I really love reading adoption blogs. There are lots of different perspectives that I learn from, and each one is as inspiration to me in different ways. I’ve been hesitant to start a ‘blog’ because it seems like a commitment of some sort, and I have all the commitments I want in my life right now. :) So, I’ll just be up front and tell you I may blog alot and love it, or I may blog once and decide it’s not for me.
A new friend of mine, who is also adopting, just returned from Ethiopia. She and her husband were there for the first of 2 trips that you take to Africa when adopting. During the first trip, you go to court in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, stand before the judge, and they give you the decree that you are now legal parents to your new children. After that trip, there is more waiting (months usually,) before you can return and bring your children home. You wait for visas, new passports, and approval from the US embassy to travel with the children. My friend made a video of her trip, and wow, did it make me cry.
I realized that all the pictures, and blogging, and videos were going to be precious memories for the 3 little boys that are now her children. So, the main reason I want to try a blog, is for my sweet children. I know they’ll read this one day, and I want them to know how much we loved them even before we knew who they were, and how the journey started to bring them home. I want them to understand that I have been looking and praying for them for years, even before they were born. I’ve prayed for their safety and protection over and over, and remember praying for them even before Jack was born, before we ever knew how many kids we would have or who they were.
I also want to be able to keep all of you who have been praying for our family and sharing how much you care for our Ethiopian children, to know what is happening in real time. I can provide detail here on the world wide web, that maybe you are interested in, or maybe not. You can read what you want, read all my ramblings, or skip to the parts that are most important to you. So, without further adieu . . . the beginning of our story . . .
Vince and I have been married for almost 15 years. We met in college, fell madly in love, and never looked back. (Ok, it certainly isn’t always a fairytale, but all things considered, we are so thankful for the life we’ve had together, bumps and all.) At the end of the day, we love our life together.
Adoption was something we talked about probably on one of our first dates. Even when we were 18 and 19 yrs. old, we said one day, our family would grow through adoption. We didn’t have any idea of timing, and in the meantime, we had 2 great boys, Jack (7yrs) born on 4/27/04, and Luke (5yrs) born on 8/4/06. We settled into life in Phoenix, AZ making great friends and plugging into our community and church. Vince & his business partner Ben, started their own company at the beginning of the economic crisis in October 2008. Despite the turn in the economy, Vince and Ben have grown a profitable business, that hopefully one day will be a part of all of our children’s lives. Life was full, and life was satisfying.
Fast forward to June 2009, where a beautiful baby girl was born in eastern Ethiopia. Her name was Haderemariam, and she is my sweet niece. My sister Lindsay, and her husband Shannon wanted children, and more than anything, they wanted to open their hearts and home to a baby who had no parents, and no where to grow into the beautiful woman she was meant to be. Their quest led them to an agency that facilitates adoptions in Ethiopia. At the time, Lindsay and Shannon were living in China, so their search for orphans in need, spanned the world. My sister is one smart researcher. She considered the world over, and her research and heart led her to Ethiopia, one of the countries in the world with a staggering amount of orphaned children. These precious children are orphaned to disease, death, and poverty. Vera Mariam Lyon Haggard joined our family when she was 6 months old, and we have been in love with our precious Ethiopian princess ever since. I’m sure I cannot imagine our family without her.
There is a lot to the story, but there is just something about timing that I have to share. When I was pregnant with Luke in 2006, I found out I had gestational diabetes. It was quite a shock for me, as I wasn’t overweight, was healthy, exercised, and didn’t have a history in my family. We dealt with it with my diet, and Luke was born healthy as could be on August 4, 2006.
It’s hard having a baby, and a 2 year old, so I expected to be tired. But 3 years later, I was still tired, so tired, I finally dragged myself to a naturopathic doctor that my chiropractor recommended. She was amazing and did all kinds of blood work and tests I had never heard of before. The most wonderful thing was that she believed me, and thought something was wrong! I had become used to feeling tired all the time, and over time, I think I had become used to it, and given up on many of my dreams, including the ability to be able to handle any more kids.
She quickly found the root of my problem to be a thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s. It’s actually very common, and if you’re a woman and tired all the time, get checked out! (Just a little side note.) My whole body was exhausted from fighting off this disease and worn out. In my reading I’ve found connections to gestational diabetes and Hashimoto’s, so it makes sense that my pregnancy kicked it off.
The most exciting thing about this, is that I got better, soooo much better! I took some serious time putting together a plan that included serious exercise, yoga, lots of sleep, and a gluten free diet. She also prescribed me about 60 supplements a day for about 6 months. It was a LOT to do, but after just a few weeks, I started feeling better. 6 months into care (all natural, no medicine,) I felt like a new woman. I really felt as good as I had ever felt in my life.
One day at the end of a very hard yoga workout (I do hot yoga-it’s crazy!) I was laying on my mat at the end of the class in what they call ‘corpse pose.’ It’s your nice reward for sweating out gallons of sweat and working out for 80 minutes. I like to pray at the end of class, because I just always feel so good, and so appreciative of all my blessings. My heart and mind were overcome with the realization that ‘I‘ was back. Lana was back! She could leave this sickness behind and start doing all the things she had been putting off . . . like adoption. I was so grateful that God had led me to a naturopath who took me seriously, and knew how to help me. I forgot to mention that her specialty is thyroid problems, JUST like mine, and she has Hashimoto’s too! She really was the exact person I needed in my life at that moment.
Now, the timing was right. Vince and I naturally talked a lot about when we would adopt, during the time that Lindsay and Shannon were adopting Vera. We talked and talked, but didn’t make a firm decision until early 2011. One morning, I read a verse in the Bible that jumped out at me. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but the message of it was that if you asked God for things that were part of his will, he would always answer. I knew that caring for widows and orphans are part of God’s will, and on our hearts, so I said a simple prayer asking him what was our part to play in caring for orphans. My experience with God has been that he is gentle and speaks to me in a quiet voice. (It’s not an audible voice, but that would be so nice sometimes!) In my spirit I heard very quietly, ‘Now.‘ Whoa, it was time.
I’m not sure of the exact date, but sometime in February, that same day He said ‘Now,’ we called our adoption agency, and got things rolling. We started doing paperwork, but for some reason kind of stalled out for a little while. We picked up steam in May, and were finishing everything we could to have our homestudy finished.
There is a LOT of paperwork that goes into adoption. I would bore you to tears if I went through the whole thing, but the short version is: agency paperwork, homestudy through our state, more agency paperwork after the homestudy, fingerprint clearances from the government, and some more paperwork thrown in for fun. Once ALL of this paperwork is compiled, and it takes a couple of months because there is a lot of waiting for things to come in, the court to accept your homestudy, etc, etc, the grand finale is a completed DOSSIER. This dossier is sent to Ethiopia to start translating it for the Ethiopian courts.
All things considered, we got it done quickly. We had a funny, but very frustrating thing happen when our homestudy went to the Arizona court. We waited and waited (months,) to get the finalized copy from the state. Our social worker finally tracked down the judge, only to find out that they wanted more paperwork from us, and it could hold up our homestudy for 6-8 months. What made it crazy, was the paperwork they wanted! They wanted our dog’s state registration. Yes, in the world of adoption, things like a dog’s registration can delay a child coming home by weeks and months. It’s a very broken process for these children . . . but that will be another post. :)
Once your dossier is complete, you wait. So, on August 27, 2011, our family was hot. It was 120 degrees in Phoenix, and we had to get out of town. It really was that hot, I took a picture of the thermometer in my car to prove it! I scrambled around online, and found a beautiful home we could rent for a couple of days in the beautiful mountains of Flagstaff. We spent the night Friday night, and Saturday, woke up to coffee out on the balcony, overlooking the mountains. I hopped online to check email, and there it was. My adoption coordinator had sent me an email asking if we were available sometime on Monday to talk. I emailed her right back and said that we were free now, can we call you? She agreed, and we called. She told us that 2 siblings had come into the care center. The little boy was 6, and the little girl was 4. Were we ready to see their pictures and get their information? After a bit of a shock, we were of course, ready! She said she would email the pictures and info right away, and we could get back with her on Monday. She also told us that she was used to seeing these first pictures that are taken of orphans as they come into the orphanage. They are usually scared and quite traumatized, and the pictures can be hard. But, she said she had never seen such happy looking intake pictures, and the kids were just as cute as could be. We were prepared for anything, so having her say that was quite a surprise.
Vince and I couldn’t believe it! We knew that we wanted to look over the info first, and then share with the boys, so we took our laptop outside, on that big beautiful porch, and sent the boys down to the yard to play. We opened up our computer and opened the email. The children looking back at us just melted our hearts. (For privacy issues, I cannot post their real names on the blog until we have passed court, so for now, our little boy will be S, and our little girl will be Y.) I could already see S playing soccer in the backyard with boys, and imagine painting sweet little Y’s fingernails and dressing her in cute little dresses. We didn’t have even one second of hesitation. We knew we would say ‘yes’ to these children. There they were, S had been alive on this planet for 6 years and this is the first time his new Mama saw his face. Y was 4, and my little girl!
At this point in the story, it’s hard to know what to do. On one hand, I was so excited, but on the other hand, this is just the beginning. There are lots of variables and what if something happened before we got further into the process? I struggled with letting myself just go with it and let my true emotions of happiness take over. Another emotion is extreme grief. I learned a bit of S & Y’s history, and it’s so hard to hear of children suffering. My heart broke for their loss of their biological parents, loss of where they have lived all their lives, and the loss of security. In the world God created, children are meant to be born into their parents who love them, protect them, and they grow up under that wonderful umbrella of their family. When children are orphaned, it’s tragic. It’s not how things are supposed to be, but it’s the reality of our world. It’s a deep feeling, one I’ve never had before, and it’s new, so I decided to just feel the feelings and be happy, thrilled, sad and grieved all at the same time.
I miss them. That is another new thing. I missed them the minute I saw their picture and I wasn’t there to take care of them. I don’t know how it all works, but our hearts ache looking at their pictures. We imagine what they’re doing during different times of the day, imagine what it will be like to see them, imagine how they will like our home, our friends, and our life? It’s been almost 3 months now since we first saw their faces, and we’ve received new pictures here and there. They are changing, and Y lost a tooth! I can tell they are a little bit older. One time I was in an airport traveling home and was surprised with some new pictures on my phone. I burst into tears at seeing S smiling and with a handsome new haircut. I’m sure people around me thought I was a crazy woman.
After Vince and I had looked at their pictures and talked for a few minutes we called the boys over to ‘meet’ S & Y for themselves. We’ve talked about this for a long time now, so they knew what this was all about. They were really excited, and started asking all kinds of questions about them, that we just don’t know yet. Luke is Luke and happy as can be. I think he’s excited to be a big brother, with Y just a bit younger than him, but it really doesn’t seem to matter to him how old they are. Jack just wants S to get here, so they can play soccer together. We sat on that big beautiful porch all morning and even took a little video of ourselves talking to S & Y, and telling them that one day soon, we would take them up to that house and show them when we first saw them. I can’t wait for that day to come!
We are about 3 months out from seeing our babies for the first time, and we are waiting to get a call that our paperwork has been accepted at the court in Ethiopia, and we have a court date. On that court date, we’ll stand before the judge, and if everything is in order, we will legally become S & Y’s parents. I don’t know how much longer it will be. I can speculate, and hope for a court date by January, but I really don’t know. There are so many things that could hold things up for one reason or another, so I hesitate to hope to much.
At this point, we are hoping to take Jack & Luke with us when we travel for court. We know that it will make a huge difference to them if they see first hand where S & Y live, and where they were born. Up until this point in our lives, we haven’t known much about Ethiopia, but oh how that is changing! I have a feeling that Ethiopia will change our family in ways we’ve never dreamed.
So, as I close this first (very long) post, let me say, I won’t post so much in one post again. This was just to get us caught up on where we are in the adoption process. We think about S & Y all the time. They are missing from our family now, and we feel a void. We’re starting to get their rooms in order, buy some things for them, and plan our first trip to Africa. It’s all quite surreal, but very, very real. My mother’s heart misses them so much sometimes it’s hard to do anything but stare into their eyes in their photos and wonder what they will be like when we meet.
Thanks for reading and following our story. Please pray for S & Y. Please pray that they understand we are coming and we love them. Please pray that this process will go smoothly, and time will go by quickly. Love you all.
