One more sleep

Sara is so ready for Santa to come...and has the list (several in fact) to prove it! And she even brought her list with her to see Santa so she (or he) wouldn't forget anything...

Wishing everyone in my life a wonderful family-filled Christmas with much love and joy.

It's just a sliver, but I found some.

We have recently been feeling more hopeful about things and to be honest I have no idea why - maybe it's from coming off our (mostly) worry-free holiday, or maybe it's the time of year, or maybe it's just another coping mechanism to get us though the next little while - who knows??? But having this hope is actually more scary then not having any at all, cuz now our expectations have been raised, our senses are on overdrive, some of the numbness is thawing, and it feels like we will crash even harder if things don't work out.

With this renewed hope, for the first time in almost two months, I let myself dream about our boy coming home the other night - I didn't even try to stop it, I just let the dream come. It was scary to let my heart open up that far, but at the same time, as I held him in my arms and rocked him to sleep in the dream, it felt so peaceful. And the other day, for the first time in a long time, I stopped and studied one of his photos we have hanging on the fridge...I looked into his big brown eyes and wished with all my might for him to be ours forever.

The following is taken from something I posted almost one year ago about my feels of "hope":

Hope. I most often associate the word 'hope' as something positive. Synonyms for hope include expect, trust, anticipate, wish, look forward to, desire, faith - All words that imply a strong belief in a positive future.

We use the word hope so freely in day-to-day conversations - "I hope it doesn't rain today." We sometimes use the word to be rude - "I hope you aren't planning on wearing that tonight?" We also use the word for things that will probably never happen - "I hope we win the lottery." And we of course, use it for more significant events - "I hope our baby comes home."

Hope is nothing more than having a belief in something that has not happened. There is no guarantee, promise or assurance in hoping. Hope means that we are waiting on or wanting something - that something has not happened yet and there is a chance that it may not. Hope can make us vulnerable, fragile, and exposed.

So why do we bother with hope?

Hope gets us out of bed each morning. Hope is sometimes the only thing keeping us going. Hope can never let us down. If you have hope, anything is possible.

Hope is sometimes all we have...

Escape from reality

We decided that we needed to escape from life for a bit and booked an impromptu getaway with Sara to Mexico. We, of course, knew that we could only escape from our reality for a short time, but it was much needed for all of us. We were able to be together as a family and just be in the moment.


And thanks to Les, Dave, and Mari for making it extra fun!

Postponed again

Court has been postponed again until December 30th...

I'd say "you have got to be kidding me?", but nothing surprises me anymore.

Court rescheduled

Court was rescheduled to December 17. If we could kindly ask for everyone to keep praying...please.

Another critical date approaches

Someone recently posted on an Ethiopian adoption forum I follow that November was the best month ever for Imagine families – I cried after reading that entry. I of course want nothing more then for every family to feel joy and excitement and to celebrate the announcement of every child, but we feel so far away from the happiness in the adoption world right now. It's like the ship has sailed without us, and no one even notices that we are missing.

I know we have so many people praying for and thinking about us and we are told daily that we are not alone, and this has truly been an invaluable comfort, but the reality is that we are the only family living through this experience right now.

As another critical date approaches we are left anxiously waiting once again. Our next court date has been scheduled for Monday, December 13th.

Hug someone

This made me smile today...which I needed.

Not over yet

We are still in limbo. No decision was made today. However, the judge has decided to send our file for further review. The judge does not have to be doing this for us - so why is she? We can only hope that she sees what is happening to us and is trying her best to make this right, even if the decision is still no in the end.

We do not have another court date set. We hope to know more about our timeline next week.

Things still do not look to be in our favor, but we continue to hold on to our hope until they tell us it is over.

For now we wait some more...

Thank you for the overwhelming support we have been receiving. Maybe, just maybe all your prayers, thoughts, positive energy, and vibes are doing something...so please don't give up on us - we still need a miracle.

I will likely continue to be fairly quiet, I hope you can understand. But please know that even though I am silent, I am feeling your love.

Limbo

Things did not go well at court last Friday in Ethiopia and we are once again left in limbo with our adoption. It is not clear at this time what is going to happen.

Our next court date is scheduled for November 25. We predict that it will go one of two ways - it will end quickly and badly on the 25th, or we are in for a very long fight on our hands, with no guarantees of success.

We are broken and hurting. We feel like we are being tortured and punished. I touched him and kissed him...and now he is being ripped from our hearts.

Meeting Seth

He’s as perfect as his pictures...

The drive to see Seth was about two hours South of Addis Ababa, in a city called Adama. The drive was crazy, zigzagging through traffic, with cars, vans, trucks, bikes, cattle, and donkeys. They have no traffic signals or signs, just horns that they continually honk. We saw three very bad car accidents where you could not even recognize the front from the back of the car, scary.

I was accompanied on the drive by the head nurse from the Transition Home and the gentleman that will attend court with me on Friday.

When we first arrived at the Kingdom Vision International Orphanage (or KVI Adama), two young children, about age 3, immediately came running up and hugged me and followed us around almost the whole time, always reaching out for more hugs. I met the director and few staff and gave them a bag of donations. Everyone was friendly and welcoming. Soon they escorted us to the baby room - there were three small rooms with about 20 cribs in total. Most of the cribs were filled with smiling bear-bummed babies (it was changing time for all of them).

As I entered the last room, one of the workers came from outside holding Seth. All of the six workers in the room were pointing at me and smiling at Seth saying “Mama, mama”. He was shy and put his head on the workers’ shoulder.

They laid a mattress on the floor and placed 7 babies, including Seth on the mattress. I was able to sit on the floor and interact with all of them. They were crawling and slobbering all over me – it was fun.

Seth was the biggest child in the baby room. He is beautiful, he has a wonderful smile. His eyes were bright and alert. He is not walking on his own, but could walk while hold someone’s hand. He looked and seemed very healthy, but smaller than I had thought – still wearing size 12 month clothes. I measured his foot with my hand; it was about 4.5 inches long (now I can start buying him shoes!!!!).

What I was not expecting during this visit was physical contact with Seth, BUT, along with the other babies, I was able to hold him in my lap, kiss him, stroke his face and hair, blow into his neck to make him smile, tickle his toes, and beep his nose. We played with a small container, where I would put it on my head and let it fall, he would give a big smile each time, and even bigger when I put it on his head. Then all the babies were trying to put it on their heads...so cute.

At one point, one of the workers came into the room and picked up one of the babies. Seth immediately started fussing and whining. I was told that this worker was the one Seth had bonded with. I asked her to join me on the floor with Seth and after she put down the other baby, Seth clung to her and berried his face in her shirt. You could see how much they cared for each other. I was able to get only one picture at the orphanage; it was one with this worker. It will be great to be able to show this to Seth while he is growing up.

I was here for only about 30 minutes, the time went by very quickly. They would not let me take any pictures of Seth, and trust me, I asked about a bazillion times.

The day I met Seth is a moment I will never (or want to) forget...