger guest room and I will paint in any color that he wants - even black! In a few years I will take him to Europe to meet his cousins! Maybe even New Zealand to see Sage! Nothing worked. He sobbed for an hour with a cry that could only come from a broken heart. He could not be remedied by material things and all that mattered in his little life was that he got his sister (or brother, which he said he would settle for). In the weeks that followed, he never wanted to talk about it about it, though he did start carrying around his little dark skinned doll again and became obsessed with a Disney TV series about two boys that were adopted. His new neighborhood friend has a sister and he asked if it was Ok if he secretly pretended that she was his sister, too.
The week proceeding "the call" was monumental for a few reasons. March 28th marks the passing of an amazing lady - my Grandma Jensen. This was an extremely difficult time for my family. She was so dear to us all and 100 posts could not give credit to the lady that she was. She was a 96 yr old rockstar. She so badly wanted us to get our little girl. A few weeks before she passed, the three of us joined her for dinner and she told us how concerning it was to her that J ("her boy") would be growing up without a sibling.
On April 1st.... let me repeat. ON APRIL 1st (the very day we were going to stop) we got "the almost call". They told us that our ET representative had all of the information in hand for our referral and that he was just having someone translate one document before he sent it on our WACAP office in Washington.
I am all over the board when it comes to spirituality and the mysterious workings of the universe, but it is a nice thought that Grandma, in all of her take-charge-so-her-family-is-taken-care-of glory, stomped right in to that marvelous room filled with God, Jesus Christ, Ganesha, Buddha, Yu-Huang, and whomever else she could rally, put her fist to the table and said, "Now you listen here. My darlings have waited too long to bring their daughter home, so I want something done about this now!"
Thanks, Grandma. :)
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
BIG NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday, October 21, 2012
We are still here!
Yes, 2.5 months since our last post and we are still here plugging away and chugging along. I am so glad that we have had distractions to keep us going. My new job came at a perfect time as it takes my mind off of all the crazy - and I must say, I am just very glad that I made the change (from the classroom to a district coordinator).
We have also made not one, but TWO trips to California since the first of September! One trip was cashing in a very generous opportunity from the Husband's family for the two of us to fly to San Fransisco for a romantic get-away. Hmmmm. Lovely.
We also did a very spontaneous trip to Disneyland a few weeks ago! This is one of those things that we just kept putting off because of the adoption, but as we have asserted this philosophy many times this year, we decided to stop putting our lives on hold and to just throw a wad of cash to the wind and go for it! The element of surprise (the Kid did not know until we were actually at the airport!) made the experience extra memorable. The Kid had a blast, though think he might be a little scarred from Space Mountain.
Oh yes, and as for that elusive adoption. Well, we have moved a whopping 3 places up on "the list" in 18 months, so I guess we can all do a big whoop-dee-do for that. As of now, we are #3 for a child 2 years of age, #2 for a child 3 year of age, and #1 for a child 4 year of age.
Being #1 for a child 4 years of age has brought many interesting prospects our way including siblings, twins, and a sweet 5 year old girl. The girl was very difficult for us because she was just over our age request, so we were given a lot of detail on her. The main reason we decided she would not be a fit for our family is because she had several characteristics of an older child. Most children in ET don't have a birth certificate, so ages are an estimate. She came with very little information, so by putting the little pieces of info together, or best guesstimate was that she was really 6-7 years old. Numerous studies and a strong recommendation from our caseworker suggests that disrupting birth order can be very challenging for the siblings to establish their roles in the family. Luckily, there was a family after us that felt that she was right for them, so they snagged her up!
In many ways, these experiences have been somewhat reassuring. I know that after all of this time, we are going to go forward with our adoption only if it feels right from the heart and the mind. I can't tell you how many times I have ran the scenario in my mind of laying my eyes upon her picture, then knowing my emotions would knee jerk me with a swift and solid "Yes! She's the one!", but I was relieved to know that I looked at the situation(s) very logically. There is just a lot to consider when adopting older, and glad to know our head and heart are in synch.
So.... where does this leave us now? If we were even a few families behind on the list, I feel fairly positive that we would be done. Have I mentioned that this wait has turned into literal torture at this point? Well, it is and I am almost done with this beast of an adoption.....
But we can't give up now because apparently there are two of the most sweetest little girls there that are 3-4 years old. We have known about these girls for two months, and as always, they are caught up in that #*@% paperwork. One of my adoption friends, Zoe (www.slowmama.com), just went to pick up her darling 4 year old twin girls and she wrote to me on her return that she got to spend time with them. She said she would have taken either of those girls home in a heartbeat and that they are adorable in every way. Coming from her (one whom I would think is an excellent judge on intuitive things such as "red flags") meant the world to me. Apparently, these girls are now considered adoptable (WACAP puts family preservation as #1 priority - so will not call these children true orphans that are ready for adoption until all efforts have been made to keep them with their birth families), so really, it is just that blasted paperwork we are waiting on. Our caseworker said that many of these villages that the kids are from are an 8 hour drive from the orphanage, so with needing to make several trips out to the village to complete the paperwork explains the extreme lag in time. I guess.
So, unless this orphanage that currently works exclusively with WACAP signs on with another orphanage in the time being (that would just be our crappy luck), one of those girls are ours, so we are holding out for her. And I will continue to jump out of my pants every time my phone rings.
We have also made not one, but TWO trips to California since the first of September! One trip was cashing in a very generous opportunity from the Husband's family for the two of us to fly to San Fransisco for a romantic get-away. Hmmmm. Lovely.
We also did a very spontaneous trip to Disneyland a few weeks ago! This is one of those things that we just kept putting off because of the adoption, but as we have asserted this philosophy many times this year, we decided to stop putting our lives on hold and to just throw a wad of cash to the wind and go for it! The element of surprise (the Kid did not know until we were actually at the airport!) made the experience extra memorable. The Kid had a blast, though think he might be a little scarred from Space Mountain.
Oh yes, and as for that elusive adoption. Well, we have moved a whopping 3 places up on "the list" in 18 months, so I guess we can all do a big whoop-dee-do for that. As of now, we are #3 for a child 2 years of age, #2 for a child 3 year of age, and #1 for a child 4 year of age.
Being #1 for a child 4 years of age has brought many interesting prospects our way including siblings, twins, and a sweet 5 year old girl. The girl was very difficult for us because she was just over our age request, so we were given a lot of detail on her. The main reason we decided she would not be a fit for our family is because she had several characteristics of an older child. Most children in ET don't have a birth certificate, so ages are an estimate. She came with very little information, so by putting the little pieces of info together, or best guesstimate was that she was really 6-7 years old. Numerous studies and a strong recommendation from our caseworker suggests that disrupting birth order can be very challenging for the siblings to establish their roles in the family. Luckily, there was a family after us that felt that she was right for them, so they snagged her up!
In many ways, these experiences have been somewhat reassuring. I know that after all of this time, we are going to go forward with our adoption only if it feels right from the heart and the mind. I can't tell you how many times I have ran the scenario in my mind of laying my eyes upon her picture, then knowing my emotions would knee jerk me with a swift and solid "Yes! She's the one!", but I was relieved to know that I looked at the situation(s) very logically. There is just a lot to consider when adopting older, and glad to know our head and heart are in synch.
So.... where does this leave us now? If we were even a few families behind on the list, I feel fairly positive that we would be done. Have I mentioned that this wait has turned into literal torture at this point? Well, it is and I am almost done with this beast of an adoption.....
But we can't give up now because apparently there are two of the most sweetest little girls there that are 3-4 years old. We have known about these girls for two months, and as always, they are caught up in that #*@% paperwork. One of my adoption friends, Zoe (www.slowmama.com), just went to pick up her darling 4 year old twin girls and she wrote to me on her return that she got to spend time with them. She said she would have taken either of those girls home in a heartbeat and that they are adorable in every way. Coming from her (one whom I would think is an excellent judge on intuitive things such as "red flags") meant the world to me. Apparently, these girls are now considered adoptable (WACAP puts family preservation as #1 priority - so will not call these children true orphans that are ready for adoption until all efforts have been made to keep them with their birth families), so really, it is just that blasted paperwork we are waiting on. Our caseworker said that many of these villages that the kids are from are an 8 hour drive from the orphanage, so with needing to make several trips out to the village to complete the paperwork explains the extreme lag in time. I guess.
So, unless this orphanage that currently works exclusively with WACAP signs on with another orphanage in the time being (that would just be our crappy luck), one of those girls are ours, so we are holding out for her. And I will continue to jump out of my pants every time my phone rings.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Summer, 2012 (warning: picture overload!)
All photos taken with my rockin' I-Phone
And also, if you go back to that kite picture, if you look super closely, you might see Spiderman and Batman strapped on for the ride...and you would not believe the adventures they had! Bet you didn't know they saved the world from mass destruction. Thank god we had that dragon kite on hand to help aide in that mission. This was a two day activity and I chalk it up to the unexpected pleasures of having a son!
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Mini update
For the few of you that might be curious, not much new to report on here. Sort of like the same ol', same ol' blah...blah..blah. Whatever.
There was a wave of referrals a month ago. I get chills thinking of my friend I have met through our agency. They have been on the wait list for over three years (but really, due to road blocks, about the same amount of time we have been in process) and as I type this, they are in ET meeting their 4 year old twins for the first time. They have no other children, so the significance of this union is amazing!
That is one good thing. Since referrals are going at the rate of pudding through a filter, it is just a matter of weeks to get scheduled a court and embassy date (meaning actually bringing your kids home!). Not long ago, scheduling these appointments took months and months.
We are either #1 to #3 on "the list" now depending on age. Yet again, we have been stuck in this list mud before. Courts are closed now until the end of September, so even though we theoretically could get a referral in that time, we could not get the ball rolling until October.
But this is OK. Really. Life just keeps on getting on! We just spent 2.5 weeks camping along the Oregon coast and seeing good friends in Portland and Corvallis. Lovely, lovely time. I also started my new job last week! I am a bundle of excited nerves as I leave my classroom and enter the realm of cubicals and suits. I do think I made the right career move, however. Hubs pointed out something pretty profound the other day when he said that this is the first time I have not come home after my first day back in overwhelmed tears.
Sorry that checking in with my blog still does not reveal that exciting REFERRAL! news we have all been waiting for, but I do appreciate you still checking in on things.
There was a wave of referrals a month ago. I get chills thinking of my friend I have met through our agency. They have been on the wait list for over three years (but really, due to road blocks, about the same amount of time we have been in process) and as I type this, they are in ET meeting their 4 year old twins for the first time. They have no other children, so the significance of this union is amazing!
That is one good thing. Since referrals are going at the rate of pudding through a filter, it is just a matter of weeks to get scheduled a court and embassy date (meaning actually bringing your kids home!). Not long ago, scheduling these appointments took months and months.
We are either #1 to #3 on "the list" now depending on age. Yet again, we have been stuck in this list mud before. Courts are closed now until the end of September, so even though we theoretically could get a referral in that time, we could not get the ball rolling until October.
But this is OK. Really. Life just keeps on getting on! We just spent 2.5 weeks camping along the Oregon coast and seeing good friends in Portland and Corvallis. Lovely, lovely time. I also started my new job last week! I am a bundle of excited nerves as I leave my classroom and enter the realm of cubicals and suits. I do think I made the right career move, however. Hubs pointed out something pretty profound the other day when he said that this is the first time I have not come home after my first day back in overwhelmed tears.
Sorry that checking in with my blog still does not reveal that exciting REFERRAL! news we have all been waiting for, but I do appreciate you still checking in on things.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Ms. M Graduates!
Today was a day of celebration, indeed! Ms. M graduated! For those of you that don't know of her - Ms. M is an amazing young lady that was brought to the US at age 15 via adoption. Unfortunately, her adoption was disrupted (due to a situation not directly related to her personally), so because of this, she was sent to Job Corps to live and complete HS . I was her teacher the first day she entered an American classroom and I have been a mentor and friend since then.
Not going to sugar coat - Job Corps is tough stuff, but luckily her street smarts and positive outlook served her well and she proved valiant in a less than stellar situation. She crammed one year of H.S. coursework into 6 months and is well on her way of earning her CNA. This is a testament to her resiliency and determination.
Our family has been so fortunate to welcome her into our home on the weekends. Even though it sounds like she has made some great friends in JC, no doubt she appreciates a quiet room with a laptop at her disposal where she can catch up on her Facebook and ET dramas. Having her here is the perfect excuse to go out for ET food (we now have three local eats!). We have also fit in some fun "girl time" picking through second hand stores for the perfect outfit or vegging out on the couch for a teen flick marathon. All the while, our family soaks up the valued lesson she has to teach us regarding ET culture. She tells us that "your adoption is taking so long because God is just waiting to find you the most perfect child for your family." She has been a tremendous motivator for us to stick with it by her sweet words of encouragement. Oh, and have I mentioned that the Kid has a serious crush? He does. Can you blame him?
(Ms. M and a wonderful Ethiopian woman that has taken her under her wing)
As of this very moment, her future is unclear. The only known she holds on to is that she wants to go to college to become a nurse. With great effort to keep her eye on the goal, she is striving to look beyond the potential hazy twists and turns that being a young women in a foreign country can present without a solid (family) support system. Only she can decide which option has the best opportunities or is the lesser of two evils - depending on how she might look at it. She will have to work for a year to be able to apply for financial aide for college, so is that going to be here in Utah where she has few supports yet is cheaper to live, or join her dearest friends in NYC and try to navigate her independence there? I am betting on the second as she is 100% city girl (grew up on the streets of Addis Ababa) and has that savvy about her, but only time will tell. All I know is that if anyone can make it - she can!
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