One Month Down & Tagged

One Month Down! Today we are celebrating our one month wait-a-versary. Whoo Hoo! I was trying to come up with a cute picture of my dog carrying a sign with a 1 on it but that just wasn’t happening so you’ll just have to envision it. J We are one month closer to our little buster!

As I mentioned in my previous post, Tam tagged me. Then a few days ago Leah tagged me as well so I figured I better get to work. I will admit that I did the 25 random things that spread around Facebook like wild fire earlier this year and I did steal from that list. So if you are my friend on Facebook then I apologize for the repetition.

1. My middle name is Kyger. It was my grandmother’s maiden name. When I was in the second grade I changed it to Beth and I wrote it on all my papers. I think my second grade teacher really thought my name was Emily Beth. My mom was probably a little concerned. Now I really like it and that it is unique and has family meaning but at the time I just wanted to conform.

2. I am terrible at taking pills. I actually take a drink and then shove the pill in my mouth and hope it goes down. I have only met one other person who is like me in the pill taking world. If all pills could be chewable or like the yummy bubble gum liquid medicine we got as kids then I would be thrilled. I really want to start taking fish oil pills but all the ones I have found are just too big. It is a true conundrum.

3. I ran the NYC marathon in 2003. I wore a t-shirt that said "David's niece". My uncle David ran the NYC marathon over 20 times and one of the 1st times (I was probably 3) he wore a t-shirt that said "Emily's uncle". It cracked me up when I was running and people would cheer and say "go David's niece?" and you could just sense they were perplexed. It entertained me for 26.2 miles. My uncle passed away in April 2006 and I think of him often. I know he would be really excited about our adoption.

4. Damon cooks dinner every night. Since we have been married I could probably think of maybe 10 times when I have cooked and that might be a stretch. I do aspire to cook but at the moment I am fine with reaping with the benefits of being married to someone who enjoys cooking.

5. I LOVE the Olympics. When they roll around I am totally addicted and can’t get enough. This is probably because of my love for sports and also because I get caught up in the personal stories of the athletes.

6. I love to have coffee in bed on the weekends while I read the paper. I know with a child on the way those days are probably numbered. I will enjoy them while I can.

7. My family rocks. They are awesome. I also really lucked out in the in-law department. I know Damon's parents would do anything for me and I love them. I am blessed.

Okay, so here are the blogs I am tagging.

1. Tracy at Always and Forever Ours

2. Claire at My Inner June

3. Christine at The Mathews Family

4. Lindsey at Africa Bound Andrews

5. Kristi at We Love our Lucy

6. Amy at Peanut Journey

7. Valerie at My Own Crafty Wonderland

I’ll be eagerly awaiting your posts. J

Central Ohio Folks:

Enkutatash – Ethiopian New Year Celebration

Saturday, September 19th from Noon – 4pm

Whitehall Yearling High School

Kids under 12 are Free / $10 in advance and $15 at the door

Damon and I will be there enjoying the food and festivities so come on out and support ETSS!

Tuesday Reflections

First, I want to thank all of you for your encouraging words and shared excitement for us as we went on the waitlist! I am so glad that I started this blog as the support it has already provided in these 4 short months has meant so much to me.

In all honesty, the transition to the waitlist brought on all sorts of emotions that I wasn’t necessarily expecting. I knew that I would be extremely excited and I am but in the past week I have also felt overwhelmed and nervous. My sleep patterns have been all over the place. The thought of the wait and all that follows it is a bit daunting. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait for us to become parents. However, there are still so many things that have to happen in terms of the adoption process for parenthood to occur that it can all overwhelm me sometimes. I have also noticed that I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the past and the moments or events in my life that lead to our adoption. I am not sure if that was brought on by our entering the waitlist or my upcoming 10 year college reunion or what. I try not to dwell on the past too much but it is hard not to look back and see how you’ve evolved or how certain things make so much more sense now. I hope I haven’t gone too far into lala land that I’ve lost you already.

In all this reflection, I realized that 10 years ago this month I was heading off on one of my biggest adventures. Throughout most of college, I knew that I wanted to live in Japan after I graduated from college. It was just one of those things that you feel with certainty. I clearly remember sitting in the Tulsa airport with my parents the morning of my flight and wondering about what my life would be like for the next year. I had been to Japan twice before but never to live on my own for an entire year. I am sure that I cried my eyes out as I am very close to my parents. But it is safe to say that it was one of the best years of my life. I have such a love and respect for the Japanese culture and I met some wonderful people that deeply enriched my time there. I think when I tell people who know me well that Damon and I are embarking on this journey of adoption they aren’t shocked that we decided to adopt internationally. I have always been very curious of other cultures and languages and luckily learning foreign languages is something that has always come easily to me. In high school I studied Japanese and Spanish and obviously continued with the Japanese. My mom says that I have so much information of other languages stored in my brain that it explains why my English grammar sometimes suffers. The first month or so of my time there was really hard. I was missing my family and missing Damon and just so unsure of how things would turn out. Are you catching on that transition and change are hard for me? My mom told me to give it to November 1st and if I was still unhappy and then we could talk about cutting my year short and coming home. I know that November 1st came and went and I didn’t even notice that it was the cut off day as I was settling in to my new routine and had already made some wonderful friends. My mom sure knows me well. I am not talking about giving myself a cut off day for the wait list obviously (we are in it for the long haul!) but what I mean is that from past experiences I know myself and know that I will settle down.

This Sunday we’ll be having dinner at Abyssinia Café with the local group of people who have adopted or are adopting from Ethiopia and my mom is coming to visit in 2 weeks and Buckeye football season starts, etc. So Damon and I will eventually settle in to the wait and I am sure I will continue to reflect on past moments and be anxious for future ones but I also know that I’ll enjoy what I’m doing in this moment and that this nervousness will come and go and that is okay.
I’ll end my post today with some of my favorite shots of my year in Japan as a reminder of an event in my life that was initially really hard yet really joyful (and yes my hair was really short then!).

At Tokyo Disneyland with one of my best friends in Japan, Saeko.

Two of my best English speaking buddies in Japan, James and Melissa. My time in Japan would not have been the same without these two.

I taught English at a language school and this was a particularly fun group of kids.

Damon and I dated long distance for a year while I was in Japan. But he came to visit for three weeks and we went to several of the more popular tourist destinations.

Cherry Blossom viewing with James and Saeko. It is a sight to see.

When I went to Japan in college I lived with a host family. I visited them several times during my year there and in many ways it was like going home. They were and always will be a second family to me. They treated me like their own daughter and I am forever grateful to the Fujimura Family of Morioka, Japan! Peace.

WAITLIST!!!

We are on the WAITLIST!!!! This is the moment we have been working towards the past 4 months. I was literally bursting with excitement when I got the email at work today. When we had our initial phone orientation with our agency, they told us if we were aggressive we could get through the paperwork stage in 4 months and we essentially accomplished that. I am quite proud of us. It is strange because the past 4 months have been all about work, work and more work to get through all the paperwork and now we enter the wait, wait and wait some more stage. It will be a tough transition. I know for me it didn’t feel like I was really going to become a parent until we reached this stage. Now it feels real. Of course, ask me six months into the wait if it still feels real and I might have a different answer but today it feels real. The average wait times for our agency are currently around 9 months for children under 12 months. We are not putting a preference on the gender.

Before I wrote this post, I went back and read all the posts leading up to this one. I especially loved reading my FIRST POST. I realized that I had set some goals for myself with this blog. I wanted to be able to keep our families and friends posted on our progress, meet other adoptive families that will be able to support us in a unique way and to hopefully raise awareness about adoption and open other peoples’ hearts and minds to the possibility. I am actually quite surprised by how quickly I have met other adoptive moms and the support, friendship and guidance they have offered has been invaluable. I love stalking their blogs for updates on their progress through the process or hearing about how things are going when they bring their children home. I’m not sure if I’ll ever know if I made a difference in terms of raising awareness about adoption but that’s okay. Hopefully, I am planting a seed and if it’s right then the seed will grow.

Even though there won’t be much to report on our personal adoption journey for the next 9 months or so, I still plan on keeping the blog updated as Damon and I continue to educate ourselves about Ethiopia and try to bring awareness about issues pertaining to Africa in general. We’ll also try to do some fun things to help pass the time. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

I know the wait is going to be hard but for now I am rejoicing in reaching this very important milestone! We WILL be parents someday.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal. – Helen Keller

CIS APPROVAL!!

The approvals keep rolling in this week! As much as I was hoping that CIS approval would come this week I don't think I was really expecting it. I don't always have the nicest things to say about Ohio but today I am a big fan. Thank you CIS!! We are still waiting on our Ethiopian dossier to make it through the authentication process but I know that process is moving along as we speak.

We actually had a conference call with Mary at Gladney today. Now that we are Gladney approved we will be working with her for the rest of the process. I had read on several other Gladney family blogs about how wonderful she is and the rumors are true. She answered a lot of our questions about how things work once we are on the wait list and she explained the court process in detail. I'm really grateful she will be the one working with us in the next phase and she will be the one calling us with our referral. Literally, 20 minutes after we got off the phone with Mary I got a text from Damon with the big news. The phone was ringing off the hook at work so I didn't feel like I got to celebrate until I got in the car and called my mom to tell her. She, of course, let out a big WAHOO!!

Watch out wait list, the Busters are fast approaching!! Cheers!