What If??

In the past few days I have been confronted with some things that are big "what ifs" for me and I am not really sure how I will handle these issues if and when they arise.

1) Birth date: I may not know the exact date of my child's birth. I guess I knew that subconsciously but I have been thinking a lot lately about what if I don't know, how will we handle that? I have always said that I will be honest with my child but what about others? How will my child respond when they find out that we had to estimate their birthday? I have a stock answer that birthdays aren't as significant culturally in Ethiopia as they are here in the US and because a lot of births in Ethiopia aren't in hospitals there isn't a lot of record keeping. I hope that answer will work for adults but what about my child? Will they accept that answer?

2) Relinquishment story: Since we don't have a referral yet we don't know what our child's story will be. We know what types of situations we were okay with but we will have to wait and see. The questions will definitely be there but how we answer them will depend on our child's story. Our child's story is their story and they have the right to that information and I will give it to them at the appropriate time. Will I share it with everyone? Probably not. It isn't my story to share and I don't want to share something and have my child hear it from someone other than me or my husband. We again will have to answer some questions that will be uncomfortable and if our child's story fits in a nice neat little box maybe we will share but really whose life story fits in a box so neatly?

One thing for sure is that our child will always know that they were born in Ethiopia and when they ask if they came from my tummy I will say no, you came from my heart. We will show our child their life book and the DVD we will get. The life book will be there an be available and we will explain the pictures. The DVD we get, well that may have to wait depending on whether we feel our child is ready to confront the information on the DVD. It may be hard for them and I want to make sure they are ready and able to understand it. We are adopting an infant so the memories of life in Ethiopia won't be there which I think will be a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing as they won't have memories of leaving their birth mom or maybe the poor living condition but a curse because we as their parents will need to fill in the blanks about the beautiful place of their birth and of their birth family and only hope we can do it justice.

Then there is the issue or private versus secret. I will probably keep things private about my child's story and let them share what they want as they get older. Immediate family may know more and I fully trust that if we tell them not to share this info with our child until we tell them it is okay, that they will respect that. I don't want things to be seen as secret because that seems like we are intentionally hiding something or that there is something to be ashamed of. Our child story is what it is and we will have to deal with the details of it but we will never be ashamed of it because that story leads our baby to us no matter how challenging the facts might be. So while we may choose to keep things private in no way will we keep secrets. That being said we may have to be generic in our story telling in order to honor our child and their story.

Happy 8th Birthday Sebastian!

I don't typically blog on weekends but today is a special day. It is Sebastian's Birthday. He is 8 years old but still acts like a puppy sometimes. Here are some pictures of Sebastian with his birthday toys and treats.


Below Sebastian is attempting to eat (quickly) his new BBQ flavored treat. I think he liked it.

And of course, we couldn't forget the also super cute Badger. He too got to enjoy in the festivities with a special treat and toy.

We only have 1 or the two toys left as the dogs manged to destroy the donkey toy. They enjoyed running around chasing each other and playing tug of war but that probably only lasted for 15 minutes. Oh, well it is only a toy and they enjoyed themselves while it lasted.

Ignorance or Innocence

I have been thinking about this for a couple days and couldn't figure out how to write about it until now, I think....

The other day I was talking with some other women while getting my nails done and a few of them kept saying a word that made me really uncomfortable. I wasn't sure if they were saying the word out of ignorance or just innocence. I learned this word in school back in the day when I suppose it wasn't offensive, if that is possible. Now, I don't get offended easily and can usually brush things off but the more these women said this word it made me cringe.

I suppose I should let you in on the word and this is what was causing me grief for the past few days. I don't really want to type it much less say it but for the sake of this post I must so please don't be upset. Ok, hear it goes they kept repeating the word (pardon the spelling) "mulatto" to describe bi-racial or mixed race children. I was shocked. While this is a word I learned in school in my humble opinion it is a horrible word and will NEVER be spoken in my house nor will the "n" word which I will not write.

Now some people reading this will think I am overreacting since this word was neither used to describe me or my child but it just irked me. I don't know if these women just don't know any better or if they innocently are using this word since after all it was in my textbook in 7th grade.

This led me to think about how I will handle those uncomfortable situations when my children are around. In this instance at the salon, I said nothing as I was too stunned to respond but I am not naive enough to think I won't encounter uncomfortable situations when in the presence of my children. How will I and should I respond?? I don't think I know the answer to that just yet.

I have learned through a lot of reading and workshops that how I respond to these situations will directly impact my children. In reading, "I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla", I have learned that I need to not overreact to situations but respond in a manner that makes my child proud of themselves and of their family. I can't make assumptions about other's intentions nor can I ignore things so I need to start practicing ways to respond to insensitive, ignorant and just plain rude comments.

I subscribe to "Adoptive Families" magazine and there are always very helpful articles, letters to the editor, and real life situations from other adoptive families and how they responded. They have great sections for various ages of children and what is age appropriate and recently they did a whole series on parenting trans-racially or cross-culturally. It was amazing. I learned a great deal from the 3 part series especially the one on parenting African-American children as a white couple. I am in no way an expert but I feel like I am doing my best to learn and prepare as much as possible prior to the arrival of our little one.

In hindsight, I probably should have tried to respond to the situation at the salon. I am not sure what I would have said but I could have tried to insert the word bi-racial into the conversation for starters... Guess I have more to learn.

Something More

Here we are at another Thursday song day. I had a hard time picking a song today so I decided to go with one of my favorites and it is pretty fitting for where I am right now in my life. For family reading this no worries, I am not quitting my job (yet) or doing anything to crazy. So here is "Something More" by Sugarland. I will explain more after you read the lyrics but if you have been reading my blog the past couple of days you will understand why this song is perfect.

"Something More"

Monday, hard to wake up
Fill my coffee cup, I'm out the door
Yeah, the freeway's standing still today
It's gonna make me late, and thats for sure
I'm running out of gas and out of time
Never gonna make it there by nine

There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more

Five years and there's no doubt
That I'm burnt out, I've had enough
So now boss man, here's my two weeks
I'll make it short and sweet, so listen up
I could work my life away, but why?
I got things to do before I die

There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more

Some believe in destiny,
and some believe in fate
I believe that happiness is something we create
You best believe that I'm not gonna wait'
Cause there's gotta be something more

I get home 7:30 the house is dirty, but it can wait
Yeah, 'cause right now I need some downtime
To drink some red wine and celebrate
Armageddon could be knocking at my door
But I ain't gonna answer that's for sure.
There's gotta be something!

There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more

So I have definitely been feeling a little burnt out lately. I don't necessarily enjoy going to work at my current job. I have a been there done that this isn't exciting attitude which isn't good for me or for my staff. I am pretty good at checking my baggage at the front door but work has been pretty stressful and not enjoyable lately. There is a lot of politics and a lot of bsing going on right now and I am not a fan of either. On the flip side my job provides health insurance and VERY flexible hours so we are having to take that into consideration as well.

However, I want something more. I want a family and I want to spend as much precious time as I can with my baby. I know there are logistical and financial things we need to work out and we are working on them but I really don't want to go back to working full time right now. I also realize that I am being a tad selfish and I should be more grateful for what I do have than for what I don't. Don't get me wrong, I feel very fortunate to have so many wonderful blessings in my life but as the song says happiness is something we create. I am more than ready to create my own happiness. It isn't that I am unhappy it is that there are pieces of the puzzle missing or broken. The missing piece is obviously our little one (or ones) and the broken piece right now is my work situation.

Some days I just wonder what that something more might look like and I get excited about the possibilities.

Bureaucracy at its best...

So as I mentioned yesterday, I was attempting to call the National Visa Center and not having much luck. Well, I headed the voice recording's advice and called back after 6pm eastern time. Yeah, lets just say 10 attempts led me to 7 busy signals, 2 glimmers of hope that I might get through only to be told to call back later and 1 disconnection. I decided to give up and make dinner.

Well, I didn't think much about it until about 9:45ish when I was getting ready for bed. I figured what the heck, they supposedly have operators available until midnight eastern time. I called and got a busy signal. I called again and got another busy signal. I called a third time and got yet another busy signal. I then told myself that I would call only 2 more times and then I had to go to bed. So on my 4th attempt I got through! YEAH! Much to my dismay I was then put on hold. A voice kept coming on the line saying either they appreciate my patience and they know my time is valuable or that due to the personal attention given to each caller, my call would be answered as soon as possible. Well after 5 minutes of hearing these messages repeated I was starting to get frustrated. Finally I hear ringing and a real live person answered the phone. I couldn't believe it. I almost forgot why I was calling.

So I talked to a very nice woman and she gave me my case number and told me that my immigration application had been forwarded to the embassy in Addis Ababa in March of 2008. Now if I want to I can call the State Department and check to see that my paperwork did in fact get to the embassy but it is probably too soon for me to do that. My forum friends say it takes awhile for paperwork to show up in the system at the embassy and we learned today that the program specialists are actually checking this info for us after referral acceptance.

At least now I know the supposedly my paper work is in Addis and that real people actually work at the National Visa Center. I am glad that is over and I have some reassurance that my paperwork is where it is supposed to be. Why or why do we have to go through so many hoops just to get a measly number??? I guess I will never really know.

In other news, things have slowed down quiet a bit right now. I think everyone is catching up with all the referrals that came down in the last couple weeks so it may be a little while before we see some more movement. So for right now I am content with my favorite number, after all I was just hoping to be in the 4o's come the court closure cutoff date and here we are at a lovely 34.

Red tape and random musings

Today I have learned more than I care to about bureaucratic red tape. Thanks to my forum friends, I figured out that I have to call the National Visa Center to get a case number to make sure that my immigration paperwork is where it is supposed to be. Well, I have tried to call the Visa center a number of times today to get a busy signal, disconnected or politely told by a slightly annoying recorded voice that I needed to call back lately. I will try again I guess. It isn't a really pressing issue for us right now but for others it has been. They have found out that their paperwork wasn't in the right place and their travel dates have been delayed. AHHH, I feel for them but I thank them for sharing so those of us that are waiting can figure this out now before we get stuck too.

Hopefully later today I will have our case number and then I have to call the State Department to check and make sure our approval papers are at the embassy in Addis Ababa. I sort of had this delusion that once I was dossier approved I was done with the paper chasing. I have come to find out that that is so not the truth. We have to bring all of these forms with confusing numbers on them with us to Addis and once we are back there is the whole readopting in WI papers and the getting a SSN, name change paperwork and probably more stuff that I am missing. I am not really a fan of paperwork and the red tape that goes with it but I am persistent so hopefully that will help.

As for random musings, I in the last few weeks have been contemplating what I will do for time off/work once our baby has come home. I started by saying I would take 6 weeks off and then slowly start going back to working full time. Then I went to taking my 12 weeks of leave to go back to work full time which at my current job is 32 hours per week. I have the health insurance for the family through my work so that is an issue we are looking at as well. My current mind frame is to definitely take my 12 weeks of leave and then either go back to my current job and work part time or get a different job part time but not at this time go back to work full time.

The more I read about adoption, attachment and bonding, I think it is really important for me to spend as much time as I can with our newest addition. I had a SAHM(stay at home mom) for awhile when I was little and that was really nice. My DH had a SAHM his whole life. I think I do want to go back to work at least part time and maybe full time once the kids are in school but at first I just don't feel right about going back to work full time. If we can figure out a semi-affordable way to get health insurance and I after my leave can work enough to cover the monthly premium then all should be well. I really don't want to use day care at first. I do see the need for daycare and socializing prior to entering preschool but not at first. I also don't want to rely on family too much either.

It is super important in adoption that it is clearly established who mom and dad are. It may mean after baby comes home that feedings and changings are done by mom and dad only and other members of the family can hold and then work up to feedings after being home for awhile or feeding occasionally but mostly mom and dad are doing it. I know we are going to have lots of people that are really happy for us and want to come over and see the baby which is fine but holdings by others may be limited. We are going to take our cues from our baby but passing baby around a room full of people isn't going to happen for awhile. A lot will also depend on if mom and dad come home with a parasite or if baby does. We don't want those to be spread.

I know everyone will be super supportive and want to help us out and we are so grateful for that. We just hope that everyone understands this huge transition and take there cues from us as new parents and importantly as new adoptive parents. We will be taking things slowly and adjusting as time goes on. It is also going to depend on our baby, some babies adapt well to new environments and others don't. There is a theory of "cocooning" adopted children when the come home to their new family. This means that it is parents and baby only and no visitors or trips to the store or anything. I can tell you that probably won't happen much here. Sure there will be a lot of time when it will be just me and baby but I can't sit at home all day. Target and the grocery store are a must and I want people to visit. So we are going the flexible cocooning route by as parents taking on the feeding and changing ourselves for awhile but not avoiding public places or family and friends.

Now keep in mind this is how I want it to work in my head but come baby actually being home I am sure things will change...

And now for the much anticipated new favorite number: 34

I'm Chocolate, You're Vanilla

I have been reading a lot more of this book lately and I have learned so much. It is amazing all the misconceptions that I had. This book is a MUST read for anyone wanting to parent a black or bi-racial child.

To start with I was convinced and borderline obsessed that my daughter would have to play with dolls that looked like her. Every time I was in a store I would go through the toy aisles looking for brown skinned Barbie, Cabbage Patch kids and any other doll I could find. Wow, was I so wrong. It doesn't matter to a 3 year old what color skin the doll has as they don't yet understand that. It is more important that I give my daughter a choice as to which doll she wants to play with and if she picks a blond hair, blue eyed Barbie that there is no need for me to freak out. It would be much better for her to play with dolls from lots of different backgrounds. My stressing that she only play with black or brown skinned dolls could actually cause her to be overly sensitive to race and I don't want to do that.

Then I would think about what if I have a boy, what toys would he play with as there aren't a lot of action figures that are brown skinned for him to play with. I am so glad that I am reading this book. Diversity and choice are key when picking out toys for young children and I need to remember that a 3 year old doesn't look at skin color or race the same way adults might and that is perfectly okay.

I have also learned that I have a lot to learn when it comes to haircare. It is a source of pride and I don't want to disappoint my child. I am going to have to ask lots of questions and read more about what are the best products and what hairstyles can I do myself and which ones will I need to seek professional help on. At some point this summer I am going to focus my attention on reading up on proper hair care techniques and the right products.

I have been talking about this book a lot with a friend of mine that is a substitute teacher and she was so intrigued that she just checked it out from the library. She is recommending it to all of her teacher friends as well. There is so much info there and there are a lot of misperceptions that I wouldn't have realized were misperceptions unless I had picked up this book.

On the adoption front as expected things have slowed down with the June 1st date having come and gone. We are all still hopeful for more referrals this week and in the weeks ahead so we shall see. We did move up a little on the list as there have been some surprise pregnancy announcements. My most heartfelt congrats to those that have their referrals, those who made it through court, those who are soon to travel and everyone in between stages. And a BIG congrats to the couples who were blessed to be pregnant. How exciting!

My new favorite number is....35