Secondary Waiting

The key to our passing court and having our adoption be official was receiving our MOWA letter. I am happy to report that we received this news yesterday! We have our letter and passed court on July 12!!!!

I was at work when I got the news. I was so excited I had to tell EVERYONE! Here is a replay of a conversation:

Me “We got our MOWA letter, we passed court, the boys are now officially ours!”

Coworker 1 “YAY! What’s next?”

Coworker 2 “Are you going to get the boys now?”

Me “ No not yet, we get to do more waiting!!!!”

Coworker 1 “Your good at that”

Through out this whole adoptwaiting process, as we would pass exciting milestones, I would share with people. Often we would have some version of the conversation above. People would be excited for us and would ask "What's next?" or "Can you go and get them now?" I would answer, by telling of our next steps. Steps which usually involved waiting. I could tell when I said too many steps at once when they would get a glazed look in their eyes. Not because they did not care, but because when you have not been involved in international adoption before the list of steps is long and can be confusing. I have to remind myself I am the one living, eating and breathing adoptwaiting so it makes sense to me. Sometimes.

Other times the answer to the question “What’s next?” is followed by wait some more. Thus, why I call it adoptwaiting. Complete steps 1 and 2 quickly. Wait. Complete step 3. Wait. Redo step 3. Wait, wait, move to step 4. But, wait for further instruction. The by-product of walking with others through their adoption process is that YOU wait too. You are waiting with your, friend, cousin, sister, neighbor, co-worker to move through the adoptwaiting process. Even though you are not adopting. You are adoptwaiting.

I don’t think I fully got that until I saw my coworker, who was totally excited because they thought we were done when we passed court, totally deflate when I said that we had to wait some more. I knew people were waiting with me, but  until that moment, I did not get it. I had not realized that it is just as hard to wait even when it is someone else’s wait. 

I am so incredibly thankful to every single person who is, has and will continue adoptwaiting with us. I am blessed beyond what words can express. Please know this if you are not adopting but you are adoptwaiting I am pretty sure this means you get your PhD in waiting too!!

Confessions of THIS Adoptive Mom

This is your chance to go where no one else has gone before inside my mind (I can almost hear the screams of fear now). I only ask that if after reading this you feel the need to have the nice men in white coats come for me please give me a heads up. At the very least bring diet coke and chocolate.

Even though it is before 8 am and our adoption agency is not open, I check my email for the first of what will be LITERALLY a million times that day. If there is no adoptwaiting email I check facebook to check other fellow adoptwaiter’s status to see if anyone else has heard news. Depending on what I find there I may check an online forum that participate on or some blogs. I do all of these things for 3 reasons: 1) To see if anyone has heard news either about a) their own adoptwating situation or b) adoption in Ethiopia in general. Because 2) I am addicted to trying to find out information because 3) I want to be in control. As I have mused in other blog posts finding out information is a not so secret way to be in control. If I have information, I may be able to know what is happening and thus be in control. For the record to any other fellow control freaks in recovery; this does not work.

Doing all of this causes me to feel elated if others share news, because I love, love, to see people move forward in the process. I love sharing in others joy. However now and then, while I am still elated to see others good news, seeing others news causes me to feel anxious, why I am I not hearing anything? Or, and I HATE when this happens, I occasionally use another’s positive news to have a pity party. I apologize to anyone to whom I have invited to one of my pity parties.

Now in spite of all of this I may repeat this cycle numerous times through out the day. At a minimum I check my email, I am certain a million times a day EVEN if I am NOT expecting to hear anything. I have at times made myself so stressed by reading something that someone else has posted that I have said that I need to stop the madness. And I do for the rest of the day. But it stops there. I tell you just this past Friday I said I am going to stop. I did for the rest of the day. But today was business as usual.

Now evenings and weekends, it is less of a problem. Things are closed and there is no news that can happen. If I am in meetings all day or am away from a computer, I don’t go through withdrawal. I do have a smart phone so I can do a certain amount of checking, but not quite as much.

Prior to adoptwaiting, I did not jump at the phone ringing. Since we have started this process. If it is between 8 am and 5 p.m. and the phone rings, there is ALMOST ALWAYS a small part of me wondering if it is our social worker calling to tell us something. I feel this expectation even if we are NOT expecting to hear anything.

Anyone who has read any of my blogs knows that I have a love hate relationship with waiting. As we have completed each step in the adoptwaiting process I have thought “Whew, waiting for ______was the hardest thing”. I have discovered that is not quite true. On the one hand my patience muscle has gotten stronger, because I have had NO choice. I have HAD to exercise it, thus assisting me in future waiting.  But at the same time just when I thought the hardest part of waiting is over, it’s not.

Commiserating, supporting, encouraging and sharing the journey with other fellow adoptwaiters has helped me realize that SOME and the key word there is SOME of my above confessions are a normal part of the process. 

So here is one of, many I am sure, confessions of this adoptive mom. 

The Part That We Gained and The Part That We Left Behind

To quote an old movie……..”Were BAAACCKK” I wanted to update sooner but jet lag and time to process all we witnessed was necessary. I did not want to talk to incoherently.

I am not going to lie the plane ride was long. Not undoable but long. It was 9 hours to Frankfurt, Germany. Where we had a layover. The awesome thing about the airport in Frankfurt is that they have showers! So we were able to shower during our layover on the way there. It was the best money we spent! We hoped to do the same on the way home but a shorter layover, and long lines caused us to miss our opportunity to shower on the way home. It was then a 6 hour and 45 minute flight to Ethiopia.

We had an awesome time in Ethiopia. We loved being there. We loved meeting the boys. Witnessing their personalities first hand was priceless. I will always remember how our 2 year old was the first one to greet all of us. He ran out and hugged everyone. It was priceless. Our almost 6 year old has the best smile that he shared with us a lot. I loved witnessing it first hand. When you go to the orphanage they do not want you just spend time with your kids, because building a bond with them only to leave again is hard on anyone’s heart. So they bring out other children to play as well. It was awesome to meet so many of them. The kids have grown somewhat use to seeing families, so they all call the adults “mom” and “dad”. They all wanted to be loved on and played with. On the one hand I was a bit sad realizing all these kids wanted to be a part of a family. On the other hand I am thankful that we were there to love on not only our boys but some of the other children as well. I hugged many of the children. I take comfort in knowing that other families are hugging and playing with our boys as we wait to complete the process to when we can be a family.

We loved sightseeing in Ethiopia it is a beautiful country. We had an excellent guide. The weather was perfect. It was in the mid 70's the whole time we were there. We loved staying at our guesthouse Morning Coffee. (Click their name to go to their website) We loved meeting the owner she was such an amazing women. We loved meeting the other families, who are on the same adoptwaiting journey we are. There is something to be said for being able to meet and talk with other families who are walking the same intense, emotional, roller coaster road you are.

For the record I did not love the roaster who lived across the street from our guest house. I did not love that he felt it necessary to cock-a-doodle-doo most of the mornings we were there. I attempted to wake the rooster, so he could share in the unpleasantness of being woken up in such a way. I fear it did not have the effect I hoped.

I loved drinking the coffee Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, how could it not be good. I loved having Ethiopian food in Ethiopia. In fact, I loved all the food. We certainly had no trouble eating well. I did miss diet coke, but (forgive me diet coke for saying this) the excellent coffee just about made up for it. If you are interested in purchasing some coffee to try for yourself click here. All the profits go to support Yezelalem Minch.

We had the opportunity to visit YEZELALEM MINCH (click their name to go to their website) which is “Ethiopian organization reaching out to orphaned and vulnerable children, many of whose parents have died of AIDS, while also providing support and meeting the needs of families who have taken in orphaned children.” It was a privilege to be able to visit and witness this program. I was amazed at how much they are able to do with what so little. It is humbling to come home and realize how little we sometimes do with so much.

One blog can’t begin to describe all that we were able to do, witness, see, and learn while we were there. I almost feel like words can’t describe how it felt to meet our boys. To see them play with Jeff. There are memories and experiences that my words just can’t do justice to. Suffice to say we fell in love with Ethiopia. When we left to come home we left a part of our hearts behind. Once we have our boys in their new home here in the US, like the song goes, of course it’s describing another city, there will always be a part of our hearts that we left in Ethiopia.

Our Dinner at a local Ethiopian Resturant

The kids waiting to go and eat at Yezelalem Minch

Jeff getting ready to help pass out food to the kids at Yezelalem Minch

Some of the kids at Yezelalem Minch eating

The view from our guest house balcony

Jeff and I with Birtukan the owner of Morning Coffee 

The city of Addis Abba  from the top of the mountain

Jeff and I with Abel one of the wonderful Bethany Staff. Abel loves his country and we learned so much from him.