The Greatest Announcement

Announcing the news of our referral has been fun. We've been on the phone telling the story over and over, yet never tiring of the events that unfolded on Halloween that have us over the moon with excitement for our son's arrival. But announcing the new addition to Abigail and Paige was unexpectedly, one of those family moments you never can forget.
 
We saved the news of a new baby brother for a few days. Between Halloween and school, the time never seemed right to sit them down and spring a new sibling on them. Then, on Friday evening, two days after we had found out, they got their hands on his picture. "Awwww...cute baby," said Paige (they're both obsessed with babies). We looked at each other and silently agreed with a few facial expressions that this would be a good time.
 

Just needs a prince to dance with!

"That little baby is going to be your new brother," James began. I was prepared for one of the two following reactions: 1. "We don't want a brother. We don't like boys!" or 2. "Mama, can I have some M&M's for dinner?" But rather than disinterest or despair, the announcement was met with delight.  Their eyes lit up and we could see the wheels turning in their heads so we braced ourselves for the countless questions that were sure to ensue.  Again, our expectations were off the mark.  We had anticipated queries about why this baby wasn't growing in mommy's tummy or why his skin is a different color.  But no. 
 
Their primary concern was what he was going to wear.  "We have to buy some boy clothes," Abigail declared immediately, "and some trucks and trains for him to play with."  Then they wondered where he would sleep and when we told them Nana's room (which is currently our guest room most often occupied by Nana), they decided we had to paint it blue and put lots of boys stuff in there.  Then there was worry about Nana's reaction to the boy stuff so we had to call Nana who assured the girls that it would be just fine to redecorate her room and that she actually likes boy stuff and girl stuff.  Who knew? 
 

Their new brother will surely get dressed as a ballerina

Once their questions were answered and their concerns put to rest, the excitement set in and they started acting like two little mothers.  They discussed books they would read to him and songs they would teach him.  Abigail thought Jeffrey would be a good name while Paige leaned toward Lace.  (Side note: neither name will be used.) 
 
They still haven't questioned why their brother isn't coming to us the traditional route.  And when those questions do come up, we're ready.  Until then, we're enjoying listening to the ladies make plans for their new sibling.  They have decided to put him to use as Prince Eric for their Little Mermaid performances and they've added Thomas the Tank stickers to my shopping list so he can do crafts with them.  "He doesn't like princesses Mama," they explained to me, "he's a boy!"  Yes, my dears, but I'm pretty sure he will love the two of you.

 

It's a Boy!

In a million years, I did not expect the call to come when it did.  I had spoken to Jenn, the Ethiopia adoption coordinator for Holt just days ago and she did not give me much hope that the referral would come this week.  I was thinking by mid November if we were lucky.

So when James' phone rang through on the blue tooth in our mini van at 4:35 on the way to pick up the girls from day care, and the 541 Oregon area code lit up on the dashboard, we both did a double take.  This couldn't possibly be it, could it?  So many times, the phone rang and my heart started racing only to hear the voice of a doctor's office confirming an appointment or something equally as mundane.  But when James (the voice of reason in our relationship) said to me, "Are you ready?" I knew this was it.  I should also point out that rarely do we ever go pick up the girls together.  One of us is always tying up loose ends at work or off to an exercise class, but this time, it was October 31st - Halloween - so the plan was to pick up the kids and head off to Grandma and Grandpa's, our first trick or treat stop.  The timing, then, with the two of us in the car, was perfect.

James was driving, so I struggled with his phone (which I've always hated) and couldn't seem to sync the blue tooth properly.  There were a few moments (some of the longest moments of my life!) trying to get the connection working so we could both hear properly.  Finally, the two of us and Jenn were having a conversation.  She started off by asking about how we fared in the recent hurricane (Sandy) that hit the Northeast.  I'm not at all sure what I said, but I know I was thinking, "come ooooon, cut to the chase!!!"  It wasn't long before she did.  "I've got good news for you," she began, at which point I started bawling.  "We have a little boy for you.  He is fifteen months and in good health."  Again, I have no idea what I said, if anything, but she went on to tell me what she knew about the circumstances under which he was placed for adoption, the region he is from, his name, etc. The conversation wasn't long - maybe five minutes.  My head was spinning too much to ask any questions so she said she would forward on his picture, medical reports, etc. for us to look over and we could call with questions if we had any. 

After hanging up, we had to quickly pull ourselves together.  It wasn't the kind of news you just start blabbing to the first person you see on the street.  We hadn't looked over medical reports, told family, or even decided how, exactly to tell our own children.  So, James put a sheet over his head (he was a ghost for Halloween), and we walked into daycare as calmly and normally as humanly possible (aside from the ghost costume, obviously). 

Before stopping at Grandma and Grandpa's, we swung by the package store for a bottle of bubbly which I stuffed in my giant purse.  Grandpa wasn't home, so we couldn't make our announcement right away.  Instead, the girls opened their Halloween loot and hemmed and hawed over which piece of candy they would indulge in first.  We stood around nervously chit chatting until finally, grandpa came home.  Then, I told them that the girls had gotten to try on their Nutcracker costumes at ballet that day and I have the cutest pictures.  I handed them my phone to see the pictures but it was actually a picture of their new grandson on the screen.  Once the realization hit, there were tears, hugs, and champagne - a wonderful way to kick off Halloween.

On the drive back to our neighborhood, I called my mom and told her the girls wanted to say Happy Halloween.  She was on her way out to dinner, so I told her I didn't want to keep her but I'd text her a picture of the girls in their costumes.  I hung up and texted our little guy's picture and exactly 30 seconds later, the phone rang and my eardrums nearly exploded from all the screaming.

After more trick or treating, we returned home and let the girls start counting their treats while we opened all the reports and looked at pictures over and over.  I texted my dad and asked how you pronounce XXXX?  He loves pronunciations of ethnic names, and I knew when he saw the text, he'd get the picture.  Once again, the phone rang within 30 seconds and I related the story once again.

Finally, after the kids were in bed, I called my sister - a special phone call to me since she is adopted from Hong Kong.  Before I called I texted the picture and said "Happy Halloween Auntie Emma!"  James did the same with his sister which only leaves my brothers to tell.  Since they are in Australia and New Zealand, the time difference wasn't right, but I will tell them soon.

James wasted no time getting in touch with a doctor (Lisa Albers Prock) who specializes in International Adoption from Children's Hospital in Boston.  She was very prompt in returning the email and we spoke with her yesterday morning about the medical report.  She was very thorough (as thorough as one can be when analyzing data from a third world country), but ultimately, aside from being a bit on the short side which is normal for children in care centers in Ethiopia, expressed no major concerns.  We hung up and almost immediately picked up the phone to officially accept the referral for our son.

Waiting and Cleaning

Okay, I know I said I was taking a step back from the whole waiting game and would leave the time table to a higher power to decide when the time is right to finally get our referral.  Over the past few weeks, I have jumped about a mile every time the phone rings and have scoured the Holt Facebook and Yahoo Group pages looking for more news and updates from other prospective adoptive parents.  I have woken up each morning thinking 'today must be the day.'  If I wear my pearl "mom" necklace or my Ethiopia Mom T-shirt, surely the phone will ring.  Any future momentous occasion is a deadline in my mind.  Of course I'll have a referral by the time I ride the Last Gasp.  I'll ride those sixty plus miles with his or her little face at the forefront of my mind, driving me to push through to the finish line.  Then, by October 1st for sure.  The start of a new month, the start of a new phase of this adoption process.  And now, by Paige's birthday (which is tomorrow).  We couldn't possibly wait any longer than Paige's birthday.  But there's a good chance we will.

I have done nothing in the way of taking a step back.  I have used every last fiber of emotional energy and devoted it to attempting to control fate - or at least gather as much information as humanly possible to give me some kind of insight as to when this will finally come to fruition.  Who was I kidding?  Type A personality, master multi-tasker, frequent insomniac, and the most impatient person in the world...take a step back?  Sorry, not possible.

The thing is, there is no control in International adoption.  There is no timeline, no definites, no "normals."  You just kind of have to go with the flow - something that doesn't jive very well with my personality.  But I have to choice, so I stay busy.  As the inn slows down toward the end of the season and I have more time to kill, I have filled my time by cleaning.  First it was my closet - out with the summer attire and in with the winter clothes.  I organized all my shoes (a huge feat for those of you not familiar with my extensive shoe collection).  Then came our bookshelf which, up until two days ago, was overflowing with books.  Abigail and Paige "helped" me divide them into piles - "keep," "donate," "recycle."  Yesterday, I tackled the craft center - a five shelf unit bursting with pipe cleaners, coloring books, Play Dough, stickers, yarn, and oddly, sunscreen (the shelves are near the entrance to our house which I guess explains that).  Again, piles were made.  Bins were procured.  Old coloring books were tossed.  Labels were made.

So I have been cleaning.  And obsessing.  And imagining the day when the phone rings and we can finally announce our news - to each other (we're not sure whose cell phone Holt will be calling), to our families, and to the other adoptive families stalking the Yahoo boards waiting for posts that scream REFERRAL!!!!  Until then, our house will continue to get reorganized and scrubbed from top to bottom.  Happy waiting...

Keeping the Faith

I have never been a very religious person.  My mom is Jewish and my dad is Episcopalian and while my siblings and I were raised with very biblical “guidelines,” like “Do unto others as you would have them do to you,” we rarely set foot in a Church or Temple or said prayers before dinner.  We celebrated holidays representing both religions and had a general understanding of the spiritual explanation behind them, but when faced with a dilemma or life changing choice, my natural inclination was not to pray to a higher power, but to reason things out or go with my gut.  Until recently, this worked for me.  I can honestly say, I have lived with no regrets and my gut has guided me down a path on which I am proud to be walking.  But sometimes, life gets too big to simply seek internal guidance.  And when this happened to me, it became clear why so many people I know are devout and have unrelenting faith that there is a higher power guiding us through life’s journey.

The miracle of producing offspring in and of itself initiated the beginnings of this new spiritual piece of me.  I mean, how can you not marvel at this miniature version of “us” and wonder how on earth the perfection of it all is possible?  But it wasn’t until we began the very different course to have a third child that spirituality became more of a necessity than a vague question mark for me. 

My pregnancies, even with a few hiccups and complications, were somewhat predictable.  I had a little daily calendar I kept at my bedside and could read all about the little life inside me – each night I’d tear off a page and announce to James, “Guess what?  Baby got earlobes today!”  But the avenue we chose to build our family this time, through international adoption, is far more unpredictable.  When we started the process, we were under the impression we would have our child within 12-18 months.  Now, over two years later, we still don’t even have a referral for a child, much less a sense of when we will travel or how much longer it will be before we enlarge our family.  We are close to a referral, of this I am fairly certain.  But it could be within hours that we get that phone call or maybe even a couple more months.  For the last two weeks, I have woken up each morning certain that today will be the day.  I have donned my “Ethiopia Mama” tee shirt thinking how perfect it would be if the call came and I was wearing it.  I have watched for signs – surely hearing the song “Africa” on the radio means the phone call will come any moment.  But the call has not come and I have successfully driven myself and probably my husband, though he is too polite to admit it, crazy. 

 
And so I have decided to let it go.  And this is where the religious piece comes in.  If I let it go, I have to leave it to someone to take care of.  There is a higher power that has orchestrated this process so far.   Though not the time frame we expected, in hindsight, I can see that the delay was for the best.  Had things happened according to plan (my plan), I think I would have missed out on our youngest daughter’s development.  She would easily have become lost in the shuffle and the chaos that is sure to surround bringing in another child from another country and all that comes with that.  She needed our attention and to be the baby for awhile.  I am so glad this was not taken away from her.  I also needed time.  There was a lot I had to learn about being a mother – not so much the occupation of being a mom, but who I am as a mom.  I needed to learn to put myself second, but not all the time.  I needed to find balance and discover an ability to let things go.  Things don’t always happen as we plan, particularly in parenthood.  Houses don’t always get cleaned promptly and temper tantrums erupt at the worst possible moments.  Kids don’t react as we would have expected and there are tears and meltdowns and sleepless nights and uneaten dinners.  But at the end of the day, it is the laughter and silly songs, and Crayola stick figures and conversations between our daughters that are nothing but love and compassion for each other that we take with us. 

So, just as I have learned to let go of my expectations of daily life as a mother, I will continue to do so as I carry on with building my family.  I will relinquish control over the situation.  Because so far, there seems to be a reason for how this all has transpired.  I look forward to the day I will see further why it has all unfolded just as it has.  Until then, the ball is out of my court.

Hope

It has been a year and eight months since I last posted about our adoption process.  As changes in the adoption process were implemented in Ethiopia, wait times became longer and longer.  Months would go by without any updates, no couples were getting referrals for children, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.  For awhile, I pushed the whole thing out of my mind.  I am fortunate enough to have two biological daughters, who, as young toddlers, kept me very busy and focused on the chaos of daily life rather than anticipating the future.  But as they got older and I saw them develop and grow together as best friends, I started to wonder how our third child would fit into the dynamics of the family.  I panicked that if too much time transpired, there would be a huge age gap and our new child would be sort of a third wheel.  But our hands were tied - the age spread of our children would only be dictated by how quickly the Ethiopian government implemented the necessary changes to the adoption process and rolled out the new procedure.  As a result of the changes and new protocol, orphanages were closed and our agency was busy seeking relationships with new ones.  All of this takes time and patience.  Since I am one of the most impatient people in the world, I avoided thinking or writing about it.  When people asked how the process was going, I vaguely replied, "slowly" and changed the subject. 

Several months ago, we had to update our home study since it had expired.  When meeting with our social worker, I was forced to think about the future, the unknown length of time ahead, and whether our dream of adopting from Ethiopia would ever come to fruition.  She suggested exploring domestic adoption and I have to admit, we researched, but our hearts weren't in it.  We toyed with another biological child, but there was something urging us to stick it out even though it meant risking perhaps not having a third child if worse came to worse and the Ethiopian program closed and too much time had passed for us to really want to explore another route.

Once again, I pushed adoption thoughts from my mind.  But it was getting harder.  Every time I heard that song "Africa" by ToTo or "A Thousand Years" that's always on the radio, I would tear up.  Even watching my daughters bond and grow together was hard sometimes as my mind wandered and I pictured the third little one learning the ropes from them.  But somehow, even when time seems to stand still, days and weeks and months pass and at the beginning of the summer, I finally saw a glimmer of hope.  Referrals started coming through more regularly and updates held more promising news.  Our agency partnered with new orphanages in new regions and children were slowly but surely being released and matched with families. 

The summer is a busy time of year for an innkeeper on Cape Cod.  The last couple months flew by and before I knew it, we were creeping up that wait list, now seemingly nearing the top five or so.  That glimmer of hope I felt a few months back has become more than a glimmer.  It has morphed into certainty that our child is out there and soon we will hold his or her picture in our hands.  Every day, I feel closer and closer to that moment when the phone will ring and the voice on the other end will tell us the good news.  Until then, waking up each morning with hope, but more importantly faith that the thread linking our family to our new child is gradually becoming connected, keeps me going.