Adoption Awareness Day 6: How we met

I left the US early on a Friday morning and arrived in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia early on Saturday morning. I technically traveled by myself by met up with another family from my agency in DC before the flight to ET. I spent Saturday and Sunday exploring Ethiopia. I shopped, took pictures, went to church, ate and tried to adjust to the time change and the altitude difference. The rest of the families in my travel group were not scheduled to arrive until Monday night and meet their kids on Tuesday. I decided I couldn't wait and that maybe the calm of it just being me might actually be easier. So I had Little Man brought to me Monday morning/early afternoon.  

I spent the morning impatiently waiting every time I heard a car. I changed toys I had brought down for him to have 3-4 times. I may have even paced a little. Thankfully the lovely ladies who worked at the guest house where I was staying were kind and loving. When he did arrive they took video and pictures for me since I was there alone.  

Then he arrived and all the nerves stopped...here was my son. He came in the arms of the nurse from the care center. My one year old child in 6 month size clothes that I had sent, with a baggie of gifts I had sent over the 9 months. He was tiny, frightened and very unsure. I sat and talked to him for a few minutes while his nurse held him and eventually reached out to take him. He was unsure. He cried, reached back for his nurse calling her "Amaye" (mother in Amharic) as she headed back to the car. She left, he cried, I held it together for the time. And slowly he calmed in my arms. I was a mom holding my child for the first time. He was a child learning his mom for the first time..my voice...my smell...my touch..my heartbeat. We stayed downstairs for a while and then I took him inside, fed him a bottle and laid him down for a nap. That is when I cried as I looked at my precious sleeping child and examined his fingers and toes and ears and all of that!
#knittogetherbyadoption  #adoptionawareness  #loveknowsnoboundary

 

Adoption Awareness Day 5: Outside Perspective

Now this is a topic I can take two different ways!
1) The family and friends in my life have been wonderful. They asked questions but never questioned why I was adopting. The questions were always more like how does this work...when will you know..when will you travel...when can we see his picture. smile emoticon My family was so great about the adoption and since the day we have come home Little Man has been family. No questions, no hesitation just acceptance! My friends helped fundraise, prayer, cry, laugh and smile through the whole process and eagerly waited when we got home to come meet him! 

2) Outsiders I don't know is the other perspective to look at....Most often people are wonderful and curious. They may say things that make me cringe a little in their wording, but for 99.9% they are well-meaning and just did not think about the words that came out of their mouth. As transracially adoptive family, I get many many questions/comments on his hair and his eyes! (they are beautiful) I will say my favorite comment came from an older lady in the store who looked at me, looked at Little Man and quietly and politely turned to me and said "Excuse me honey, but how dark is your husband?" I chuckled a little and explained that he was adopted from Ethiopia. She apologized and then said he was beautiful and we made a cute family. Moments like that make me smile. Occasionally I do get the offense comment, but those are few and far between where I live thankfully. And most often I chalk it up to a lack of education about adoption.

#knittogetherbyadoption

#adoptionawareness

#loveknowsnoboundary

Adoption Awareness Day 4 Thoughts after on Adoption

I have been struggling to write this one. Not because I don't have anything to say, but more on how to say it correctly. 
Adoption is wonderful....wonderfully hard...wonderfully beautiful....wonderfully sad. 
Adoption breaks you and puts you back together, more beautiful than you were before, because now there is this amazingly beautiful child that is a part of the mosaic of your life. 
I adopted an infant (easier by many peoples definition) not by mine. We bonded quickly and by many standards easily. There was just him and I and so time together was constant. I wore him in Ethiopia, I wore him as we flew home and I wore him when we went out here at home. I wore him so he could feel my warmth, hear my heart and feel safe that he was cocooned in my life.
But what I have learned is I simply laid the foundation that I will need to continue to build. I have learned that PTSD doesn't care about age. I have learned that an infant will mourn the country he lost. He will mourn it through night terrors, he will mourn it in sobs that shake his small body, he will mourn it in quiet tears that roll down his sweet cheeks early in the morning or at night as he tries to find rest.
He will mourn for the mother who gave him life...for a father I know nothing about. He will feel worry or guilt that he hurts me as he mourns. And I will feel sadness that my greatest blessing comes from another mothers' greatest loss.
I have learned to FIGHT. I fight for him. I fight for his truth. I fight for understanding. As he grows and wants/needs more answers I will fight for those too.
I am stronger. He is stronger. And together we are stronger. We are strong because he can be weak in the moments he needs. He can miss her. He can miss Ethiopia. He can be angry. He can be sad. And at each stage I know now, what I didn't know as I started this process, that we will mourn again and I will give him the warmth of my body, the comfort of the sound of my heart and the knowledge that he is cocooned.
And he will look me in the eyes and call me mom.
#knittogetherbyadoption
#adoptionawareness
#loveknowsnoboundary

Adoption Awareness Day 3: Thoughts before on adoption

It is hard to remember my thoughts on adoption before my adoption. But here is what I do remember. I knew early in my adulthood that I would adopt at some point. I knew love was not limited by biology. 
But I remember being afraid of the "what ifs...." What if the birth mother comes back? What if my child asks about their past that I can't answer? What if there are special needs I am not prepared for? What if I can't afford the whole process? And the what if thoughts continued. It took me lots of years before I jumped with both feet, arms wide open into the adoption world. 
One day though I just knew. There was a sense of peace that I was meant to be a mom for a child who needed a safe place to land

#knittogetherbyadoption
#adoptionawareness
#loveknowsnoboundary

Adoption Awareness Day 2: Introduction

I am Jenn and this crazy, funny, smart, silly, beautiful child is Little Man. We have been a family for almost 6 years. We were placed in each others arms in December of 2009 in Ethiopia. He is my greatest gift. He made me a mom.

#knittogetherbyadoption
#adoptionawareness
#loveknownoboundary

Adoption Awareness Day 1: Fact

Facts:
I have one adopted child from Ethiopia.

He is my child, not my "adopted" child

I am his "real" mom

Fiction:

I did not "pick" him out.

He is not "lucky" to have me.

I am not special .

#knittogetherbyadoption

#adoptionawarenss

#loveknownoboundary

A time of emotions and words that are a jumble.

      Each night I hold his hand and rub his back as part of the night time routine. And each morning I kiss his cheek, slide my finger into his hand, which he still instinctively squeezes, and call his name to wake him up. Some nights he still asks me to lay down and snuggle with him as he goes to sleep and some morning he climbs into my bed and asks for snuggles. I cherish these moments because I know that at some point he won't want/need me to do that anymore.
    This week after watching him drift off to sleep I have knelt and prayed. I have prayed that God protect his heart, that God help me raise him into a young man that loves Him, that he grows to be a man of strength and honesty. And then I have prayed that God gives me the words, the strength and the  courage to face that which is hard and scary. That I know what to say to him, when the time comes, about all the information I have received and will hopefully be receiving in the coming weeks to months. I have prayed that God protect us both and I have prayed that God is protecting the heart of Little Man's tummy mommy.
   I have spent this week ranging in emotions from scared to angry to proud to sickened. I have searched for words and found none. I have felt strong and then felt the wetness of tears on my cheeks. I have laid down to sleep and had words racing through my mind. I see Little Man as a baby in Ethiopia and then a slideshow of pictures of him here with me race through my mind. I see all the faces of those here that love him and lift him and I up.
  The last two weeks have been ground breaking for the adoption world. Through the strength and determination of a group of adoptive parents charges were brought against International Adoption Guides. (Yes, this is the agency I used to adopt Little Man) While I was not in the group that brought charges, I completely supported the group that did and even offered the investigator anything I might have that might be helpful. But I adopted a baby so there was not much information I had to contribute. In the last 2 weeks both the Director and Executive Director pled guilty to some or all the charges brought against them. There was no trial and thankfully no media circus to get caught up in. But their guilt means a so many things on so many levels.
   Most important to me, is that hopefully it will mean I will have  the true story to one day give Little Man** about his Tummy Mommy. But it also may mean that the story I have given him is not true. That there could be a mom in Ethiopia wondering where and how her child is tonight.
       The guilt of these people means that there were kids who had loving parents that wanted to raise them, who lost their children to greed. But their guilt also means that as adoptive parents we are standing up and saying yes, we want to adopt ORPHANS, not kids you "find" and claim are orphans. It means that kids, babies, birth moms and adoptive parents matter more than money. Lives matter, no matter their language, country or financial status.
   So many have been hurt by this and sadly so many more will be hurt as the truth comes out. So tonight as I lay him to bed I let my fingers linger a little longer in his hair. I pray one more time to protect him and me. And I pray that his Tummy Mommy is safe and some how,  knows he is loved and cared for every day by so many people. But I also pray for a future that is now riddled with more questions than an adopted child normally has. I pray for the safety and trust of our relationship, that while he may one day question it,  that he knows in his heart I was honest, I was safe and I fought for his truth.
   Adoption is a beautiful thing. Corruption makes it ugly. May we come through this time holding something beautiful at the end….our family…however it now looks.

**Please don't asks me for his story. Even when I do know as much of it as possible, it is his story to share when he is ready. I will protect it fiercely just as I protect him