Seeking answers

Our court date is fast approaching, and I am starting to prepare my mind for traveling to Ethiopia. I’m trying to guard my heart with the knowledge that we may not pass court on our first try, but also trying to prepare myself that we could be traveling very soon to meet our son.

As I have been thinking about this trip over the last couple of days, I’ve become more and more overwhelmed. This is not just a trip to go and meet our boy and bring him home. It is so much more than that. This trip is not about us.

This is our chance to learn as much as we can about the place that has held our son since his beginning. The people, the sites, the languages, the religions, the landscape, the food, the customs, the smells, the sights, the colors, the cities, the villages, the textures, the plants, the animals, the everything – they are his, and soon they will be ours.

I am acutely aware that my knowledge right now about Ethiopia is limited to other people’s experiences. Their writings, their pictures, their stories are all that I have for now. But soon, we will have more. We will have our own writings, our own pictures, our own stories. And all that we have will be given to our son.

We have hopes and dreams for our son that include return trips to Ethiopia. But for the time being, this first trip will be the most important one for us.

What if I screw this up?

I’m trying to write down all the things that he could possibly want to know about, see pictures of, and hear stories from. My mind is mush right now, and gets mushier by the day. I don’t know how long it might be before we return to Ethiopia. For now, we have this one shot.

What would you want to know about the place you came from?

For those of you who have children from Ethiopia, is there anything you wish you would have done differently on your trip? Things you did right? Advice? Wisdom?

There is a sweet, sweet Ethiopian boy who will grow up with many questions. I want to be able to give him as many answers as possible.

Waiting gracefully?

The truth is, folks, I have not been a pleasant person to be around lately. Remember all that patience that I had during the wait for our referral? Well, I must have used it all up because patience and I broke up almost 2 weeks ago. We haven't been friends since the courts reopened. Luckily, I have had some wonderful ladies to encourage me through the wait. What would we do without each other?

This morning, I was making a mental list of all the great things in my life. You know, trying to focus on what we have and can be thankful for, rather than that one thing we don't have (our court date). My mental list:

1. Beautiful fall colors in the valley.

2. My really great hair day today.

3. Talking to my little brother yesterday (he's in the Peace Corp in Paraguay).

4. My adoptive mom friends.

5. A happy, healthy baby boy.

6. Seeing friends this weekend.

As I pulled into work, my phone rang. It was Natalie, our case worker.

We have a court date.

7. November 10, 2009!

Reality

It would appear from my last post that many of you think I am both organized and prepared.

The truth is, this is what my child's room currently looks like.

Clearly, I have some work to do.

Preparations

Diapers are ready for changing

Sling is ready for wearing


Books are ready for reading

Table is ready for drawing

Food is ready for eating

Deeper love

Watching my husband become a father has been one of the best things about this whole adoption process. I can say that it has brought me to a place where I love him more deeply than I ever have. There are moments where my heart is so full of love that I think not another ounce could fit into it.

Us ladies, we like to talk. I talk about our adoption all the time. I talk about attachment and identity issues and race issues and all the what-ifs. Jake quietly listens. When we were first married, I was irritated by the quiet. Now, I have come to respect it. He's taking it all in. He's processing things. He's thinking about things just as much as I am.

The other night, I looked over at his nightstand. The place that used to be filled with art books and philosophy articles now looks like this:

Sure, there are still a couple of books not adoption related, but those have taken a back seat for the time being. The other interests are still there, still a part of Jake, but his son has taken a new place in his heart.

During the wait for our referral, we didn't talk much about the actual waiting. We talked about other things, but not really about how the wait was affecting us. I think we both just understood that the wait was long, and simply spending time together seemed like the best way to silently acknowledge that it was hard, but worth it, and we were on this road together.

Before we ever saw his face, Jake had a deep love for our son. I was reminded of this last night as I sipped my tea from this mug:

Jake painted this mug sometime during the wait. The night we got our referral, as we were heading to bed, he reached over and handed it to me. In that moment, I knew he understood all my heartache and longing, my joys and my passions. He gets me. He knows the great love I have for a baby boy whom I have never met.

Many of the times during the wait that were hard were not acknowledged so much with words, but with a calming cup of tea. It relaxes me, gives me time to think and process. There were many nights during this past year that I would find a cup of hot tea waiting on my nightstand just before bed.

I know there will be many long nights in our future. I'll probably drink more tea than ever. But, we will be all together. Father, mother, son.

Cannot ignore them

Back in May, I came across a campaign called Mother's Day Every Day. Since then, I haven't been able to shake something: to solve the crisis of 140+ millions orphans, we have to start by solving the crisis that is making these children orphans. We have to protect their mothers.

The further we travel on this journey of adoption, the more convinced I am of this. While I am and will be forever grateful for any and all children welcomed into our family through adoption, I remain convinced that the bigger answer to the orphan crisis is not simply adoption or orphan care, but improved maternal health.

From Liya Kedebe:

"There is a saying in Africa that to find out you are pregnant is to have one foot in the grave. It must sound strange to Americans, since becoming a mother is so celebrated here. But in the developing world, more women die from pregnancy and childbirth than any other cause. In my native Ethiopia, children are treasured, yet dying in childbirth is a fact of life.

Every minute, a woman dies in childbirth, mostly from preventable causes. Ninety-nine percent of those deaths occur in the developing world. No other health disparity is so stark; virtually every woman who dies giving birth lives in a poor country. And as horrific as this statistic is, it hides the true scope of the problem. For every woman who dies in childbirth, twenty more will suffer debilitating and often lifelong injuries. Injuries such as fistula often leave women isolated, rejected by their communities and unable to support themselves.

When a mother is harmed, her community is devastated. Her children are up to ten times more likely to die within two years. They are less likely to be immunized, more likely to be malnourished, more likely to contract HIV and more likely to be exploited. Older children are denied an education because they must care for siblings or work to feed their families. Much attention is justifiably paid to children's health issues but one of the best ways to protect a child's health and future is to protect his or her mother."

Thanks to my friend Cindy, I was again reminded of the great need for better maternal care when she posted about a series in the Huffington Post called Mothers of Ethiopia. Please, please take the time to read this series.

Here's an excerpt from part IV:

"Progress has been made to reduce global child mortality rates, yet maternal mortality rates have remained stagnant in many countries. Child mortality rates in Ethiopia are still too high -- UNICEF reports that an Ethiopian child is 30 times more likely to die by his or her fifth birthday than a child in Western Europe -- but since 1990, Ethiopia has seen a 40% decrease in child mortality.

Maternal mortality has not seen similar progress. Furthermore, for every maternal death, 30 other mothers develop debilitating maternal injuries like fistulas and ruptured uteri, according to UNFPA. Additional related casualties include stillborn babies and the hundreds of thousands of children orphaned because their mother did not have access to proper health care."
 


The mothers of Ethiopia are the women who carried our children. We cannot ignore this fact, and we cannot ignore them.