Ethiopian Adoptions

Just in case you haven't heard, the organization that handles adoption paperwork in Ethiopia has been slowing down on processing paperwork. They plan to reduce the number of intercountry adoptions by 90% on March 10. I can't begin to guess what may have become of Sally if MOWA processing slowed to a record low, court took several times to pass, and we had to take two trips. She may have been waiting so long that TB would have completely eaten her vertebrae beyond repair. There are people and agencies who have done things that are unethical, but the waiting children are going to be the ones hurt.

Visit this blog to see if you can help--send them pictures of your adopted children and their stories by March 12 to send along to MOWA as success stories, sign the petition, and make a difference.

UPDATE: MOWA is back on track with new staff and prayers have been answered as adoptions are not coming to a halt!

Adoption Angst

When I'm done tucking the girls in, Sally stalls. I think she's stalling. She usually starts asking me hard questions. If she didn't wait until I was standing at the door of the bedroom, I would think she was actually interested in my answers. Rather, I think she is grasping at straws hoping to baffle me long enough to get a few more minutes with the light on.

She finally struck "stalling gold." Her line of questioning wound itself around to, "Whose belly did I come from?"

Sigh.

Seems like we have talked about this before. Seems like I've been having this talk for the past five years. Rather, Ella follows up with, "Well, I grew in your belly."

Ahem.

I remind the girls gently that they grew in another belly far, far away. And I began to tell them their amazing stories. It seems, to me, that I've been telling Ella her story since we brought her home. Until now, nearly six years later, she hasn't been too interested. Her face was betraying her feelings and it dawned on her that she spent years without us. It seems impossible.

Though Sally was older, she hardly remembers the way things really unfolded. She can't believe that she and Josiah didn't come 'from the same belly' in Ethiopia. I tell her about the long line of mommies who have babies that didn't grow in their bellies. Starting with their own Daddy and moving down their family tree.

To me, that makes it easier, knowing that so many of your family have been adopted. They have been loved and they have become mommies and daddies too. To my five year old that made no difference. After my sweet words and good intentions her only comment was, "But I wish that I was from your belly just like the boys."

Oh, how my heart breaks.

That was only the beginning. At any random moment during the day Sally will approach me asking 'Whose belly did ____ (insert friend or relative) come from?' Of course, none of them would happen to be adopted. I feel ill equipped to deal with the onslaught of questions. My (adopted) husband is no help either. Simply stated by him, "She loves you and wants to have as much of you as possible." But he can give no great response to ease all of her insecurities and worries. If he can't, who can?

We tread very lightly around our house. In a family comprised of children who have come into our family by birth and adoption, we can easily make someone feel alienated by making the other feel too special. In an effort to keep everyone feeling loved, perhaps we've been too cautious.

I've used the "grew in my heart" line to no avail. I've told them that their stories are amazing and God brought them right into our family. It seems that they are stuck on the unknown. I have no names, stories, or pictures. Honestly, the bits and pieces we know are too much for either of the girls to handle. I have to be relatively creative in censoring their stories.

Any words of wisdom?

What you hoped to see a month ago

I've been fiddling with this for a little while. I think it may have been therapeutic. I spent a week after we got home scanning the faces of every child so I could send updated pictures to waiting families. I became pretty familiar with the photos. Afterwards, I decided I'd paste the pictures from our trip into the pictureless blog entries. Then I changed my mind and just did this. And I'm done. I could mess and tweak and add more. But, honestly, it conveys our trip in a not-so-true-to-life-but-the-best-you-can-do-in-four-minutes sort of way. So here we go folks...

AWAA's Transition Home

Our agency just opened a new transitional home! Last week, they transferred the 13 children who have been referred to families from Kid's Care, the orphanage they were in, to America World's privately run, newly opened, home. This is where each our children will live as they wait between the time of referral and our arrival. With the news of the home opening, came news that there are needs at the home that WE CAN MEET. I think it's very cool to be able to have a hand in the care that my child will receive before we even meet face to face. There are many ways YOU can get involved, too! AWAA is sending a staff member to Ethiopia to bring supplies and check things out before she permanantly moves to Ethiopia in January. She is going to be able to bring donations (monetary and otherwise) with her. A fellow adoptive mom has a very cool thing going on, if you are willing to donate money via paypal--she's making things come together to get the cash to Ethiopia. Go and make a donation and read about the amazing project here.

OR--if you live close to me or have a way of getting donations to me, then email me for a list of what the home needs. If you are really quick about gathering things, we can get them to the agency before the rep leaves for Ethiopia in a week. Otherwise, I'll be prepared to bring donations when we travel.

My mind is flying faster than I can keep up with it right now. I'm a crazed lunatic trying to get everything to come together for the fundraiser tomorrow night. I am excited about the evening, but don't want it to be ruined because I didn't prepare well enough. This information about the transitional home will be a great opportunity to share with all the women there, too. As I'm collecting opportunities to share with them, I'm realizing how many ways we can be involved in our town, state, country, and world! I'm sure you will all be eagerly awaiting a post Saturday to hear how it went (though reading about it certainly won't be as good as attending!).

Meanwhile, get busy making a difference in the world around you!

Cut to the core

I just stumbled onto this post by fellow adoptive mom, Heidi. She and her son visited Ethiopia in June with Visiting Orphans, a group from our agency. That trip changed their plans for adoption, they met a group of older siblings and decided to adopt them. She posted yesterday about the grim reality of adoption. As I read I found myself nodding in agreement and shaking my head at the sad state of empathy that we in America enjoy. It's the same feeling I had when I finished reading "There is No Me Without You."


Heidi used this analogy to describe what is happening in America:
Imagine a building with many windows and one door. Inside that building are orphans of every race, suffering in every color, pain of every degree. You KNOW what is in there. Now imagine that every day thousands of people walk right past that building. Some are too focused on their own lives to even take a peek in the windows. Some take a peek, can't bear the pain that the sight brings to surface in their own hearts, and then shield their eyes and continue on their way. Some peer inside, shed some tears, and feel a bit of compassion for the ones suffering. Then some, a few, actually step inside the building.

They engage with the hurting souls. They look into the eyes of these children and mothers and fathers and see their own. Their own flesh and blood. And then they do something about it.

Because, once you have engaged with the suffering, you can't NOT do something. You can't go back to your suburban American capitalistic dream and thank the Good Lord for blessing you with your comforts, food, wealth, and health. You can't do it. You shudder and realize, Woe to me for not seeing this suffering before. For not seeing these souls as my own. For not doing unto others as we would have done unto us. As we would want done unto our own white children.

Go read the rest of her post, it will make your heart cry. And hopefully, it will challenge you to engage the suffering souls all over the world.

Referrals, Referrals and more Referrals--not ours though!

Yesterday five more familes got calls from America World. It was exciting to read posts this morning. I was a smidgen sad though, because I'm still waiting. You may notice the ticker (that I hate and should remove because it mocks me) says that we have been waiting just shy of five months. I'm happy for the families (10 in all) that got referrals this month, but just barely a smidge sad because the reality is finally hitting home. These are the families with whom we paperchased, watched dossiers fly to Ethiopia, and waited. They are planning for their children and we are waiting.

We will be waiting for a while.

There I typed it...even as I clicked the period I had a thought of "What do I know, we could get a call in a month--why am I typing that? But then we could still be waiting until March." So maybe I should write:

Will we be waiting for a while?

I'm going to drive myself bonkers! Well, at least I'll be blissfully bonkers as I watch my internet-America World-Ethiopian adoption buddies getting courts dates and travelling. Congratulations to all of those who got referrals! You can watch them too here and here.

When it rains, it pours...

Our agency had a busy week. Our family has been visiting my parents and grandparents (Happy 80th Birthday, Grandpa!) so I just found out last night about all the referrals that have been given. Before we left, I knew about the Carpenters and the Davids. The Carpenter's news was extra-thrilling because they requested two children. Though they have been waiting for a while, it is encouraging to see them finally get a referral and know that "our line" is moving too. Then I found out about 3 more families that have news of their children. All of these families have every reason to expect to travel before Christmas to get their little ones--which is very exciting. Congratulations to everyone--praying that you get news of court soon and that the referrals continue to come!

I know...

I know that I have been through this adoption waiting thing before. I know that I had an amazing experience in trusting God. I know that I should be able to trust Him this time too. But, I'm starting to falter.

We haven't been waiting for an extraordinarily long time, merely 4 months. But, I had it all laid out before we even turned in our paperwork. In my plan we were going to have pictures of our kids by this point and planning a trip to Ethiopia in the next few months to bring them home. That is the problem, it's MY plan. When I get bent out of shape because of the wait, I meet someone who has been waiting longer. A gal at swimming lessons is adopting from China, I won't even tell you how long she's been waiting (because then I'd seem really petty). I will say that she started her paperwork over 2 YEARS ago. That was a reality check.

When we wrote our child request, Seth and I were pretty specific, but didn't intend for America World to follow our request in detail. We meant it as a guidline for them, thinking that if they found two children under 3, they would be ours (not worrying about gender or specific ages). We had been wondering if America World knew that we didn't really care if the younger child was a boy or the older a girl. So I called our family coordinator to make sure. I talked to her last week and hung up the phone in a bit of a funk. This is our status: several families are ahead of us in line for siblings. If we would like we could change our request to just one child and move to a different line (a faster line, and be up higher in the line) or keep our request the same and wait...and wait. And possibly wait so long that our paperwork begins to expire. WHAT?! I about fell out when she told me that. Stuff might expire? As in, waiting until next spring, expire? I hung up the phone and just sat there stunned.

Then I went about my motherly duties in a fog. I had a moment to briefly relay the conversation to Seth that evening before he headed out for a class. And, still in a funky fog, I did what all girls do when they need an ear and a bit of advice--called my mom. I told her my options and she did what all good moms would do, smacked me around a bit.

Mom begins, "Apryl, do you remember how God timed it just right for you to get Ella?" Pitiful me, "Mm, hmm."

She continues, "Do you remember WHY you want to have two more children?" Pitiful me, "Yeah..."

And continues to batter me, "What are you going to do if you only get one child?" Sorrowful me, "Probably be racked with guilt when we get to Ethiopia and start paperwork for a second child soon after getting home."

She chastens, "And, Apryl, do you really thinking waiting 4 or 5 more months is going to make a difference in the long run?" Chastised me, "No, not really, but Mom..."

And she puts the last nail in the coffin, "Sounds like you know what you should do Apryl, wait on God."

Ugh, why does she have to be so right?

I should make a disclaimer here, this isn't our agency's fault. They are doing a wonderful job, they told us what the wait times would be, and their main concern is getting the children into homes. So they are unwilling to make an infant wait so that the family requesting an infant and toddler (us) could be referred both. They find the infant a home (with a family requesting only an infant) and the family requesting two kids continues to wait until two children (or siblings) are available at the same time. So, I'm waiting and I'm not being very graceful about it. I'm trying hard to learn from wise people around me and from past experience. I am, evidently, a very slow learner.

Plugging away

Our homestudy arrived at USCIS yesterday! So the ticker has started counting down-hoping for mid-May. I feel like the loose ends are coming together and we will have everything ready to go when we get the i-171h.

Seth and I are so excited for our friends, the Waals, who are adopting though our agency. They got a referral yesterday of two girls. Their wait time was a record breaking 5 weeks! I think my jaw actually dropped when I read their news. This is so exciting to see, and incredibly unexpected. Even more surprising because they are adopting two girls, they had expected boys--now they are a family with four daughters. Tracy may have to add a few more bathrooms to the house! I'm sure they are running around in a frenzy today.

Watching the adoptions of our friends makes our adoption more of a reality. We are at a place now where I feel like we are caught in a wave and being swept along. Yesterday our social worker called and had some questions before she finalized our adoption approval. We had mentioned adopting special needs, but had not gone into detail so she wrote our homestudy for two "healthy" children. Neither Seth nor I know what to do, we are adopting two kids, and that may be enough to keep us on our toes. I hate to make this decision flippantly and then wonder... As it is, I'm praying for two special kids in Ethiopia constantly throughout the day. I'm wondering if they are still with their family, if they are being cared for by loving people, if they have enough food to eat. I pray that we get there quickly to bring them home.

Ethiopian Children Finally Home

If you have 5 minutes, you may want to watch this moving video and the post that precedes it. This family has had a horrible experience with their agency, and it has taken them nearly two years to bring home their children from Ethiopia. Be careful though, it made me well up with tears, so grab some tissues! Heather does an amazing job of explaining the true meaning of Easter, and her video shows how God worked in their lives through this adoption.

Request for ChildREN

This is something, so far, I have waited to comment on. Seth and I have the nasty habit of putting off big decisions. We talk, chat, pray some, and then just wait. I don't know what we are waiting for, perhaps to get the right decision in the mail? Or maybe a phone call? But, nonetheless, we wait and then discuss our options again and again. We have done this with our child request for this adoption. Timidly Seth mentioned that maybe we should adopt two kids. "Yipes," I thought, "Two kids?!"

Where is the guy who was fine without any more kids? But the idea had some merit. So we talked about it...for a few months. We waited until our social worker asked us last week what we wanted in our homestudy. We didn't have an answer for her. We talked about what we'd like to do, which took about 5 minutes to explain. Our oldest is only 6, youngest is 4, we have two boys and a girl. We'd like one girl, but understand that girls are more requested, so we would like to adopt a boy, but then Ella would be the only girl in a family with four boys...you see where I'm going?

When you are pregnant with a child, God doesn't ask for your input. You get what He gives you. Period. In adoption, God doesn't ask for it, but you get to put your input in official documents. Then you get what He gives you. When we adopted Ella we expected to come home with a Ukrainian baby girl. When we came home, we had a 2.5 year old Korean-Ukrainian girl. We were surprised that we were so off in what God had planned for us. With that sort of history, we aren't too sure what our request should be. One thing we became certain of though, is that we do want to adopt two children. Moving on from there, this is what our family coordinator said we should put (this gal, she's got some skills to condense what we said into this statement):

"We are requesting two healthy children and are open to either siblings or a non-related pair. We would like to request an infant boy between the ages of birth and 12 months and a girl between the ages of birth and 3 years, understanding that if siblings are unavailable that there needs to be a 9-month age gap between the pair. If twins of either gender are available at this time, we are also open to adopting twins."

Yep, she said twins. Now wouldn't that be fun?

Why Ethiopia?

I mentioned that we decided to take the scenic route on this adoption. I think if we would have stuck with our original plan we would probably have a referral and be making plans for travel instead of just starting on our dossier. That aside, I said I would get to this at some point and now is as good a time as any. I feel a little ashamed to tell the story, as looking back it seems silly that we strayed in the first place, but here goes...

Once Seth and I decided on adopting a fourth child, we had to figure out where to go. Most of our decision was ruled by circumstances. Each country has different travel requirements, costs, family size... This was a determining factor for us. We narrowed our choices down and were drawn to Ethiopia. I wish I could say that we've always had a love for the Ethiopian people or I have always dreamed of adopting a child from Ethiopia. Like I said in my first post, we are quite ordinary people, and most of our decisions, after much prayer, are made with good old fashioned common sense. I spoke at length with a friend who has adopted from Ethiopia and was in the process of a second adoption. She gave me some pointers, and then we decided on an agency. We had our application ready when we met another woman who was using the agency we had chosen. She was having a horrible time, and cautioned us against using them. So we decided to use our number two pick. We filled out another application, got it sealed in an envelope ready for the mail that Monday. Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie adopted her daughter and Ethiopian adoptions zipped straight to the headlines. This is, of course, great for the children as more parents than ever are adopting because of the publicity. We got an email from the agency that we were planning on using stating that they are no longer accepting applications. This sounded foreboding to us, and we suddenly veered far off course.

I'm a fairly impatient person, and this fault is magnified during adoption. I saw these roadblocks as doors closing, waiting up to two years to adopt? This is crazy (keep in mind we adopted Ella in 10 months, from first application to bringing her home) and must mean that we should just adopt somewhere else. We decided to adopt an African-American baby domestically. Don't ask me why, I can't really tell you. I wanted a baby, I spoke with agencies who assured me that they needed families to adopt these babies. I saw a need, saw that it could happen quickly and we jumped on the idea. I completely dismissed the fact that there are MILLIONS of children orphaned in Ethiopia. I don't want to downplay that adopting a child is a blessing, no matter where you go. There are children in the US who are in desperate need of forever families. I won't attempt to get into a one sided discussion about our foster system, domestic vs international adoption, because it will lead no where. You must adopt where you feel called. So we pursued this faceless newborn for months.

Weird things kept happening, our social worker fell into a hole (yes, you read that correctly) and instead of finishing our homestudy in 2 weeks, she took 4 months! We sent things to the agency that just disappeared, I don't mean the entire envelope disappeared, but one thing in the envelope just wasn't there. All of these things kept us from getting our paperwork DONE. We gave God the credit, thinking He had a child chosen for us that wasn't born yet. So we patiently endured these little mess ups just trusting in His plan. When we were finally ready, we had a few nibbles of interest from birthmoms, but in the end the agency said our family size was a deterrent. By then Seth and I started to doubt our decision. We weren't sure if we were with the right agency and started questioning domestic adoption.

We started praying and having little discussions here and there about our adoption. After a month of this wavering, we decided that we needed to either move on or stop worrying about it. Both Seth and I have spent enough time asking God, "Please be clear, we are idiots down here and can't discern your will." We have both seen how very specific prayers can be answered by God in specific ways. Seth (without my knowledge) asked God to show him during his morning Bible reading whether we should adopt from Ethiopia. The next morning he was reading and began reading a passage in which Ethiopia is mentioned. When he told me, I was still nervous about making this switch. So that day I spent time praying and asked God to give ME confidence in this decision. The next morning I got online and checked on a blog I read every once in a great while. The post for that day was titled, "Why we chose not to adopt from the US." The blogger listed reasons why she chose to go to Ethiopia after a domestic adoption fell through. This list mirrored EXACTLY the same things that Seth and I were feeling. After more discussion, we called our domestic agency and told them we wanted to stop our adoption through them. Then we started looking for an agency to use for adopting from Ethiopia. And that longwinded story explains our nine month hiatus from our Ethiopian adoption.

Seth "the stamp nazi"

I'm officially overwhelmed! I have a little confession to make: I figured that the paperwork for this adoption would be cake. When we adopted Ella we didn't use an agency. Ukraine is funny like that, you hire a translator and Ukrainian facilitator and go at it. You CAN use an agency, but we figured for the thousands of dollars we would save, it was worth the sweat. My ego has officially been crushed! We received our package from the agency detailing what is needed for the dossier, which is so helpful! They even included a handy-dandy checklist with space for dates, so great! "Wow!" I'm thinking, "This agency thing is really cool." Good for a second then I look at the list and start to feel a creepy, yipesy, feeling. Then the next day, we get more mail. This time from our social worker--piles of paper for our homestudy. I sat down, looked at it, *sighed* and felt pitiful.

Tiny bites at a time, right? I did the easy stuff, figuring our homestudy needs to take priority. Oddly enough it took me two days to sign 4 papers (because I kept forgetting to tell Seth to sign them--how did we ever manage this before?). Now this batch is done, but one thing holds me back from putting the date on my little chart and mailing it. I don't have any stamps.

Seth buys them, hording them in his wallet until I come and beg for one. I rely on him because the post office is a place I try to avoid. I don't know why. I don't even have to stand in line to buy stamps, but there is something about the trip that makes me shudder. Hauling three kids into the car, buckling them into seats, driving 5 minutes, unbuckling, corralling into the foyer of the post office and then repeating the entire procedure in reverse--merely for stamps? We are not even in there long enough for me to recover before we turn around and leave. So I trust Seth to be my "stamp daddy". Unfortunately, his well has run dry recently and he's been too busy to refill it. Out of sheer disgust with myself for waiting so long I will make the treacherous trip to the post office tomorrow and buy 15 books of stamps so I never have to go again.

On a brighter note: we received confirmation that the CIS office has our i600a, now we wait to hear about getting fingerprinted. I did get to put the date in the little box on that one!