I Wonder

It has been two weeks since our approval letter was signed and official. This leaves me wondering what is happening across the world. Wondering if our file has already been taken to the orphanage. Wondering if our child has already been considered. I know that the nuns love every child and pray over the choice. My heart is with them as they take on this heavy but joyous task. I know that a part of me is already there.


I had a dream about both of my children before they came to me. The week before my son was born I dreamed of a chubby crying baby and in the operating room he looked just as he had in my dream. I also had a dream of my daughter. About a month before we received her referral, around the same time that she would have arrived to the care center in Addis Ababa I had a dream in which I saw a small little girl with a shaved head, she was with several adults and she was afraid and crying. Many months ago, back in March I had a very vivid dream of two small children, a boy and a girl, they were alone and waiting. I have not dreamed of them since but my mother who has always had similar dreams called me up a few weeks ago to ask if we had heard anything on the adoption. She had dreamt that we received a little girl. Perhaps they are all somehow connected to us. I am eager to see his or her face.

Asking Yourself the Tough Questions

Being a transracial family is both extremely rewarding and also challenging. I believe that our family is blessed by our diversity. Through learning about our adoptive children's culture we have come to learn about ourselves and our world in new ways. Our son has developed a acceptance and compassion for others that is rare in most boys his age. Most importantly though our daughter is thriving. She has a zest for life that I seldom see in other children. Every new experience to her is savored and celebrated with pure excitement. Every once in awhile there are challenges as well. Some I was prepared for before our adoption and some I have experienced along the way. And so as we excitedly wait for our referral from Rwanda I am challenging myself to again ask the tough questions. Most of these issues we have not had to face, at least not yet, and it will depend on where you live. But one thing I have learned in the last 2 years is that challenges will come up whether you are prepared for them or not. If you are reading this because you are also in the process of becoming a transracial family, I challenge you as well to be prepared for the tough stuff.

1. Are you comfortable with people staring at you?
2. How will you respond when someone says a racial comment or joke in the presence of your child?
3. What will you say when someone challenges or questions in a negative way your adoption from a African country?
4. What is the appropriate response when someone comments, on how difficult it must be to take care of your daughter's hair and she is standing right beside you?
5. How will you respond when a complete stranger asks about your child's birth family?
6. How will you respond when a complete stranger asks how much your adoption cost and your adopted child is standing there?
7. What if someone (maybe the school nurse) asks if your child has HIV when they find out they are adopted from a African country?
8. How will you deal with it when your child's teacher asks them to bring baby pictures to school and your older adopted child does not have one?
9. What will you tell your child when they ask why are you white and they are brown/black/chocolate?
10. What will you tell your child to say when other kids ask him/her why he/she is a different color then his/her parents?
11. How will you support your child if they tell you that other kids at school (a mostly white school) are calling them names?
12. Do you understand what "White Privilege" means in modern America?
13. Have you accepted that in reality you cannot be "color blind" because other people will see the color of your family whether you like it or not.
14. How will you teach your adolescent, especially your male teenager who may look much older, about the safety issues specific to African Americans? (How to respond to police officers, How to approach others at night for help when your car stalls, etc.)
15. How will you teach your children about their birth country's culture as well as African American culture and history?
16. Are you comfortable going to African American events and you being the minority?
17. Have you cooked African and African American food?
18. Do you know how to care for your child's hair, skin, and special nutrition needs?
19. Do you understand the depth of grief that your child may someday experience and how will you help them and yourself through this?
20. Are you prepared for your adolescent or young adult to maybe someday reject you because of your own color and culture?

For some thought provoking discussions go to: http://www.antiracistparent.com/
For a list of gracious answers to awkward questions go to: http://library.adoption.com/articles/gracious-answers-to-awkward-questions-about-our-adopted-kids.html
For a list of links with helpful transracial parenting information go to: http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/transracial-parenting.html

Miraculous Monday

Check out "Kids for Africa" and the "Change Exchange". Your children can learn about Rwanda through information, videos and games at http://www.learntodream.org/changeexchange/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22&Itemid=13

and adults can learn how to help send a child to school at http://www.learntodream.org/changeexchang

It's Here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I opened my email this morning and found the most beautiful letter ever! Yes, our request for adoption has been approved by the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion as of 8/12/2009. The letter does not specifically state one or two children only that "I have no objection to your request, and thus, you may now go ahead with the adoption procedures." Praise the Lord!

Here is a portion of the letter:

So what will come next? We are told that the Minister's office is now involved in approving the match between us and our child/children and that this process will take approximately two months. More specifially we have a family representative in Rwanda who will have direct contact with the Minister's office and who will most likely take our approval letter and documents to the orphanage. I am not exactly sure which orphanage it will be as the letter did not state but I do know that most of the children have been coming from the Home of Hope orphanage run by the Catholic Sisters of Calcutta. Once our children are matched with us, they will complete the required bloodwork and then we will receive our referral. Once we accept the referral then the next step will be to pass court which can take anywhere from a few weeks to a month based on prior families experiences. The court approval takes place in Rwanda and that is the point that we become the "official parents" and after which a birth certificate with our name on it is issued. After that there are a few more documents needed for the child/children to leave Rwanda with us. So depending on how the whole process goes we may be traveling as soon as November but most likely sometime in December. I better make those appointments with the international travel clinic. Thank goodness my husband and I already had a ton of shots when we traveled to Ethiopia so I think we will just need prescriptions. Our son however, is not going to be to happy when he gets his.

Not Today

Well it is 6:30pm in Rwanda right now so I do not believe that today will be the day that we receive our letter. I am not a very patient person, especially when it comes to knowing about the wellfare of those I care about and I definately care about these children. Not just the one or two who I will be blessed to parent, but all of them, all of them who are waiting on families. I was overjoyed today to see the pictures of two beautiful girls who will soon be going home to their new family. You can visit their blog at: http://lifechange.typepad.com/lifechange/2009/08/introducing-maya-keira-adoption-pictures.html

In the meantime, I am looking for some encouragement and here it is in Ecclesiastes 3:1,3-8 There certainly is a time and place to everything in life and it seems like we have experienced many of them in the last year. As for right now, my time is to wait and find peace with being patient and trusting that all is as it should be in the grand sceme.

To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and
a time to die;
a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up
that which is planted;

A time to weep, and
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and
a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and
a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and
a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and
a time to lose;
a time to keep, and
a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and
a time to sow;
a time to keep silence, and
a time to speak;

A time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war; and
a time of peace.

Movement

Two families adopting from Rwanda received their approval letters today and all three families from our agency who have recently accepted referrals have now passed court. That means that five beautiful children will soon have forever families and there are more matches to come. All this news combined with the email that we received yesterday, has left me obsessively checking my email! Because of the time change I think when the letter does arrive it will be in the morning. Just wish I knew how many more nights I will be going to sleep without knowing.

Miraculous Monday

I am going to focus on my own little world today for "Miraculous Monday". And the miracle is my witnessing my daughter's first day of kindergarten. She looked adorable in her new school-girl uniform. I was apprehensive at first when I learned that her school was going to uniforms this year, but I have to say that those kids all looked so great in their outfits! She was not the least bit nervous but as usual very brave and excited to be going to school with the big kids. When she got home from school she told us all about her day and got out her "homework" that is to be done everynight. The goal is for all the kinders to be able to write their name and count to ten in the next two weeks. We already achieved that this summer so it is nice to say that she is starting out ahead of the group. You would never know that just over a year ago she barely spoke English and we thought she was 2 years younger then she is.

But not just one but two miracles ocurred today. At the end of my work day I quickly checked my email and guess what? News of the adoption!!! Apparantly the Ministry's office in Rwanda has requested the email address for ourselves as well as several other families with dossiers in Rwanda, most of them arriving late spring to early summer. Our agency sounds optimistic that we will SOON be receiving a email directly to us with news of our approval. But I am cautious as well because we could certainly be contacted to provide more info and soon may mean another month instead of another week. If anything, after almost 5 months since our dossier arrived in Rwanda and 8 months since starting our homestudy, I have learned that time is a very relative concept that I have little control over. If we do in fact receive our approval the end of this month that would however mean that we may possibly be traveling in December which would be great since our whole family has two weeks off work and school for Christmas Break.

Transitions and No News

Well we are busy this week going back to work for the school year, myself as a school psychologist and my husband as a high school AP Science teacher. Our son starts third grade on Thursday and our daughter starts kindergarten next Monday. I wish Colorado did not start school so early as August is truly our hottest and sunniest month in CO. I am sad to say that we have heard no news on our precious 11 year old dog. As I replay the story of her dissaperance I am now convinced that she was taken. And most likely taken by somone with the intention of keeping or selling her untill they realized how old she was. She has a collar on with ID tags and phone numbers. It makes no sense to me why they would not have called us by now. I continue to pray that she is in safe hands and that they did not choose to dispose of her. We may never know what her fate was but hopefully with time I can find some form of peace and acceptance. On another note, we have had no news on the adoption. With recent bad luck falling upon our family it is all to easy for me to think the worst, that is, that when we finally get a call it will be to say that we were not approved for this or that reason. If this happens we will be out much money which we cannot spare and many many months of waiting. The crib is set up in my daughter's room and she is now asking "Why is it taking so long". I have no good answer for her because I don't understand it either. It would break my heart if I had to explain to my children that we will be needing to switch countries, redo paperwork, and start the waiting all over again. I am working hard to maintaine my confidence and to think positive despite all of these reservations. I am not one to believe that God is meant to answer every single one of our prayers or that with faith all things will work out, on the contrary I think that misfortunes happen for a reason, some lesson perhaps that we need to learn. After all: "God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called."

Need Eyes and Prayers

Our beloved 11 year old female English Setter has gone missing. My husband was fly-fishing along the Poudre River by the Poudre Picnic area just west of LaPort, CO and near Fort Collins, CO on Sunday 8/2. He had just crossed the river with her and turned around to retrieve our other dog and his belongings. She was there at the bank waiting for him and then just like that she was gone. From what he described she was lost between the river and just up the hill would be a parking lot and the highway. Both sides, going east or west she would have been trapped by picnic areas. He immediately went to the parking lot and she was not there. He then spent the next 6 hours searching the area and talking to nearly 100 people who were picnicking, fishing, and swimming. No one saw her running along the river, on the road, or floating down the current. There were no traces of a dog being hit on the highway. He describes that there was a group of men fishing with bobbers (not something you do on the river there) in the same area where the dog was waiting and that they disappeared the same time as she. I don't want to ever think that someone would take a dog on purpose but I am now starting to wonder. She is ten years old and spayed, but looks and acts much younger when she is happy and in the mountains. She loves fishing with my husband and has never left his side. We purchased her as newly weds, she was there when our son was born, and there to comfort our daughter when she came home last year. She is the gentlest dog I have ever met. It is breaking my heart not knowing where she is and if she is being taken care of. She has a collar with our phone number and the number to the vet on yet no one has called and no reports have come in to any of the regional dog pounds. If she was picked up with good or bad intentions she could be anywhere in Colorado or Wyoming as people come from all over to fish the Poudre River. I know she is just a dog, but she is a important part of our family and I hope that she could spend the last few years of her life with us. So please pray for us and if you are in CO or WY please keep a eye out for found dog adds or even for sale dog adds. She is a medium dog and skinny with aging hips and very bad hearing, she is white with black spots and her name is Spring. I am out of town but trying to make as many phone calls and internet searches of papers and pounds as possible. Please Lord let her be safe and in good hands.