Wish List!

My dear colleagues in the social work department have offered to host a "shower" for the kids at Mareshet's orphanage! Please consider purchasing something from the list below, or toss me a few bones and I'll make sure they go to purchase the most needed items. Right now, money for food and infant formula is critically needed. One of the world's poorest countries, Ethiopia is facing food and fuel scarcity, driving up the cost for our nonprofit orphanage for basics like grain, milk, vegetables, and electricity. My daughter is one of the kids that benefit directly from your contributions! Check out their website for more ways to help: www.ahopeforchildren.org

Fundraising Wish List for AHOPE Orphanage
An * indicates the wish is fulfilled

$200.00 for food * P., you rock!
$75.00 for one case of infant formula *
$50.00 for airplane weight charges
$375.00 for a pulse oximeter

Cloth diapers (traditional rectangular cotton)
Safety pins
Plastic diaper covers
Inexpensive terry bibs
Stethoscope *
Infant scale *

Adult scale

Otoscope

Blood pressure cuffs infant, child, adult sizes
NG tubes Pediatric #6, #8
2 tubes Anti-itching cream (e.g.. 1% hydrocortizone) *
2 tubes clotrimazole *
Lice treatment, Ketokonazole Shampoo
Feminine hygiene pads
Cefalexin 250mg and 500 mg capsule and syrup
Cloacillin 250mg capsule and syrup
Cotton balls
10 boxes Sterile gloves
Roll Bandage and sterile cottons
Nystatin suspension (oral preparation)
Nystatin and Triamcinolone Acetonid cream
Spatula (Tongue depressor for throat examination)
Rubber sheets (disposable)
Pepcid (Famotidine) antiacid tablet 20mg
Perimethrin cream 50% (for scabies)
Pediatric Nasogastric tube No. 6 & 8
HEXIT-Lotion (Lindane lotion1%usp) for scabies and poison

Athletic running shoes for children of all ages (2-14 years)
Croc style shoes (all sizes)
Socks (8-15 yrs)

Outdoor Play Equipment, (balls must deflate for packing):
Soccer Balls/Basketballs/volleyballs/bouncy balls/
Jump ropes/double dutch ropes *
Tennis balls/hackey sacs/pickleball paddles
Rocket balloons *
Hand held ball pump

Art/Craft supplies including:
Children's Diary
Pencil Sharpener *
Rulers *
Paints/Brushes/Finger Paints
Stickers
Crocheting/knitting needles and Yarn
Fabric/Needles/Thread
Cross-Stitch Kits
Markers 
Art foam/Pipe Cleaners/googly eyes/feathers/pompoms *
Glitter glue *
Beads/Beading wire
Pastels
Tissue paper/Feathers
Stencils
Stamps/Stamp pads

If someone has a large duffel with wheels, I would love to borrow it!
Should we raise more than two adults can carry on board, I can get supplies to other volunteers and staff who are travelling soon. THANK YOU!!!! from the Children of AHOPE!

The fact that it has been a month since my last post is evidence that time is passing... though it feels very slow.  I have been receiving small pieces of news about Mareshet from traveling parents, and sometimes pictures.  April 7th is looming ahead of me and yet I feel like my feet are in quicksand.  Having always been one to plan at least six months in advance, I can no longer see past April 7th.  I am as prepared as one can be for the disappointment of not passing court on the first try.  Yet I cannot see past this.  

I have really tried to focus on my last months as a parent to just N.  Never again will I have only one daughter, an only child, the apple of my eye!  I am reminded of those few sweet weeks I spent with her as a newborn, before returning to work, the sweat dripping down my back in the July heat, nursing in the rocking chair.  I knew those moments would never return, so I drank them in like honey.  I know these moments are the same, the last when she will have my attention undivided.  Yet despite all this concentration, a piece of me goes living and breathing in Ethiopia.  I sold my soul long ago to have two children, and regardless of what happens now, the act is done.  I am a mother of two daughters.  I feel for Mareshet and fret over her and imagine touching her forehead with my cheek.  I don't know this child and I don't know how I'll adapt to life with her and yet I feel like she is walking around with my heart in her hands every day.  There is divine intervention at play, as surely as gravity.  And I have heard that the same pull of the tides upon the ocean is the pull, however subtle, upon our blood.  We have spent our brief lives heading toward one another as if by gentle traction.  As one adoptive mother put it, "It turns out that he was the right child and I was the right parent."  I do not know where the meeting place will be or when, but it will be as if the intersection of our paths was always a certainty, shining in the distance like a star.

My best news and reassurance came the other week when a parent emailed our group and said "I have a picture of Mareshet, will her family please connect with me."  This was a woman I had not contacted before her trip to beg for a photo, a foot tracing, or to carry a letter.  This was a mother that Mareshet had  ostensibly approached while she was there to pick up her own child, in the hope of communicating with me.  I felt my heart lift and fly around the room.  There is someone on the other end of the tread, tugging back.  Mareshet found a way to tell me so.

These days before Mareshet arrives I think about children to come.  Are there others?  Will I ever again feel the sparrow kick from within that announces "Somebody is here"?   Or will I have the privilege of taking up another mother's child, when her arms no longer hold and comfort?  I know that the answers are not for me to know right now, but I cannot help asking... Mareshet is proof that I am responding to a call.  Hers?  Mine?  Allah's?  No matter.  If there is a call and a response, I take this as evidence that universe may more in store for me yet.  I wait in anticipation, though my imagination does not reach that far.  It does not go beyond April 7th.

Third Trimester or Something Like It

Deepest apologies for not updating this blog in a while.  I hit an impatient spell in January where it felt like word from my agency was very slow in coming.  For the longest time, I had no court date (now I know it is April 7).  I kept checking my email for notice that the Welcome Bag had been delivered, to no avail.  One mother graciously offered to take photos of M. for me when she traveled, but instead of making me feel relaxed and optimistic, it only served to make me more of an email fiend.  Bless her heart, she has since returned with a gorgeous photo of my sweetie (who by the way looks much older than six) and the following day, I received news that the Welcome Bag had finally been delivered!  I wish I could post a picture, but you'll have to email me for one.  Mareshet has giant doe eyes, chocolate skin, and circlets of short curls atop her head.  She has long fingers and a rather flat nose, which I love.  Visiting parents all tell me the same things: that she is friendly and very patient with smaller kids, incredibly active and involved in the orphanage goings on.  She now has pictures of us and can begin to imagine life with a family.  I also have sent two letters in addition to the Welcome Bag letter.  One should reach her this week, and the other next week, with the aid of our "Ethiopia Express."  I can't wait until it is my turn to offer to take photos and letters to waiting children.  It is amazingly difficult to know what to put into a letter.  I repeat some themes, in case the person helping her read the English tries to gloss over parts of it.  I keep saying how much we look forward to getting to know her, how beautiful the Pacific Northwest is, and that I am ready to take care of her like any Mama takes care of her daughter.  I write about N. and send new pictures of her.  I try to describe what the seasons are like, and what we do at different times of year.  I wonder how much of it is actually translated for her, and whether she can read any of the words herself.  I do put a tracing of my hand on every letter, because more than words can say, my hand is outstretched and waiting... and I can't wait to feel her little hand in mine.

Many have asked me about the timeline so far, so I will attempt to summarize this briefly, here: 

6/08  Made up my mind to adopt.

8/14/08 Mailed the initial application to AAI

9/22/08 Completed the subsequent packet of required information for AAI

9/25/08 AAIs response-- another packet to read

10/6  Received (yet another) packet with Dossier instructions

10/22  Schedule 1st Homestudy Interview

11/9  Second Homestudy Interview

11/24  Sent completed Dossier to AAI

11/26 Dossier received!  I start inquiring about waiting children.

12/4 Homestudy Approved!  I immediately ask for the file on Mareshet.

12/11  I commit to adopting Mareshet!  My Dossier travels to Ethiopia.

1/5  Welcome Bag received at AAI.

1/6  My documents are submitted to court with several other families and we are henceforth referred to as "Group G."

1/26  I am finally given a court date of April 7.

1/27  I receive confirmation that my Orphan Petition (I600A) has been approved by the US.

1/28 Welcome Bag travels over to Ethiopia with our director

2/2  I go to the USCIS office to be fingerprinted

2/8  I receive the first photos of Mareshet from other parents (thank you Allie and Kari!)

2/9 I receive the news that Mareshet has received her Welcome Bag--and a photo!

2/16 I finish painting her room; her bed comes next week.  This is starting to feel real.  Still trying to complete the final visa paperwork however...

Ironically enough, when typed up in this way, it doesn't seem like this has taken that long at all.  Except that about 12 of my friends have had babies since I began this process, making it all feel so much longer...

Welcome Bag

There's not a lot of real action to report on the adoption front, however our Dossier is in Ethiopia being translated into Amharic.  I have been working on assembling a "Welcome Bag" which is our only chance to send Mareshet a gift before I come to pick her up, hopefully in June.  I found the softest teddy bear imaginable for her.  I spent lots of time looking for just the "right" bear, a little messenger carrying the touch of a mother.  It took a lot of hugs to identify the best carrier teddy for the tenderness I want Mareshet to feel when she receives our package.  I probably looked a bit odd (or at least lonely) in the toy store, as I tried them all out!  But I'm really counting on this little guy...

I also created a T shirt for Mareshet with our picture on it.  I hope this is the only time in my life I will be compelled to make a T shirt of myself; it's quite embarrassing.  But this is what she will wear to announce that she has a family waiting for her.  As for the rest of the Welcome Bag contents, I've taken them out and put them back in so many times.  I keep changing and rearranging what I think will fit into the requisite gallon-sized Ziploc bag.  As it stands, in addition to the bear and shirt, we will also send a letter, a small photo album with pictures of N. and I, a disposable camera so the staff can get photos of Mareshet receiving her bag, a red and white striped pair of children's sunglasses, and some stickers.  I keep trying to jam in other things like a stationery set, a beaded bracelet, other small things... but in the end I have to trust that she will be most content by simply knowing we are out there.  I can't wait for her to understand how much she is wanted.  We talk about her as if she is already with us.

Mareshet is ours!

Apologies for not updating the blog more recently; things have been moving quickly and I was out with a cold.  But we have accepted a referral for Mareshet, who is about six!  It went a little like this (apologies to D. Sheff for the literary style):

Fortunately, I had been in contact with Erin, one of the workers at AAI.  She sent me a few pictures of some of the waiting children, and I became intrigued by Mareshet.

Unfortunately, I was still waiting to have my Homestudy approved by AAI so that I could see Mareshet's file.

Fortunately, it was approved a couple of days later!

Unfortunately, it did not approve me for a child over the age of four.

Fortunately, my birth date was wrong (I instantly aged six years).  My homestudy worker was a gem and corrected not only the age (whew) but the age of approval to six.

Unfortunately, Erin pointed out that Mareshet will be seven (per record) in the year that my case will go to court.

Fortunately, they caught it at AAI and changed it to seven!  

I then received Mareshet's file, and it didn't take me long to figure out that she belongs with a family like us.  The rest will be history!  I have since heard that my Dossier was sent to Washington DC, then to Ethiopia to be translated.  I also received a notice from Immigration with my scheduled fingerprinting (or biometrics) appointment.  It's very Meet the Robinsons.

Mareshet is on record as having been born in 2002, but few in Ethiopia remember when she was born, exactly.  Her mother and father died.  When I opened her file and saw their names, baldly printed there in black and white, I started to cry.  Their cause of death is not listed, which suggests HIV infection.  Mareshet lived with her mother's sister for a time.  But since they lived in utter poverty, the auntie ultimately relinquished Mareshet to the orphanage.  It is heartbreaking that this sweetie lost her parents at such an early age.  What does she remember of them?  She has been in care for a year.  Is she starting to forget her auntie?  

My daughter is the same age as Mareshet must have been when she lost her mother.  I can't even think about the terror she would feel, to lose us.  My stomach literally turns in panic--how could I leave her so vulnerable, so needy?  In my case, I am reassured to know many who would step in and care for her.  But for Mareshet, it was a different world.  Then to be relinquished by the one person who had stepped in for her parents... loss upon loss.  I wish I could tell her parents, "Don't worry, I am here!  I was here all along!  I will take your baby home and get her to school and love on her like you did.  Your precious only daughter is going to be part of a family and have shoes and birthday parties and books and live to be eighty if I have anything to do with it!"

  I hope to be able to meet the auntie when I'm in Ethiopia, to introduce myself and get her blessing.  Maybe she has photos of Mareshet's parents, stories or memories.  I will try to keep any links to her past and mementos of the family she grieves for.

Mareshet is said to be active, friendly, eager to help with the younger children at the orphanage, playful, and pretty healthy as far as things go.  She has a big toothy smile and soft brown eyes.  She has no hair to speak of since it is kept so short in the name of bug control.  I just wish I could go get her right now.  Najma is very, very excited to have a big sister.  She has brought her picture in to school for Circle Time.  She has decorated pictures to hang in her room.  Since Mareshet is such a peanut, and Najma is pretty tall for her age, they may be physically close in size.  We have the opportunity to send Mareshet a Welcome Bag with a t-shirt, photos, and small toys.  In this way, she will learn that she has a family waiting for her.  I love this idea, but I also wish that she knew now.  It may take a month for our Welcome Bag to reach her.  I wish she knew we were here planning for her right this minute!  I'd post her picture but it's against the regulations until she is officially adopted.  Thank you to everyone who has been so congratulatory and aware that this is just as momentous as having a baby born into our lives.  

Joy to the World! Despite the Headlines

Well it's been a terrible week in the news, with psychos calling themselves Muslims committing heinous acts in India, Pakistan and God only knows where else.  It's been a week I want to forget, as I walk around constantly conscious of my headscarf and clothes.  Only when I've been able to sit and contemplate the truth of my faith am I able to reclaim my identity, proudly, as a Muslim.  I know who I am, I just need some reassurance sometimes that I'm not the only Muslim out there who still believes in love and respect.  Oh, sure-- there's about a billion others out there, but it is all too easy to feel alone unless I actually pick up the phone and do some networking.

Trumping all of the ugly stuff, however, is the joyous arrival of Baby Grace!  My dear friends have been waiting for nearly three years to adopt and finally their dreams have come--suddenly-- true!  I can't wait to meet all five pounds of her, as if I can't quite believe the miracle until I see her.  Magically, the woes of the world seem to melt away with just this one, beautiful birth.  Welcome, Gracie, I am honored to be your Auntie!  Welcome, also Baby Violet, who I met tonight at a week and a half old!  What a good reminder of how small and vulnerable and innocent we are as we come to this Earth.  Can we project that natural lovingkindness that babies elicit from us outward into our communities?  God bless the babies and their mommies, please, tonight.  Above, my own newborn babe, over three years ago-- did she really start out so little?

Second Home Study

I am excited because there are only two more documents left to secure, then I send it all off to my agency.  The second home study visit was yesterday morning, and it was relaxed and enjoyable.  Once the social worker types up the rest of the home study, it is sent to the agency and, together with my paperwork, becomes the Dossier.  It is then sent to Ethiopia and translated.  Two documents were sent to Olympia to be stamped with a State Seal, and since my check has been cashed, I feel reasonably confident that this has been done.  I also sent away for a new passport, and that check has also been cashed.  So, a lot of progress has been made, now that I stop and think about it.  The social worker is estimated about a year until a child is able to be brought home, which matches other estimates I've heard.  It seems like such a long time.

Last weekend I also traveled to see my mother and break the adoption new to her.  I was rather worried about it as my larger decisions tend to unseat her.  But she seemed quite happy at the prospect of being a grandmother again.  It also probably helped to have given her the beautiful photo book, Faces of Layla, as she could visualize who the waiting children are.  Now that I've told my mother, I feel like I can bring up the adoption more casually, and to family.  I'm trying very hard not to get too attached to the idea of a toddler, because there is a big possibility that the child referred to me will be different than what I am picturing.  I'll be thrilled regardless, but until a referral comes, I want to keep my mind open.

For those friends abroad, enjoy this photo of N. riding a pony and with her friend M.