Therapy post (and more info than most people will ever read)

I am not one of those women who prides myself on multitasking.  Sure, I do it - it's kind of part of the job as a mom, but I certainly prefer to put my whole self into whatever I'm thinking about or doing.  So the last couple days has felt particularly exhausting to me since every waking moment I have spent searching my thoughts and feelings about our pending adoption, while also trying to remember to be as present as possible while doing "normal" things like attending parent teacher conferences, or celebrating our son's birthday.  I have managed not to burst in to tears in public, but seem to have found some sort of strange connection between my tear ducts and driving the car.  Anytime I'm driving I find myself crying.

This morning I dropped my husband off at the airport and found a rare entire 30 minutes of silence on the drive home (3 year old had headphones on).  Yes, I was driving, so cue tears.  I find myself continuing to feel grief, but already being more open to thoughts and feelings about where to proceed from here.  Or at least what to consider thinking and praying about.  I'll share a little bit more about that in a moment but first, a little explanation about writing this post...

I decided that since I'm not really ready to try to explain my grief to the world face to face (especially while unsure where we're going from here), but I figured that I'd try to write some things down.  Ever since I was a little girl I found writing to be therapeutic.  I started a journal before I was even in kindergarten and kept one religiously until I got married.  Apparently I converted to verbally dumping my feelings at that point (lucky Mark).  In any case, writing is always a fall back (especially when my feelings are this intense and the hubby is out of town).  Hence the title of this post being therapy post.

First a little background.  While international adoption is something I felt strongly about as long as I can remember, and adoption specifically from Ethiopia had been brewing in our hearts for years, we officially began the process just over 2 years ago.  We excitedly submitted our initial application for the program on October 3, 2012.  At the time we knew the wait lists had gotten longer to adopt from Ethiopia and that there had been some hold ups in the process due to red tape on the Ethiopian side of things, but we were told the adoption could take up to 2 years.  

Right around the time we completed our paper chase, our dossier was complete and we were finally wait listed we received the disheartening news that the wait time had been re-evaluated to be 3 1/2 years.  At the time that news was crushing.  It was only a few months later that the agency explained that the slow down would be worse than projected and now was estimating a wait of about 6 years.  That was a tough pill to swallow, but we felt strongly that we should stay the course.  Now fast forward to this week and we got the email we've been dreading.  While our agency isn't officially closing their Ethiopia program yet they are not anticipating receiving any more referrals of children and we are being encouraged to either change programs (to another country) or to terminate our contract with them.

They included a very detailed email explaining some of the very complicated facets of the adoption process in Ethiopia that has led to this, but if I get into many of those details this will become an even longer (and much more intense) post.  It sufficeth to say that greed, corruption, and child trafficking has become more and more of a problem in Ethiopia.  Our agency continues to maintain its stance against those things and to keep its distance from anyone involved in it.  Unfortunately that, in addition to complicated adoption procedures/red tape that has been implemented trying to combat that corruption, has led to an even more drastic slowdown in the program.  To put it into numbers....during 2014 our agency has been able to place only 10 children from Ethiopia with families, compared to 35 in 2013 and 62 in 2012.

While I will certainly continue grieving the loss that I feel personally right now and my thoughts certainly point to what path our future will take us down, my emotions seem to be more consumed today with grief I have over all the children in this country I've grown to love that NEED families and can't get to them because of greed and corruption.  The sorrow I feel is so deep and complex that it is difficult to put into words.  I'm grateful to be affiliated with an adoption agency that refuses to participate in corruption as a means to an end.  The adoption process in Ethiopia is so broken and corrupt that I am finally realizing that it likely needs to completely close before it can be overhauled and fixed.  Probably alongside Hague accreditation.  I think that is eventually what will happen.  In the long run that's a good thing.  In the meantime that's sad for us, and even more awful for children that will languish in the meantime without hope of anything better.

I believe that there must be a reason that my heart has learned to love Ethiopia.  Also, my heart has become even more aware of and broken over orphan care in general.  And while adoption certainly holds a huge place in my heart and always will, I have always recognized that adoption isn't the answer to relieving the suffering of millions of children.  There needs to be more concern over family preservation and the things that prevent that (see organizations like Help One Now that I love).  I also believe though that even when great progress is made that there will always be situations where adoption is the only option available for a child to have a permanent home and family.  My prayer is that leaders in Ethiopia and everywhere will feel the urgency to create ethical paths for those children to find homes in families that are ready and willing to call them their own.

As I think about the things I've learned, or things my heart has begun to love or bleed for over the last few years...I wonder if that was enough of a reason for God to have put us on this path?  We still feel like our daughter is out there somewhere...was part of this path a timing issue?  Why did we have to throw away $16,000+ for nothing when that money could have been used toward her adoption later?  I have so many questions.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post I finally was able have the a little bit of quiet clarity this morning to consider some of the things we need to think and pray about when considering how to proceed form here.  First, although Ethiopia is what we now have our hearts set on naturally, we are willing to at least look into other countries that we previously ruled out as a fit for our family (every country allows different perameters, it is nothing to do with race for us).  Secondly, we would consider another domestic adoption (I'd like to share more about that in a moment).  And third, we need to consider timing and finances.

Here is something on domestic adoption that we now find interesting.  While we cherish our experience adopting Noah and know without a doubt he was meant for our family, but we never entertained the notion of another domestic adoption.  It just wasn't something on our radar.  International adoption was simply our focus for our next adoption.

After finding out last year that our Ethiopian adoption would take 6 years, we realized that Max (our youngest) would be 8 years old by the time we brought her home.  For several different reasons we wondered if it would be a good idea to pursue a concurrent domestic adoption a couple years before we would complete our domestic adoption so she would have a sibling closer to her age...and considering our circumstance of adopting a child we knew would be black (being from Ethiopia) we figured that it would be wise to consider the possibility that when pursuing this domestic adoption that we adopt a child who is also black.  

We felt strange considering the notion of limiting what race of child we were open to (we had no racial restrictions with Noah's adoption) until we began looking into things and were surprised to find out that there is actually a real need for adoption of black children, including infants, within our own country.  We were aware that some people were not open to interracial adoptions, but had no idea how few adoptive parents are specifically open to adopting a black child, particularly if the child is fully African American (not bi-racial).  We found several agencies that actually have a separate program for AA adoptions that boast a shorter wait time due to shorter wait lists (not that a short wait is high on our priority list right now).  One agency we were aware of had a lengthy wait list for their "traditional" program, and only ONE family on their wait list for their "non-traditional" (AA) program.  This was shocking to us and only increased our desire to take ourselves out of the pool of prospective adoptive parents waiting for babies that would have no difficulty being placed, and to eventually specifically pursue a domestic adoption of a beautiful little baby with brown skin and curly brown hair that for some reason are more challenging to place with waiting families.

While we had begun our initial searches regarding domestic adoptions and the idea had begun to marinade and feel good to us, we were in no rush to make any decisions anytime soon or even narrow down agency selection with how long out we were looking before pursuing this adoption.  Now that the door to Ethiopian adoption is being closed for us, it causes us to consider this option more seriously and to re-evaluate our timeline for when we would want to begin that process.  For a person (me) that always has a pretty solid 5 year plan this has spun me for a loop.  Things happening sooner would be a different mindset for our family dynamic and for our finances (domestic adoptions cost about the same as international adoptions now days)...Not only all of this, but the agency we used with Noah's adoption ceased placements during the time we were waiting for our Ethiopian adoption, and I can't help but wonder if this was the path we had to take to get us to not only re-consider domestic adoption, but such a specific path for domestic adoption.  The agency we are currently most interested in for an AA adoption I found out about from a women on AGCI's private Ethiopia Facebook page (she adopted a child through AGCI from Ethiopia).  Is that what this whole journey was really about?  Is that why we had to go through this only for the road to end?...to open our hearts to this specific type of domestic adoption, and to find this agency that will lead us to our child?

I look forward to the day that I can look back on this post and hopefully smile with 20/20 hindsight vision and understand at least in part the path that God took us on to find our child, how we leaned on Him, and what we learned.  In the meantime, we will keep trying to educate ourselves on our options and pray for guidance on which way this crazy adoption path should take us to find our daughter.

I was going to end my post there, but I want to document one more impression that I had today that hit me very strongly.  It is a bit more personal, but if I don't write it down here I know I'll forget about it.  It's about decisions.  Every decision we make has a ripple of effects.  Some we can anticipate and/or see and others we cannot.  Some of these effects and positive and some are negative.  I believe also that some are just a trade off, not positive or negative.  There have been times in my life where I have been deciding between two things.  I have brought my choice to the Lord to ask if it is a good path and the answer that I have gotten wasn't a yes or no...it was simply the answer that either choice was good and that it was up to me.  That doesn't mean that either choice I make will have the same consequences, but that both choices are good and would have different consequences.  I don't know this for sure at this point, but I had a distinct impression that I made one of those choices years ago, perhaps not even realizing it.  I'd like to share.

After years of aggressive fertility treatments failing and the grief that naturally came with that we excitedly moved onto the path of adoption for growing our family.  We always knew we would adopt, but assumed that would come after bringing biological children into our family.  Once we believed that wasn't an option for us we were excited to build our family through adoption, and even more excited after we experienced the miracle of adoption with Noah.  Less than a year after Noah joined our family we felt compelled to begin our journey with international adoption (how we assumed we would add the rest of the children to our family).  We selected an agency and country to adopt from and started paperwork to adopt a child from Haiti.  Before turning this paperwork in we were approached about having a round of IVF paid for as a donation from someone.  This was a change in mindset, but we couldn't turn it down.  

We prayed about if it was a good choice, felt good, and decided to proceed.  Because of that decision we were able to experience the joys and trials of pregnancy and childbirth of two children.  We cannot imagine not having them in our family, but we always just assumed that international adoption would wait until we were ready.  Little did we know how much the climate for international adoption in general would change over the coming years.  

I always dreamed of international adoption, and I always assumed that I would bring children into the world.  I can't help but wonder if back when we made the choice to pursue IVF if we were being offered two good choices and didn't realize it at the time that we had to choose one or the other.  We thought we were taking advantage of a possibility that wouldn't be afforded us again and the timing on the other (international adoption) would just be different/later.  Perhaps it was really the choice to either pursue this adoption in Haiti then OR to experience pregnancy/childbirth.  I'm sure either choice came with heartache and joys.  Different choices, but both good.  I just didn't realize I was making that choice.  I have to wonder if because we made that choice that the Lord used our continued desire to bring an orphan into our home to guide us  in a very roundabout way back to domestic adoption, to a specific type of agency, and to our daughter here.  Maybe He made what He knew became a futile desire into something He could use for our good.  Maybe.  We'll see.  Like I said earlier, I can't wait to see what He does with our family.  In the meantime we'll do our best to trust in Him and to celebrate the blessing of the 3 beautiful blessings He has already given to us.

 

Heavy heart

I don't even have the energy to write a post about everything right now.  And while I doubt that anybody even checks this blog I feel a need to put my feelings out there.  While talking on the phone with Mark today we both just kept commenting on how heavy our hearts are after receiving an email from our agency today.  Things are not looking good for adoption in Ethiopia...not with our agency, or in general in the long run.

We have so much to think and pray about.  My eyes burn from crying and from staring at my computer screen following the news feed blow up on the private AGCI Ethiopia group.  Everyone is in an upheaval of emotions and, frankly, grief.  Adoption loss is a unique thing that is difficult to explain.  The only way I can explain it is that right now I feel the way I did during our journey with infertility.  I feel like I am beginning mourning not the loss of a child I have, but one that I planned for, thought I would have, and had begun to love.  Mourning the loss of what I pictured and looked forward to.

Because of experiences we've had in the past I believe firmly that things have happened the way they have for a reason.  Timing.  Experience.  I don't know.  What I do know is that in the end things will all turn out how they are supposed to, but right now I just hurt.

Updating without much of an update

It's been nearly 4 months since I've posted anything here.  Not a whole ton new to tell.  The wait is still long.  Our agency is still working hard to facilitate orphan care (including adoption) in Ethiopia, and we did recently learn of two potential orphanage partnerships that AGCI is working on solidifying.  One is is Gambella, the other is in Benishangul.  Both are in western Ethiopia, bordering Sudan.

Other changes include the Hannah's Hope (transition home with AGCI) in Addis Ababa had to change locations.  It didn't move far, but had to downsize including no guest house anymore (so we won't get to stay on site on our visits to Ethiopia), and they had to let several staff members go.  Lots of families on our agency's private FB page naturally were sad to see the special mothers that took care of their children be let go.

Lastly, over the last few months there has been more corruption in more agencies (not ours), including arrests...which of course doesn't help the climate for adoptions in Ethiopia.  Regional clearance still hasn't signed off on children in the Tigray region where children have been waiting for a very long time.  I believe that I heard the federal government took over those cases because of that, but that means they will have to start over the already slow orphan verification process all over again.

There have been all sorts of other staff changes too, which is always a bit unsettling even if not directly affecting us.  First, Almaz (the director within Ethiopia) resigned and was replaced.  Next, AGCI has let go both case workers with the Ethiopia program and restructured things to be a "team" that responds to families needs (each person specializing in their own area).  We'll see how that goes.  I recently participated in a conference call and was very impressed with the knowledge of one of the women who is involved with orphan care projects in Ethiopia as well as facilitating round table discussions with both 'Save the Children' and 'UNICEF'.  She is also helping to further the partnerships in Gambella and Benishangul.

So, if the estimated wait time doesn't change from what it is now (which in all likelihood it will), and if we went with the longer estimated range...then we are still looking at about 5 years until the referral of our little girl (plus a few months to get her home after that).  That is soooo stinking long.  If the timeline had been what it was when we signed up then we'd only be about a year away from seeing her little face.  I never thought that we'd be still adding a child to our family in our 40's...but what about us adding children to our family has gone as "planned" anyway? :)

I think about our little girl every day.  There just isn't always a concrete update to share.  However, for those of you that have asked for those updates - thank you, and sorry we don't have something more exciting to share!

A new emotion

I've lived a very blessed life, but I do know what it's like to miss someone...

My first memory of this was missing my friends, school, and familiarity as a grade child when our family moved to a new home.  I, like many people, have re-experienced this emotion as in varying degrees as different stages of my life have occurred (graduations, job changes, break-ups, moving, whatever).

I missed everything familiar to me (people, food, language, smells, everything!) while living with my host family as I volunteered in Taiwan for 6 months. 

I missed my family, friends, and the guy I loved (now my husband) for 18 months while living in Germany while serving a full-time mission for our church...and with just 3 phone calls home that entire time.  (And ironically now I still miss Germany)

I missed my family and friends during the years that we lived out of state in Iowa during schooling as we not only went through the struggles associated with medical schooling and life's challenges in general (apartment burning down, home robbery, surgeries, car accident, job/money struggles, etc), but also endured the physical and emotional struggles of infertility and the roller coaster of adoption without having them nearby.

I still miss our dear friends that were there for us through those toughest times in our lives in Iowa while away from family.  They were our family there and we miss them now!

I missed the support of family and friends (especially my mom) while living in Arizona dealing with pregnancy complications, scares, and severe sickness. 

I miss my grandpa quite often (who has passed away) who was such an integral part of my life and growing up years.

I've missed lesser things too, like the pre-baby body I used to have or having more time for myself (both things happily traded for the blessing of being a mom, but still...)

So, that being established, this is the new emotion that clicked with me today...I know what it is like to miss someone, or something.  To know someone closely and then be away from them.  To have experiences and connection with another person and then to be away from that.

Today I found myself thinking about our baby girl that we're waiting for.  I recognized that heavy feeling in my heart, that feeling of unwhole-ness or of longing.  The only emotion or experience from my life that I can tie those feelings to is that of missing someone.  Those times when I have truly felt the unwanted separation of missing someone I care dearly about.  And I realized...I miss her.  Just typing that makes me feel so emotional.

The obviously strange/new thing about the emotion I'm feeling is that I haven't even met her yet.  How can I miss someone who I haven't even met yet?...and yet she already feels so much a part of my heart.  It is indeed unique to feel a deep connection to someone that you don't even know yet.  Or perhaps therein lies the discrepancy.  Maybe I do know her already, but I just don't remember.  I believe just as deeply in a pre-mortal existence as I do in an afterlife.  Maybe I do already know this sweet little girl, and as our journey to bring her home slowly brings us closer to her then perhaps my spirit cries out in longing for that familiarity and bond that my mind simply can't remember.  I feel connected to her in the same way I feel connected to other people in my life that I care deeply about.

Whether I did indeed know this little person before this life...or if perhaps my mind, or the English language, simply lacks the ability to discern this unique emotion from that of "missing" someone...what I do know is that I long for her.  So that is my realization for today.  I miss someone fiercely that in this life I certainly haven't met yet.

Songs

You know how sometimes you'll hear a song you've heard before, but it will hit you in a different (and so close to home) kind of way?  That happened to me today.  I know these lyrics weren't written to be interpreted as from a parent to a child, but think of it from my perspective waiting for our little girl.  Here's a section from the middle of the song...

I might have to wait
I'll never give up
I guess it's half timing
And the other half's luck
Wherever you are
Whenever it's right
You'll come out of nowhere
And into my life

And I know that we can be so amazing
And baby your love is gonna change me
And now I can see every possibility

And somehow I know that it'll all turn out
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out
And promise you kid I'll give so much more than I get
I just haven't met you yet

...So, yeah.  Those lyrics hit pretty close to home for me today.  Just thought I'd write them down.  Also, the song is "Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Bublé.  The music video obviously plays out much different than the one did in my mind today when I heard it, but if you want to hear the song then here's the music video anyway:
http://youtu.be/1AJmKkU5POA

I love you, baby girl!  I just haven't met you yet.

Stuck.

Have you ever read a book, seen a movie, or...ok, read a blog...and felt such empathy for what that person went through (or is going through) that you felt like you were friends with them?  Have you ever felt such concern and empathy for someone that you don't know that you've prayed for them? (If not, you should really give it a try)

I've been aware of a large number of families whose children have been stuck in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) for months just waiting for government clearance to leave the country.  A great number of these are finalized adoptions, and many of these children already have US visas!  I cannot even wrap my mind around the vulnerability and heartache that it must be to not be able to bring your child home to care for them.

So!  This girl who is on my agency's private FB page (they started out pursuing an Ethiopian adoption and ended up finding their daughter in DRC and switched to pursue her adoption)...I've been following her blog and FB updates and my heart feels like it's just going to burst.  If you want to check out her blog see it here:  http://www.blessingsandraindrops.com

People have banded together and are signing petitions and sending letters to congress asking for attention to be brought to the plight of these children.  Children with homes and families ready and waiting for them who are stuck month after month in an institution waiting for a signature on a piece of paper.  To add your voice to those of thousands of others flooding congress, go here: http://www.petition2congress.com/14960/please-help-resolve-pending-adoptions-from-democratic-republic-co/?m=5272303

You don't have to be an adoptive parent, or a parent at all, to recognize the plight of all parties involved here.  Please take a moment to do something to help these families and innocent children by making yourself aware, signing the petition, and then (perhaps most importantly of all) petitioning our Lord.  My heart aches for these children in need of families, and even more so knowing that these children HAVE families and should be with them now.

There is not much that I can do to speed up the progress of our adoption.  We have years to wait.  I can read books, learn about our child's birth country, keep up on legal proceedings, renew paperwork, and day dream...but while I'm waiting I can do things to help other children find their way to their waiting families.  Children stuck in limbo.  This is something that needs attention now.  Immediately.  And if you've taken the time to read this post, you must feel moved to do something yourself...so don't wait - do it now!

18 months ago...

First let me say that I don't have anything much newsy to tell, but today marks the day exactly a year and 1/2 ago that we finally pulled the trigger and anxiously submitted our preliminary application to AGCI to adopt through their Ethiopia program.  We had no idea at the time that our application process would drag on or that our wait time would triple from what we were being told at the time.  Alas, today is some sort of milestone of taking that first step.  The first step in the right direction to finding our daughter.

In other news, our caseworker Toni with AGCI recently announced that she is engaged.  Getting married marks the beginning of some changes for her and so she announced her decision to leave AGCI.  All of "her families" will be taken over by the other caseworker Julie.  Time will tell if she will stay as the only caseworker for so many families.  Things are progressing slowly, so I'm sure that helps her juggle things...my hope would be that things eventually will pick up pace again (someday??!) and that will warrant them hiring another caseworker to help Julie out.  Nothing against Julie, I've never met her, but it can't be a good sign to see them cut back a second Ethiopia caseworker without replacing her (if that is indeed what happens).  Anyway, Julie will technically be our third caseworker with AGCI (not counting our inquiry coordinator that we worked with at first or the caseworker with our homestudy agency).

Not much else to say except that I attended a really nice women's meeting with other members of our church (it was broadcast worldwide) and seeing all those moms with their little girls (girls 8 and older were invited) as well as a couple videos that were shown at the meeting made me ache a little bit for my little girl that is yet to even be born on the other side of the world.  Sometimes I crave certainty and assurance (something the journey of adoption is stingy in providing), but I look forward to the day that I will be able to do mother-daughter things with our little girl someday.

Someday.