September Birthdays

I am sitting here watching the US Open and they are honoring several athletes that have started foundations and are out doing amazing things with their celebrity status. Since it is a tennis tournament it is not shocking that their final honoree is Andre Agassi. As you may know, he started a charter school in Las Vegas and is working hard to improve education for children labeled “at risk.” Andre said that he believes “that caring by definition means doing.” How true. One of the many benefits of this adoption journey is the education we have received on the many organizations that are DOING great work in Africa. In June, I highlighted Mocha Club and was so touched when several of my friends went out and ordered t-shirts to benefit Mocha Club.

A little over a week ago, I learned about Charity: Water on Tam’s blog. The founder of Charity: Water, Scott Harrison, was born in September and a few years ago decided to throw a party and have everybody bring $20. They took the money that was raised at his birthday party and put it towards funding wells in Uganda. Did you know that a billion people in the world don’t have clean drinking water?! I had no clue and I know I take my clean water for granted on a daily basis. So on the eve of my September birthday I thought Charity: Water was the appropriate organization to blog about. Two years ago Scott gave up his birthday again and Charity: Water raised $150,000 and built wells in Kenya. Last September they raised $1 million dollars and helped build wells in Ethiopia! They served over 50,000 people! Maybe some of my future child’s relatives were able to benefit? What is crazy to me is that Scott Harrison is only one year older than I am and look at what he has done in his 33 years. It is another wake up call to me that the best way to survive this wait is to get out and DO. I have found in the past that when I am able to get outside myself and actually contribute to something bigger and more meaningful then I always end up feeling better and less anxious about the day to day happenings of my life. I certainly have not been a great example the past couple of years of volunteering my time so I hope to start changing that over the next few months.

Check out Scott’s latest video.

The story of charity: water - The 2009 September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

Do you have one of those favorite stories that your parents tell you about your childhood? I am reminded of one of mine as I sit here and watch Venus play about when my parents first brought me home from the hospital. I was their first child so they really had no idea what to expect. They came home to their New York apartment and basically did what they normally would and turned on the US Open. They watched tennis and they watched me. They watched tennis and they watched me. So my mom says every year when the US Open rolls around she is reminded of just watching me and having no clue what to do. It is such a simple story but I never get tired of hearing it. I am pleased and find it so appropriate that on the opening night of the US Open this year Andre Agassi spoke to the crowd about DOING. Here’s to my 32^nd year to be filled with lots of doing! Cheers!

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

Damon's 30th

This post is VERY delayed and I am officially a bad wife. Damon turned the big 30 on July 22nd and I neglected to wish him a big happy bday on the blog. Don't worry, I did remember to tell him on the actual day. A few weeks ago he had a party along with our friend Nancy, who also turned 30 recently. We had a big bbq over at Nancy’s and I know Damon appreciated that several of our good friends made it over to celebrate.

Happy belated Birthday Damon! Welcome to the 30s!

Here are a few of my favorite pics from the festivities.

Suzie and Kara

Suzie was attacked by her cat earlier in the day and still made it to the party!

Nancy (the Birthday girl) and Brenda

These lovely ladies were 2 of our 4 references required by the home study. Brenda and Damon have been working for the same company for the past 8 years! We met Nancy through Kara and Marty and she has been a good friend ever since. She is also an elementary school teacher in our community. We are so grateful to them for taking the time to help us with our adoption!

Can you tell these two are brothers?! Now that Asa is keeping his hair short he and Damon look more and more alike in my opinion. Asa is on the left and Damon on the right (in case you couldn't tell). Asa, Sarah (our sister-in-law) and Malayna (our niece) drove an hour to attend the party!

I think good times were had by all and I know Damon was very appreciative!

I made a few minor changes to the blog. I wanted more of a design as the header so this will do for now. I hope you like it.

I REALLY hope the next post will be that we are on the waitlist! We are just waiting for the CIS letter to be authenticated so we are super close. It is one of those things that I know is out of my control but the excitement is hard to contain sometimes.

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!

Gladney Approval!

I checked my email this afternoon and had a lovely email from Judy at Gladney letting us know we are officially approved by Gladney. WHOO HOO!! I could not contain my excitement at work and had to let out a little squeal. My co-workers were very understanding. We are still waiting on that approval letter from CIS but it sure felt good to get our agency's stamp of approval. In an effort to save time we had been working on our dossier at the same time as the home study and all of our dossier documents are in the hands of Kate at KBS Dossier (she is amazing and I highly recommend using her). She is currently walking them through the authentication process.

I don't know about you other adoptive moms out there but I just let out such a huge sigh of relief when we got that approval. D and I are confident in our ability to tackle parenthood and know that this path of adoption is one we are meant to take. We also know that our friends and family think we are ready for parenthood as well. I had mentioned to people previously how relieved I will be when we get agency approval and they would say things like, "Of course you will be approved. Don't be silly." But for me there was something about this process that made me wonder if people who didn't know us as well would agree. I vividly remember having a minor freak out one night as D and I were filling out documents because I was convinced we weren't involved enough in our community. Okay, go ahead and laugh but I was dead serious. D thought I had temporarily lost it but I was just really questioning if we would be deemed suitable. I totally understand why we have to do things like get background checks, talk with a social worker, go to infant CPR, etc. but through the whole process it feels like you are proving yourself over and over and that just breeds doubt. I don't want my temporary freak outs to discourage anyone who is considering adopting as I know in the end all the ups and downs of the adoption process will be totally worth it! I actually think all this doubt is probably good practice for parenthood in general because the parents I know are always questioning if they made the right decision when it comes to sleep schedules, discipline, dating rules and the list goes on and on.

In my effort to live more in the moment, tonight I am just going to be grateful for Gladney approval and that we are one step closer to our ultimate goal! And tomorrow I will resume stalking the mailbox for that CIS letter. I can't change overnight.

Columbus Group

Wow, this week is really flying by. I have had lots of thoughts swirling around in my brain about what to write about and am finally finding time to actually post.

This past Sunday we went to the Abyssinian Café on the East side of Columbus to meet with a group of people that have adopted or are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia. When we first decided to adopt from Ethiopia I was totally clueless that there was such an active group. It was wonderful to meet other couples who are also knee deep in the process or were recently so it is easy to relate. It was great to meet Amy and Paige in person since I have been following their blogs. I’d thought from the get go that I wanted my future child to know other adopted children from Ethiopia. So I think the support of this group will be important for D and me but hopefully in the future it will be a good support for our child.

At the dinner we also heard about the upcoming Ethiopian New Year Celebration here in Columbus organized by ETSS (Ethiopia Tewahedo Social Services) of Central Ohio. Did you know that Ethiopia doesn’t follow the Gregorian calendar but they go by the ancient Julian calendar? I had only learned that recently. It is still 2001 in Ethiopia. So if you want to turn back time on your life you should head over to Ethiopia! I have decided that when we travel there I will temporarily be 7 years younger. If you live in Central Ohio you should consider attending the Enkutash Celebration. It will be on September 19th at Whitehall Yearling HS. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door and children under 12 are Free! D and I will definitely be attending. I am just so thrilled there are cultural events like this in Columbus.

I have decided that I am entering an important phase of international adoption…. the mailbox stalking phase. It’s an official stage. From what we have heard, CIS here in Ohio is usually pretty fast and several families got their CIS approval letters within just a few weeks. Next week it is going to be very difficult to squash the desire to drive home at lunch to check the mail for that elusive letter. D has already been instructed to text me when he gets home with a daily report of the contents of our mail. The last time I was stalking the mailbox I was looking for our FBI clearances. If you recall at that time I sent out a very polite plea to the FBI to hurry up please. Then we got them in the mail just a few days later. So I am making the official plea now to CIS. C’mon CIS! (please)

Also, there are tons of Gladney families with court dates tomorrow so I am praying they are all successful and can travel soon to bring home their kiddos before courts close for the rainy season.

On a more peaceful note, I will leave you with one of my favorite photos from our trip to New Mexico. It reminds me to keep breathing.

(That's me being Zen.)