LOST A SOCK

2011 in the rearview

Initially I thought to comment, Well that went fast, when I realized it was time to recap the year that just started five minutes ago.  But then as the past year came into better focus, I knew that the quickness of its passage was less about its days and moments, and more about the fact that the years--they are really moving.  I love growing, I love getting older, I love my grey hairs and tiny little wrinkles left from smiling, I love change.  Bring it, 2012.

But first, for the short and sweet in the record book, allow me to recap 2011.

We began the year as we always do, on a ladder with paint brush in hand.  (Myself, that is. Not my kids.)  My kids were elbow deep in homeschool, and in a bin of dry rice and beans at the time, and we were eight months into our wait for our baby to be referred to us, from Africa.

This was a path that I somehow knew I would walk, at least in the years after I became a mom, though I never could have predicted our story thus far to present as it does in this moment.  While waiting for our referral, we began learning of so much corruption surrounding the situation in that particular country, and eventually we made what felt like the only ethical choice to make, given the circumstances, and we brought our paperwork back home.  I know with certainty that even now, had we stayed the course in spite of our concerns, we still would not have had our baby home today, and if we felt waist-deep in a terrible situation at the beginning of the year, without going into detail, we would have been up to our eyeballs by now.  Even our own agency, who we once had so much faith in, has not emerged with clean hands, and it leaves me feeling just sick for the babies and children who are involuntarily growing up in the center of this cold and dirty hurricane.  In this way the world appears uglier than ever to me, having joined the scene ready to help a child or children as we could, and then having witnessed such an unfolding.  It left me feeling hopeless for the kids at the center, and so very sorry for the well-intentioned adoptive and birth families caught in the swirling periphery. 

I am sorry to say that I came away from this once-exciting time to experience a grief I hadn't known before- a miscarriage of sorts, only for which there are no pre-determined parameters for how one should expect to feel after spending the better part of two years preparing for and dreaming about this very real baby that would join our family, only to walk away with empty arms.  Adoption is not just a thing that people decide to get into, but something we get into with our whole hearts and with our kids and families and friends and finances.  We create space in our homes and excitedly count down until this little person who already feels like one of us, comes along to finally be one of us.  The process, then, of giving away the toys I had saved, the blankets and clothing I had collected and telling each and every person of our turn of events left me mournful and exhausted.  The winter went long, and it felt dark and sometimes lonely.

I journaled a lot through that time, and searched to find the silver lining day after day, because it was the best of my options.  And I opened myself up to the possibility that I could somehow come out of this experience with greater breadth, and build something from all the little pieces.

By the grace of God, I met a friend of a friend very soon after that, who somehow got me instantly, right where I was, and sat with me in the space where I chose to work through our adoption into its roots.  My sadness for everything that had ever failed was palpable, then.  I saw all of that emotion and heartache, some of which I had carried with me since I was my own little kid, and I picked it apart and allowed it to become something new when it was ready.  I had grown into a better mother for all I had learned, and a better self for what I now understood.  The process, the preparation, the loss and the disaster we witnessed was what we simply had to endure for all that could come out of it and still is yet to come.  

And just like that, Spring arrived.

We were okay. We were all okay.  We were built for these sorts of deep life lessons-- a whole Master's Degree, really, on what fear and disappointment and love are all about.  How thankful I am to have come through all of this with a heart open to possibility, though it was no picnic at the time.

It was Mother's Day before I knew it and I was the mom of three amazing little kids, and we spent the morning on a hike, and laying in green grass, absorbing the sunshine.  I will never forget that Sunday morning, because I think it was one of the most perfect, ever, in my book.  I hired our wonderful babysitter for a few hours a week, beginning last Spring, to give me the occasional break that I didn't know I could (should!) grant myself and my kids. I became more familiar with poetry and bounced along on positive, super-fun music.  We had kitchen dance parties in the afternoon and at night, just the kids and I, or the kids and I and Kevin and Sant and Leslie-- all through the house with the music blasting.   

I threw caution to the wind and painted on all sorts of canvases, and put hardwood floors in our house and painted a few walls more.

We saw art.  We made art.

We plastered art all over our walls, and we didn't apologize for the mess.

We hiked,

and we drove,

and we celebrated.  

I felt that I should meet my inner perfectionist, somewhere in all that, and shake her up a little bit.  The world was not perfect, and I was not perfect.  The world was ugly and messy and dissapointing, and I needed to stare into all of that to understand that it was somehow part of something beautiful.  And so with each opportunity, to this very moment, I am asking myself what I can do with the beautiful messiness, and who will still love and accept me should they walk right into it with me.

And the answer, of course, is this little, solid group of friends and family whom I have intentionally placed around myself, like a group of fluffy pillows to pad my falls.  I am blessed.  Not lucky, as I tossed out there in my last post.  I believe, actually, in neither luck, nor coincidence, nor accidents.  I am here and happy and more whole than ever because I chose to experience awe and gratitude, again and again, for all of the blessings that come my way.  I am following my intuition as best I can, always chasing truth and what is real, and facing the hard work as it shows up, so that I can continue growing into the best version of myself-- all of those failings, and all of that messiness included.  There is more work to be done.

I added to my inky collection last summer, the word that hums through the undertones of my life, and five little birds in flight, for the five of us- Kevin and the kids and I, making this journey together.

We traveled a good deal this year, down to Indianapolis to spend some days with these little buddies of ours while their Mama delivered their new baby, 

and with these buddies of ours (also speaking of new, third babies) to Wisconsin Dells for a fun vacation.

We did the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee this year with family, 

in a mountainside cabin with a view and a settling energy I will never forget,

and we found ourselves floating down a river in bright yellow innertubes.

Kevin and I took a trip to Vegas for our eleventh wedding anniversary, 

and we experienced Utah and Arizona, where we hiked through quiet and still, rocky caverns.

I collected twenty-three pages of favorite quotes this year,

and finally figured out a layout and an atmosphere that is comfortable to me, here.

We saw the Dalai Lama speak in person over the summer, and I attended a fantastic monthly Buddhist meditation class.  Each Kevin and I did something we said we would never do again, and spent the last six months settling into churches we both love, each of us supporting the other with where we need to be.  We've gotten involved with a monthly soup kitchen, and we've met more new friends who have turned out to be icing on the cake.

We've created bonds with our homeschool buddies and taken lots of day-trips.  I bought an iPhone, I conquered every version of Angry Birds, I took the kids to see lots of plays and musicals this year.   

Kevin and I saw U2, which was hands-down, the best concert ever (even if I failed to bring my real camera).

I read this year.  I read and read and read and read, 

and it was one journey inward (and backwards and forwards) after the next.

We said good-bye to friends, both very real friends and quasi-real,

and we watched quietly the sun set,

the silkworm dangle,

and the Autumn breeze blow.

We hosted the holidays again,

and counted ourselves so blessed for full tables and full bellies.

We enjoyed the glow, 

remain present,

and bring nothing but hope, bravery, possibility and love to the year ahead.

Navigating the Path Unknown

I wondered what it would be like to quickly jump in here, when inspiration hit me late some random Saturday evening, and write.  Without concerns for sentence structure or complete thoughts, without giving pause for who’s reading and what I am sharing, and just go.  When I paint, I apply enormous, free range strokes or tiny, delicate ones- whatever moves me.  When I take pictures I shoot what I experience and what I love, and don't give a second thought to who will critique...I just go from where I feel.  But I have been stuck with blogging for a while, holding a nonsensical standard for how I come across and what my content should look like.  And I have realized it is killing my creative process.  

So this place becomes something new again.  For just a while I am going to let myself off the hook, and write two lines on a Tuesday, and publish.  And then post something that really inspired me on Wednesday.  And a handful of shots from our adventure on Friday.  Then I would be back to regular blogging.  

This is that.  Clicking refresh.  Slightly redesigned, permission to just GO.

The archives of this website contain the story of transformation, documented moment by moment or week by week, depending, of course, on how busy these days get.  Documentation of the world, on being a mom, on looking at one’s own life and choosing to see it for all of its beauty, and run with inspiration. Sometimes the stories complete themselves—there was a positive pregnancy test, and a beautiful baby girl nine months later. Sometimes they go on and on and on.  There was a house.  We just wanted to move. It failed to sell.  We rented it.  We saved it.  We saved us.  We sold it.  Years, this one unfolded.  And I know there are other story lines that are left dangling in the breeze, because I don’t know what to say publicly at the moment, or for a long time. Adoption, and deeply felt, unexplainable love for a far away place and its beautiful people.  A treacherous, magnificent path to experience- to learn things one could never learn in any other way.  

I was thinking about this path.  I was thinking about all of these things documented here over nearly six years here, and I talked to a friend about the holes and the untold stories.  I have been thinking for months now about my direction here and whether there even should be one, or if I continue on documenting here or elsewhere, or where I put my energy.

Do you overthink sometimes, too?

I don’t have a specific goal for this space right now, in spite of being such the goal-oriented person.  I have dedicated years, now, to unearthing authenticity, and probably more in the last year than ever.  I’ve been unsure as to whether this exists as the appropriate forum for sharing all of that or not, but at least for now, I am deciding that this space is going to contain anything I can give it.  

I still want to write a book.  I still want to homeschool three or four days each week, with those remaining one or two being the difficult ones, with three kids at home all day, every day, their educations and their upbringings (not to mention their meals and their playdates) completely my responsibility.  I want to write openly again about food and struggle and creativity and home décor.  I want to unapologetically contemplate the hell out of every good book, and all the trees and leaves on every hike, and share that here, even if clumsily and hurriedly some days, because that is just where I am.  I am just going to show up more often, with whatever comes.  And then one day again, I will bind it all into a book and keep it for myself and my growing family, knowing I once took an opportunity to throw perfection's silly constraints to the wind, and this is what it looked like.

Thanks for coming along.

Waking up in Vegas

Earlier this month last month I started to get on a blogging kick and even considered NaBloPoMo, a commitment to write every day of November.  Alas, we took a trip and returned home seven days ago already.  We arrived home from Vegas at 3am Halloween morning, grabbing just a few hours of sleep before it was time to carve pumpkins and get everyone ready for trick or treating.  Since then, I painted my family room, got the kids caught up on school and a couple fun field trips, went on a major post-Halloween sugar binge, conquered both Angry Birds and a mountain of laundry, read a fantastic book and ordered my East Africa travel guide, to help myself think.

So yes, we took our trip.

Vegas was pretty neat to see.  

We were celebrating our wedding anniversary, so my wonderful husband took it upon himself to have special surprises built into the trip, like a massage down at the spa on our first morning, chocolate strawberries and champagne, and a marvelous anniversary dinner.

A dinner that included three varieties of mashed potatoes in pretty little cups, steak, lobster and creamed spinach.  Fun.     

(Also, writing the word Fun just after the words Creamed Spinach totally made me realize I am rocking my thirties.  Or my eighties.  Whatever.)

Vegas is one of Kevin's favorite places.  He loves the history of downtown and the architectural influences of each of the hotels on the Strip.  He knows what time certain fountains go off and who houses this art or that, and where to play good Blackjack and where to play cheap Blackjack, and where Dean Martin ate cheeseburgers.  And so while normally I am the trip planner of our team, this one was all his.

We walked and walked and walked.  I can tell you that I don't think we missed a single stop because that man was determined to show me everything.  

My favorite was this hotel, The Palazzo, and just as I was oohing and ahhing over how they pulled off Fall leaves in the middle of a desert, he told me that this was where we had our original reservation, just before he changed us to Mandalay Bay.  Oh well. 

Mandalay Bay was a great pick for my first visit because we were near the end of the Strip, with a view of the whole thing from way up on the 38th floor.  We stayed at THEhotel, which is kind of a big deal to them. THE word THE.  It's in capital letters on their pens, their towels, their shampoo.  On every paper, every sign on every wall.

I walked around the whole first morning proclaiming that I was getting out of THEbed and drinking THEdietcoke from THEoverpricedminibar and getting in THEshower.  Would he please get THEcar from THEvalet?

Am not kidding.  THEbig deal.  THEtp.

Am so glad I did not have THEexperience where I forgot to remove THEsticker.

We rented a fun car on our trip, which Kevin originally thought completely unnecessary, until I reassured him that if we were going to be so close to mountains and landscapes, I would probably need to climb on them.  

Which brings us to my favorite part of our adventure.  

Sorry friends, I do not enjoy gambling, or smoking cigars or drinking much, so while the Vegas sites were fun to see, the desert mountains were where my heart was.  (My vices, just for the record, include mashed potatoes, heavy caffeine and now banana splits the size of my forearm from Caesars Palace, all of which we indulged in while in the city of flashing lights.)

In our quest to see all fifty states together, I was aware that Las Vegas is in the Southeast corner of Nevada, quite close to Arizona and Utah...and we need all three of those.  Originally I had hoped that we could actually make a trip within a trip, out to THEgrandcanyon, but I knew we would not be able to dedicate enough of THEtime to do it THEjustice (heh, sorry!) so we decided to head up through Arizona and into Utah for hiking in those gorgeous red mountains.  

All lava rock, in such enormity- I had never seen anything like it.  See the two tiny cars up ahead in relation to the rock?  Compare.  

Fantastic.

So we made it through Arizona and into St. George, Utah, and I spotted a white church in the distance, which is one of my favorite things to photograph.  This wasn't any white church, though- it was a Mormon Temple!  And we'd never visited one! (Life List #61) There was a wedding spilling onto the perfect green grass of the front lawn, beneath the endless blue sky, and then this pristine, white building.  It sort of reminded me of winter mornings when you get that massive snowfall overnight, and then are lucky enough to wake up to bright blue skies over all of that bright white, untouched snow.  This was that. Church-style.

We moved on to Snow Canyon State Park, then, to hike.  I was so taken with the red rock, experiencing nothing like it near home.  It was so brittle and porous, with randomly scattered piles of deep black basalt rock here and there. Even all of the plants were completely unfamiliar to me, hardy and spikey and just completely different from the Midwest.  I loved it, and this is what I love about travel.  It changes you, and broadens your mind and deepens your understanding of the world.

The rock was somewhat unfriendly to the touch, reminding me a bit of chalk, which is not my favorite texture.  So this hike was for looking.  As we went along we kept finding the most incredible formations, and naming them like kindergartners identifying cloud shapes in the sky.

Owl!  

Elephant!  

This is how people stay married for a hundred years.  We entertain our quirks. And eat creamed spinach on our anniversaries.

This is my favorite shot from the Utah part of our trip- it sums up perfectly what the atmosphere was.  It was quiet.  It was awe-inspiring.  It was enormous, and dry and seventy-five degrees without even the slightest breeze and you got the feeling that things were simply permanent, and unchanging.  It was the kind of silence and stillness that allows you to stand right in the middle and not even have to breathe deeply to clear your mind.  You are just clear and quiet and synced with this stable, untouched section of the planet.  And you realize that it is you that is moving, all of your blood and your systems and your whole existence contained within your physical being, faster than any of this. You are transforming so quickly, and you will be gone and all of this rock and sand and dry desert heat will remain and outlive you.  And it is perfect.

You love my quasi-spiritual nature-hiking rants, don't you?

Late that night we returned to the glitz and the party in the downtown section of Vegas, which is Kevin's favorite.  It was then that my brain registered that it was Halloween weekend and the tourists?  They were costumed for it.  I think it was some of the best people watching I've ever done-- Snoop Dog, Beetlejuice, Kiss, The Pope smoking a big ol' cigar, and even a real wedding where every member of the wedding party, including the bride and groom, were made up like Zombies.  This was all so much fun to observe.

This is where a Zombie and a guy dressed like Tom Cruise from Risky Business take pictures of the Zombie wedding.  Oh Vegas.

I will be back send my husband and his buddies back to see you someday soon.

Celebrate Something--- Everything.

These sunny, warm days... they have been so good to me.

To us.

Kevin blew out thirty-five candles a few weeks back using no fewer than seven aging breaths, and we celebrated with a night of Rock and Roll Bowling.  It was a random suggestion from KJ for something fun to do with Dad on his day,

and now it comes highly recommended from our troop.  We'd not taken the kids bowling since I was pregnant with Marin, and this was such a great night for our five-- laughing, dancing, slurping slushies and occasionally watching Marin's ball make it from her little hands to the pins in less than three hours.

On another evening we stayed outside well into darkness so that I could teach the kids to catch fireflies (Life List Number 63) with the promise, of course, that they would take good care and release them from jarred captivity before bed. It was incredible fun.

Last weekend we celebrated our country's freedom as we chased down and stuffed pockets full of candy at our town's parade, and we watched fireworks in the park, and grilled and partied, swam and partied some more.

And we have all been celebrating our best buddies this summer.  We count ourselves so blessed.

A couple weeks ago the girls and I got together to attend Chicago's Gay Pride Parade, which boasts a colorful, joyful, celebratory-- electrifying atmosphere that I have rarely experienced elsewhere.  Beautiful, and fun.

There were seas of people to wade through, an event that I was just happy to be part of.  Experiencing the rapture of being alive, as the great Joseph Campbell would say.

A celebration of being who you are and loving who you love.

A moment on a sunshine-filled, colorful day to freely breathe in and out, and celebrate happiness and hope in the face of discrimination-too-often and felt hardship. Celebration, because you are good, whoever you are, and you are created by God and you are part of me, and I you.  So in celebrating you I celebrate me, and I pray that your highest potential as a citizen and a human being will be realized.

Celebration and Hope.

I have spent the better part of five months now, digging into the deepest parts of myself and my past, and shaping my best self for now and the future.  Last winter was one of the more difficult ones I have navigated, as I cycled through a pretty fair depression and began learning how to lean into my vulnerabilities and heartaches, drawing from the abundance of compassion and validation that abides within.  It was something so intense for me that never could have played out here on my blog, and so many times as I posted one quiet set of pictures after the next I wondered what I could do with this writing space anymore.  And it became an occasionally-visited holding place, for this segment of its lifespan.

Over the months I read one book after the next-- usually two and three at the same time, and meditated, painted and photographed, balanced my chakras and worked with acupressure and sound therapies and made all sorts of adjustments to my diet.  And I have sat in many deep, joyful, tear-filled conversations with a trusted few this year.  Letting go of the perfect and opening myself up to the amazing, abundant and true.

Kevin and I explored domestic and Ugandan adoption again, and closed the door (permanently) to the idea of a fourth infant-- even though the thought was a sweet one when it did not include concepts such as weekly trips to the grocery store with four in tow, or homeschool or field trips or sleep, glorious sleep.  We tossed around thoughts of relocation to the East Coast and poked through Master's Programs as I ran with hypothetical When's and Why's and How's. 

Where do we belong, and who do we need to serve?  A shifting of heart, so to speak, and lots of fresh perspective, elation and gratitude.  The whole world in a brand new way.

I remain committed to homeschool and being home for now, and staying for want rather than for the unquestioned and unexplored.  Committed to something new.  And then the valid answer to a few remaining questions, I don't know yet.

We are celebrating-- oh, are we ever.  Here, Kevin with our little nephew who is sweet as sugar.

(A moment for me to scrape my melted heart from the patio, if you would.)

And last night a once-in-a-lifetime experience with the ever-inspiring Bono, and his little known band, U2.  

A double-coffee kind of summer, if there ever was one.

And celebration, at this moment, much like calling out the color blue and looking around the room to suddenly notice the abundance of that particular hue.  Here, so much to be grateful for and excited about.

Of Eggs and Babies

I keep going back and forth with what to say next, here.  Things are mostly normal at home, what with three noisy kids and our usual busy schedule.  I spend part of my thinking hours each day keeping my brain quiet and to enjoy where we are, and the other part allowing myself to ease into our new, post-adoption normal.  

I spent weeks with a very heavy secret sitting on my shoulders-- that we might have to tear down the plans we've spent the better part of two years creating for our family, and when I was finally able to explain it to family and friends and the Internet I felt a sense of relief.  A decision had been made upon solid reasoning and I wasn't going to spend my time arguing with reality.  We will not support child trafficking or unnecessary family disruptions in any way, shape or form is about as clear cut a decision as one can make. 

So I've been kicking some serious ass on Weight Watchers in the last three weeks- down eleven pounds so far!  I have a great support system in place with my sister-in-law and my friend meeting up for Saturday morning meetings, and big positive talk with these wonderful people.  I feel great.

Clearly I am no longer kicking ass with my goal to swear less.  Ahem.

I have again cleaned out every closet and every kitchen cabinet, and said goodbye to all of the baby items we had been hanging on to.  Except for a special few.

And we have chicks again!  Well, eggs.  But eggs with baby chicks in them, who I can't help but give sweet little encouraging words to as I check the incubator temperature every five minutes few hours and turn them several times a day. Hi Babies! I tell them, as well as other random little tidbits from my day- Oh Shit, babies, I just found out my awesome double fiber bread is three points per slice, not one!  These babies are going to hatch telling my children that their mother is one crazy broad.  And who can blame them?

Also on a side note, at our house we eat brown organic eggs from cage-free hens and they look exactly like our little baby eggs here.  I haven't been able to hard boil an egg for breakfast since these guys arrived.  (See also: Oh Shit, my double fiber toast is six points, not two.)  

So I am going along with my days, then, relishing our apparently small enough and large enough sized family of five, reminding myself that I will soon be able to take the kids to places like The Movies and The Waterpark-- places I have long resisted because who brings unpredictable toddlers there alone? This is good, then.  I love my husband and children.  We're okay.

And then the confirmation shows up in my Inbox, notifying me that our final document was received and we are officially out of our adoption.  And that the phase where I rock my own beautiful babies to sleep at night?  Is over.  And then my heart breaks all over again.

This one is already as tall as a snowman, and I swore there would be a little guy behind her.

So I honestly do not know where we go from here.  I do know that we absolutely went in the right direction when we began our adoption journey.  I felt it with every fiber of my being.  I love and care for children, especially those who have no one to speak for them, and so I put my money and my heart and soul where my mouth was.  And I don't think you can ever go wrong by pursuing what matters to you deep down, you know?  I have to believe that we ended up exactly where we were always meant to be.  How can I argue with what is?  The experiences we have had in the last twenty months could never have happened in any other way.

But I have to stop talking about it, at least here, for a little while.  What happens in the future will come to pass whether or not I spend the next five years methodically typing my worries out on the Internet or not.  I am at least confident that whatever is supposed to happen always does.  

I thought seriously about taking a break from blogging for a while.  But then, Spring that I have been waiting for, and Summer, are just begging to be documented.  I feel so vulnerable having just come through such an intense situation, but then also, hopeful.  

This was the year I was leaping and allowing the net to appear, remember? We are about to find out.

Quiet Space

I had sort of known for a few weeks that I would eventually write my most recent entry about ending our adoption, and when I finally clicked Publish a few days ago I couldn't help but wonder if you all would think we were crazy.  We went into adoption wholeheartedly and with the best of intentions, and we left our adoption in the very same way of course, but still I recognize the potential for people to be left scratching their heads.  Wasn't there a way for us to have known before we became so committed?  Or a way we could have still made things work?  And while it would have spared us a lot of time, effort and money, ultimately I believe it had to happen this way.   

I can only liken this experience to that of motherhood itself, where before we become parents we have all sorts of ideas for what the experience will entail and how we will handle it.  But it is never until we walk the path for a while, fully in with all sorts of things at stake that we can understand the true pressures and the sacrifice for integrity that is called for when we realized that our dream for our family couldn't possibly happen in this way or at this time.  I remember when we were first getting our feet wet with International Adoption a year and a half ago, being shocked at some of what I read and heard.  I often couldn't help but think, Man this world sucks sometimes.  And I feel it again now.

So the very next day when this article came across, explaining how Ethiopia is now cutting back its International Adoptions by ninety percent due to corruption, I knew at least that the final outcome I had dreamed of with this process was simply never for us, whether by our own hand or being edged out of the process.  And I am at peace with that.

The funny thing is, since I hadn't seen anything like this coming until suddenly I did, that once the dust began to settle in the first few hours and days after we spoke with our agency about ending our process, Kevin and I sort of looked at each other and asked....Now What?  Since the time we got married, practically, we were talking about our first child.  After KJ was born we became focused on moving (attempt number one of 4,376 that did not work out) and then having our second child.  Then we were moving again, and did, and we had two houses and a surprise third child.  Then we had renters and an adoption process, and then a house to sell.  And now suddenly, unexpectedly, we are just us.  Not moving.  No one on our immediate horizon.  And how nice is that?

I spent all of my Saturday purging closets today.  It somehow seemed appropriate for this new chapter.

Month Ten and Taking the Long Way Around

This is not going to be the standard monthly placeholder post you might anticipate, so I will save the drama and cut to the chase pretty quickly.  And then I will explain.

We pulled out of our adoption today.

***

When we began thinking seriously about starting the adoption process in June of 2009, we were already aware of the corruption that often plagues situations such as these.  Slime Bags, an official term, are often more than happy to prey on impoverished people and defenseless children in order to make an unholy buck.  We knew it had happened before and shut down the International Adoption programs for countries such as Vietnam, and so we did our homework and found the most ethically sound US-Ethiopia adoption agency we could.  We chose Adoption Advocates International in Washington, and they remain excellent.

So when we got started nearly two years ago, we walked a long road of learning about Africa and Ethiopia specifically, the AIDS crisis and its history, the orphan crisis and what living in poverty really means.  We also heard so much of what the average American never learns about impoverished African countries-- what kind and beautiful a people they are, some of the admirable traditions they hold and the whole-hearted goodness that busy, disconnected people in our country often miss out on.  Ethiopian adoptions were increasing in popularity, but hadn't quite exploded to what they are now two years later.  We saved money and eventually assembled our dossier, requesting a boy or girl between the ages of newborn and twenty-four months.  We had a toddler at the time, and assumed that following the natural birth order in our family was the best decision.

We had heard that infant girls were the most popularly requested child in International Adoption, and though that seemed a bit odd that people would have a say at all, we were more than happy to take a boy if that was who needed a family.  Unfortunately, we also learned over time that infant adoptions were becoming higher and higher in demand.  Our dossier made it to Ethiopia and the two-trip rule was put into place soon after to protect adoptive parents and orphaned children from being dishonestly matched with each other by age or special need.  Then our wait began to grow, first from six months when we started, then to twelve months, and eighteen and possibly twenty-four.  In the mean time all sorts of reforms were being made to the Ethiopian adoption process as reports of corruption were surfacing more and more.  We were hearing about able biological parents becoming more willing to relinquish their children in hopes that they would gain better opportunities in Western countries, all the while misunderstanding that being abandoned by one’s own biological mother and father is not only most damaging to a child, but a wound that I cannot believe is ever justified by the hope for a more opportunistic future.  And that, as difficult as it is to take in, was the better case scenario.  Some of the more troubling reports we read involved babies being coerced from their unknowing mothers, misunderstanding parents being reassured their children would return to them at some point, and infants being flat-out purchased from impoverished mothers.  These were never, ever the children we set out to bring home to our family.  These children are manufactured orphans—victims of a system becoming increasingly corrupted by money.

Some of the reports are here:

• Brandeis University's Investigation of Ethiopian Adoption
• The Baby Business by E.J. Graff

and pretty shocking for a family in-process for infant/toddler adoption, PEAR's new adoption recommendations:

• PEAR's Statement Following the Conference: Ethiopia, A New Adoption Agenda

By the time I had done some of my reading, I was already feeling pretty uneasy about our waiting in such a long, particular line to be matched with a baby.  We got into adoption, after all, to give a home to a child who we imagined would be waiting for us.  We also learned that UNICEF's estimate of five million orphans in Ethiopia includes not only children who have lost both biological parents, but also children who have lost one parent and children who are being cared for by relatives.  And that the vast majority of those listed true orphans were of school age.  We continued to hope for our right answer, looking at lists of waiting children and sibling sets, all of whom were simply too old to come into our family behind our two-year-old, and we gave serious thought to children on the special needs list.  Ultimately, we found beautiful children waiting for families, but none of whom we felt could come home as our own to fit where our family is right now.  We never requested a baby because we were partial to cute and cuddly, but because our current line-up of children are eight, five and two years old, and we weren't keen on adopting out of birth order (a personal decision).  And now we had to figure out if we were in the correct place and time, for us.

We began leaning into our unease and asking ourselves harder questions.  We were invested here, with nearly two years of putting our hearts and souls, our children's excitement for a sibling, not to mention a large amount of money into the process.  But we had to figure out whether merely standing in line with the best adoption agency we could find, waiting to accept the referral for the most needy, truly orphaned baby there, would mean us exacerbating the awful, real Supply and Demand situation that is happening with families and infants in Ethiopia.  And our answer, we felt, even if we didn't like it, was yes.  Even if we had the most ethical of intentions, even if we would research a referral and meet with our potential baby's birth family to ensure that they understood the seriousness and permanence of adoption, we were still one more family waiting line for a baby, furthering the demand and potentially allowing other biological parents to break up their families under misguided hopes or worse.

For Kevin and I at this point, infant and toddler adoption in this realm is just not ethical enough to keep moving forward.

Thankfully, I do not pray for things to be easy.  I pray that I have the strength to do what is right and to handle what comes my way, and if those prayers had ever been banked for something, the Something was this.  I am not making a judgment call on anyone else's infant/toddler adoption.  I can only say what is ethically sound for my own family.  We are not refusing any particular, orphaned baby by having ended our adoption.  We are merely stepping back in order to not cause further harm to the children and families of Ethiopia.  This was not an easy decision for us, especially having discussed it so publicly.  But at the end of the day we will be the parents who tell our adopted child/ren the story of how they came to be with us, and I never want the word corruption to enter a story already permeated by tragedy.

Adoption is still in us.  Older, waiting children several years down the road. From where and precisely when we don't know at this point, but we’ve just taken a very big step and now we need time to let the dust settle.  We want to Just Go to Africa already so that we can better understand, better appreciate, better help.  We have learned amazing things on our journey so far and I know it was only a first step for us.  As we walked our kids through everything we came up with a plan together for our immediate future, and that is to enjoy being the five of us and to find ways to reach out to the people who pass into our life.  And I think that is the best any of us can ask of ourselves.

There will be people who will roll their eyes as this entry ends and sigh I told you so.  But I promise that if I never saw this day coming with all of the learning I have done in the last twenty months, this was no easy call.  It is most unfortunate to me that there really is no way to truly understand the complexities of International Adoption until you are standing knee-deep in it. And I do not have the answers as how to prepare adoptive parents for this road until they are walking the path.  But as for us, we are here now and are making the best decisions we can with what we understand.  

Month Nine

I am a day (or two!) late on this post, but this month was a little different from the others.

Our referral last month was not the standard phone call-type referral where you are presented with your potential baby.  Here we decided we would like to look at the list of waiting children who have special needs, and then when we became interested in learning about the boys there was only one way to view their (obviously, private) file, and that was to take it as a referral.  This made things feel different than the hypothetical, Could We? that we began with.  

This month we concluded that adding two children at the same time to our family of five might be something we can do!  

Having three simultaneous toddlers and two school aged children might be very, very difficult for a little while, but still another possibility that we are open to. We would know that it would get easier as the three babies grew older. 

What we learned that we could not do, after speaking with the last doctor, was take on two toddlers in addition to our three kids, one of whom we learned had an underdeveloped brain-- "Prominent Fulci" in this case not indicating hydroencephalitis but rather parts of his brain that never grew, meaning to this particular physician that he would likely never walk, speak, feed himself or potty train.  

This decision, for me, was the most painful of all because in my heart I strongly believe that all children, even and especially these little boys, belong in loving families.  The "Yes" was so easy for me, right from the beginning.  It was the "No" that I struggled so greatly with.  We had to do the best we could, in knowing our family and having some idea of what we hope to do with our lives (as well as what sort of daily, hands-on support system we have available to us, or in our case lack) and whether we could know this as our first and probably last adoption, and first and last trip to Africa.  Though I really fought hard in my mind to make everything work, I eventually knew that we were not the right family for these sweet little boys in particular, and so in a matter of just a few weeks I had taken them in as my own and let them go.  

It was a beautiful and difficult month.

So here we are at month nine now, still keeping an eye on the too-long list of waiting children, with our original dossier in Ethiopia.  However it happens, we are a loving, learning, growing family.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

--Louis L'Amour

The extent of living I have done in the last week and a half can hardly be contained by seven, eight, nine little days.  I feel like I have walked, and grown, half a lifetime.  I have been optimistic, loving, defensive, joyful, very, very sad, protective and hopeful.  When we decided to consult the list of waiting children with special needs, I thought we might find ourselves with a difficult decision to make, but one that ultimately we would stretch ourselves for, and run with.  And I guess we did.  Only, we turned down our referral today.

I could relate to the boys.  I could relate to their mother.  I am raising a set of brothers and I love them and their relationship with each other whole heartedly. I was so happy for these guys in particular, that they could be kept together and even in losing everything from their mother to their country, they could have each other throughout life.  What a blessing I knew it would be to watch them grow up together.  They were beautiful in their pictures-- seriously beautiful babies, and I could connect with them.  I wanted to be their mother. I fell in love with them almost instantly, and I couldn't help it.

We talked a lot, at first, about the extent of three-year-old Baby A's needs.  My good friend who is a pediatric ICU nurse explained his medical charts to me, line by line, and we got in touch with a couple doctors right away.  I talked to some parents who are raising special needs kids, and spoke at length with many of our friends and family.  Kevin and I talked a lot about whether we could handle his needs, if he never made an inch of progress, for the duration of our life and his.  He might never walk, never speak, never use the bathroom on his own.  We are planning on moving to a larger home anyway, we would say to each other.  We will buy a ranch.  We are blessed with fantastic medical insurance.  We have always been pissed off about the way our culture gives a bad rap to people with disabilities, and fails to see what loving, amazing individuals they are-- this is our opportunity to put our money where our mouth is.  We could really make a difference for him, and he for us.    

We decided to sit on the decision for as long as we would need to, and not tell our kids.  I did, however, speak hypothetically with Jack one night as I knelt beside him during his bath time.  What if we brought home two babies instead of one?  I asked him.  And he replied, throwing a fist in the air, That would be AWESOME!  I took it a step further and asked, What if one couldn't walk?  What if he needed a wheel chair?

That's okay, my son replied, he could still play Mario with me!  We would just lift his wheelchair over the gate and carry him down the stairs.  It was so simple and loving it was heartbreaking, and I think there is a great deal of wisdom in children, when it comes to the way they see things.  

I think the only way we could really make this decision was to fully accept or decline it at any given time.  We were either a full yes some days, or a full no. I am terrible at leaving things just hang out there, and I needed to have a solid answer to work with, even if it meant I would change to another solid answer six hours later.  

Mostly, I was moving forward with my heart.  I know myself and what determination I possess, and eventually I worked through the process to a place where I would need to lay out the specifics for myself:  vacations, the zoo, maneuvering from the car through parking garages to special doctor appointments by myself with five kids.  Two by my sides, one strapped to my chest in the Ergo, two in a double stroller.  Not easy, but manageable.  Sleep would be interesting, I thought, since I still end up in bed with Marin every night...and for attachment purposes it is important to co-sleep with newly adopted babies for the first three or so months they are home.  We would clear our bedroom floor, slap two queen mattresses up to each other and sleep Kevin and I and the three babies, all together.  Still somewhat manageable.

I really didn't want to give up on them, guys.  I wanted to do what was hard and know some of it would get easier.  I prayed so hard for strength to do this, and also for strength to know what was absolutely the right thing to do.  I started thinking about homeschool, though, and seemingly silly things like Jack's Karate.  In addition to imaginably sleepless nights I would be taking all five kids to physical and speech therapy two, three or four days a week.  I would be cramming in breakfast and lunch around whatever it takes to prepare five kids, three in diapers, to get out the door on time.  I would work to get three babies down for naps, and get homeschool in.  Could I give homeschool one hundred percent, or would I have to put the boys in public school?  Obviously that is one of my priorities.  I pulled them out of traditional school in the first place.  We also take one or two field trips each week by ourselves and with our homeschool group. We go to museums, hiking, all over Northwest Indiana and Chicago.  My kids are involved in a weekly homeschool club, skating, karate, 4H and other sports.  Sometimes I am exhausted from all of the running, at least three or four days a week, but I am happy to make that sacrifice as a mother.  What would it be like to do that with two more babies?  Was it fair to ask our older kids to sacrifice the activities they enjoy?  I've always felt these are a necessity for socialization and well-roundedness in their upbringing.  Kevin and I could easily give up anything to raise these two little boys, but what I began to assess was how much KJ, Jack and Marin could and should do.  

The logistics, as I mentioned the other day, were so much more perplexing than the unconditional love I could feel for these babies in my heart.  I loved all of my babies, and I needed to make the right decision, even when I didn't really feel there was a decision to be made:  I am a mother, and I wanted to buckle down and do what I know how to do.  I would bond with them and take them for walks on the trails this summer, two by my sides, two in the double stroller, one strapped to my chest in the Ergo...

The fact that there were two of them made this task infinitely more daunting. To address the issues such as not walking and brain calcifications I was having to overlook other extremely important aspects of adoption:  bonding, constant baby wearing, their grieving.  And then of course there would be laundry for seven and dishes, grocery shopping, and all of the normal stuff.  And my husband, who would not even see our children five days each week if not for my resolve for it, allowing them to stay up and wait for him to get home at nine or ten p.m. every night.

You can see how I needed to take a step back from all of this, yes?  As tall an order all of the potential effort would be on my part was as much as I wanted them.

There were a good many people who had faith that I could do it.  I sat with that.  I didn't want to let anyone down-- not my friends and family, not Kevin, not myself, not any of my children.  There were people who pissed me off to no end, harshly telling me I could not or should not.  I sat with that too.  I wanted to know what my exact calling would be here, and I've always been terrible about being able to say no.  This would be the biggest No of my life.

I realized, finally, that my being brave in this situation would not be two in a double stroller and one in the Ergo.  It would be my ability to say This Is Beyond Me, knowing that I could not possibly, by myself, give everything I would want to, for each of these five children.  I would not back down out of fear, but only because it was the right thing to do. 

I know that we can adopt one.  We are back on the waiting list.  I know that we can then adopt another.  I know that I may come back to a list of waiting special needs children and open my arms and my home to them when we are in a different place.  But now I know most of all that for today, for this family, it has to be one baby at a time.  

Unfortunately, that knowing does not remove the sting.  I will pray as hard and as long as I need to that these sweet babies have the perfect mom and dad come for them, and soon.  And I hope you will too.

Five necessary minutes

Sometimes I tell my kids to Just give me five minutes, so that I can get quiet and pull my head together.  More often, I tell it to myself.  Today I had to tell it to myself.  I have become pretty worked up, by now, about the right direction for our family.  What I want to do and what I can logistically do by myself, I am afraid, may be two different things.  I am working to find the balance.  What I also should have said in my last entry, more than any word I spoke about criticisms we have received, is that I have never felt so much love and support on any decision we have ever made.  Thank you for being so kind, no matter which way everything pans out.  I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have so many wonderful people holding my hands.

I decided for today to stop all the thinking and just pull myself together.

Big Fat Decisions

When I reached out recently and asked for everyone's prayers, I sort of knew I was taking a risk.  I generally like to make a decision, get sure and comfy and then talk about it.  But this one just seemed to beg something more.  It's a big deal.  

But unfortunately what I did not anticipate was the handful of people who would feel brought on board with this parenting deciding gig and run with the concept that, They Haven't Made A Decision Yet!  Let's Stop Them!  So that part has kind of sucked.  

I am willful and headstrong, but also introspective.  I need time to think, and bounce ideas off of people I feel safe with.  In return, I generally hope for balanced responses (cake and eat it people, cake and eat it) because I get squirmy and mad when someone comes along dictating that I CAN'T! or SHOULDN'T!  But I also need honesty.  Wrapped in a soft, cozy blanket and given freely with a basket of warm bread and cold butter.

So the decision making process has become more complicated as I try to pull my focus away from who has disappointed me or is projecting all of these No Way's of their own onto my family.  But we are still trying to think things through, none the less.  

So a few things: I am a member of three different Ethiopian adoption communities.  I have spent eighteen months reading as many as fifty or more emails a day about the good, bad and the ugly of adoption.  Kevin and I have taken classes, read books and I know plenty of adoption bloggers.  I have friends who are raising adopted children.  I have a friend who grew up an adopted child and I walked with her as she went through the process of finding her biological family.  My aunt and uncle created their family through adoption and my mom and dad were foster parents for several years.  None of this makes me any sort of expert.  But I am not completely clueless either.  I am also licensed to teach mild to moderate special needs children and know all about IEP's and such.  What I do not know, from my own experience, is what it is like to have five children for whom I am completely responsible.  I understand the mother-child attachment process well, as I have been practicing it for eight years, but haven't ever worked to bond with a child who has been through trauma.  I do not know for sure that I would be a fantastic mom to five, adopted and biological, neurotypical and special needs, but I do feel that I am doing a fine job with the three I have.  

So we have done nothing but talk about these little boys for days and days now. We have opened our hearts to them and have explored how we would handle minor details such as sleep, homeschool, Kevin's typical work hours and doctor appointments.  If exists a There to have gone, we have been.  And are still going.  We talk about Baby A's needs-- the fact that he cannot walk or speak and has some unexplained calcifications in his right frontal lobe, and what that will mean for him and for us.  He has been doing physical therapy since he came into care at the orphanage a few months ago and has already learned to sit up and stand with assistance.  What is his potential and what might be his forever limitations?  And is this the family who can best meet his needs?  

My whole heart is in this, wherever we are called.  I am emotional because I believe that all children are precious and deserve families.  I cannot imagine what it is like to have to give mine up, or what it would be like to wonder if they are still sitting alone in an orphanage somewhere.  Our biggest task now is to figure out in what way we can be most successful as a family and as advocates for children in need, everywhere.  I've been in the happiest, most excited place and ready to sign on now, and I've had good, ugly cries over the heartache that is the entire situation for these boys.

This is the most excruciating, emotional process I have ever been through, for sure.  And no matter how things shake out, it will be as it should.

On raising one or eighty-nine children

It should come as no surprise, given that which is on our current radar, that Kevin and I have spent the last week or so with a sampling of our parenting skills, life goals, strengths and weaknesses squished between two rectangular pieces of glass (doused in a little purified water, of course) as to be seen through a microscope.  We have conversed until our voices grew hoarse and bounced our most honest thoughts off of the most trusted people in our lives. I've asked the whole wide world in general to say a little prayer for our family as we make the right decision for the seven of us, and I am so grateful to those who did.

I have been thinking a lot (oh shush, you love it when I philosophise endlessly) about what it means to be a good mom and a good dad in regards to who should be raising five children, and whether *we* should be those people. To me, good parenting involves complete dedication to our marriage and family.  It requires the desire to be constantly growing and learning.  Most of all, we have to love what we are dedicating ourselves to.

Raising one or three or five or ten children is often tiresome, frustrating work. I was just as prone to feel defeated by the developmentally appropriate antics of my first child as I am to sometimes feel stressed by my three.  I had never been the mother of one before, or two or three, until I was.  And then at every given moment conditions in my house were as complicated as they ever had been before.  And as is common, I had the most opinions about child raising before I had children, and it has been a continual process of breaking down and blowing up those unrealistic notions ever since.

Having kids makes no sense, on paper.  You take two adults in (hopefully) satisfying careers, each of whom are bringing home a paycheck, mostly in control of their days and making choices as to where and what and when they eat and sleep and what becomes of spare time.  And then you bring home your first baby, and then another, and you give up most of that.  One of you either parts with income via checks written to childcare or by putting off a career to tackle each daytime yourself, and the rest of said income is to be divided between the cereal aisle of grocery stores and co-pays at the pediatrician's office.  Sleep, the temperature of dinner and how free time is spent revolves mostly around kids, then, and control is no longer control in the former sense of the word...at all. In choosing to give up so much "freedom," there is definitely something internal-- something bigger, at play.  And for as difficult a task child raising can be, I challenge you to find a parent that doesn't consider his or her child one of the most important, wonderful parts of life.

By the time you become outnumbered by children, something naturally has to give.  You either adapt (continually) and decide to see your life through new eyes, or you fight the noise and the messes and eventually have yourself committed.  I don't care who you are raising, children make messes, screech, bicker, fuss, and embarrass their parents.  Also, they give the best hugs with little arms, say the funniest things, create the most amazing artwork you've seen and steal your heart over and over by doing nothing more than just being the beautiful little souls that they are.  

We sort of know what we are signing up for with our fourth and fifth babies. And the rest will be learned through reading and asking and experience.  I am not to three, nor will I be to five children, a perfect mother.  I am sometimes forgetful and impatient, and am far from having all of the answers.  But I love my kids, and I love raising a family.  I am fully dedicated to this family I helped create and that is enough.  Enough to homeschool, enough to keep up with everyone's interests, enough to give back rubs at night and read stories mid-afternoon, and to find pediatric specialists and physical therapists and speech pathologists.  I love these children enough to continue on my own path of personal growth, so that they can always have the best version of me.

I will rely on my kind girlfriends, who are empathetic and in the trenches of motherhood alongside me, for a non-judgmental shoulder to cry on.  And I will try to remember when I am exhausted and overwhelmed that we will not have three babies under three forever.  In the same vein, my children will go on doing what they do.  They will be funny and wild and sweet, and eat my Chap Sticks and wake me up fourteen times each night.  They will be ungrateful and sassy at times-- all five of them if this is who we are meant for, and not one of them will owe me anything.  No matter what, our crew will grow up with a strong sense of family, and hopefully understand that it isn't what you've got, but who you are.

If we hadn't done it by diving head first into homeschooling, by becoming a party of seven my family is taking a deliberate step away from what is typical by American standard.  There will be people who know us, and complete strangers, who not only won't understand why we make certain choices, but some of the same people who will outright disapprove.  And that's fine.  I am not asking anyone to feed my children, fund their educations or even take interest in one, if not all of these precious people.  We all have the choice to answer or not when we feel God calling our names, and I can only do what feels right in my heart.  And that is the best explanation I can give, if nothing that makes a lick of logical sense on a spreadsheet, for how we got to where we are right now.

Where the hand holding comes in

I wasn't going to speak a peep about this until we were sure one way or the other.  I have made it a point in all of my blogging years to not give specifics on a few things-- Kevin's work, upcoming travels and big huge decisions that require lots of consideration, time and prayer.  This time, however, what sits before us is so enormous and in begs so much thought and so much prayer, and is so much bigger than Kevin and I (or at least this is the way it feels, at this moment) that I need to ask for your support and prayers.  

For a few months now in regards to our adoption, I have been thinking about all of the waiting children who have special needs-- kids who do not have excited sets of parents lined up for miles, waiting to take them home to love them unconditionally-- kids who do not even have one set of parents in their line.  I have talked to a very few people (beyond my husband) about this, mostly because I have been nervous about a larger step such as this.  I've tried to dismiss it in my mind, telling myself that we have three children and a fourth with special needs would be more than we could give attention to.  {Truthfully, we have never walked that road, so we have nothing to go on.}  I've tried to tell myself to think with my logical brain, and stop thinking so much with my heart. I want to take every one of these beautiful, deserving babies home every time I think of them, and I keep reminding myself that we are only one couple and can only do so much.

But it keeps pulling at me.  Last week I was to the point where I was waking up in the middle of the night thinking about them, and one night I even tiptoed downstairs to do some research online.  Or to somehow find a way to connect with these kids who potentially needed us.  In my pajamas, in my kitchen, at two thirty in the morning.

I remember when we first decided adoption was something we needed to seriously consider, in the summer of 2009, and I spent a solid two months after that reading everything I could get my hands on and watching the YouTube homecoming videos of newly united families half the night, every night, bawling.  It became my ritual for a while.  

These last few months and especially weeks have been like that-- tugging at me.  Not in the way that I was reduced to tears and researching like mad, but something I couldn't shake.  And in the interest of honesty, something, for a while, that I was a little afraid to look into.  On Christmas I thought about our baby on and off for a good part of the day, and after the new year I began writing "Call AAI" on my to-do list every day.  And went to bed each night for another solid week with it just sitting there.

Early this week we finally called.  And just that fast the list of waiting children was emailed to us, and I sat quietly waiting to hear what Kevin had to say.  I tend to be the "idea person" of the two of us and he is more of the "go with the flow" guy.  But this had to be different because I was already pretty sure of where I was at, and I really needed to hear his thoughts as the decision stared us in the face, without influencing him in any way.  With choices of bed linen colors it's pretty fair for one partner in the marriage to blurt an opinion and the other to shrug and toss them in the cart.  With matters of bringing children into a family, everyone must be on board one hundred and fifty percent. Instantly he said to me (and I to him) that one little line of the list stuck out. We followed up with it, and we asked questions.

And now we have a referral in our hands.

I didn't really want to write any kind of cryptic post like the one I posted yesterday, but I wasn't sure how much I should say here.  And technically, I wrote that post last week while I built up my confidence.  I needed it.

So now that I'm laying it out there, our referral...

Brothers.

Yes, two little guys.

I wish I could use their names or show you their pictures, but I am not allowed to, yet.  They are so, so sweet.  

The older of the two boys is about three years old, and the baby is about sixteen months old.  The older boy has been diagnosed with Gross Motor Delays and Speech Delays.  He does not speak, though he does smile, coo and make noises, and he is unable to walk.  He has been in physical therapy at the orphanage since he arrived there in September and he has learned to sit up on his own and can stand with support.  He is adorable.  The baby is considered to be average and healthy.  He has big beautiful eyes and two little teeth.

The last two days since we received our referral have been like time standing still.  In a tornado.  We have talked and talked and talked.  We have been consulting with doctors and friends, family and the internet.  I have never prayed harder about anything in my life, because I want to make the absolute best decision for the boys and for us and for KJ, Jack and Marin.  We have played devil's advocate with ourselves non-stop and have taken ourselves to the best and worst case scenarios.

We have about three weeks to accept or reject our referral.  It has been such an emotional process thus far, ranging between sheer joy to feeling utterly terrified.  We want them so badly, but we are scared.  We've never been here before and we need to think it all through as best as we can.

This is where I hope you come in, my friends, if you would please say a prayer for us.  I would be so grateful.

Involves both the building up and the tearing down

One of my favorite quotes is by Joseph Campbell, when he wrote that, "We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."  I've written it out, taped it up and doodled it in my journal over the last few years.  The words are not exactly a bold, new discovery, but just the same something I've come to live by.

I enjoy control, and function from the place of a pessimist-turned-optimist, which means I still stink at my off-the-cuff responses thirty-nine percent of the time, but I am working on it.  

I remember the first time I was told that KJ needed glasses and vision therapy. He was three years old and I panicked at the idea, initially.  Sure, we had been through two tumultuous pregnancies by then, and tiny babies and insane acid reflux disease and sleep apnea, where the shrill squeal of a monitor would jar me out of my sleep into a panic, sometimes several times a night when my baby's chest leads indicated that he hadn't taken a breath in thirty seconds (boy howdy, those were good times,) but those felt less impactful to KJ himself.  I knew he wouldn't remember any of the projectile vomit or sticky patches, but the glasses would be something that would accompany him-- help define his image, for years to come.  They were a sign to me that the moment had arrived for the bubble to burst:  his little life would not be without obstacles to overcome.  He was going to be human, just like the rest of us.

I had him on a pedestal, you know?  I distinctly remember feeling, the very first time I held him, that if I never did anything else with my life, that this beautiful, amazing boy would have been enough.  I hoped in those first few months and even years of his life that he would grow up completely whole, without a single one of the cracks I could see within myself. He was smart as a whip and adorable, and so sweet.  I wanted to make everything perfect for him, whatever that meant to me at the time.

There was another point in time when I had successfully lost an entire person's worth of weight.  Kevin's job was on the up-swing and we bought a zippy black Mercedes Benz.  We listed our little house on the market and declared our family complete, with two little boys and a dog and a cat.

That was picturesque, wasn't it?

I remember that Christmas when we were all moved into the new house and every wall had been painted, Kevin and I stopped in a jewelery store in the mall while doing our shopping.  I tried on rings with big fat diamonds in the center. I told the woman what I was dreaming of and she brought it to me, and then I tossed my head back and chuckled out loud and demanded, Bigger!  

Okay, so that recount is a bit dramatic.  But the diamond ring trying, and asking for larger stones?  Yeah.

Who was that girl?

I was excited, but also scared to death when I learned that I was pregnant with Marin.  It's written in my archives here, somewhere I am sure.  The deal on our then empty house had fallen through and I was seriously hungry, which threatened every ounce I had worked so hard over those years to lose.  My idea of a perfect world had been turned upside down and dropped on its proverbial head.  It left a great, big bump.

Who really wants change?  Especially when you just did change.  You just got better.  Just lost the weight.  Just found yourself and your happiness.  And all of that took work!  Three kids would be far more difficult than two, re-losing the weight after a third child no walk in the park.  Kidney surgery?  A tumor?  An extra house indefinitely?  Really?

We were hurled out of the shadows where our selfish aspirations were exciting and tossed around and beaten up by one heck of a tornado.  There are two things we could do in the face of all that upset, and that was to fight it, as if we really had any control anyway, or accept it, and even become curious about it.  

Like it or not, our boat had been dropped in the water and we could either plop the oars in and paddle against the voracious current, or float with it.

In the last couple of years we traded our controlled chaos for a wild rumpus. We also traded our religion for spirituality, the big yellow bus for a classroom at home, (some of) our impulse buys for a safety net and the last shreds of a once sparkly dream for something deeper, richer, and altogether more satisfying.  I want my idea for myself to be God's idea for myself, and run with that most of all.  Every time I think about our adoption, and all of my children, I experience such gratitude and joy for having them in my life, and I continue to ask if there is some way I can be more useful in that place.

For the first time I have realized that I am okay with letting go of any notion of myself and for my family if asked to do so, and ride the current.  I can ask where our personal best is and accept that the road to there might just be a crash course.  

I'd rather fail a handful of times than never try at all.  

And all that brings us to such an exciting place, and frightening.  Again.  

I may ask that you hold my hand, even.

Month Eight

While writing an email to a friend the other day, I said something about being almost to month eight in our wait for a referral.  In typing that I was surprised to experience a sudden bout of nerves.  Could we have only four or so more months left to wait?  Holy cow!  Nervous excitement.

I decided to call our agency for the first time, then, to check how the referrals were going.  They told us initially that we could call at month six, but I never did because I was pretty sure we had a while to go.  Now was an appropriate time, to me.  

When I called I found out that referrals for healthy baby boys under two are taking about eighteen months, right now, and twenty-four months for girls. The time frame since we signed on with our agency a year ago has increased so dramatically, from as little as six months to eighteen, minimum.  So in short, we probably have ten more months to go until we get our referral call.  We definitely will not travel twice in 2011, and maybe not even once, depending on how things go.  I am okay with waiting.  I know in my heart that our child will come home exactly when it is meant to be, and that we are waiting with the most honest, wonderful agency we know of.  Just as I am typing this, in fact, I received an email asking parents who will be traveling in the next month to please bring books with them, for an Ethiopian school in need.

We will continue to celebrate each month closer, no matter how long (or short) it takes.