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.