Off to Africa...
When I was invited to travel to West Africa this summer with one of the chapters I review at work, it was bitter and sweet. I was nervous to accept because we had no idea when I would need to be around for a call or a meeting with a birth mom. I was also really excited to get to work with this group and go back to West Africa. We're heading to Burkina Faso, a neighboring country to Niger. Unfortunately, the trip won't include a visit to friends and family in Niger, I have something I need to get back for now.
I leave in less than an hour to catch the bus to the airport and at this time I don't want to go. When we first heard from T, we were so excited that our summer plans could still move ahead and this trip wasn't interrupted. But, now that we're in the final six weeks or so before she's due, I want to be home. I guess there's an element of nesting going on. I think also all of the unanswered questions about the trip to California that still need to be addressed are in the forefront of my mind. So, I'm grudgingly watering the plants and getting ready to leave.
My past experience with these trips is that once I'm there and once I'm home, it's been such a great reminder of how much I love my job. It's a much needed break from the weight of life at home and it takes me back to those lessons I learned in Niger about patience and gratitude for how lucky I am with what and who I have in my life. I know this trip will be special for many reasons. Afterall, how many expecting moms get to travel to Africa in their final month of pregnancy?!
I'm also really happy that it's only 10 days long.
In the meantime, Josh will get the calls to chat with T. He'll get any updates from the agency on the progress with our paperwork and planning. I'll be out of communication and anxiously looking forward to news when I return. After that time, we'll be about a month from her due date and the biggest journey in our lives yet!
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Having to hire an attorney...a good thing?
I'm writing to say I'm excited to announce that we've officially retained our attorney in California today! Never thought I'd be happy to say "we've hired an attorney".
Our hope, with very minimal understanding of this part of the process, is that this means the attorney can get to work with the birth father to relinquish his rights. We also hope it might mean that we don't need to hire an agency as well to represent us and/or T in California.
Here's to hope!
I'm writing to say I'm excited to announce that we've officially retained our attorney in California today! Never thought I'd be happy to say "we've hired an attorney".
Our hope, with very minimal understanding of this part of the process, is that this means the attorney can get to work with the birth father to relinquish his rights. We also hope it might mean that we don't need to hire an agency as well to represent us and/or T in California.
Here's to hope!
We do believe it takes a village to raise a child.
We did not have a full appreciation for the colony it takes to adopt one. ;-)
What a Difference a (bunch of) Days Make!
We hit a few bumps in the road last week, could you tell?! I received some responses to the last blog post that we sounded a little set back. Well, we were spending a LOT of time convincing ourselves to be happy and hopeful while we were getting some scary messages about possible changes of plans from T.
There is often discussion around the Adoption Triad - adoptive parents, birth parents and baby. I can see that this will be the focus in the future. For now, the triad consists of our baby's birth mother, us and the agency. It's an interesting balance. We are trying to establish "mutual trust" (T's phrase for this relationship and we love it) and are maintaining frequent contact with her on a personal level.
The agency, meanwhile, is trying to provide for her needs in this final push of her pregnancy. She could use some help and the support our agency provides to birth mothers is one of the main reasons we went with them. But, all of that support and our mutual trust have to be provided and developed in unison for this to work. It wouldn't work for her to fall in love with us and not get enough support from the agency. And, it wouldn't work for the agency to come through in meeting her needs, but for her to be totally turned off by us.
Please keep us, and T, in your prayers and thoughts. We're all trying to wade through a complicated process and we need all the good vibes we can get. In the end, the reward for our emotional adventure will be overwhelmingly joyful, we're sure of that.
At the center of it all is that little baby girl growing inside of T. It feels wonderful when all of us play our part through a challenge and we settle back into the security of knowing this really is the right match.
We hit a few bumps in the road last week, could you tell?! I received some responses to the last blog post that we sounded a little set back. Well, we were spending a LOT of time convincing ourselves to be happy and hopeful while we were getting some scary messages about possible changes of plans from T.
There is often discussion around the Adoption Triad - adoptive parents, birth parents and baby. I can see that this will be the focus in the future. For now, the triad consists of our baby's birth mother, us and the agency. It's an interesting balance. We are trying to establish "mutual trust" (T's phrase for this relationship and we love it) and are maintaining frequent contact with her on a personal level.
The agency, meanwhile, is trying to provide for her needs in this final push of her pregnancy. She could use some help and the support our agency provides to birth mothers is one of the main reasons we went with them. But, all of that support and our mutual trust have to be provided and developed in unison for this to work. It wouldn't work for her to fall in love with us and not get enough support from the agency. And, it wouldn't work for the agency to come through in meeting her needs, but for her to be totally turned off by us.
Please keep us, and T, in your prayers and thoughts. We're all trying to wade through a complicated process and we need all the good vibes we can get. In the end, the reward for our emotional adventure will be overwhelmingly joyful, we're sure of that.
At the center of it all is that little baby girl growing inside of T. It feels wonderful when all of us play our part through a challenge and we settle back into the security of knowing this really is the right match.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Kala Suuru
In Niger, where Josh and I met, there was a saying "Kala Suuru". It translates as "Have Patience". It sounds flippant to us since in our culture we can vent, express pain, frustration or even just impatience and get some sort of a meaningful response from friends. In Niger the answer to a complaint that you're hungry or tired is "kala suuru". The answer to sharing news that a close friend died or you broke your leg is also "kala suuru". It's universal and it applies to everything. It would be really great to embody the sentiment as it truly does make everything better if you incorporate the heart of it into your core.
But, we've been back in the U.S. for 10 years now and our cultural experiences have blended a bit. Luckily, we have a foundation from Niger with which to endure harder, more confusing times. However, it's still a challenge to dismiss all fear and worry with a simple two word phrase. Yet, we try to do just that.
I think from the outside looking in our story seems to be flowing along perfectly. We walked into an agency, fell in love with their approach, expeditiously met all requirements, waited for our birth mom to find us for only two months and now we have just under two months until our baby girl will be with us. Easy peasy, right?
Well, on the inside it's a different story. Each step finds us saying "wow, our friends who have biological children don't have a clue what this feels like" over and over again. Each day in the process we learn of another challenge to feeling confident that this will happen as we hope. Each day we focus on remembering to manifest a positive outcome.
The attorney that T found doesn't seem to be affiliated with the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. This might not be a problem, but we have to wait to hear if it is. Once we know she's approved, we can retain her services and get going with the paperwork from the birth father.
Our agency is working hard to provide some support to T in these final months of her pregnancy. This is a great service, but until T receives the support, she remains skeptical about the choice she's made and we remain worried that she'll decide to go somewhere else after we've invested emotionally in her and our little girl.
T has to go to the doctor to get more information on the date she'll deliver. This will obviously happen and sometime we'll have an answer. But until we do, there's no way to plan for the trip to her in September.
While they are occupying our mental energy now, we do know that all of these things will work themselves out in time. And that is why it is so important to believe deep down that patience is all it takes to get through the hardest parts of life.
Kala Suuru.
In Niger, where Josh and I met, there was a saying "Kala Suuru". It translates as "Have Patience". It sounds flippant to us since in our culture we can vent, express pain, frustration or even just impatience and get some sort of a meaningful response from friends. In Niger the answer to a complaint that you're hungry or tired is "kala suuru". The answer to sharing news that a close friend died or you broke your leg is also "kala suuru". It's universal and it applies to everything. It would be really great to embody the sentiment as it truly does make everything better if you incorporate the heart of it into your core.
But, we've been back in the U.S. for 10 years now and our cultural experiences have blended a bit. Luckily, we have a foundation from Niger with which to endure harder, more confusing times. However, it's still a challenge to dismiss all fear and worry with a simple two word phrase. Yet, we try to do just that.
I think from the outside looking in our story seems to be flowing along perfectly. We walked into an agency, fell in love with their approach, expeditiously met all requirements, waited for our birth mom to find us for only two months and now we have just under two months until our baby girl will be with us. Easy peasy, right?
Well, on the inside it's a different story. Each step finds us saying "wow, our friends who have biological children don't have a clue what this feels like" over and over again. Each day in the process we learn of another challenge to feeling confident that this will happen as we hope. Each day we focus on remembering to manifest a positive outcome.
The attorney that T found doesn't seem to be affiliated with the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. This might not be a problem, but we have to wait to hear if it is. Once we know she's approved, we can retain her services and get going with the paperwork from the birth father.
Our agency is working hard to provide some support to T in these final months of her pregnancy. This is a great service, but until T receives the support, she remains skeptical about the choice she's made and we remain worried that she'll decide to go somewhere else after we've invested emotionally in her and our little girl.
T has to go to the doctor to get more information on the date she'll deliver. This will obviously happen and sometime we'll have an answer. But until we do, there's no way to plan for the trip to her in September.
While they are occupying our mental energy now, we do know that all of these things will work themselves out in time. And that is why it is so important to believe deep down that patience is all it takes to get through the hardest parts of life.
Kala Suuru.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Be Good to Each Other
This has been quite a week already and it's only Tuesday! We spent the weekend camping with friends and dreaming about next summer's trips with our own little addition. In fact, very little time is spent thinking of anything else. I guess this is to be expected, but for a brief time, we allowed ourselves to just float on the lake and absorb the calm of life experienced when you get to escape it all.
This has been quite a week already and it's only Tuesday! We spent the weekend camping with friends and dreaming about next summer's trips with our own little addition. In fact, very little time is spent thinking of anything else. I guess this is to be expected, but for a brief time, we allowed ourselves to just float on the lake and absorb the calm of life experienced when you get to escape it all.
Turquoise Lake outside of Leadville, CO
Things are progressing well with the legalities of growing our family. Our birth mom found an attorney that she feels comfortable with and we're hiring her for the California side of the process. The birth father has agreed to meet with her and sign paperwork relinquishing his parental rights to the attorney. That is a step that can sometimes be a major factor in delays, so once that is completed, we'll breathe yet another sigh of relief. We've learned that our birth mom can relinquish her rights after the baby is born and pain medication is out of her system. She seems eager to do that and move forward quickly. We're more than grateful for how smooth this all seems to be going.
We've been in touch with T (our birth mom) every few days. The conversations are really fun. She has the most contagious laugh and we have a good time teasing each other already. We can't wait to meet!
However, this week started with a mixed blessing. After a long and fruitful life, Josh's grandpa passed away Monday morning. We've all known this was coming and he was certainly deserving of a rest after multiple years of progressing dementia and mini strokes. Still, it's sometimes painful to remember the good times and all the love that he once shared with everyone. We're going to miss him.
As most grandpas do, he had many quotable moments to teach us all about life as we move through the experience. My favorite is that he would end every call and visit with a simple directive: "Be Good to Each Other." As we embark on this journey with T, and we're all super hyped up on emotions, I'm trying to repeat that to myself. Be Good to Each Other. Josh and I need to be good to each other as we each experience different challenges in a unique way. We are forever committed to being good to T. And, we'll spend a lifetime being good to our baby girl.
However, this week started with a mixed blessing. After a long and fruitful life, Josh's grandpa passed away Monday morning. We've all known this was coming and he was certainly deserving of a rest after multiple years of progressing dementia and mini strokes. Still, it's sometimes painful to remember the good times and all the love that he once shared with everyone. We're going to miss him.
As most grandpas do, he had many quotable moments to teach us all about life as we move through the experience. My favorite is that he would end every call and visit with a simple directive: "Be Good to Each Other." As we embark on this journey with T, and we're all super hyped up on emotions, I'm trying to repeat that to myself. Be Good to Each Other. Josh and I need to be good to each other as we each experience different challenges in a unique way. We are forever committed to being good to T. And, we'll spend a lifetime being good to our baby girl.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
One Week Down and a Lifetime to Go!
It's good to reflect on the fact that we learned about our birth mom and our new addition just one week ago. That tells me that it was exactly one week ago the last time I slept. I know it's not healthy. I know that you have to eat and sleep and be rested to embark on this journey, but this is unreal. It's physically impossible. Now I know why birth moms are always so tired. It's not the physiology of carrying a baby, it's the mental activity around the life change that keeps them up all night!
Luckily for my mind, but unluckily for my body and soul, Josh is working out of town this week. That means that I've been able to stay up mentally planning and barely eating without getting into trouble. :-) I was going to get the house entirely cleaned to show it off to our Aunt and Uncle next week, but there's baby planning to be done! C'mon, you can't blame me. They'll understand.
Friends are starting to put together a Welcome Home Party and we're learning more and more about what our trip to California will look like. Our birth mom is meeting with an attorney in California today to see if she feels good about working with her. If she does, then our agency can start to get a lot of questions answered about what needs to happen for us to bring the baby home. And, we'll probably just dream up a lot more questions in the process.
We've had some really touching correspondence with our birth mom this week, too. She shared with us that she'd like to hold the baby first because we get to hold her for a lifetime. But, she'd like us to be there during delivery so that we can share with our little girl how much she loves her. All we can think about is how much she loves her, how selfless she is, and how much this is going to hurt all of us emotionally. We can only hope to be supportive enough for her, but we're going to try our hardest. We're preparing for a bittersweet introduction to our little girl. We'll be ecstatic, but her birth mom might be broken hearted. Luckily, we really love talking with her and we can share all of our thoughts with each other as we move through this.
Keep your thoughts, love beams, prayers, good vibes coming our way. We're counting down to blast off on our biggest adventure yet!
It's good to reflect on the fact that we learned about our birth mom and our new addition just one week ago. That tells me that it was exactly one week ago the last time I slept. I know it's not healthy. I know that you have to eat and sleep and be rested to embark on this journey, but this is unreal. It's physically impossible. Now I know why birth moms are always so tired. It's not the physiology of carrying a baby, it's the mental activity around the life change that keeps them up all night!
Luckily for my mind, but unluckily for my body and soul, Josh is working out of town this week. That means that I've been able to stay up mentally planning and barely eating without getting into trouble. :-) I was going to get the house entirely cleaned to show it off to our Aunt and Uncle next week, but there's baby planning to be done! C'mon, you can't blame me. They'll understand.
Friends are starting to put together a Welcome Home Party and we're learning more and more about what our trip to California will look like. Our birth mom is meeting with an attorney in California today to see if she feels good about working with her. If she does, then our agency can start to get a lot of questions answered about what needs to happen for us to bring the baby home. And, we'll probably just dream up a lot more questions in the process.
We've had some really touching correspondence with our birth mom this week, too. She shared with us that she'd like to hold the baby first because we get to hold her for a lifetime. But, she'd like us to be there during delivery so that we can share with our little girl how much she loves her. All we can think about is how much she loves her, how selfless she is, and how much this is going to hurt all of us emotionally. We can only hope to be supportive enough for her, but we're going to try our hardest. We're preparing for a bittersweet introduction to our little girl. We'll be ecstatic, but her birth mom might be broken hearted. Luckily, we really love talking with her and we can share all of our thoughts with each other as we move through this.
Keep your thoughts, love beams, prayers, good vibes coming our way. We're counting down to blast off on our biggest adventure yet!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Stars are Aligning
It's been a whirlwind of three days since we learned about our birth mother's pick. We spent easily 30 hours without touching the ground. Then, the adrenaline crashed and so did we. Late on Friday night, all of our concerns of this not happening surfaced and we began to question every little assumption. We were ecstatic and still did a lot of pinching ourselves, but worry was creeping its ugly head in.
Saturday we got to tell the rest of our group our great news. By then, we were walking a line between really excited and confident and really hopeful that this wasn't a false alarm. The group was unquestionably supportive. They all shared in our shock and we all shared in our excitement that this was going to happen for each and every one of us. Each person was very happy for us and they were patient as we recounted each and every word shared with our dear birth mother over the previous two days.
As is evident by our profile book, each aspect of our lives is out there for her to see. She has seen our deepest emotions, our families and the stories of us growing up. And, she had seen our photos. We were so curious to "meet" her and her kids through photos. When we asked for some teasers, she sent cell phone pictures of her and all of her kids. Of course, we think they are all perfect. The consistent things among all of them were their beautiful smiles. The oldest has a great look on his face that says "why are you taking my picture?!", but even that's fun to see. Our worry melted away for a time.
In her picture, I noticed yet another simple connection. She has a tattoo of a few stars on one shoulder. And although the look is very different, so do I.
It's been a whirlwind of three days since we learned about our birth mother's pick. We spent easily 30 hours without touching the ground. Then, the adrenaline crashed and so did we. Late on Friday night, all of our concerns of this not happening surfaced and we began to question every little assumption. We were ecstatic and still did a lot of pinching ourselves, but worry was creeping its ugly head in.
Saturday we got to tell the rest of our group our great news. By then, we were walking a line between really excited and confident and really hopeful that this wasn't a false alarm. The group was unquestionably supportive. They all shared in our shock and we all shared in our excitement that this was going to happen for each and every one of us. Each person was very happy for us and they were patient as we recounted each and every word shared with our dear birth mother over the previous two days.
As is evident by our profile book, each aspect of our lives is out there for her to see. She has seen our deepest emotions, our families and the stories of us growing up. And, she had seen our photos. We were so curious to "meet" her and her kids through photos. When we asked for some teasers, she sent cell phone pictures of her and all of her kids. Of course, we think they are all perfect. The consistent things among all of them were their beautiful smiles. The oldest has a great look on his face that says "why are you taking my picture?!", but even that's fun to see. Our worry melted away for a time.
In her picture, I noticed yet another simple connection. She has a tattoo of a few stars on one shoulder. And although the look is very different, so do I.
Friday, July 6, 2012
California Dreamin'...
Shock, joy, nervous, elation, infinite gratitude. We're still processing emotions, so I make no promises of eloquence. We've been matched with a birth mom from Fresno who likes our profile!
We spoke with her for an hour last night and she is due in September, the same week we were due just a year ago. She's also due about 9 months after we walked into the agency looking for a new path. So, our gestation period will be about 9 months after all. :-)
She would like us to be there for the delivery and we're excited to share in the moment. We thanked her for sharing so much and for laughing with us last night. When we texted her (yes, I'm fast becoming the addict I feared) to ask the sex of the baby.....
She forwarded us the ultrasound picture of her baby girl, our baby girl, and I fell apart. We're awaiting the delivery of our beautiful daughter.
More to come, when there are words to describe it. For now, just know that we're nowhere near touching the ground. We need all of your love beams, prayers, positive vibes, whatever you do to send love into the universe. We're hoping beyond hope that this is the start of the love story of our growing family.
Shock, joy, nervous, elation, infinite gratitude. We're still processing emotions, so I make no promises of eloquence. We've been matched with a birth mom from Fresno who likes our profile!
We spoke with her for an hour last night and she is due in September, the same week we were due just a year ago. She's also due about 9 months after we walked into the agency looking for a new path. So, our gestation period will be about 9 months after all. :-)
She would like us to be there for the delivery and we're excited to share in the moment. We thanked her for sharing so much and for laughing with us last night. When we texted her (yes, I'm fast becoming the addict I feared) to ask the sex of the baby.....
She forwarded us the ultrasound picture of her baby girl, our baby girl, and I fell apart. We're awaiting the delivery of our beautiful daughter.
More to come, when there are words to describe it. For now, just know that we're nowhere near touching the ground. We need all of your love beams, prayers, positive vibes, whatever you do to send love into the universe. We're hoping beyond hope that this is the start of the love story of our growing family.
After a long, emotional, unbelievable day learning about our daughter.
Monday, July 2, 2012
It Does Happen!
No, not for us yet. But, Tiffany had a lot of good, positive adoption stories come her way on Friday. We were warned that typically people share scary tales when they hear you're adopting. We've heard some of those stories, and it's easy to see that the story teller is just concerned for us and wants to protect us from the downsides of this process. Last week though, they were all good, positive vibes coming our way.
Every Friday Tiffany volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House. She meets a lot of people who are living through a tough time with a sick child. Sometimes groups of volunteers make meals for the families staying at the House. Last week, that group consisted of nurses from a nearby hospital. Considering the lukewarm response from hospital staff to our reaching out in recent weeks, Tiffany was a little gun-shy about speaking up. But, we have to get the word out. One of the nurses was a lactation consultant in a local neonatal department and was very open to hearing about our journey.
She shared that just the day before we met, they had a relinquishment in her unit. What never ceases to surprise her is how harmonious that entire process goes. The adoptive parents are always so grateful and the birth mother is at peace with the decision and feels confident that she's made the right choice. This nurse expects hysterics and instead it turns out so peaceful. She started to cry as she spoke. We're not naive enough to think that this is how it always goes. But now we're not so naive as to think it can't go this way for us.
She also shared that her sister just completed her adoption and another nurse chimed in that her friend was celebrating the one year birthday of their adoption son. All positive stories of successful adoptions reminding us that it does happen.
One of the staff at the House is really advocating on our behalf at local churches and through her family's networks. She said that she heard back from one family friend that this method of reaching out does work. A few weeks ago, a young woman in her church placed her baby with an adoptive couple from New England. She said if she'd had our postcard telling our story, who knows what might have happened....
We still feel strongly that our babies will find us. We don't feel a loss from a "missed opportunity" because someone didn't have our postcard to share with a birth mother. That wasn't our story to be. We are confident that it will happen, but the little reminders that bombarded us on Friday were a welcome onslaught of positivity.
No, not for us yet. But, Tiffany had a lot of good, positive adoption stories come her way on Friday. We were warned that typically people share scary tales when they hear you're adopting. We've heard some of those stories, and it's easy to see that the story teller is just concerned for us and wants to protect us from the downsides of this process. Last week though, they were all good, positive vibes coming our way.
Every Friday Tiffany volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House. She meets a lot of people who are living through a tough time with a sick child. Sometimes groups of volunteers make meals for the families staying at the House. Last week, that group consisted of nurses from a nearby hospital. Considering the lukewarm response from hospital staff to our reaching out in recent weeks, Tiffany was a little gun-shy about speaking up. But, we have to get the word out. One of the nurses was a lactation consultant in a local neonatal department and was very open to hearing about our journey.
She shared that just the day before we met, they had a relinquishment in her unit. What never ceases to surprise her is how harmonious that entire process goes. The adoptive parents are always so grateful and the birth mother is at peace with the decision and feels confident that she's made the right choice. This nurse expects hysterics and instead it turns out so peaceful. She started to cry as she spoke. We're not naive enough to think that this is how it always goes. But now we're not so naive as to think it can't go this way for us.
She also shared that her sister just completed her adoption and another nurse chimed in that her friend was celebrating the one year birthday of their adoption son. All positive stories of successful adoptions reminding us that it does happen.
One of the staff at the House is really advocating on our behalf at local churches and through her family's networks. She said that she heard back from one family friend that this method of reaching out does work. A few weeks ago, a young woman in her church placed her baby with an adoptive couple from New England. She said if she'd had our postcard telling our story, who knows what might have happened....
We still feel strongly that our babies will find us. We don't feel a loss from a "missed opportunity" because someone didn't have our postcard to share with a birth mother. That wasn't our story to be. We are confident that it will happen, but the little reminders that bombarded us on Friday were a welcome onslaught of positivity.
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