45 days later and we still have not passed court

We start every week with the hope that this will be the week. The weekend ends, its Monday...maybe this will be the week. Then the good news comes "as soon as _________ happens we will be all set". Then 12 or maybe 24 or sometimes 48 hours later...."sorry something else has come up....it should be cleared up next week".

Or sometimes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of wearing down my battery checking my email, or jumping every time the phone rings hoping they will finally call with good news. Then Friday ends and I know I won't hear anything all weekend. Then it is Sunday evening, getting ready to start a new week. Hoping yet trying to not hope. Believing this is finally the day/week/month she will finally be ours, then having it not happen. Crying out "Why again? How many more weeks of this can I take?" Then waking up and starting another day, another week, soon to be another month.

We thought we would have her home by Christmas or soon after. It is December 26th and we have never been more unsure. Unsure whether or not the little girl we have held in our arms will be able to come home to us. It can't be possible can it? There are fears and doubts in my mind that I wish I could highlight with my mouse and erase from my brain as easily as I can erase them from this blog.

Put on a happy face. "Think of the children who are home with you" "Enjoy the time you have to rest and recharge" Trust, believe, pray.....cry...pray....disbelieve....fight....pray....make breakfast, go about your day, clean the house, play with the kids, fight temptation, fight self indulgence, fight despair, sometimes win the fight, sometimes lose. Call Kevala, cry some more. Read scriptures, try again. Collapse into the arms of the only person who knows how you feel...lay on the floor with him and listen to music. Go to bed, dream, pray, hope, take a deep breath and plunge into another week.

Our trip to Ethiopia and our adoption status.

Wow it has been a long time since I have written anything on our blog. I guess because the last month has been an unbelievable whirlwind of ups and downs. The week before we left for Addis Ababa to meet our angel was a rush of packing, praying and preparing to fly half way across the world. I was nervous and curious about what it would be like to meet her.

Our time in Ethiopia was the most emotionally challenging and intense week of my life so far. It was like jumping into the middle of the ocean, you can do nothing but swim until you get back on the boat and when you get into the boat you are are exhausted. Each day had its challenges and its delights and each day was really intense. Some of the joys of our trip:

1. Seeing our Angel in real life for the first time. Seeing how beautiful and tiny and precious she is. Learning who she is outside of a photo. She is fearless and independent (much like her brother Sam). She likes to play, she loves peek-a-boo and she made us work for her smile. She has beautiful cheeks, skinny little legs and the cutest little puckered lip expression.
2. Getting to see David experience Africa for the first time. He was enthralled with the differences there; the men herding goats, donkeys as work animals, wild dogs, all the Ethiopian adults who were so happy to see an American child and who wanted to love on him. Our guest house driver always tried to talk to him, a shop owner hugged him out of nowhere and some young women at a restaurant just went on and on about how beautiful he is. And he handled it all with kind, shy and polite interest.
   
3. Getting to see David engage with his sister. He wanted her to love him just as much as we wanted her to love us. He was gentle and patient with her. He said. "Mom her head is so warm and I love her hair". He handed her toys and smiled at her. He worked really hard to master her name with an Amharic accent so when he said it, he would get her attention. When she took his hat from him in a game of peek-a-boo she looked back at him with an expression of "I'm pretending to be fearless - but I'm afraid of how you will react to that" and he gave her the most loving smile.
4. Seeing her find security in Mike's loving arms.
5. Feeling relief when I was able to comfort her and she fell asleep on my shoulder. Feeling her little arms grip onto me when I was patting her back and she was crying. I thought she wanted me to put her down but she held on tight like don't let me go. (5 minutes later she vomited all over me, poor thing was not feeling well that day).
6. The kind and caring way which Tomas and Lelena took us around Addis, to court, to sightseeing and to and from a dinner out. They work so hard for all the parents and children.
7. Getting to go through this week with other adoptive parents. Getting to know them and being thankful that many of our angel's orphanage mates will be in the Denver area. In the midst of all the intensity of the week having a shared experience with others was such a blessing.
8. Meeting our angel's birth father. Seeing his eyes light up in hope for the opportunity his daughter will have to get an education and to live with a loving family. Getting to take photos of us and him, he and his daughter and a video of him giving a blessing to her. I know these will be cherished pieces of her story as she gets older, and we feel so blessed by the way the Ethiopian culture has embraced birth parent-adoptive parent meetings.
   

And there were also the hard parts:

1. Worrying that our angel was not taking to us as we thought she would. Worrying that she didn't like us. Worrying that all the love and attention we were showering her with was overwhelming and confusing her. Seeing in living color how much pain she has been through at such a young age.
   
2. Feeling inadequate and walking around all week like I was in a weird dream. It is so unbelievable to spend 18 months dreaming about a moment and then to really be living it. It was surreal.
3. Sitting in a court waiting room, seated across from our angel's birth father. Each of us stealing glances at the other, waiting for our time to go in and tell the judge that we will accept this little girl into our family whom we have prayed for, yet only spent two hours with. I get nervous going to traffic court, I was barely able to make it through court in a foreign country that holds the fate of our family in their hands.
4. Seeing the little babies and all the children at the orphanage crying, smiling, reaching out for someone to love them, with big hopeful eyes. They are well cared for, but they all need to feel the love of a family to protect them. They are real children, just like my Sam and David. They just don't have anyone to care for them yet, they are alone. And if they are matched with a family they do have people who care for them, but they are thousands of miles away, waiting day after day for permission to go get them.
5. Witnessing other birth parent meetings. Where mothers are crying that they have to give their children up, because they can't feed them, and mothers are crying because they have promised to care for the child but it just breaks their hearts to see the pain in the birth mother's eyes. Two families pulled together in love, joy and tragedy. Playing out in front of me - not in a movie. Real life.
6. Having to place my baby, sick and sad in the arms of her nanny, walk away, get in a van, drive to the airport, board a plane, fly half way around the world still not knowing when we will be able to go back and bring her home.

And here we are 21 days later.

We have spent the last three weeks on a rollercoaster of emotional torture. Every day waiting to hear that our paperwork is finally in order and that our court case is finalized so we can get a date to fly back to Ethiopia. Almost every day is new information, but none of it is official yet. I still can't post pictures or her name. I still can't say she is officially our daughter. Even though her father relinquished her. Even though we told a judge we will accept her. Even though we promised her father that we will care for her as if she is from our flesh. We have been waiting 21 days now for "the news". We have another court date scheduled for Dec. 7th. We don't need to appear at the court date, it is just for the judge to review our paperwork and determine if everything is in order. We are still waiting on an approval from the Gambella Regional Government before the judge can rule on it. We are watching other adoptive parents excitedly post that they have passed court, and we are still waiting. Waiting and hoping that the paperwork will get sorted out soon, worrying that every day that passes the longer our baby will have to live in an orphanage alone and without her family.

I hope to post "the news" soon.

We leave in 11 days

Wow - 19 days have passed since we received our court date. It has been a crazy time around here. Within 48 hours of finding out the news we had booked 3 round trip tickets to Addis Ababa and 4 nights stay at the Yebsabi Guest house. I bought a new camera to take pictures and video - a Canon. It is awesome I love it and can't wait to use it to take pictures of our little girl and the other children with waiting families.

I have to admit it has been a hard stage. It is crazy how each milestone we reach in this process continues to be a relief and an opening of what I will call "discomfort". It is really uncomfortable falling in love with a child half way across the world. Don't get me wrong - it is easy to fall in love with her; she is beautiful, sweet and everything I dreamed about. But she is in Ethiopia and I am here, and that is really uncomfortable. I just want to be with her, I want to meet her for the first time. I want to know how big is she really? How soft are her cheeks (I think about this one a lot - I guess because I just love cheeks - Sammy can attest to that!)?

I have been worrying about her birth father a lot. We have been praying for him, we have a whole team of amazing friends praying for him and her birth sisters. Praying that he will be comforted in this time that must be very difficult for him. And we have been praying that we will get to meet him at court. We found out a week ago that birth families will have the same court date/time as adoptive families. Wow I was not expecting this!

Originally we were told that with the new court travel requirement the birth families would have a court date 2-4 weeks before the adoptive families so that you would be sure to pass court when you traveled. Apparently that changed. So now we will be sitting in a room waiting our turn to go into court - watching all of the birth parents go in, and then come out having relinquished their children. It's an act I can't imagine having the heart to do - yet I admire their self sacrifice to insure their children will live. I think about that day with anxious anticipation. Anxious because I know it will not be comfortable to witness the relinquishment, yet anticipating the time when we get to say yes - we will bring our Angel into our family, our home and our hearts forever.

International Adoption is such an amazing act. Two families from two sides of the globe. One saying I need to provide a way for my child to live, I need someone to find a family for her. One family saying we will provide a way for a child to live, whatever child you gift us with. Two families separated by 8,000 miles and brought together for the love of a child. What an amazing thing......only God could dream this big.

I am so glad He is with us.

Court Date!

We are so happy to announce we have a court date! I received the news while shopping in Target (of course). We travel in 5 weeks. We have our court date on November 12th. I am so happy and excited about the date, it is much earlier than I thought it might be and it gives me hope that she will be home before we know it.

For those of you who don't know, after we pass court we wait another 6-8 weeks until we get an appointment at the US Embassy in Addis Ababa, and after our embassy appointment we will bring her home.

Cheers to entering my third trimester :)

Pink fabric, Coconut Oil and Acupuncture

What the heck do you do while waiting for the Ethiopian government to give you a court date? Its officially killing me waiting. It has been two months since we received our referral for our little angel. Yes, 6 of those 8 weeks the courts were closed for the rainy season so I knew we would be waiting a long time for our court date, but man, now that they are back open I am officially anxious again.

As much as it stinks now that the weeks have passed, it was a lot easier to wait when I knew the courts were closed and therefore I knew we wouldn't hear anything about a court date. Now that they are open again the floodgates of emotion are open as well.

So what have I been filling my time with? Lets see....

I pray for her everyday. I pray that she is happy, healthy and protected. I pray for her dad and her sisters. I pray that we will receive a court date soon so that she can come home.

Then I think about her all the time. The weeks are going by fast - which is a good thing, because every week that passes we are closer to the end, but every week that passes is another week that she is not home with us, that we are not able to shower her with love.

Then I pray for her.

I have been experimenting with different kinds of oils for her hair when she gets home. So far I have tried out coconut oil - which if you don't know is an amazing moisturizer for your skin and hair. But I don't really like the scent - so next will be on to Almond oil.

Then I pray for her.

I have tried to learn to cook Ethiopian food. I made Niter Kibeh and Ethiopian Collard Greens. Next I will try cooking Atar Allecha.

Then I pray for her.

I spent 4 hours picking out pink fabric with my mom for a quilt she is making for our little angel.

Then I pray for her.

I spent three days straight piecing together, sewing and quilting another quilt for our dear friend John who has Leukemia (thanks for the help mom!)

Then I pray for her (and praying for you too John and your family every day.)

We went to two appointments to get the family vaccinated for our travels to Ethiopia.

Then I pray for her.

I have had many appointments for acupuncture (which really helps in the waiting place - I can't recommend it stronger for all other waiting mommas).

I have looked at airline tickets (even though we don't know when we will be traveling)

Then I pray for her.
Sometimes the prayers are simple, sometimes they are long and drawn out, begging, pleading, bargaining, hoping, crying, asking. Sometimes they are just the words, "I trust you, I need you, I wait upon you".

Every night I snuggle up to a little blanket I bought for her. I imagine what it will be like to have her little body snuggled up to mine.

I'm continuing to read up on how to connect with and parent an adopted child. Mike and I have also during this time decided to bring David with us when we go to Ethiopia for court. We are so excited to share Africa with him for the first time. We are excited to educate him on what it truly means to be an orphan in Ethiopia. We are ecstatic that he will be able to meet her when we do. We are so happy that he will understand his little sister's heritage and be able to share in that with her. We have also decided recently that we are going to make it a family goal to travel, (as a family) to Ethiopia and/or Kenya every 3 years as part of our family identity over the next 15-20 years that we will have our children living at home with us.

So that is what I have been filling my time with. What have I been filling my mind with?

I'm trying really hard to keep my hope that this will all come to fruition and soon. I'm trying my best to patiently wait for "the call" again. It is really hard to stay positive and every days that passes is harder. But I know that I'm doing the easy work. Just chugging through the daily grind of my blessed life. She is the one alone, and I cry for her little feet. But I know that she is not totally alone. He is with her, He is guarding her body and spirit. He will bring His plan to completion.

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
He rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is the God of Justice
Blessed are all who wait for him! Isaiah 30:18

He is with you baby, He sees you baby - keep waiting, and I'm here, waiting for you. Love, Mommy

Courts Open September 28

So IAN posted on their blog that their Ethiopian staff have confirmed that courts will open on September 28th. I'm glad to have a real date, though surprisingly dissappointed that they are not opening until the 28th. I had really wrapped my heart around them opening "mid-September". The 28th feels very not "mid-September".

It is now just over a month since we accepted our referral and the peace that came with the wait list being over is quickly being overtaken by the new found anxiety over the new waiting stage. Here is a short list of the things I worry about:

1) Will her dad change his mind and will we lose her?
2) Will our first court date be way later than we think (hope) it will be?
3) Will this waiting stage be painfully long?
4) What if she gets sick?
5) Is she being well taken care of and feeling loved?

#1 is the hardest one. How can we hope that her dad will not change his mind without being selfish? Yet we already love her so much. How can we love her so much and want her home so badly when the one thing that would guarantee that will happen is that she not get to see her dad and sisters again? So hard, and so painful for everyone involved. And we don't even know anything about her dad. Is he a wonderful man who simply cannot provide for her? Or is he the type of person who you would never want raising children? My mind wanders to this place so many times. Logically I know that if she were able to stay with her birth family that may be the best circumstances for her, but I am not there emotionally. Because I love her and I do not want to have to say goodbye to her. In my heart, in Mike's heart, in Sam and David's she is already part of our family. Our daughter, our baby sister. But in reality, legally, she is not yet our child. She is still his child, their sister.

I wait and wait and wait knowing nothing but the beautiful picture of our hopeful daughter who we are intentionally opening our hearts to - walking knowingly through a mind-field of possible heart shattering circumstances out of our control.

And when I mean intentionally opening our hearts I mean; calling her our daughter already, sharing her picture with David and Sam, painting and decorating her room, buying her clothes, praying for her daily and envisioning her snuggled up to me in our bed. A vision so strong I can almost feel her next to me. Not just "a little angel" anymore, but this very specific little angel. With her beautiful heart shaped mouth, her tiny little arms, her beautiful dark skin, her amazing smiling eyes, her outgoing personality. I love all I know of her already. And I am gripped with fear again that she will be taken away from me, or will not be given to me in the first place.

I am again married to the dates that I have no control over and that will undoubtedly change unexpectedly. I should know by now that I shouldn't set a time-line in my mind - because my time-line will not be "the time-line" in the end. But I just can't do it. Even when I think I'm not doing it - I am.....as proved by my reaction to a little two-week shift in expectation. I keep saying I just want to know our court date whatever it is.....but the truth is if our first court date isn't until January....I'm going to need a big box of tissues.

A Picture Can Tell a Thousand Words

Things I have learned about our little angel from the pictures I have received:
* She was sad on the day they took her referral picture
* She has a beautiful smile
* She can act shy, but she really loves to smile
* She likes to be silly
* She has beautiful straight teeth
* She does not like to be left in her crib
* She can go from tears to the most beautiful smile you have ever seen
* When she cries, or is about to cry, she puckers her nose
* She looks beautiful in light pink
* Her face can express a thousand emotions

Since we received our referral on August 4th we have received 13 pictures of our little baby girl. Every time we get new ones we are blessed with another little glimpse into her personality. From the first two photos we received we really knew nothing about her - other than she looked sad. The next three showed us that she could smile, and that she was willing to smile for a random person. The next four showed that she not only can smile...but that her face could create absolute love in our hearts. We also learned through a cute little photo of her sticking out her tongue that she is funny and sassy. Today we were blessed with four more pictures of new emotions 1)crying for attention 2)happiness when attention is granted 3)sassy smiles that steal your heart and reveal her mischief 4)A desire to give that sassy smile despite heat and humidity that can make you want to sleep.

How much of this am I imagining from just a few photos? Maybe a lot. But I do know that every little piece of information we are receiving is etching a new mark on my heart. What a joy to adopt a toddler! Sweetness of a baby, sassiness and intelligence of an older child. I have always loved this phase in childhood, and I pray that God will grant me every minute of her toddler-hood that he can.

Thank you God for these photos of my daughter-to-be, and thank you with all of my heart to all the families who take the time to take pictures of the children waiting for their forever families and sending them to the waiting families. They are such a blessing in the waiting place.

(If you want to see a photo of our little angel pray with me that we will get a court date soon, and that we will pass court soon, so that I can post them - she must get her sassiness from her mommy!)

Referral!!!!

The day is finally here, our adoption agency found a BEAUTIFUL and tiny 2 year old girl for our family! We just faxed over our acceptance letter today. I'm going totally over the top with printing her picture and putting it all kinds of places....my iphone wall paper, my computer desktop, by my bed.....I just can't get enough of staring at her photo!

We received her referral on Wednesday morning much to the complete and utter shock of myself and Mike. I literally went into shock, shaking, crying, calling Mike, Kevala and my sister and speaking incoherently. I don't think my mind stopped spinning for 24 hours.

We are incredibly overjoyed to be entering a new phase of the adoption process and right now we are trying really hard to be disciplined about taking time to praise God and thank God that we have been given the opportunity to parent an orphan from Africa.

It is both surreal and amazing to be sitting here typing this blog post with a picture right next to me of a little girl who needs a mommy! I always imagined what it would be like to receive a referral and it was nothing like I thought it would be. As Mike said yesterday with a shocked look on his face "you think you can prepare yourself for this day, but you really can't prepare yourself!"

As most of you know we have been spending the last three months preparing ourselves that this day would not come until next year so we were totally unprepared to receive this news on Wednesday - isn't it funny how God continues to turn my "planning time lines" upside down! We were so overwhelmed when we received this referral just under 6 months on the wait list!

I know that many of you will want to know what the next steps look like, and to be honest we don't totally know what the timing will be because there have been some changes in the Ethiopian adoption process but this is the general process we know so far:

1) We now wait for the Ethiopian courts to assign us a court date (probably within 6-8 weeks from now) The Ethiopian courts are closed for a month starting today.

2) Fly to Ethiopia for court, meet our baby, pass court (she is then legally ours but we can't take her home until a US Embassy date) and then fly home

3) wait 6 weeks until we get a US Embassy appointment, fly back to Ethiopia to pick up our baby and bring her home as a US Citizen

5) Hopefully we will have her home by the end of the year, possibly sooner.

I will write more when we know more, this week has been an amazing whirlwind!

Adoptive Parents are not Disposable Garbage Bags

For the second time this week I have been hit with shock and disbelief over stories of incredibly painful experiences that other trying-to-adopt (TTA) parents have had thrust upon their lives. For one caring TTA family their experience was one of being taken advantage of by a girl in a private adoption scenario and the other TTA family it was being taken advantage of by the Foster-adopt program. The first family flew across the country to be at the birth of the baby they were told they could adopt and were painfully and vindictively abused at the hospital by the birth family. They left devastated, traumatized, and returned to an empty home. The second TTA family devoted months to a precious child in foster-adopt, they were given the impression that they would be able to adopt this child and then the child was taken from them and returned to its birth mother.

I have had friends who have given babies up for adoption, and I know what a difficult and painful experience it is for them as well. I know that neither of them approached their decision in a casual manner. I know that they made the right choice and gave their child to another family so that family could give the life to the child that they were not ready to give. I also know families who have had their child taken away from them by the State of Colorado CPS. I know that these families are doing the best they are capable of to care for their child. Unfortunately the best they are capable of is neglect and/or abuse.

Most people if asked would tell you that the most painful experience of adoption is experienced by the child. And this is absolutely TRUE.

Most people will then express how painful adoption is for the birth mother, and birth family. This is also absolutely TRUE.

But people rarely ever talk about how painful the process is for the TTA parents out there. Most people view TTA parents as "doing a good thing" or "getting a child the easy way". And it is true that the experience the TTA parents have is not the same experience as the birth family or the child. TTA parents do not experience the grief, loss and pain of relinquishment. But this does not make TTA parents the ones who have it easy, or the ones who are disposable.

The decision to become a TTA parent is the most difficult decision I have ever made. It has quickly become the most difficult season of my life. It is difficult for a lot of reasons. As a TTA parent you walk openly, trustingly into the hands of an adoption agency, lawyer, birth mother or social worker. You are questioned, drilled, asked the most private questions and put to the test to see if you are fit to be a parent. You hand over your finances and the comfort of your current life. You hand over your hopes and dreams for the next member of your family. You place relationships on the line (because not everyone will think it is a good idea). And why do we do this?

Why do we put so much in our lives at risk? For all of us, it is because we passionately care for the children in the world who are not being provided for. Our hearts break to think of a child without parents. Our hearts yearn to heal the wounds of the children who innocently are living in a broken world where they can't be cared for by their birth parents. Our hearts break for the mothers and families who simply cannot care for their children and who are stuck with very few options....yet they sacrifice their own need to be with their child to provide a better life for their child. For many TTA parents adoption is their last chance at becoming parents. They have suffered relentlessly for years with infertility.

Most people have only a pop-culture education on what it means to be a TTA parent. It is all media images of parents flipping through books with pictures of children up for adoption, “just casually choose the one you want from this orphanage”. Maybe this was how adoption worked in this country in years past. Maybe it is all fiction. But in the year 2010 it is a jumble of legal paperwork, financial scrambling, waiting, bureaucracy, training, waiting, foreign policy, waiting, immigration law, waiting and trust in this jumbled system. And incredibly there are people out there who we place our trust in who lack hesitation about misleading a TTA family. Give them hope for a child, but if it doesn't work out...oh well. No damage done, they were "just trying to do a good thing" they will find another way.

There are lawyers, social workers, and adoption agency reps out there who just want to move you through their system. If it takes 2-3 years - well you better wait. If it never happens, sorry we still need our fees. If you have been caring and loving a child for months, weeks, days but it is determined that they are best back with their birth mother...sorry hand over the child who for years you have been hoping, waiting, praying, and crying for.**

And then there are the people who just hear the saying "trying to adopt" and want to fill your head with all kinds of garbage. Unload their horror story about adoptions gone bad. Unload their opinions on trans-racial families, or advice on not messing up your family with unknown DNA strands. Most of these people are your friends. Most people are well meaning and just don't understand how hurtful this is to TTA parents.

And then there are the people who don't like TTA families. These are the people who feel like TTA parents are stealing babies that aren't really theirs. How do I know this? Because at a time in my life I was one of the people who didn't like them. When I was in high school my friend found out she was pregnant. She selflessly made the brave choice to give her son up for adoption. I was there at the hospital when the adoptive parents came into the room to hold him. I know I was thinking, "why are they here? what is wrong with them, can't they see how painful this is?" I was a teenager, so I was probably even glaring at them. I never once had any empathy for the months? years? that they had been hoping, waiting, praying, crying. The months upon months of not knowing if they would be given an opportunity to parent a child (any child) they so wanted.

If my friend had changed her mind and decided to keep her son I would have rejoiced. He was her baby after all. And I wouldn't have thought twice about the family that would have been sent home empty handed. Because that is all they were to me.....a solution to a problem, and once they were no longer needed - they could be disposed of. They would just adopt another baby.

But I was wrong. And now that I am a TTA parent I know how hard it is to be trying to adopt. I hope it doesn't get any harder, I hope I can persevere until the time when I can move from TTA to Mommy of three. During this journey I have also come to know so many amazing TTA parents who are the kindest most giving people I have met. I hope people who read this will no longer see TTA parents as disposable parents, or a dumping ground for opinions. I hope that people who read this will see TTA parents as what they are; loving, compassionate, caring people who are hoping, waiting, praying, crying out for the opportunity to love a child who needs love.

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**In my personal adoption experience I have met many caring and compassionate adoption workers who are also passionate about helping the world’s children, professionally and personally. I know there are many amazing social workers, lawyers, adoption agencies and birth families who do everything they can to make adoption a positive experience for children and parents. I have also encountered so many supportive and caring friends and family through this process. I don't know where we would be without them. This blog post is in response to the stories of those who have unfortunately bumped into the other.

The Downs and Ups

Wow this has been a crazy time since my last post! About 2 weeks ago Mike and I got an email from our friends (Fred and Alice) in Kenya who run Hands with Hope Orphanage in Njiru, Kenya. In that email was a picture of a beautiful 2 year old baby girl named Serah. Alice told us that Serah's mother had passed away and that she was taking her in to live at the orphanage. She was emailing us to ask us to pray that she would "have a good life". Receiving this email with the heartbreaking story of this precious little girl losing her mother, as well as the reality of what it would take to have a good life growing up in an orphanage without a mother to love on her everyday - just totally broke me and Mike's hearts.

Presented to us is a picture and story of a child that we would take into our home in a heart beat and provide everything for her she would need to grow strong, live healthy, get a great education and have a family so ready to love her everyday. But due to the fact that the Kenyan government will not allow adoptions to the US right now - nor do they encourage adoption by families of another race - it would take a modern miracle for us to be able to adopt Serah. So we were totally devastated by the sadness in our hearts, as we long to adopt a daughter and the sadness that Serah is now without a family. It just seemed so unfair to everyone involved. The Kenyan government not only does not allow adoption but they also do nothing to provide for the millions (?) of orphans. I know that Fred and Alice will do everything they can to care for her and the other children in the orphanage - but Mike and I firmly believe that an orphanage is not an equal substitution to a loving family. But again - like everything else heart wrenching in this adoption journey, all we can do is try our best with what we've been given and give the rest over to God.

So after a lot of prayer and consideration Mike and I have decided to start helping out the orphanage financially - because for now, that is all we can do for all the beautiful children in the orphanage. When I am so anxious to nurture and love a baby girl, giving financially just doesn't feel like a good substitution. But I know that the food and supplies our donation will provide will improve the life of the children in the orphanage. We have Serah's picture up on our fridge and bathroom mirror and we pray for her everyday, and give her over to God's keeping.

As hard as this was to see, given the slow movement of our adoption over the last few months, I think it really is also a blessing. Because now I have an actual child who I know and I can care for in a few ways, even if it is from miles away. And in this waiting place, that is a real comfort.
______________________________
Fast forward to Monday of this week. I was talking to Mike and we were both commiserating about how hard it is to live in the constant state of unknown. Never knowing if our adoption is going to happen, or whether we will find ourselves one, two, three years from now still in the process. Our hearts are so incredibly tied to adopting a child from Africa...but sometimes it feels like that may not be in the cards. We discussed how long we need to give the Ethiopia process a shot before we start looking back into domestic adoption through foster-adopt. It would be a really hard decision - but really what we have always set out to do is give a loving home to a child who is already here on earth rather than give birth to another child, and in the end I know that it won't matter where we get our daughter from. But for at least another year our hearts are still set on Ethiopia.

So needless to say our hope reserves were running low on Monday and then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday our agency posted 3 new referrals and wait list movement. And the best end to the week was the referral late Friday afternoon - the referral of a 3 year old girl! The toddler girl wait list hasn't had a toddler girl matched on it in 4 or 5 months and I was beginning to think there would never again be movement on the toddler girl list. But with the placement of this little girl we get to move up to #5 on the toddler list and #17 on the baby girl list. For some reason FIVE sounds really close to getting a referral! Even though I know it could be months and months until there is another referral, it just all seems so much more hopeful. I am praying that this is the beginning of referrals returning to a more frequent place (and I am really praying for Heather to get a baby girl referral soon! She has been #1 for almost 4 months now).

So we ended the week on a joyful note, and here's to hoping that this season of waiting...though we still have a hard road ahead of us....will smooth out a little. A little refreshment in the desert.

SIGH!

Main Entry: ¹sigh
Pronunciation: \ˈsī\

Function: verb

Etymology: Middle English sihen, alteration of sichen, from Old English sīcan; akin to Middle Dutch versiken to sigh

Date: 13th century

intransitive verb 1 : to take a deep audible breath (as in weariness or relief)
2 : to make a sound like sighing ing in the branches>
3 : grieve, yearn sighing for days gone by>

CNN highlight of Ethiopian Woman

I found this article posted on another Ethiopian Adoption Blog and felt the need to share :)

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (CNN) -- The sight of a baby girl suckling on the breast of her dead mother changed the course of Abebech Gobena's life forever.

The year was 1980 and Ethiopia lay in the grip of what would become one of the most devastating famines in its history.

Gobena, a devout Christian, was on a pilgrimage to a holy site in the north-east region of the country when she came across the dead mother and her baby, lying amid a sea of people who were starving to death.

"When I was returning, there were so many of these hungry people sprawled all over, you could not even walk," Gobena told CNN.



"I had some bread on me, so I tried to feed them. I fed two men. When I reached this woman, she was dead, but the child was still suckling at her breast," she continued.

"One of the chauffeurs charged with picking up the corpses said to me, 'I am waiting for the child to die so I can pick up both bodies. I just can't bear to take the child as well while she is still alive,'" Gobena said.

Without a second thought, Gobena bundled the tiny girl into her arms and smuggled her to the country's capital, Addis Ababa. In that instant, she transformed both the baby's future and her own.

Haunted by the images of the dying people, it wasn't long before Gobena headed back to the countryside in an effort to source water for the destitute locals. She came across another child in the arms of his dying father.

Find out more about Gobena and her orphanage.

Gobena told CNN: "At the end of the day, as we were going home we came upon five people, three of them dead, two alive. One of the men dying by the side of the road said to me, 'This is my child. She is dying. I am dying. Please save my child.'"

Gobena took the baby boy home which posed a threat to her own safety, she explained to CNN.

"It was a terrible famine. There were no authorities. The government at that time did not want the famine to be public knowledge. So I had to pretend the children were mine and smuggle them out."

By the end of 1980, Gobena had taken in 21 children. But her desire to save the young children caused friction in her family.

"My family, my husband gave me an ultimatum, choose the children or choose your life," she told CNN.

"My relatives, even my mother said, 'She has gone mad, she should be checked at the mental institution.'"
My family, my husband gave me an ultimatum, choose the children or choose your life.
--Abebech Gobena, founder of the Abebech Gobena orphanage.

Gobena continued: "I was not welcome at home. So I decided to move to some land I had bought with the intention of raising some chicken. I moved into this forest area with the kids."

Thirty years on and Gobena, now more famously known as "Africa's Mother Theresa," is the founder of Ethiopia's oldest orphanage. Gobena's thirty-year legacy means she has raised a generation of Ethiopia's abandoned children, orphaned by the ravages of famine, war and HIV/AIDS.

However, leaving her own family was a tough decision for Gobena, who had struggled since childhood to gain an education, job and secure family life.

Born in 1938, she was only a month-old when her father was killed during the Ethio-Italian war. As tradition dictated, she was brought up by her father's parents until the age of 11, when she was married off without her consent.

Revolting against her marriage, Gobena ran away from home to Addis Ababa, where she scraped a basic education, gained a job as a quality controller and remarried.

She told CNN: "I suffered because of the traditions of the country I was born in. But things have improved. My goal is not to marry them off, but to raise them as adults who can take care of themselves."

Gobena has come a long way since 1980 when she struggled to survive, resorting to selling her possessions and tearing up her own dresses to make clothes for the infants. Now her orphanage, as well as sheltering, also acts as a school, educating over 700 children.

But she says: "I have no regrets. God has helped me get to this point. I always had great faith in God.

"I knew we would survive, even selling small things by the roadside. I am so happy because none of the children died, and all of them grew up."

I'm back to obsessively checking the blog

Okay, I'm back. Back to checking IAN's blog too many times per day to see if there has been any movement. I take it as a good sign that I am hopeful again. I've been through a season recently of doubting this will ever happen. Resigning myself to the joys of my two boys....releasing hopes for my baby girl. I stopped checking the blog obsessively. I would look at the end of the day, but I didn't really expect any movement. But about a week ago I decided its time to start trusting again. Trusting is so hard.

Trust requires Faith in God
Faith requires Dependence on God
Dependence on God requires Risk of disappointment
Risk exposes Fear
Fear is crippling, fear erodes Hope

This is the model I have been operating on for the last couple months of slugglish waitlist movement. But just a couple weeks ago I decided I don't want to live at the end of that model. I do have a choice in what model to adopt (no pun intended) and here is my new model:

Trust requires Faith in God
Faith requires Dependence on God
Dependence on God requires acknowledging that God is Good
Knowledge that God is Good builds Hope
Hope allows Joy

So we called our best friends and we painted our little angel's room pink :) in trust and faith that we will someday have our baby girl. And I am hopeful that we will continue to move closer to our daughter, week by week...and I am checking the blog too much.

Waiting Family Picnic on Saturday!

Saturday June 19th (2-5pm)

Mike and I are holding a family picnic for all of the IAN waiting families out there in the greater Denver area. Join us for an afternoon building friendships with other families adopting from Ethiopia, as well as Good Food and spending time together talking about:

• A passionate love for adoption
• Ethiopia
• Waitlists ;)
• Questions, concerns, worries and celebrations surrounding adoption

We decided to put this together to build support for families who are still waiting to adopt - but even if you already have your children we would love to have you join us! Also, please pass on the word to any other IAN families who may be interested.

For more information, or to RSVP, please email Kelly at kelly_e_little@yahoo.com

What we are reading right now

A friend of mine sent me an article this week from an adoption magazine that described the struggle one adoptive mother had after bringing her daughter home from Vietnam. In the article the author wrote very honestly about her struggle to attach to her daughter. That is right - for the mother to attach to the child, not the other way around.

Attachment is such a difficult subject, it is hard for the parents who already have their children in their home and it is also very hard for parents who are waiting to adopt. For me it is a scary prospect to have to wait for months or years to be united with your child, but in the end really being placed in what is essentially an arranged marriage. Neither the child nor the parent truly being in control of who they end up with. Sure - as an adoptive parent we have a heck of a lot more say in the situation than the child, but ultimately we are being tied for life to a human being we do not know. This whole reality is a difficult subject for me and it really is a reality that I have been avoiding looking at for a few months now.

Back in December I began reading a book called "Attaching in Adoption" by Deborah Gray. This book was an informative book, though too clinical, and totally terrifying. It was full of all kinds of information on the psychological, physical and developmental differences between an adopted child and a birth child. It gave examples of difficulties in attachment and offered some solutions to the problem. But mostly it just freaked me out. So I returned it to the library and decided to take a break from reading on this subject.

After reading the article my friend sent me this week I decided it was time that I take another look at the reality of parenting a child through adoption. That it is much more than having a daughter, the color pink, and pretty dresses. So I went in search of another book that would teach me and prepare me to understand the world of international adoption through the heart and mind of an adopted child.

The book I decided to read is called "Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child". I am about 75 pages into this book and so far it has been great. Not only does it explain the differences in parenting an adopted child but it also offers clear cut activities and solutions for encouraging attachment from the first days you arrive home all the way through the teen years. It is written in a way that I feel is very sensitive to people who are either deciding or waiting to adopt. It is not scary nor is it full of horror stories.

What has really hit home to me so far from this book is the reality of how confusing, scary and uncertain life is for a child who has been placed in international adoption. It is so sad to me that these children have been given nothing in life but the message that they are alone and they can only depend on themselves. Everything they know about adults is that they will be gone at some point. The main message they have been given - no matter what their personality or life circumstances have been so far - is that the world is a painful place to be. Not only that - it is painfully unpredictable. From the child's perspective this is what has been taught "Your parents have left you alone. Just when you think you are in a safe place - you may be shipped to (or to another) orphanage. As soon as you get to know the care takers in the orphanage and begin to possibly depend on them, you are abruptly told you are moving to the care facility. Then out of nowhere you are told that you are going home with a couple of strangers who look nothing like you, who speak another language and who are the very people who are taking you from everything and everyone familiar to you."

As a parent (who is painstakingly....patiently...waiting, wondering when and wondering who will be my child) it is really hard to read this reality. To understand that this is what my daughter will know about life when I meet her. It is also totally overwhelming to think that I have to somehow be up to the challenge of building trust so that I may try my best to teach a new version of life to this little child. I feel inadequate and ill-equipped. I feel like I should have a degree and certification to be able to do this. I feel blessed to be given the opportunity to change a life so drastically. I feel guilty for needing to pull her out of her familiar environment in order to teach her this new lesson. I feel a huge weight of responsibility.........

But I feel committed to doing my best. I will try to allow myself grace and failures, and I will keep praying for the strength and tools to be up for the job.

For all you waiting families out there

For all you waiting families out there (including those waiting to get on the waiting list!) - Mike and I will be hosting a family picnic at our house in Broomfield, CO on Saturday June 19th.

Mike and I have had such a great time getting to know other families in the area that are adopting through IAN during our 4 months of adoptive parenting classes, that we decided to try to organize additional get-togethers so that we can all hang out with other people who understand:

1. A passionate call to adopt
2. A love for Ethiopian children
3. The questions, concerns, worries and celebrations surrounding adoption
4. The ridiculous nature of being way too invested in the question "Where are you on the list?"
5. A desire to form friendships with other families who will also someday have a multi-cultural family through adoption

This first get together will be at our home but we will try to plan to hold the meetings in various geographic locations so that you "southerners" won't always have to make the drive!

If you are interested in joining us email me and I can send you additional information!

Update and Referrals

Just a week later and everything has been sorted out with the two new orphanages that IAN has partnered with. GREAT news that all of the paperwork has been filed with Ethiopia and our agency has started making referrals (I assume from the new orphanages). Today they posted 7 new referrals were accepted! Four 3 year old boys, one 3 year old girl, and twin 2 year old girls. Great news for 6 happy families and 7 little precious children.

After the news that the orphanages are finalized I emailed my coordinator and asked her if they had any additional information on the new orphanages, and she said that they are called Yeengida and Selam, and they were both started around October/November 2009 and are both located in Addis Ababa. They work in the Harari region of Ethiopia. (This is different from another region that IAN was(is?) receiving children from - called Sidamo.) You can see from the map to the left that the Harari region is near the eastern border of Ethiopia - near the border with Somalia.

So it is a great relief that the paperwork is finalized- and at least this week, there has been a lot of referrals made. Here's hoping this keeps up, and here's hoping for some baby and toddler girls!

We moved up on the baby girl list today to #20.

The good, the bad and a horse stuck in a swamp

As soon as I think the wait list movement is going to ramp up again...it stalls out. I feel up with good news, and then knocked down again by "new news".

First the good new -

Early last week my best friend, Kevala, took time off work so that we could cruise down to Centennial and check out the offices for our adoption agency. I have never been in there before and I thought it would be a good opportunity to get my eyes on "the board" (wait list). We also have a new adoption coordinator that I thought would be nice to meet face to face.

Seeing the board in person was fun. I quickly tried to memorize every detail and analyze where movement would happen, how many people are duplicates on multiple lists, etc. Analysis done in search of some kind of answer of how and when this list will ever move. Of course this was all done with me trying to act very casual, like "hmmm....I just happen to be standing near this board and casually looking at it, and Oh, did you just ask me a question? Yes I'm totally listening" (You know, just trying to cover up my crazy a little bit). So that was the fun part. Also our new coordinator is really sweet and doesn't treat me like an adoption version of bridezilla when I ask her questions so that is good news as well.

And then the "new news" -

I don't know if it is bad news necessarily - but definitely not what I was expecting. After our agency reported that they had made connections with two additional orphanages and that they hoped to be finding families for the children in the next few weeks, I assumed they meant over the next 3-6 weeks they would be referring children to families. Well when I was down at the agency my coordinator told me that the partnerships with the two new orphanages would not be official/final until after approval by the Ethiopian government and that they doubt that will happen until after the election. Then the time frame of end of June, beginning of July was thrown out there for when they would be matching children with families. This is significantly longer than "in the next few weeks"! I would say that qualifies more as the "next few (3!) months". I have to imagine that the agency is feeling pressure to begin referring again. I read today that the baby girl list is up to 44!!! There have been new families added every week and only 2 referrals from the wait list in the last 7 weeks.

Then the silver lining -

When Mike and I planned out our spring, we wanted to make sure we had some romantic getaways on the calendar, because we had no idea how long the referral process would take. We knew it was probably going to be a while but we wanted to get them planned, just in case things happened more quickly than expected (ridiculously optimistic in retrospect). We have one getaway planned per month for March, April, and May. I had no idea when we planned them what a great breath of fresh air they would be during this process.

It has been so nice to have dates to look forward to and plans to make that we can count on in this time of uncertainty. Plus is has been a blessing to have a few days each month to not think about the adoption and the wait list. And to just get lost in the the present rather than fretting about the future.

This last month we went to Scottsdale, AZ for my cousin's wedding and had an amazing time with our family and our two boys. Next month Mike and I are off to Napa Valley, CA - just the two of us. I am really looking forward to it, and I am hoping it will help this month pass quickly so we can get the Ethiopian Election over with. I will be praying for a fair, democratic, and non-violent election. I will also be praying that this "nothingness" of our wait list will not overtake my resolve.

Just like Atreyu told Artax (his horse) in the swamp.....

Atreyu:
Fight against the sadness Artax. Artax, please. You're letting the sadness of the swamps get to you. You have to try, you have to care. For me, I'm your friend, I love you.

(Artax doesn't move and Atreyu slaps the puddle sending water flying toward the horse. He yells at him again.)

Artax, you're sinking! Come on, turn around, you have to, now! Come on! Artax! Fight against the sadness, Artax. Artax, please, you're letting the sadness of the swamps get to you. You have to try. You have to care, for me, you're my friend, and I love you. Artax! Stupid horse! You've gotta move or you'll die! Move, please! I won't give up! Don't quit! Artax! Please!

(then he pleads with him.)

Move please. I won't give up! Jump quick! Artax please!

(Yes my kids have recently discovered "The Neverending Story". This should bring back some strong memories for those of you born between 1970 and 1990. I guess in the context of this analogy I would be the stupid horse...but whatever) **Thanks to Google and a public Facebook account managed by a nerdy Scotsman and dedicated to Artax the horse for the dialog.

4 Months? Why am I so surprised by this?

Okay, so I went in search of these cute counting tickers that I see at the top of a bunch of adoption blogs I follow that give a count of how long you have been waiting in the adoption process and I created one for our blog (you can see it at the top) and then added it to the blog. When I added it I noticed that it said 4 months, 3 weeks and 4 days. I stared at that time and thought "4 months....no way, it feels soooo much longer than that!". I guess that is because Mike made me wait two months after we decided to adopt before we could start the process (wanted to get our Kenya trip done first) and because I waited for about 5 months for Mike to decide if it is something he wanted as well. So really for me it has been almost ONE YEAR that I have been waiting, praying, hoping, planning, thinking. Anyway, I just found it funny that I was so confused by the 4 month mark - and I thought I would share it. Happy Sunday!

And Now Some GOOD News:

Posted on IAN's website today!!!!

-IAN has reached agreements with two new orphanages to place children with families! We hope to begin finding families for these kids in the next few weeks.
-IAN’s care home will be moving in the next few weeks. We have already outgrown our current location, so the new home will have eight rooms, and will house 10-20 more children.
-The new care home will allow kids 2 1/2 years and up to attend preschool classes at the care home.

Connecting with other parents connected through adoption

I read back through my prayer journal today. I have only had this particular journal for two weeks. I’ve been quite faithful; writing in it almost every day. Reading back through I was hoping to gain some kind of insight into where I’ve been or where I am going in my head on this journey. It was glaringly clear what an up and down battle I am fighting in my head every day. One day I will end the day feel grateful for everything I have; my husband, my two birth children, our home, our families, our health. The very next day I am sounding desperate for some symbol of hope that the wait list will move. The next day all I can write is one sentence affirming that it will all work out, needing to write it down because I truly don’t believe it at that moment. The next day I’m bargaining….what can I do? what should I do? what do I need to do? Then back to hopeful and grateful. Everyday, no matter what is going on at the end of the day when it is quiet in my house and all the “things to do” are done, it is all I can think about and pray about….just please let this happen. I feel like a broken record. I feel stuck in the midst of motion…like I am paused.

Still in the waiting place, I have found a silver lining; connecting with other parents who are linked to adoption. I have joined an adoption support group in Broomfield. We had our first meeting last month. It was wonderful to talk with parents who are either in the process of adopting or who are raising their children that were adopted. It was fun to connect with people who understand where we are and why we want to be here. One of the families adopted their daughter from China. It took them three years to get her, but here she is, beautiful and loving and the light of their lives. Hearing their story gave me hope.

Two days after our adoption support group meeting we had our third adoptive parenting class. If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I was not looking forward to these classes, but now that our last one is coming up I am sad that we will no longer have these monthly meetings. It is certainly not because I like to sit in an uncomfortable chair for 5 hours. Rather because between the teaching are moments where we can connect not only with parents who are also adopting, but they are also adopting through IAN, from Ethiopia, right now. They are on the same lists as we are and are struggling with many of the same things – frustrations with government changes, paperwork, and “the list”.

Connecting with other parents in the world of adoption has been medicine for my soul these last few weeks. I look forward to the day when we are getting together because we all have children adopted from the same orphanage. Unfortunately our agency doesn’t seem to have the resources to organize regular get-togethers after these classes are done. I think I might volunteer to be the organizer. It’s what I’m naturally good at anyway :)

Running a race with no clear route

So I just got off the phone with our adoption coordinator and it sounds like I better just brace myself for the next few months. After a month without any movement on our waitlists I was really hoping to talk to her today and get some glimmer of hope. Instead I got a lot of what I always get, articulate explanations of the process without any answers because there aren't really any answers to have. So I called with the hope that I would say, "hmmm, there hasn't been any movement on our lists in a month...any reason for this?" and she would say, "Oh, don't worry, it has been a month so you should see some movement here soon".

Instead, I got to learn that 1) Ethiopian elections are coming up in May, and 2) the Director of IAN is traveling to Ethiopia this week to work on a bunch of operational stuff, including that she is pursuing three additional orphanages to potentially work with because IAN's demand for children has grown substantially 3) Our expected wait for referral has doubled

1) The election: I was told that when elections approach in Ethiopia things slow down in general. It isn't really "business as usual" there during election time like it is here. Not specifically related to adoption, just in general and that it may effect the speed which children move through "the system". Okay, but what about the actual election? That is just plain stressful to me, because who knows what the adoption policies will look like after the election. They may change, they may stay the same. The newly elected government may continue to be open to international adoption, or they may not. If I had a wish, it would be that there wasn't going to be an election anytime soon so that I wouldn't have to worry about how that will effect Ethiopian adoption (though in reality elections are so important, more important than our adoption - I just wish they weren't happening while we are trying to adopt)

2) IAN's director traveling to Ethiopia this week will hopefully bode well for IAN and us waiting families. This is definitely something that could result in great things for IAN if they are able to work with additional orphanages. More orphanages = more children for referrals = more children being matched with waiting families. Hoping/praying for a miracle here.

3) Referral timing doubling. Finally - the last piece of news I received is that the time from waitlist to referral has been increased from 4-7 months (what we were originally told) to 8-12 months - I have been told this is strictly related to demand. The lists have really grown in the last six months. Still it is exhausting news to hear. Right now it just feels like the longer we are in the process - the farther away the end seems. It is like training for a marathon, starting the race and after mile 4 they tell you "Sorry you have been training for a 26 mile run, but due to circumstances we can't really explain and situations out of our control your race may now be 40 miles...or maybe longer....or shorter....what?...why are you freaking out? We told you marathons are hard!"

I'm starting to picture Sammy being closer to 4, 5, 6? when his little sister comes home.

I actually thought being on the waitlist would be fun. Checking every week (okay every day) to see how much closer we were, watching the boys get excited with Mike and I as we moved closer up the list. So far its been more like sitting in the waiting room at the DMV (or immigration services): your life in the hands of other people, powerless over the timing, being expected to sit quietly, don't get upset.....and wait.

At least the "news" didn't rock me quite as hard emotionally as other news has recently. Maybe the marathon training is paying off. Regardless, right now I just want to throw a shoe at something and at the same time begging for a water break.

Waiting

Yep - that is about it - Waiting. No waitlist movement in 26 days.......bummer

Thankful for people to hold up my arms

This week was really hard for me. Everyday is an excercise in choosing trust, faith and patience for me, even when things are going well. So this week when things were not going well I fell to pieces. I know that I'm supposed to choose optimism, but it just didn't happen this week.

Thankfully I had two great friends to lean on, Kevala who tried her best to bust down my wall of grief despite my continued efforts to fortify, and Joan who has been through the trials and tribulations of international adoption and so poignently pointed out to me that the craziness, the governmental changes, the worry, the helplessness - this IS international adoption. I signed up for it and I need to accept that. Neither conversation was easy to hear, but it was needed.

All women should take the risk and build real, vulnerable, intimate relationships with other women. I don't know who or where I would be without them.

Thanks Ladies - Exodus 17:12

Just Breathe

Changes in Ethiopian Adoption Policy

Changes in US Embassy Policy

All in one week.

Waiting, Trusting and Letting Go

There really isn't an easy step in the adoption process yet. Every step along the way is fraught with fear, frustration and impatience. Well at least for me....

I learned this week that for Mike it looks a lot more like....trusting everything is going to work out, and we will cross that bridge when we get there if it doesn't.

Wow, what a frustratingly male perspective that makes me feel so impatient with him. No, not really. Really hearing his feelings only strengthens and secures and guides me on where I need to go in my head.

The very day we were celebrating being added to the waitlist was the very day that I started to really worry that something might not work out, and somehow we would find ourselves at the end of this journey without our angel. This is very scary to me. I am so committed and dreaming of our daughter already that I feel so vulnerable not being in control of the process. I feel so distrustful of the two large governments who will truly be in charge of whether or not I will have a little girl placed into my arms. Being the type of person who likes to see the tasks before me and work at my own pace to accomplish them it is VERY HARD for me to just sit and wait.

However nothing has really happened to give me any indication that anything bad will happen. Everything has moved along on schedule or sooner. Every week we creep slowly up the wait list. All of our paperwork has been making it slowly through the process. After we were placed on the wait list I spent two weeks stewing in my head about all kinds of things and wrestling with God, "how can I get you Lord to do what I want?" and I feel like his response to me was "I am" and "patience my dear". So the continuation of the theme that I have much more of an intellectual grasp of patience than an emotional one. But it is a seed that I'm cultivating and I'm given opportunities every day to choose patience, or not. (Including self control over how many times per day I check my agency's blog to see if there has been any movement on the wait list or not).

Finally after two weeks of driving myself crazy I realized I hadn't asked Mike lately where he was, how he was feeling. He is always such a steady rock sometimes I wonder "is he just holding it all in?". So I ask him and he replies, "I just trust that everything is going to work out. God placed us on this journey, why would he stop it now?" Trust. Hmmm, so that is where my impatience comes from.

Everyone always tells people who are in the midst of trying to control something out of their control, "Just let go and it will all work out". Or for my beautiful friends who have struggled with infertility, "just stop worrying about it and you will get pregnant". Yeah, not the easiest thing to do and I guess it is because of TRUST. It is so difficult for me to "be and not do". When I do, I feel in control (filling out paperwork, getting notarized, making appointments). To be means to just be still and trust that it will all work out. So that is where I am, praying for perseverance, trying to let go, hoping to grow trust, submitting to the process......quite fitting for the Easter season if you think about it.