New Obsession

It seems that each stage of this wait brings on some new obsession. Now I can’t stop staring at pictures of my boy. I find myself using the zoom function on my phone to get a closer look at his eyes, his nose, his hands and just about everything about him. The more I look at him the closer I feel. I have also realized how lucky we are to have so many pictures of him. It seems most people I know from other agencies only get 1 or 2 photos with their referral. Gladney sent us 11 photos of him that were taken from late April to early May and we also have two photos of him from when he first arrived at Gladney’s care center. Those two photos bring tears to my eyes each time I look at them. Everyone who sees a picture of him comments on his eyes. They are so big and beautiful. I think part of it is that he is still growing into his eyes so they really pop but I’ll enjoy this stage while it lasts. I found out this morning that my friend, Maribeth, met him while she was at the Gladney center picking up her boys in early March. She clearly remembered him and sent me an amazing email describing him and her interactions with him. Even though I was at work I just let the tears flow. I was so excited to have this added information about him. It gave me chills to know that she touched his face and held his hand. I will finally get to meet Maribeth and her family this weekend! We’ll be cheering on the Columbus Crew and I am sure I will distract her from the game asking questions about my boy.

Earlier this week I sent his second care package to the Carter Family. They are leaving in about a week and I’m so thankful they will deliver it to him and give him kisses from us! I am thinking that Heidi has already met him and delivered care package #1. Again, I just get the chills. For his second care package, I sent a little blanket thingy and another outfit. I thought they were both pretty cute.

Now we wait again. This time we wait for a court date in Ethiopia. It seems the average wait time for a court date is about 2 months. We will have to travel for the court date and I’m trying to focus on the fact that I get to meet him and not that I’ll have to leave him. I honestly just can’t take my brain there. The emotions surrounding that just overwhelm me. Instead, I will just continue to stare at photos of him and cling to the hope that someday he will be in my arms for good.

Celebrations

When we started the paperchase in April of last year, I joined the Gladney Yahoo Board and introduced myself. I mentioned that Damon and I lived in Ohio. Soon after that I got an email from Sam, another adopting mom, and she asked me where in Ohio as she lived in Cleveland. I was bummed she wasn’t from Columbus since I was really hoping to find some people in our backyard that were also adopting from Ethiopia. Sam and I struck up an email friendship and she pointed me towards some blogs of Columbus moms adopting from Ethiopia. Thank you, Sam! The first one I checked out was Amy’s. On Father’s Day I worked up the courage to post on her blog and introduce myself. What a difference a year makes! On May 20th after waiting 20 months and 10 days, Amy and Joel finally received their referral! It was exactly eight days after Damon and I got our call. I had been predicting they would get the call for a baby girl so Amy called me the night of the 20th and told me I was wrong. I had no clue what she was talking about. Then through tears she told me, “it’s a boy!” What a moment.

“There is nothing we like to see so much as the gleam of pleasure in a person's eye when he feels that we have sympathized with him, understood him. At these moments something fine and spiritual passes between two friends. These are the moments worth living.”- Don Marquis

Here are a few more photos from the night Damon and I got our referral.

Yesterday we got together at the Young's house to celebrate Amy and Joel's referral. A few key people couldn't make it but here is a great photo of some of our tribe.

Amy and I enjoying the beautiful day and delicious food.

Alex got both of us these great shirts. They say mom in Amharic.

The Call Story

Warning: You are about to read a mini novel. If you only have a few minutes I suggest you come back when you have 20 hours to spare. Seriously.

THANK YOU so much for all the wonderful comments! Your kind words made the celebration that much sweeter. I really appreciate all the love!

I always enjoy reading posts on other blogs with all the details of THE call. So, here is how it all went down. Every other Wednesday at work I have to help process payroll for our tutors. The task can be a bit mind numbing as I have to be careful and focused so that I don’t mess up and enter something incorrectly. It was around 1:30pm and I was totally involved in payroll. I really didn’t think it was possible for me to not be expecting the call. Everyone says the call comes when you aren’t expecting it. However, Damon and I had been sitting at the top of the unofficial list for over a month and I felt like I spent every waking moment staring at my phone. There I was going through a timesheet that had errors on it and I was muttering words of frustration when I heard my phone start to vibrate. I glanced at it and saw the 817 area code. I gasped so loudly that my co-worker across the room looked up at me and asked if it was THE call. I answered it and there was Mary’s voice. I have no idea why but I stood up from my desk and walked down the hallway. I am not sure what compelled me to do this but I did. Mary said something about this being our referral call. I told her that I needed to call Damon and see if he was going to be able to go home so we could be together. Mary asked me if I wanted to know anything so I asked her if it was a boy or girl. I am pretty sure she said something like, “I have a tiny, little boy for you.” That moment right there was one of the best of my life. I am so glad that for our first child we decided to be surprised and not choose the gender. Mary told me how precious he was and I am pretty sure I made some sort of squealing noise. We hung up and I called Damon. Listening to the phone ring and knowing I was getting ready to tell Damon that we had a boy brought on the tears. Damon answered and I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was hopeful it was THE call. I said, “It’s a boy!” I think he laughed and said, “Really?” I remember very clearly telling him to leave work right away. I knew it would take him longer to get home. We were both kind of laughing as I kept saying, “leave now!!” After getting hugs from all my co-workers, I rushed out the door. I am pretty sure I hit every single red light possible on my way home. It was also raining that day so everyone was driving slowly. Something I realized on the drive home was that it was also raining on our wedding day. I like that on this other life changing day it was raining.

When I got home our dog was in complete panic mode. She hates rain and storms so she was running around panting like crazy. We weren’t that different in that moment! I set up the computer and just sat there waiting for Damon to get home. When he walked in the door I yelled at him to get upstairs. I don’t think I gave him a moment to put his bag down or anything. He laughed at me. We called Mary back and she said she was going to send us two emails and the first one would have several photos. Once the photos came through Mary gave us some time to look through them and let me tell you he is truly PRECIOUS! We are not allowed to post photos of him until we officially pass court so you’ll have to take my word on it. He has the sweetest face I have ever seen and his eyes are so alert. Then she sent us all his personal information. From that point on I spent the rest of our call crying. I am going to journal privately about that point in our phone call. I will tell you that my heart has truly never ached in that way. I had read before on other blogs about how the excitement of finally seeing your child’s face is often followed by the intense grief for what they have already experienced. To say that happened to me would be an understatement. Even though Damon was not outwardly expressing grief in the same way I was I could tell he was shaken as well. He reached out to me and put his hand on my back for the remainder of the call. I love him. Mary comforted us as well and assured us that it is normal to grieve and we should allow ourselves that moment. God bless her. I know she has been doing this a long time but she said just the right things.

After we got off the phone with Mary, Damon and I spent some time just the two of us and talked through things. I am really glad we did this. It was unplanned but I highly suggest it to any waiting family. There was the temptation to jump right on the phone and start calling our family and friends but we paused and attempted to take it all in. We talked through his story a bit and decided that it is his story and for the time being we are going to keep it private.

Then the phone calling extravaganza began! My mother and sister both cried and it was great fun hearing their reaction once they saw his photos. My dad texted me later and his text read, “he is sooooooo cute.” I thought that was funny because my dad isn’t one to use the word “soooooo” in his speech so I knew he was feeling the grandpa vibes.

Some of the local adopt-o-dads had previously planned to get together that night for drinks so I called Amy with the news and we decided the girls would be crashing the get together. It was great to share the joy with the other adoptive families that we have relied on so much the past year.

May 12^th, 2010. A momentous day for the Buster family! He is a dream come true and I pray that we are able to bring him home soon.

REFERRAL!!!!!

We got THE CALL!!!!!!!!!! We accepted our referral today for a beautiful baby BOY!! He is almost 4 months old, super tiny and PRECIOUS!!! The call came yesterday at 1:30pm. We are overjoyed and overwhelmed. I will start working on my post with all the details of the call because I don’t want to forget a minute of it.

Our little guy is a fighter and hopefully one day soon I will get to officially be his mama!!

Thank you so much for all the encouraging words, prayers and support!!!!!

Getting Ready

Even though Damon and I don't have our referral yet that hasn't stopped us from preparing for it. One of the great things about connecting with people from our agency is that those that are traveling always offer to take packages and pictures for the families still waiting to travel. We aren't in the place to be sending packages to our little one yet but hopefully we will be soon. Early in this process Damon liked the idea of having something that we could send to our baby that would have our scent on it. We also noticed that a lot of families put together small photo albums to send to their kids and then the parents would receive pictures of their child in the crib with the album behind them. I always thought those were the sweetest photos. My friend, Amy, tipped us off to a small photo album that was soft and snuggly. So we bought it and have been sleeping with it for the past two months. Here is the album that will eventually make its way to our agency's care center in Ethiopia.

I'm sure lots of other adoptive families have bought the same one. I have no idea if it is taking on our scents but I hope it is. Honestly, it isn't that comfy to sleep with so Damon and I take turns sleeping with it and we try and trick each other into thinking it is the other person's turn. HA! However, when it is my turn I can't help but think that this slightly awkward thing I am cuddling with will one day be in the crib of my future child in Ethiopia. Pretty cool.

I remember a few weeks ago my friend, Heidi, speculated that if she and her husband passed court and we got our referral then she would be able to love on our baby and take photos for us. I read that and was just overcome with emotion. The thought of someone I have met through the process being able to kiss and hug my baby for me made me so happy. That dream is still alive. Heidi and her husband passed court and will be bringing home two adorable boys and we could still get our referral in time before they travel. Maybe I can still overnight our photo album and have it delivered to baby Buster. And hopefully Heidi or whoever delivers it doesn't think it is too stinky!

Trying to Still Believe

Waiting sucks. Profound, I know. Late last week I was in a bad place. Thursday was an especially tough day. I was at work and was having a hard time reading the computer screen because of the tears that kept getting in the way. I emailed my boss and let her know I was stepping outside for a minute. I made my way to the parking lot behind our building and just let it all out. In that moment, I couldn’t be strong or optimistic or positive. I needed to be sad and depressed. The anticipation of the call is so emotionally draining and each day it just gets harder and harder. There is a Japanese proverb that goes something like, “fall down seven times and stand up eight.” So that’s what I did. I did it mostly with the help of other adoptive moms-in-waiting. Thank goodness for the technology of texts, Facebook and email. I am still bummed that we remain referral-less but it is what it is.

Our good friend, Marty, must have known I needed a pick me up today because he sent me a video that combines GLEE and the Buckeyes. Love it!

I posted the actual GLEE video of this song on the last day of 2009. I knew then that I would need this reminder in 2010. I’m not sure I knew how much I would need it. Thank you, Marty!

Okay, time be inspired. It's makeover night on The Biggest Loser!