Where All the Wait Times Are Above Average

Greetings from Adoption World, where all the women are obsessive, all the men are impatient, and all the children's wait times are above average.

Today marks 16 weeks of waiting for referral for us. The agency told me a couple months ago that 16 weeks was the average wait. I can't decide if I want to call and ask them if that's still true or not; seems like now most people have been waiting longer than that. Still, now that we're above average in weeks (to go with our looks and intelligence, of course), any phone call could be The Call. Forgive me if I sound disappointed if it's only you.

Today we get Hep A boosters and round one of Hep B shots. Will I pass out? As always, please: no wagering.


Update: I remained conscious but am now experiencing soreness in my coffee-drinking arm. Not good, comrades. Not good.

Prayers, Progress, Procrastination

After a long last week of holding our collective breath, several families from our Ethiopian adoption Internet group had successful court dates in Ethiopia. Some had been waiting so long for referrals, then court dates, and then had their court dates rescheduled for two weeks later. Last week at small group I felt I must speak my prayer for these families waiting for court, and my eyes could not stay dry. And truly this time it was not for me—not for the factor that we will probably not get a referral until some families get through court and set to travel but truly for the ache of waiting these friends across the country are feeling. This is a purer prayer, but not an easier one. Some of them have waited so, so long already. How much longer? How long, O Lord?

Oh, when we started it was all so fast, it was all such a breeze. Woe to those adopting from slow countries, we thought! We must not rush things or we’ll end up traveling smack during the school year. Now wait times are skyrocketing and complications are being added and though we are hopeful that the floodgates of referrals will open soon, we hover between optimism and resignation and despair that we will hold our child before the fall. We survive only on solidarity and stories of the kids who are home already.

And ice cream. I have been enjoying lots of ice cream lately. And pickles. But I have yet to combine them.

Today I spoke with two clinics about travel shots ($305 each just for consult and yellow fever shot?!). Left a message with adoption pediatrician in Portland. Sent updated information and still more sappy, shameless paragraphs to a grant ministry that in my opinion already knows far too much about us. My big project is to start slathering delicious yellow paint all over our upstairs so we can move my office up there and I can slather delicious green paint down here. However, I was apparently feeling the nesting urge much more strongly when standing in front of the glorious rainbow display of paint samples Saturday much stronger than I am feeling it now that I’m faced with the dirty work. Why do today what you can put off until you have ten thousand things to do before traveling?

The Process after Referral

Or, Five Unknowns Don’t Make a Known

If you’re reading here you probably know that we’re waiting for our referral—waiting to receive The Call saying we’ve been matched with our child, for our turn to ooh and ahh over a couple unflattering photos of a baby in an oversized diaper and off-gender clothes being propped up in an orange plastic chair. But after that glorious day when we officially accept our referral, a few more things still have to happen before our little episode of Bringing Home Baby.

A big variable is Ethiopia’s three-month rule: if a child was found abandoned, they must be in the orphanage’s care for three months before being adopted in order to allow time for any extended family members to come forward and say they will take care of the child. Many of the children—perhaps most infants, though I’m not sure—have been abandoned, but I’ve never heard of anyone coming forward. Ethiopians do highly value children and many families care for extended family members, so if a child is abandoned, most likely the options have been exhausted and none of the family are able to help. An abandoned child is not left to die but left to be found—being taken in to an orphanage care center being by far their best chance at a better life. Babies can be legally relinquished to the government, such as at police station, but I believe this is culturally stigmatized, so they are often simply left somewhere busy where someone will find the child quickly. Perhaps the mother watches from a distance to make sure. I cannot fathom a life where this is your best option, but if you are dying in abject poverty, the unthinkable becomes an act of love.

An abandoned child must be in the orphanage for three months before court can take place. If a parent or other family member brings in the child, this waiting period is not necessary because they sign papers legally relinquishing their rights. When we accept our referral and any necessary wait time is up, documents are sent to the Ethiopian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA) and a court date is set.

This court date is when we officially, legally become the child’s parents. It normally takes place about a month after referral, but Ethiopia made a new law in January (without warning—I’m pretty sure this is Madonna’s fault) saying that if the parents relinquished, they must appear in court date to confirm their relinquishment. I’m a little fuzzy on the details of this, but it’s apparently slowing things down a bit because agencies/orphanages have to find the parents again and bring them to Addis Ababa, even if they live days away. I’m not sure what happens if they can’t be located, are too sick to travel, or have died; perhaps other family members can appear instead. A court date can be unsuccessful if the case isn’t heard when scheduled (just happened to a bunch of folks I know) or more documents are requested for some reason. So once we get our referral we will start praying like crazy for successful court!

After a successful court date, we are legally parents, but an embassy date must be scheduled. When we travel to Addis, we will spend one day at the U.S. embassy getting a visa for our child. I believe this can’t happen sooner than twenty days after court. We plan our travel around this date.

The estimate used to be that we travel six to eight weeks after referral. Now court seems to be taking a little longer, so we’d better figure two months. Then there is the possible three-months-wait complication . . . and let’s not even talk about the fact that the Ethiopia courts completely shut down in August and September! This is why I quit counting weeks—it was actually the estimating and re-estimating of when we might travel that was making me nuts. Now, I am as optimistic as anyone, but do you see why I am shifting my expectations to June travel instead of May? Of course ye of greater faith are welcome to still root for May! But an awful lot of things will have to go right for that to happen. Some of them must be in motion already. I wonder what’s going on there on the other side of the world.

Beware the 5 D’s

Once upon a time in a land called Higher Ground . . . an idea was hatched and a man named Jeff B. fell out of his chair because it was so awesome. Some youth leaders threw chairs and trash all over a room and played grinding music with strobe lights, a man named Steph VH spoke some wise words, and Destruction Night lived happily ever after in the youth ministry hall of fame. And because a wonderful woman named Sara emailed them to me, the 5 D’s lived on to remind me this week of truth:

• DOUBT makes you question God’s work and his goodness
• DISCOURAGEMENT makes you look at your problems rather than at God
• DIVERSION makes the wrong things seem attractive so that you will want them more than the right things
• DEFEAT makes you feel like a failure so that you don’t even try
• DELAY makes you put off doing something so that it never gets done

I was definitely wrestling with a sumo-sized heap of Discouragement and Defeat after Tuesday’s call (Debacle?). Some days it just feels like no matter what you do, if you work hard and play by the rules, if you’re kind and reasonable and polite, if you prepare and save and sacrifice and jump through a thousand hoops, well, nothing happens. All you get is . . . tired. You wonder what you are thinking to take on this outrageous process called adoption and this monumental responsibility called parenting when you can’t even seem to handle your life as it is.

But then . . . you walk by the sea, you are offered a gift, you get the giggles, you listen to a friend. You find you have companions on the path, and you walk on. You determine that D is for DONE worrying about tomorrow’s troubles today, and lo and behold it feels much better than wallowing in destruction.

Assurance.

Encouragement.

Redirection.

Perseverance.

Action.

Note: I believe the 5 D’s were scammed from the Life Application Study Bible notes.
The others were gifts from friends.

No News Is Normal News

We are in the phase of our adoption where there's nothing to report that's of any interest to anyone. In the last couple weeks a number of people have asked, "How's your adoption process going?" or "Have you heard anything?" With a pregnancy you don't have any down time where your body's not doing anything. So somehow I sometimes feel like a schmuck saying no, there's nothing to do, nothing to hear. Just waiting. And expecting to wait a couple more months.

Now that our dossier is in Addis (since Dec. 22), we are waiting for the orphanage board to match us with a baby through their G-14 Classified super-duper mysteriously secret individual selection process. This presumably consists mostly of it being our turn to take the next infant under 6 months (which is the age we requested), but they like to make it sound like we're "personally matched" somehow. Since even our U.S. agency has no idea how they do this and other agencies use the same orphanage (it's a large system of centers), it's a surprise to the agency just as much as to us when the referral comes.

That means there's nothing to hear, no updates to be expected. Some parents get bent out of shape about this, but from the agency's perspective I can see why you'd focus your energy on other things than randomly calling parents to say, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I don't know a thing and I won't in the future." No news is normal news. They're working on it. Don't panic. (I think the agency-parent relationship is much like the publisher-author or editor-author relationship in some ways, but that's for another post.)

However, "just" waiting, as any adoptive parent will tell you, is not at all easy--though this not-counting thing is working pretty well for me so far. It also doesn't mean we're not doing anything to prepare. I have a to-do-before-baby list that's a mile long! Would you like a sample?

• get Hep A and travel shots
• apply for more grants
  
• child care/CPR class
  
• deal with insurance company re: surgery and adoption clinic
  
• call OHSU adoption clinic about referral review, first checkups
  
• paint upstairs, get bookshelves, move office
• paint, curtains, etc. for baby's room
• plan next garage sale
• buy baby essentials
• read baby care books in desperate attempt to learn what in the world to do with a baby!
  

While y'all are praying for our baby to (somehow miraculously) arrive in May, could you also pray for miraculous productivity and sanity in our house?

Weeks to Weeks, Dust to Dust

We’ve been waiting for 9 weeks.

I gave up counting for Lent.

Half-Distracted

We have been officially waiting for 8 weeks (not that I'm counting...). So we are halfway to the average waiting time of 16 weeks. That doesn't mean we'll get our referral then, necessarily, but it's the point at which I'll allow myself to expect it and start getting jumpy when the phone rings.

The last couple weeks have been pretty easy, but I'm still glad for the distraction of our special guests, all the way from Michigan, Justin and Toshia! This week went fast since to make room for them I had to remove the piles of junk which have been covering my office since before Christmas. (Hey, this room is much bigger now!) They arrive today and before we know it we'll be at 9 weeks down.

Are you enjoying my viewer map on the right side of the blog as much as I am? (Alas, no more Singapore hits since my brother is on his way home.) Identify yourselves, blog stalkers! You don't have to have a Blogger blog or Google account to leave a comment, so please say hi and share your thoughts or blog topic requests.

Movin’ On Up!

Exciting news for others in adoption land—two referrals from our agency today, and a total of four in the last week! Three of them have been on the smaller online forum on which most people are using our agency. With not one but two infant referrals today, there are only two or three people/couples waiting for infants who are “ahead of us” on that group (although I’m sure there are numerous others with our agency who are not on that group). We are moving up the wait list just by being on it!

I can’t explain how good it feels to hear of these referrals and see their beautiful pictures. Not only does it feel like we’re getting closer, but I’m starting to get to “know” these people a bit (although I do sometimes think of them as my “imaginary friends”). I guess we all live vicariously through each other. It would be so nice to travel at the same time as someone from the group.

The two who got referrals today had waited about four months; the one last week waited six. The six was somewhat discouraging; the four gives me hope. At least twice a day I calculate on the calendar how many weeks we’ll have been waiting by March, April, May, let’s-not-think-about-it. We would so like to travel by June—earlier if possible so we could make Justin’s wedding in GR, but at least early enough for Aaron to go to Young Life camp in July. If he can’t go, we have no experienced male leader to go! We really don’t know what we’ll do, but God must have a plan, because he sure keeps sending lots of kids to Club.

Stacie is confident that we’ll have our baby in May. We were just hoping to have a referral by then, but hey, we’ll happily have our baby! Anyone else out there with the gift of faith and prayer wanna get on that? I’m praying, but I only have faith every other day or so. It’s not just a selfish prayer for me . . . no, really . . . it’s for the YL kids and all the other waiting families too . . . really!

Okay, it’s mostly selfish.

And I’m so selfish I don’t even care!

EDIT 1/31: ANOTHER referral today! Unbelievable!

Tonight they're gonna Timkat like it's 1999.

We have been officially waiting for referral (to be matched with our child) for 4 weeks. Are we 1/5 of the way there? It has been a fast four weeks but I have still been pretty easily distracted by anything baby-related that crosses my path or jumps into my mind. And it's not because I'm not busy!


Today was the final day of the Timkat celebration in Ethiopia. Timkat is a bigger celebration there than Christmas. It is what we'd call Epiphany, though in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition it has a strong emphasis on the Ark of the Covenant, which is said to be preserved in Ethiopia, and on Jesus's baptism. Priests dressed in rich robes carrying fantastic umbrellas process with replicas of fragments of the Law called Tabots from churches to a pool or other body of water. The Tabots are blessed and the crowds are sprinkled with water or sometimes dive into the pool as they renew their religious commitments.

You can read about Ethiopian festivals including Timket here:
http://www.myethiopianame.bravehost.com/myethiopianholiday.html

View some beautiful pictures here--you have to see the umbrellas, I tell you!
http://www.peace-on-earth.org/Ethiopia/1st.pdf
(also interesting descriptions here) http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewheavens/
http://www.exodus2006.com/Axumpic2.htm



By the way, if you're wondering how the Twelfth Day of Christmas can be on January 19 (and not a partridge in sight), remember that Ethiopia uses a different calendar than the Western world. The Orthodox Christmas was January 7. They have 13 months--a tourism slogan is "13 Months of Sunshine"--and the year 1999 started on our September 11, 2006. That's right, you can still celebrate Timkat like it's 1999!