crazy-ish

Where do I begin?

Every time I sit down to write a blog post - and I realize it's not that often that I do - I feel like there are a million things I need to share, and yet at the same time, I have no sense of how to organize my thoughts, condense a month's worth of madness into a few paragraphs, and, oh, keep it (fairly) interesting.

And it shouldn't be that hard... We've had a crazy month. A lovely family vacation to the Turks and Caicos, Mother's Day celebration with family, a business trip to Germany (me), a few birthday parties, a business trip to Tanzania (Ryan (totally beats Germany, right??)), reached eleven months on the waitlist for a little girl, and did I mention the EJ incident? That being the day he decided to break into Simon's babysitter's bag while they were at the park... the bag that had an easter chocolate bar for Simon? a chocolate bar that was then devoured by EJ (chocolate being toxic to dogs)... yeah... that incident. The one that happened the day before we left for the Turks and had me racing to get him to the vet for emergency (read: ridiculously expensive) treatment.... So, yeah... like I said, it's been a little crazy here.

I guess that's a good thing too. I'm exhausted and already in need of another vacation (note to Ryan if you are reading this - I do have a birthday coming up ;) ). But, it also means that eleven months on the waitlist have, dare I say it, gone by fairly quickly. Mind you, I would be a zillion times happier if I never had to write the words "eleven months" on this blog, since we never really anticipated waiting this long for a referral. But here we are, and we are trying to see the bright side of things.

To that end, we are happy to report that things do seem to be moving in the Ethiopian adoption programs. Slower than they were. And it seems that they will continue to move slowly. But they are moving, and I think we can probably say with some confidence that we are within a few months of referral. Perhaps another birthday referral for me? I could live with that....

So that's the good. Unfortunately, we learned today that the slow down in Ethiopia's adoption process (and, I'm sure, the overall continued difficult state of the US economy) has had a real impact on the amount of humanitarian aid going to Ethiopia. As the program has slowed down, families have pulled out - often looking instead to domestic and international programs that they perceive as more stable or simple or whatever. And that means the aid they contribute as part of the adoption process moves with them. It's not all bad, especially if you assume that in many cases their resources are still going to places that need them. But, still, a difficult thing to hear... Anyhow, that's my not-so-subtle way of saying that there is great need right now in Ethiopia (other places too), especially for orphaned children, and if you have the ability to give a little something, well, you should do it.

ontheirown.org
hannasorphanage.org.uk
gladney humanitarian aid
worldwide orphans

ten and a half-ish

Hello there readers (are there any readers left??).

It seems that my ability to blog gets worse and worse, even as my intentions to blog more frequently get greater and greater. Alas, life is often crazy-busy, the adoption process is sometimes emotionally draining, and I can't seem to find more than 3 minutes at a time to spend at my computer.

But here I am.

As per the (not so original) title of this post, it's been almost ten and a half months since we were officially put on the waitlist for a referral. You remember, right? Back in the days when referrals were expected approximately 8-9 months from that exciting day when one was officially "on the waitlist" (which, ironically seemed soooo long in light of the 3-4 month wait we expected when we were put on the waitlist in 2008 and even compared to the 5 1/2 it actually took for Simon's referral). Oh how things look different in hindsight!!

Well, 8-9 months clearly was not to be. And neither was 10, and now we don't really expect 11 to be it either.

The good news is that things are starting to move again - more slowly than in the recent past, but not as slowly as we had started to fear. And while we expect delays to continue and suspect additional changes will be made to the Ethiopian adoption process, it does continue to be a strong and viable program, and for that we are grateful.

So maybe we will celebrate a year on the waitlist (though I'm hoping maybe we won't celebrate 13 months) and quite likely we will have to wait until 2012 to travel to Ethiopia. But somehow that actually seems okay right now... believe it or not, even pondering 8-10 more months in process doesn't seem so bad (I'm not saying it's great, but...) and we can actually see the end in sight (okay, just barely, but we can).

nine-ish

You may have noticed that a few days ago, we hit nine months on the waitlist for a referral.

I wasn't sure whether or not to post about this - since I'm not sure right now what nine months on the waitlist really means... With Simon's adoption, and even until about 2-3 months ago, there was an end point that was reasonably predictable, so it was kind of fun counting down... "knowing" that we were getting closer and closer to expanding our family. Technically, it's still true; every day we wait is one less day until we will learn about the little girl that will join our family. But unlike in the past, we can no longer get comfortable with the idea that X months down = about Y-Z months left. Y and Z in this equation have become complete unknowns.

And so, our defense mechanisms shift into high gear, and we tell ourselves that maybe we won't wrap this adoption up until 2013 (and, for the record, there is no particular basis for this date, other than an attempt to push our expectations far enough out that we can try not to over-analyze every statement, rumor, feeling, question, etc. related to our adoption). Of course, I hope we are able to become a family of four much sooner than that, but whatever happens, we will find our way.

We have intentionally not said much about the news, rumors, questions, etc. surrounding international (and in particular, Ethiopian) adoptions right now, and hope you will understand. I think these issues are way too complicated (and frankly, personal) to ever do them justice on this blog...

What I can say is that for now we are staying the course, hopeful that our adoption will still be viable, whether this year or next (or the year after that). When we began the adoption process for Simon in 2007, we looked to Ethiopia for many reasons. Those reasons all continue to be true. And today we have even more. As a family, we have been touched by Ethiopia and will forever be tied to this country.

And that's all I can say....

On a lighter note, here are a few gratuitous shots of Simon's 3rd birthday party. The party was in February, so I'm a bit late in sharing them... not to mention they really have nothing to do with the rest of this post. But they make me smile, so why not?

sigh

As I alluded to in my last post, and as you may have heard by now, the adoption process in Ethiopia is undergoing changes. I have not posted much about this, since there has not been much detailed information about the changes (and we do not wish to post inaccurate information or to speculate), and, anyway, we really do not know yet how the changes will affect us.

What the US State Department has reported is that the government agency in Ethiopia that reviews all pending intercountry adoption cases has indicated that it will reduce the number of cases it processes on a per day basis. We believe this decision was made in order to enable that agency to focus on improvements to the adoption process and the overall welfare of children in Ethiopia, and so we will trust that things will happen the way they are supposed to.

Of course, that isn't much to go on, and I won't pretend that it is easy to wait to see how things do play out. Especially since we might be waiting a loooooooooong time. But that is the way international adoption goes.

So just a quick update for everyone. I know there a lot of opinions out there about a lot of things related to international adoption, and I imagine that some of you would like to hear more about our opinions, but I hope you will respect our decision to keep those private and not to engage in the "political" (for lack of a better word) side of things. International adoption is a deeply complicated subject, one with many questions and challenges and not always as many clear answers, one that evokes many emotions and passions, and one which is an integral and very personal part of our lives.

eight... and six

So, I started writing this post yesterday - to mark eight months on the waitlist for a referral - but our internet went down as I was writing, and so, instead I will post today: 8 months and 1 day into our wait for a referral... AND the day of EJ's 6th birthday! Our crazy, lovable, barks-like-he-is-a-pitbull-and-not-a-little-dog is 6 today. He can be a handful, but we love him!!

Happy Birthday EJ!


So back to our current adoption (did I mention EJ was adopted from the ASPCA? we advocate all kinds of adoptions)...

The good news is that we continue to find the waiting a bit easier the second time around, and we have been able to maintain a relative calm about everything (though not without occasional moments of frustration, anxiety, and emotional overload) . The not-so-good news is that the process itself has slowed down since we started, and the 8-9 month average wait time for a referral is no longer realistic. And it's not clear just yet exactly how much longer we should expect to be waiting.

Of course, this is not unchartered territory for us. As you may recall, similar delays and changes affected us during Simon's adoption, and our estimated 3-4 month wait turned out to actually be a 5 1/2 month wait (and, silly us, we thought that was so, so long!!).

And so it goes. Hopes of a trip (or two) to Ethiopia this summer have faded away, as we keep our fingers crossed that we complete the adoption in 2011. Plans to look for a new apartment in 2012 have been accelerated, since we have the time now. Paperwork that we’d filed away has been pulled so that we can start to renew expiring documents.

It’s quite a different experience than we had the first time around. And I realize I sometimes sound a bit less excited or invested in the process this time. That’s actually not the case at all. This is a quieter process – things moved so fast with Simon’s adoption (even though we didn’t really think so then), that there was always some news to write about (literally - everything that happened was "new" and "news" to us). But things that surprised us the first time were totally expected this time around (yes, my bank, I'm talking about you). There are also far longer periods of no adoption activity at all. Not to mention, with a three year old running around, I have a lot less time to write about things anyway. But we are so, so excited about the prospect of receiving our referral and expanding our family. Not a day goes by that we do not think about it, talk about it, plan for it. Maybe less publicly, but not with any less heart.

And so we wait. Quiet. Excited. Sometimes patiently. Sometimes not so patiently. Eight months (and a day) down and maybe a long road still ahead. But all for a very good reason. And so we wait.