Sweet Poetry for Month Number 8

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                  i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

                                                                 -by e e cummings

I have a fledgeling love of poetry. This one's a classic, and I love it because it strikes a chord in me that has something to do with how I feel about my husband and about our children, and in some ways about what goes on between God and man.

My friend is coming home from Ethiopia this weekend with her son!!! We've walked through this process together, meeting at first through the blog world, then developing a real face-to-face friendship, we've coached and commiserated, and helped each other maintain focus and perspective. I'm so excited to get to meet the little buddy soon!!! We've prayed for him so long :) Praise the Lord!!!

Our 8 months' waiting stats are much like our 7 months' waiting stats. A conference call a few days ago revealed that average wait times for a referral are around 16 months, and not likely to get shorter. So as is, if we end up waiting a total of only 16 months, then we're half way and we'll get a referral somewhere around May of next year. At the same time, we could get a call tomorrow or we could wait 2 more years, there are no certainties. God knows who our kids are, and He knows what's best.

Thanks to everyone who's been so supportive and encouraging along the way. You've acknowledged the weight of our wait, encouraged us, counseled us, sometimes cried with us, prayed for us, and even written songs for us... we're humbled and warmed by your love and support. We thank you and praise God!!!

On hold.

You might be wondering what it means that we're on hold. Well, basically because a large part of our income has unexpectedly ceased, we are no longer able to report the same financial numbers on our adoption paperwork and have therefore, after a lengthy conversation with our most wonderful case worker, been placed on hold until the situation is rectified. We are praying fervently that the Lord would bring us a good job, one that would be fulfilling and encouraging, and obviously one that would allow us to complete this adoption and BTBH (bring that baby home), as we affectionately like to say. Please pray for us, if you think of it. Once we have things in order, we'll be re-doing some paperwork so as to get back on that wait list asap, and we'll get to retain the 6 months and change that we've already spent on it.

On a personal note, it's been hard. I've pitched fits at God. Then I felt guilty for pitching fits (duh), considering that it's not like anyone died, and we're not starving, or cold, or alone or enduring anything like what most of the world is suffering through. After which I determined that my pain is still real even though it's not the worst pain the world has ever seen. That pain belongs to sweet Jesus, and after all, pain is not a race. I've now come back around to a place where i want to bring my pain to God again, and my supplications, and he has begun to soothe my hurting heart. Thank you D.G. for a well timed letter, thank you L.Y. for your 10 minutes on why you'd say no to the devil if he offered you everything you ever wanted, and thank you Betsie ten Boom, you were the bomb. You guys helped me when I needed help turning this heart around. I'm doing better now. I have peace. I know that I must have faith, and that my God is trustworthy. My life is all in His hands, even my desires to love on our baby.

In other news, today is Ethiopian Christmas, so Melkam Ganna, everybody!!! Hope you're enjoying some wat and injera on this fine evening :) If you wanted to learn more about Ethiopian Christmas traditions, just click here.

Why Ethiopia?

I feel passionately that orphans, whatever their nationality, need loving families. As a family we feel called to adopt a child from Ethiopia. There are roughly 5 million orphaned children who need a family in Ethiopia. But there are also 800 thousand children in America that pass through the foster care system each year, and they too need a family. In fact, there are 143-147 million (depending on who you ask) children, orphans, who need a family in the world.

That being said, some of the reasons we really do feel called to Ethiopia are that AIDS, famine, and poverty are reeking havoc on that nation's families. One in 7.7 children die before their first birthday, over 50% of children under 5 are stunted by malnutrition, and most are at great risk for being mutilated, raped, abducted, forced into marriage at a young age, or even being trafficked in the black market for body parts. Millions of parents cannot feed their children. Poverty, sin, and perversion have no mercy on these little guys. Children who have no parents, who live on the street, are lost, you can see it in their eyes. That's true in Ethiopia, America, India, China, Haiti, Russia, and the world round. We're doing what we feel called to do to help, to love, to find our children, to be parents for the parentless.

I like orange :)

Happy Sunday!!! Just a few fun things to share today:

1. This website's got me wanting a girl real bad today, it's got all sorts of braiding styles and hair-conditioning tips I can't WAIT to try :) (PS-there are a hundred things that make me want a boy too, so I don't feel bad sharing one in one direction)

2. I got my birthday present from my sisters last week. It made me cry like a crazy person right in front of our apartment mail room :) It's a banner that keeps track of the months we'll spend waiting for our baby. My sisters are going to send me one month's worth of flags in the mail every month until we get our baby home. Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever even conceived of in your mind?!?! I think it's perfect!! I'm so thankful...


3. I've been working on a little baby blanket for like 2.5 months, and it's finally finished!!! Yaaayyy!!! It's like 3ft by 3ft, just the right size for wrapping up and cuddlin' if you ask me :)

4. I've been looking on the blogs of people who have been going to meet their children recently, following the two-visit schedule, and it seems like they've been getting 3 one-hour visits with their children during the first week, not counting seeing them across the room in court, which may or may not be the last sighting of the trip. Blech. I'm starting to understand how difficult this process is going to be at the end, and it hurts my heart. I AM stoked about traveling twice to Ethiopia though. This week I bought a book to help me learn Amharic, which I do intend to do a good bit of, and we looked at a book that had some must-see spots in Ethiopia and we're now even more pumped if that's possible!!!

Dossier Complete!!!!!

That's IT, we're DONE!!! Today we received our I-171H!! --Our officer at the USCIS office should win the award for government worker of the year, she went above and beyond, calling me and e-mailing with me until we got it done! If you ever read this, officer, thank you so much!-- We had to stalk the FedEx truck like crazy: we watched it's progress online, and one of us was posted at the apartment at all times until we received our package. But then we had some stuff notarized, and shipped off the last of the paperwork in our foreign dossier, to bring home our baby! Can you believe it?!?

It's been surreal to be getting so much closer to meeting our baby. In a way, it's still an amorphous idea of a baby in my mind, and I have a hard time feeling the deep feelings I know I'll have for it (it'll help when I don't have to call it an it, huh? :) ) one day, when I hold it in my arms. But in another way, I think the reality of/the magnitude of what we're about to do has started to sink in, and my mind is pretty much reeling from it 90% of the time. I though I'd share some of what I've been thinking about.



- Being a mother is going to be intense. I realized this on a deeper level this week, as I was keeping the two cuties above (aren't they sweet?) for a day and a half while their parents took a little time away. It was an absolute pleasure, cause I love these girls so much, but I did learn a lot. It made me understand that when I'm a mother, that'll be my biggest mission. You hear this all the time, but I feel like I finally felt it on my own, like I finally understood that mothers are valiant lone rangers in a lot of ways, on a quest that is of eternal value, but requires daily focus. Wow, I hadn't ever felt that.

- Are we equipped to parent a black child in a white home in the States? I had a minor freak out about it last week. Said freak-out included checking out 8 books from the library :) The truth is we don't really have many friends who are black, and really none of our closest friends are. Where we live is much more diverse than were we used to live, and that's part of why we moved here, but it's still no Atlanta, Chicago, or any other big major city. I began to feel really insecure about our ability to equip our baby for life as an African American, and really afraid that he/she might grow up to resent us for "getting in over our heads". But then, that's just what we're not supposed to do, huh? We're not supposed to be afraid, we're supposed to shatter the boundaries of love in this world. And plus, that was one of the major reasons we wanted to adopt in the first place:

"We have both individually felt compelled to adopt for multiple reasons. Firstly, we are very aware of the huge number of children in the world who need families, and we have a desire to love them and be that family. Secondly, we are passionate about the beauty of multi-racial families, and as we begin to form our family have decided that we would love to be one! And thirdly, we are compelled by our relationship with Jesus Christ, and the way He's loved us, to share sweetness and love with a world that needs it. James 1:27 specifically encourages us to take care of the orphaned, and we want to!"

I don't have to be afraid, cause the love of Christ washes over a multitude of harmful things the world might through at our kiddos, even from our direction. I can feel confident that teaching our children to find their identity in the love that God has for them, regardless of what color their skin is, is the best thing we can do for them. Sure, I'm gonna make a point to be continually celebrating different beautiful aspects of and admirable people in Ethiopian and African American culture, because I still think that's so important, but mostly I'll teach them who they are in the Lord, who they are to me, and then set them free into the world to live their life. I just want to give them the most the most solid, loving, secure, accepting foundation I can offer.

- I was watching a TV show the other day where one kid looked at another and said "you're adopted" like it was the worst thing in the world. C'mon, TV, why you gotta do that to kids?

- I'm gonna have to learn to wield my tongue wisely when people say things that are hurtful without thinking, or even intentionally. I've always been super sensitive to racist, or otherwise prejudiced or hurtful comments, but haven't quit developed the right way to respond. I generally just shudder and stare out the window, occasionally I'll say something, but it's inevitably abrupt and followed by awkward silence. For now, I suppose it's ok to bite my tongue, but when my sweet baby's old enough to hear and understand the hurtful undertones of the comments sometimes made by folks, I'm going to have to learn how to stand up for my baby with dignity, and care a little less about embarrassing the commenter. My Dad reassures me I'll know just what to say, cause I'll be a mother, and mother always know what to say. Thanks, Dad, you always know what to say :)

- More likely than not, our baby is an embryo now. It probably exists, or will very soon, somewhere in Ethiopia. What a precious thought, and what a weighty one. The beginning of our baby's life will have pain in it, and sadness, and loss. I've been thinking about that. I think that knowledge will live in my heart forever. I think it will cause me to look at our baby with more reverence.

our very last documents :)

Coffee and creativity!

We were at our friendly local Harris Teeter, which has a Starbucks inside it, and this coffee caught my eye. It's from Ethiopia!!! I was like "Babe, this coffee ACTUALLY came from Ethiopia! And now it's in my hands, can you BELIEVE it?!?!" Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed with emotion over stuff like this. I obviously begged him to let me buy it, he obviously denied seeing as we don't even have a coffee maker :) But as we were walking out I asked him (very dramatically) if he ever felt like he just HAD to have everything we see that's from Ethiopia, and he very sweetly replied "Nope, I just need one thing from Ethiopia." "Or two," I said. "Or two," he replied. "Or three," I whispered. :)

Below is my photographic documentation of the evolution of my crib skirt!!! I just couldn't find a single bedding set that I liked, and seeing as I have all the time in the WORLD, here it is:

The above picture has the most accurate depiction of the fabric colors.

The final product on our new dresser, since no crib yet :)

Sweet baby dreams

A couple of weeks ago my fried had a dream that she went to Ethiopia with us and my Dad to pick up our babies. That's right, two, a set of twins. a boy and girl!! How funny is that?!? If you think I didn't melt inside for a moment and wish we were getting twins, think again :)

I had a dream too just the other night. It was about meeting our baby. He was a boy, and he was tiny, and I can remember feeling so much love for him, and my husband was so in love with him... it was sooo sweet. Only, then, as i held him I started to realize that he wasn't Ethiopian at all, he was just as vanilla as me. It caught me totally off guard, I was like "what the heck?!?" But I'm pretty sure I decided to love him anyways :) Dreams are the weirdest!! I think it must've been some sort of repressed fear I have of getting a referral for a child that's different from what we're expecting. There's a fair amount of letting go of expectations in adoption. Just about every piece of paperwork we sign has some sort of disclaimer on it, stating that things may not go as planned. It's really sweet, cause part of me (the part that knows that God's in control) doesn't think this is any big deal, cause I realize that I've never had an ounce of control anyways, nor do I want it. The other part of me (that does want to hold on to my life with an iron fist and freak out when something slips) just needs to jump on the bandwagon and take a ride on the wild side! :) Nothing's unexpected to my Lord, he knows exactly what I need, and exactly what's gonna happen in our life. So far, he's given me the sweetest boy in the world for a husband, some days I stop and realize how special he is and I just can't believe he's mine!!! We're closing in on our third anniversary :)

On getting closer and big changes

This week was so fun! We've been working on decorating our apartment like crazy, we bought a bed (like a real one with a frame and everything) and couches from craigslist, and we got a BUNCH of adoption stuff done too!!! I'm surprised to say that I've really enjoyed setting up our home. I feel like I'm finally learning my own likes and dislikes. I've been tackling it room by room and wall by wall, and it's so satisfying to be able to look at a wall and say "yeah, I really like that, I feel like it really captures my style!" Pictures of the whole apartment are coming soon for those of you who've requested them.

In other news, we heard this week that the Ethiopian government is making some changes to the way they process adoptions. There have been some reports recently that maybe not all of the children that have been adopted from Ethiopia were in fact orphans, and the Ethiopian government has responded swiftly and responsibly to address the issue. The changes, as I understand them, are as follows: every potential adoption will undergo an in-depth investigation to ensure that the child is indeed an orphan, AND prospective adoptive parents will now be required to travel twice to Ethiopia. Once to meet the child and attend a court hearing (which was previously attended by a representative for the parents), and a second time to pick up the child, receive the visa, and bring him or her home. All together this can add a few weeks to several months on to the process, and all right at the end, after the referral's been accepted. I have to say my only reaction right now, besides being relieved at the steps that are being taken in the name of ethical adoptions, is to say "Ok, we'll deal with it when we get there." It does represent an added expense, a logistical dilemma, and a potential emotional roller-coaster that we weren't planning on. I also know that God has been over-the-top faithful and encouraging to us in this whole adventure, and I'm finally learning what it feels like to just trust that He'll work it out just as it's supposed to be. And as my dad says, it won't just be A way for things to go, it'll be the BEST way! Oh, and by the way... did I mention I get to go to Ethiopia TWICE?!?!

As for this week's accomplishments (only read if you care to know every detail of my life!!!):

-Just yesterday we got our appointment to get fingerprinted for USCIS!!!! This is a milestone for me, cause I can remember reading on other people's blogs the day that they got that done, and it felt so far away in my mind, unreachable. Guess not, huh?!
-We each finished 8 out of the 10 hours of online training, and we're gonna do the other 2 tonight!
-We got back our FBI background check results (which was supposed to take like 11-13 weeks, but only took one!), well, one of us did anyway, my fingerprints had to be re-done, so I'm hoping for another one-week processing time!!!
-We sent off:
*our medical papers for our agency application and our foreign dossier
*Husband's new birth certificate
*passport-sized photos
*photocopies of our passports
*power of attorney papers
*proof of insurance
*AND most of our references are in!!! Thanks you guys!!!

We're getting more and more excited about our sweet sweet baby!!! Just in the daily stuff we do we have this ongoing conversation of how things will change; driving places, carrying groceries in, setting up the rooms in our apartment, and even just laying in our new bed talking. Everything's going to be different, more sweet. Can't wait to meet you babe, we miss you every day!!!

Here are some pictures of our fun picnic with friends!!!

On moving, orientation, seeing babies, birthmothers, and my husband.

Sorry for the long delay in blogging, but I didn't feel like writing until I had something to write about. So here it all comes:

Yesterday we moved!!!! Yaaaayyy!!! It has been the biggest hindrance to our adoption so far, and I’m so so glad it’s OVER! Our new apartment is lovely, it’s clean and it smells good. We have a gym, which I couldn’t be more excited about, and indoor and outdoor pools, with hot tub!!! Y’all we’ve moved up in the world : ) Many thanks to our friends for all their help! Now we're just praying for someone to come and take over our lease for the old apartment.

ALSO, today I had a phone orientation with my agency contact!! So much information gained, so many questions answered, so much excitement all around!!! Seriously, the staff has been nothing but helpful and excited with me!

The next step was to send in my request for application and the application fee, which I did very promptly, and promptly an application was delivered to my inbox! Now, you KNOW that's all I'm gonna be doing tonight!!! This is so fun. Sorry for the play-by-play, but I just can't help my excitement :)

Other than that, today I was in a cell phone store, and a woman came in with a tiny crying baby in it's car seat, and my heart just ached! I always imagined that pregnant women must feel excited when they see other babies, I thought that they'd just be pumped by the reminder of what's to come. I didn't realize how strong my emotions would be, being myself a sort of pregnant. Seeing that sweet baby, and even hearing it cry made me long for my baby so much. I felt like telling that mom "hey, me too! I'm gonna be in the secret mom club soon!" It did, it made me SO excited to hold my own sweet little one. That day is coming, and it's gonna be AWESOME.

As I think about and pray for my baby every day, knowing that it's probably growing away in a womb somewhere in Ethiopia, I've also had my baby's birth mother on my mind. I've given her a secret name until I find out her real one. A name that I lovingly use for her as I talk to the Lord about her. It helps me feel how real she is, it helps me love her better. I bet she's having a really hard time right now... sweet girl, I wish I could hold your hand. I wish I could help you. You're on my mind all the time...

We ARE adopting!!!!

So, funny story, the last post I wrote was about how excited I was that I had found stuff I could be working on toward our eventual adoption while we waited for our life to calm down enough so we could decide what our plan was. I thought I was just getting a head start, and that someday, far off in the future we'd adopt. HOWEVER...

Last week we went out to a fancy dinner and made the decision that we're ready to pursue adoption, like NOW! We've spent the last week telling our family and close friends, and that's been really sweet. I don't think it's really sunk in yet, but at the same time it's all I can think about. Have I mentioned...

We're going to be adopting a sweet baby (12months or less) from the BEAUTIMUS land of ETHIOPIA!!!! And we're so excited, we can't wait!

"Why Ethiopia?" you might ask. Well, let me just tell ya... we both just feel our hearts drawn over seas, especially after reading books like Field of the Fatherless by Tom Davis, and There's No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene, and after learning so much about the world through Compassion International. As for the specific country, a friend of mine who has adopted internationally shared with me that as she and her husband were considering this for themselves, they asked themselves what culture they were most drawn to. After all, this culture's gonna be a celebrated part of your home for the rest of your life. For us that narrowed the search to the continent of Africa. And to be perfectly honest we weren't very well educated about the similarities and differences in its individual countries in terms of culture, socio-economic status, or really anything. So from there we began our search, investigating geography and economics, scouring agencies and programs and prerequisites, until we landed on Ethiopia. This last part of the decision seems really technical, but as we started investigating, we found that it's an ancient, beautiful country, rich in history and tradition, but it also faces the daily struggles of poverty, disease, and famine. We feel both inspired by the beauty of Ethiopian culture, and compelled to reach out to it. They call it the cradle of life, it's people the lost tribe of Israel. Archaeologists and theologians (my dad included) speculate that the arc of the covenant might be hidden in Ethiopia. They have beautiful legends of a dynasty of great rulers descended from a secret union between king Solomon and the famed Queen of Sheba (which I'm finding out may really be accurate). I mean, how much cooler can you get!?!?! Ethiopia's been in our hearts for over 2 years now, we just knew that that's where our baby was gonna be. Now we get to go find it!!!!

If you think of us when you're praying: (I'm anticipating this might need to be a recurring section in our blog) We've hit roadblock number 1. We need to get out of our apartment. It's not fit for a baby, and most likely wouldn't pass a home study. We have a couple of options, but it's a tricky, wait it out sort of thing, and that's hard. Please pray for us.

Below is a picture of the sweetest children's book I've found that deals with the subject of adoption. It's called A Mother for Choco, and as my sweet cousin would say "It's the best!" Does anyone have any sweet books they'd recommend?