Our One Week Referral Anniversary

A week ago today, we saw a picture of our cutie little 2 month old, "N." As you could imagine, the range of emotions has been great. I think I mentioned that the first couple of days, I was on cloud nine with excitement and wonder. Then I saw a picture of his room and noticed that he was in a crib without any slats and his room just looked so stark. That made me panic. How could his brain develop correctly without the latest Baby Einstien toy and without any visual stimulation? I had to get over there! The court closure will, no doubt, will extend our court date past September at this point, so we won't even get to meet the little guy for MONTHS. I called our coordinator to see if we could go visit him before we had a court date. She said that they allow that and would totally support us if we decided to do that, but that it rarely turns out for the better with infants. She said that parents start making requests of the nannies and the nannies get irritated and the last thing I want is for the nannies to have a reason to not love our baby completely. As our conversation evolved I realized that going over there would be for me and not so much for "N." So, after some reflection and prayer, I felt like God was saying, that I simply can't control much of this and that my biggest job right now is to pray for "N." Surprisingly, I have found a lot of peace in that (at least for 2 days now). I have also found a lot of peace in a prayer that a friend prayed that other day (which may sound strange), but she prayed that God would send angels to entertain little "N" in his crib and give him the interaction and stimulation that he needs. God can do that! It's often times kids that see angels, while the adults can't.

A couple other little things have happened lately to remind me that God is STILL in control of this whole business. One is a cute story about a friend just randomly having a very specific toy photo book that I wanted to send with the next traveling family and the other is money. While we still have a long way to go to cover the cost of our two trips to Ethiopia and some fees while we are there, God has continued to provide. A friend said the other day that they would adopt, but they just didn't think that they could come up with the money. I told them that they can watch how God will provide our remaining 10 grand or so. He has been faithful this far and I believe we will make it. That being said, I hope our garage sale will be a huge success this weekend. (It's like I think we'll earn like 5 thousand dollars this weekend or something:)) Even more than just providing the money, though, it is such reassurance that God is so involved. He has chosen this child for us.

Can You Even Believe It!

I can't believe it! I have a picture in front of me, of a little 1 and a half month old baby boy! He is half way around the world and he is going to be ours!!!!!!

Here is how it all went down. Dave happened to have the day off yesterday, so I went to the gym, got my teeth all polished up, went to Target, left my wallet at Target - you know. . . . the usual errand running sort of morning. When I got home, I checked the updates with our agency and saw that there were a couple of girl referrals, so I asked Dave if the phone rang. He said "yes" and I said, "what if our coordinator called and you didn't answer?" I checked the caller ID and said that she had in fact called (which he totally didn't believe). So, I called her back, and sure enough, there is a little itty bitty baby over there in Ethiopia who is waiting for his parents to come and get him. Dave and I yelled and hugged and the kids cheered (although they might have just thought that dessert was coming or something). All that aside, this is the baby that God has for us! Our coordinator sent his file AND PICTURES over and our whole family gathered around the computer to catch the first glimpse of his tiny little self.

Pure excitement was the first emotion, followed by a little bit of shock over how young he is. We had it in our minds, somehow, that we would be getting a child over the age of one. I have even tagged a lot of the baby baby stuff for the garage sale (on June 18th on the corner of Cascade and Fontenaro), because I was pretty sure about getting an older baby. Even last week, while tagging some of the baby stuff, we joked about how we'd probably end up getting the youngest baby ever now that we were getting rid of stuff. It took me about 3 hours for the shock feeling to go away and for the excitement to re-overtake it all. I'm so excited to, HOPEFULLY, see his first steps, his first words etc. . . and I love how we have a baby picture of him! Followed then by a little bit of desperation. There is certainly a part of me that seriously wants to just fly over there right now and hold him! These will be some long months!

I have heard that he, most likely, will stay in the orphanage until we pass court. I was a little nervous about that, but I have been assured that the orphanage that he is from is very clean and the nannies are very loving. He is in a crib that doesn't have slats, so I'm scared that he is just going to be looking a wood all day and over the next few months. Right now, (and always) he is God's to take care of, so I am just praying my heart out for this little guy. His name means "king" by the way.

The next step, you ask? Wait for a court date. Unfortunately, there is only a tiny chance that we will get a court date before the courts close for a couple months in August and September. It would be nothing short of a miracle if we did get one before that. So, when we get our court date, Dave and I will fly over there and meet our little king and attend court. Then, once we pass court, we will get an Embassy date and be able to bring him home. All of this will take way too many months, I'm sure. I'm really hoping that he will be home by Christmas!

I can't post pictures, but I can show them to you in person. Needless to say, my phone battery was at 8% last night after staring at his picture every two minutes. If you don't get to see a picture, trust me, he is a cutie, all wrapped up in his pink blanket and wearing a white, knit hat. I'm sure it's very chilly over there right now, so I'm glad he has a ski cap on:)

Dreams

One of my lifelong dreams is to adopt a child (or two), but this post isn't about that sort of dream. This is about the dream I had last night. I keep hearing rumors that referrals are coming (and one just did -YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), so every night before I go to bed I think about when our referral is going to come. On that note, it was no surprise that I dreamt about receiving our referral. It did not go down at all like I think it will in real life. Our agency called, we got a picture of a little girl, but she was about as pasty white as I am. When we inquired about her, she wasn't from Ethiopia at all. She was actually a "love child" from an executive doctor where Dave works and he was trying to hide this child by putting her up for adoption. Our agency told us that it was this child or no child. In the end we did accept her referral, but we were trying to figure out how to explain how our Ethiopian child was not Ethiopian. Then I went on to dream another strange dream, but I'll spare you all the details of that dream.

I still think that our referral could come tomorrow, in 8 months, or anywhere in between. Things still seem to be moving with ET adoptions, although not very quickly on the referral list.

Incomparable

Sometimes, I ponder the comparisons between pregnancy and adoption. There are a few similarities, a lot of differences and the same end result.

In pregnancy, the first trimester is marked by being tired, nauseated, and somewhat uncertain, until you get to that 12 week appointment. In adoption, I would describe the time between signing on with the agency and going on the waitlist as the first trimester. Gathering all the documents to create your dossier certainly takes a toll on your energy and each time the notary dates don't match or you have to send off for another expensive document that you can't find, a wave of nausea isn't far behind. The trainings can also bring to the surface a feeling of uncertainty, when you hear of all the risks of adoption. So, overall, the 1st trimesters are similar. Oh, and both of them also come with great amounts of excitement.

The second trimester in pregnancy is typically the honeymoon period. You are a little more relaxed about the pregnancy, you start to form an actual baby bump, instead of just looking bloated and you can even go on long walks (or runs if you are that type of person), knowing that a beautiful baby is forming inside. The second trimester in adoption would be all the time between going on the waitlist and accepting a referral. I would still say that it is the honeymoon period of the whole process, but it is not quite as honeymoonish as a pregnancy. You can certainly take long walks, the paperwork is mostly behind you and you get to celebrate every time you move up on the list. However, the big difference that I can see between pregnancy trimester 2 and adoption trimester 2, is that in adoption tri. 2, you have no idea when it is going to end. I mean, could you imagine being about 20 weeks pregnant for an undecided amount of time? You don't want to rush the honeymoon period, but you sure would want to know when it was going to end. At least I would.

The third trimester in pregnancy is definitely when you are ready to move that baby on out and start eating 3 meals a day, instead of 20 mini snacks every 30 minutes. You know that life will be hard and busy and sleep deprived, but you are just ready. The 3rd trimester is just not a lot of fun. And then the contractions - good golly! As bad as contractions were, I'm sure I would take that kind of pain over meeting your baby, leaving him, and then having no control over when you get to go and pick him up. Even though the 3rd trimester of adoption is going to be the most difficult by far, I'm still kinda ready to get there. I'm still enjoying the honeymoon 2nd trimester, but I'm having to remind myself to enjoy it, more often.

I wonder if I am thinking about pregnancy vs. adoption, because we have been on the waitlist for 9 months (and 1 day) now. WOW! In case you are wondering, I honestly think that paper pregnancy goes much faster, but maybe that is just because I have a couple of cuties to keep me busy all the time.

Well, hopefully, the next time I post, it is because we will have an update in numbers. The referrals have been awfully slow lately, but that is OK, because I'm just gonna sit here and talk myself into enjoying this nice long honeymoon.

Plane rides

This past weekend I was on a plane. I was headed to the semi-great state of Oklahoma. Not the most glamourous state in which to vacation, but certainly one of the friendliest and the one where my best friend resides. On the flight out, the gentleman next me, Oliver, (who looked much more like a Mark for sure) and I kicked up a conversation. We were sharing our life stories and naturally my life story found its way to the adoption portion of it. He seemed perplexed and intrigued by the idea, almost as if he had never heard of anyone doing such a thing. As I explained the process, it did sound a little crazy . . . "and then you hang out with them for a week and then come home for a few months . . . ." I mean, that is going to be CRAZY! At one point I also said, "just imagine this being a 20 hour flight and you have a baby that you barely know, he has gone through 15 diapers, because of intestinal issues, and he is crying unconsolably. That could be me one of these days!!!" So, Oliver, got to sit there and listen, while some of the reality set it. Naturally, I hope to get a non-intestinal issue baby, whose defense mechanism is to sleep when they encounter stressful situations, but I'm not holding my breath. Who knows though? Maybe the plane ride will actually be one where I can catch up on my trans-Atlantic movie watching?

Little by little the reality of it it is creeping in, as our numbers creep down (or jump, as they did last week). I used to read the posts from the yahoo group as if none of it pertained to me. Even a month ago, I was pretty uninterested in packing requirements, medicines to bring, locations to hit while in Addis and now everything is starting to feel more relevant to our story. We are now sitting at number 9 on the boy list, but it is actually like number 6, because there are a few people on hold in front of us. Number 6! We literally could get a call today, or we could be sitting at 6 for awhile.

Right now I am still just trying to live and plan life in the present. This last weekend was evidence of that as I took a treasured trip to see my best friend, meet her 8 month old for the first time, eat some amazing homemade food, and run a 5K together in the pouring rain. I am taking in events like these at a heightened level, because trips like this one will, mostly likely, be very limited for at least a year after we get our little guy.

Well, friends, that's all for now. See ya around, and have a blessed day.

Elizabeth, Mari, and I getting some frozen yogurt to prepare for our race the next day.
Picking up our packet. It was quite a show! There were 25,000 runners in the Oklahoma Memorial Races.

I thought I would just return to my adoption blog this afternoon, in order to remind myself that we are still in the process of adopting. It has felt like a VERY long time since the last referral has been handed out. It has now been over a month, but it feels like way longer than that. In my last post I think I talked about how many times a day I was checking for updates. Now, I almost dread checking, because I'm pretty sure that the update page will look the same as it did yesterday and the day before, etc. . . , so being on my button pressing diet has actually not been as hard as I thought. Most days I can still rest in the trust that I know God has a plan and he already knows when our child will come home to us. I also know that even if our child stays in the orphanage much longer than we would ever ever want, it is not like we would change our mind and decide we didn't him or her, because they were there longer than we would like. There are just no guarantees with any child. They may do great after being in an orphanage for two years, while others are there for a brief time and have great difficulties. You just never know??? All I know is that God loves our child right now as he/she is AND He will be walking with us on this journey through all the ups and downs, constantly giving us just what we need, when we need it most. And right now, what I think I need the most is for the referral list to move - just kidding. Although, that would be nice:)

Getting a Grip

Last week was my Get a Grip week! The MOWA shake up seems to have coincided with a lull in referrals. I have no idea if the two are related or if we are just in the normal downswing of referrals within our agency. The point is, the result for me was this overwhelming sense that this adoption business just needs to get a move on, before any more bad news trickles in. I don't know if other waiting parents are like this, but I think that since the only thing I can do as waiting parents is wait, I feel the need to do something each day to participate in our adoption. So, for me I began to check our agencies blog page to see if there was any new news or referrals about 15 times a day. Then I would read some blogs, check the yahoo page, etc . . . . It took me awhile, but I finally realized that this ridiculous routine, not only took up precious time, but it was far far far from life giving. In fact, it was sucking the life right out of me. Come to think of it, I don't think I realized anything . . . it was God that showed me a little somethin' somthin'. Last Monday night, as I was cramming for my Bible study for Mops ministry team in the morning, a couple paragraphs in the book, may as well have been written in big, bold, red letters. It read, and I quote:

'Make Me your desired End and you will surely have that End, and you shall be satisfied, lacking nothing that is in the will of God for you.' The shameful thing is, however, that when this comes home to us, we feel a little disappointed. We have to admit it was not Himself we really wanted, but rather His gifts, and that for subtle, selfish reasons! As the hymn writer says, 'I yearned for them, not Thee.'

I was making my desired End, getting our little Ethiopian baby, instead of God. So, I'm praying about that whole business. I'm also on a refresh button diet for our agencies update blog. I can only check once (or maybe twice) a day. I'm still hoping for some movement this week, but hopefully with my priorities a little more in line I can live into the freedom that I have when I don't feel like my emotions are so controlled by the agency blog.