The boys' side of things

My thoughts surrounding this adoption are often tainted with worry and fret right now.  Every now and then I indulge myself in daydreaming about her being here, thinking about her nursery, or mommy/daughter things that we'll do someday.

Our boys obviously experience this process differently that we do (as they should).  They don't worry the same way I do, but there isn't a day that goes by that either Noah or Lincoln doesn't say something about "baby girl".  Whether it's in their prayers, a name suggestion, or pointing out someone that baby girl could look like someday.

Yesterday, out of the blue, Noah said to me..."Mom, even though it's not what I normally like - when baby girl comes home I will love to sit with her and watch princess shows."  It was a sweet gesture at him expressing that he will want to help and please her, and I found it so endearing.

Perspective

Saw this today...

Not looking good

Maybe I'm a pessimist...I like to think I'm a realist, but you know.  Either way I tend to try and prepare myself for the worst case scenario for most things in life.  I know that at times that has helped me out...like when I had my purse, keys and wedding album all ready to grab in case of a fire at night.  What is the likelihood of actually encountering that kind of disaster you may ask?  I don't know, but one fateful night our apartment DID have a fire and I was ready to go in a split second.  We had to duck out past black smoke and flames and were the only ones in our whole apartment building that had time to grab anything.  Plus our car happened to be parked in front of the area the fire truck needed to be able to best fight the fire and because we had keys we were able to move our car. 

Anyway!  That being said, sometimes I do worry too much unnecessarily too.  I recognize that.  I also struggle knowing when the worry is founded and when it's not.  When it comes to this adoption I struggle knowing what is a normal flux within the turbulent unreliable state of international adoptions, and when the writing is on the walls for total heartbreak.  I'm not feeling very optomistic the last couple of days.  Other than just the bomb that our wait has increased to 6 years, here are a few more reasons:

Another agency IAG was just indited on adoption fraud charges.  See info here.  While I'm grateful to have one of these horrible agencies being held accountable, my heart breaks for the children and families caught in the middle of it and also because it is just one more reason for the government in Ethiopia to feel resentful of and cautious of the benefits of international adoption from their country.

I just found out yesterday that CHSFS (another agency) has declared that they are no longer processing any adoptions from Ethiopia, and hear through the rumor mill online today that AAI will be following suit soon too.  I don't know these agency's reasons for stopping adoptions from Ethiopia on their own, but it's not a good sign I don't think.

I feel so sick to my stomach about this.  Sick at the trying to wrap my mind around the need that is there (and in so many places around the world!) for families for these children and the prospect of that need not being filled...and of course I feel sick at even the idea of our little girl not coming home to us from Ethiopia someday.  I know only time will tell and we'll hold on unless we're forced not to, but that realist side of me has really been a downer lately.

Estimated wait time increase (again)

I've got a pounding stress headache and haven't had time to process everything today (since life still goes on spinning and there's ton to do with 3 wonderful little boys to care for)...but I attended a webinar with our adoption agency today.  Among other things discussed today was their recalculated assessment of the current estimated wait time (from dossier submission to referral - so tack on the paper chase as well as time from referral to clearance to come home also).

Mind you, when we signed on with the agency the estimate was 24 months.  Later it became 3 to 3 1/2 years.  Today a real bomb dropped.  They gave an estimate of 4-6 years.  For families like us who are waiting for a 0-12 month old child it will likely be more near the 6 year mark.  I cannot even process that information properly right now.  I vacillate between sarcastic non-shock, anger, and wanting to cry (sometimes between all 3 feelings in less than a minute).  Because I don't even know how I feel I haven't talked to anyone about it yet, but I thought I'd barf out the basic information onto the blog right now anyway.

The AGCI Ethiopia facebook page has been all a-buzz today.  Lots of people freaking out.  The agency is also allowing families to transfer their $6,000 agency fee to another program within AGCI (which is not normally an option) between now and the end of March, so some people are feeling frenzied about what to do between the extended estimated wait time, the unstable adoption climate in Ethiopia, and now the lure of not losing 6K if transferring to another program now (versus say if Ethiopia were to close to adoption down the road).

I feel so drained, confused, emotional...and unsure how I can deal with this roller coaster for nearly 6 more years.

Can I?

I keep asking myself that...and honestly, even though I don't want it to take that long if I knew that it would happen in the end I'd buckle down and say yes, but there's that looming "what if" around adoptions closing down the road in Ethiopia...or the wait taking even longer.

Oh if it just weren't for the greed and corruption that people have indulged themselves in, then children who need homes would be finding their way into families that ache for them so much more quickly.

Good news!

I heard hopeful words from a friend yesterday (about Ethiopia adoptions).  She talked to a caseworker from another agency who said that she heard positive news through the grapevine.  I felt hopeful, but cautious.

Today I received my regular email update from Rainbow Kids and it contained this tid-bit:

"Very positive news coming from Ethiopia. Yesterday Minister Zenebu, along with other high level MOWCYA officials, met with agency network representatives. In this meeting it was clearly expressed from Minister Zenebu that she does not plan to work to stop adoptions, but desires to focus on eliminating bad practice in Ethiopian adoptions and focus on good practice. She stated that both MOWCYA and the Ethiopian Government do not plan to shut down adoptions within Ethiopia. She encouraged agencies to continue their work as normal."

Then, just 30 minutes later I received this email from our agency (AGCI):

"Dear Ethiopia families,

This week an AGCI representative had the opportunity to meet in Ethiopia with the head of Network ministry to hear and discuss first hand the status of adoption in Ethiopia. The overall sentiment on adoption is that all parties want to avoid closure. The good news is that yesterday there was a meeting scheduled between the minister of MOWA and the network executives and the minister expressed his support of ethical adoptions numerous times. From that meeting it does not appear adoption is on the brink of closure, however there is still great instability in international adoption due to corruption and public perception of the process. AGCI continues to see drastic slowdowns on referrals and processing of paperwork.

An example of these type of slowdowns become evident with the seven children we have been caring for in the Tigray region for the past 14 months. This fall we believed we were in the final stages of their abandonment process. Unfortunately, last month the federal government decided to take over all cases from the regional governments. This means almost all of the children will start the abandonment process completely over. These types of delays are devastating for the children and it is so frustrating as we watch you wait to welcome them home.

As we continue to gather more information from the meetings taking place this week we will pass it on. Please know that AGCI remains invested in Ethiopia and with you during these uncertain times. We are here for you, and we want to support you in every way we can."

This is very, very good news from my perspective.  We are by no means home free with the long wait ahead of us and the constant state of uncertainty within the international adoption process...but we knew that much going in to things.  The more acute possibility of a pending closure of Ethiopian adoptions (based on the statements made by influential officials in Ethiopia just over a month ago) has left me in a heightened state of worry the last month.  The only thing I have to compare it to is this:

I had scares with both of my pregnancies, but I'd like to share the one with Max.  After getting pregnant with Max (after a rough round of in-vetro) I was driving one day and had to pull over the car doubled over in pain.  Mark was out of town so I had to get some friends from church to come pick me up and take me to the emergency room.  There I found out that I was also bleeding and was told there was a good chance I would miscarry, but that nothing could be done so early in my pregnancy and I would just have to wait it out.  I was worried, scared, sad, and while I had hope I felt unjustified in allowing myself to picture life with him and didn't feel "allowed" to do things like imagine the nursery or talk about baby names.  It wasn't until things subsided and I was later able to see my baby (and his heartbeat) on the ultrasound at my doctor's office that I felt reassured.  While waiting for that doctor's visit I had no control over things, and worry wasn't productive...but worry I did.  Did the acute danger of miscarriage passing guarantee that I would carry to term?  Of course not.  No woman has that guarantee.  But even with the possibility always being in the back of my mind it was possible to put that fear aside, relish in preparations to welcome him, and to anticipate the day this little peanut would join our family.

That is all I was hoping for with this situation.  Do we have a guarantee that this will all work out the way we plan and that this little girl will eventually join our family?  Unfortunately not.  But I feel like we are out of the acute danger zone now, and now I am "allowed" to get back to planning her nursery, daydreaming of girlie things, and researching all sorts of odds and ends as we anticipate her joining our family.  Will the concern of things going wrong still be in the back of my mind - sure, but I'd rather it was in the back of my mind than consuming all my thoughts.

Thank you so much to all those of you that have included us and the government leaders in Ethiopia in your prayers and fasts in various capacities...and even to those of you who have just continued to ask how things are going.  We can't tell you how much those things mean to us.  We have a very long journey ahead of us, and while we feel over the moon right now we are also not oblivious to the fact that there will still be bumps in the road that will come up.  We're so grateful to have such wonderful family, friends, and neighbors who support us during this roller coaster process that adoption is.

We continue to pray for all involved in the adoption process from those in government, running orphanages and agencies, but most of all the children in need of families and homes.  We hold hope that in the long run there will be more and more families within Ethiopia in the position to be able to care for their children themselves, but until that major social and economical change has occurred we pray for these children to find their way into loving homes wherever they may be...and we look forward to the day our little one will come home and be a blessing in our lives. 

Just a feeling post

The aforementioned meeting in Ethiopia should have happened by now (since it's after 9pm there right now).  I have no idea when our agency will pass on what (if anything) concrete came out of that meeting.  I woke up feeling nervous this morning knowing the meeting was today.  Anyway, no update now.  I just needed to regurgitate my feelings somewhere and this blog seemed like the best place to do so.

Also, I saw this picture on facebook today and liked it.  It applies to all of us with life in general, but made me think specifically about our journeys to add children to our family (specifically this one right now):

 

Some love for my wall, but not much else to share

I've had several kind people ask if there is any news on our adoption, but other than the little tid-bits that I've already shared on this blog, there is nothing. I've adopted the mindset at this point that no news is good news.  We'll see if anything comes of this meeting on Monday though.

I think and pray all of the time about this, but amidst the uncertainty I've had to make a conscious decision to try and just proceed as if this is just a speed-bump and that it will all work out.  I hope that is the case.  So although the current situation puts a damper on some of my exuberance, I'm still going to share some love that went up this week on our walls that relates to our baby girl.  About a month ago I shared my excitement about a piece of art that I'd been wanting for some time which I got for my birthday.  We finally got it back from the place that framed it for us and it's hung in our front room now.  I stare at it several times a day, and remember that this whole process truly is in His hands.

Another thing I'd been waiting to hang in our entry way was this digital file that I purchased and printed out.  The smaller words you see are cities in Ethiopia.  Maybe our baby girl will be born in one of them...

We put that print in a "place-holding frame" (that's what I'm calling it) and put it on the wall in the entry alongside photos of our other three kiddos.  Someday I pray that I'll be able to replace that print with a picture of our baby girl.

So, that's all I have for now.  No real answers, just more hoping while we wait.