Yeah

When you ask Yonas a question, almost any question, he answers "Yeah." This is fun.

The girls like to ask him things like,
"Yonas, are you going to the moon today?"
"Yeah."
"Are you going to meet an alien there?"
"Yeah."

I like to ask him things like,
"Am I the best mom in the whole wide world?"
"Do I look awesome in this bikini?"
And my favorite,
"Should I have a gin and tonic?"

It's good fun and gets me drinking and in a bikini. And Erik likes that. What could be better for a family?

It sort of embodies his Yonasness, this compulsion to say yeah.
"How are you doing Yonas?
"Yeah."

He's a juicy, life-loving boy. We all could use a little more yeah, couldn't we?

Be like Yonas. Just say yes.

Mindful Monday

I thought I'd sit down to write a Mindful Monday post, since it had been so long since the last one. The problem is I have no idea what to write about. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I'm doing a lot of that lately. My plan is to just see what comes...

If my children are my best mindfulness teachers, (and let's face it, nothing brings you face to face with all your Stuff and forces you to hang out with it like children do) then Yonas is my Professor. I have to stay open and aware of the ever changing tide of emotions this boy brings. Sometimes I can hardly bear it. Most of the time I see exactly what he needs from me and most of the time all I want to do is give it to him. And sometimes I really don't want to give at all, but I do it anyway. And then sometimes, I watch myself watch him, knowing what he needs, knowing what I'm feeling, aware of everything, mindful, and yet. And yet, it feels torturous and tedious and I struggle to not head out the door and walk the few blocks to sit under the highway bridge by the railroad tracks and take up a new life. And then sometimes mindfulness is nowhere to be found and all I want is chocolate or tequila.

That's how it is, this parenting gig. Or at least, that's how it is for me. That's how it has been from the beginning, when Ava was an infant, or Eden a toddler, Safa right now. But because they've been with us from the beginning, the stakes aren't as high if I check out from time to time. If I don't respond in the most open-hearted, mindful way, we have a history of learned love and attachment and trust to carry us to the next moment. They know I will listen, come, comfort, tend, and care. They know in the deepest parts of who they are that we are a we.

Yonas has no baseline knowledge of this we-ness. So those moments when I can't seem to open my heart enough to engage the way I know I should, those carry far more weight with him than they do with the girls. Those pitiful moments like the one we had today where even though he could have absolutely gotten up from his seated position on his own, for some reason he needed me to help him. And for some reason in that moment this admittedly pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps kind of mama just couldn't do it. So we sat in some kind of ridiculous stalemate, his needs bumping up against mine, the oldest of human dances. And he cried. And I sat by him. I said, "You can do it." (Which I should have probably just been saying to myself.) I offered him a hand to reach for. But he wouldn't take it. So I pointed out a roly-poly instead. And I broke a stick. I looked at his fat belly, the swollen mosquito bites on the back of his neck. We watched the roly-poly together. The wind blew. I noticed the yellow dusting of pollen over my arms. I heard the girls playing. I saw how I wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else. I noticed how I wanted a glass of wine. How I still wasn't just helping this kid up. He said roly-poly. We laughed about it, this crazy gray bug that becomes a ball.

And then it happened. At the same moment he began to stand, I reached for him. And I picked him up and we went inside, a mama and her boy, both doing the best we can.

Six Weeks Out

(last week)

(in Ethiopia)

We've been home with Yonas six weeks today. In that time, we've had lice, pneumonia, fierce tantrums, food issues, screaming, crying, fights, lost sleep, homework, laundry, and colds.

We've also had a birthday, dancing, laughter, joy, sunshine, silliness, flowers, singing, long walks, and love.

When I think about how far we've come as individuals and as a family in this short six weeks, I'm astounded. The six of us have worked hard.

Yonas is becoming himself. The person he is outside of institutional life. A boy with a family. He's beginning to lose his orphanage persona. He is sleeping. He has outgrown many of the clothes that fit him when we first got home. The shoes we brought to Ethiopia that were too big for him are now too small. His hair is softer, longer. He looks healthier, more vibrant.

The food issues are abating. He is no longer eating so much he vomits. Many meals come and go with no problems at all. And although he still eats much more than he needs, we are seeing the beginnings of self-regulation. Some milk leftover in his cup. Not asking for thirds. Getting down from the table while the girls are still eating. We have begun introducing the notion of "all gone".

We are communicating through a nice mix of Amharic, English, and some signs. He's learning several new words a day. When he first came home he constantly babbled in a loud, sing-song voice the same syllables repeatedly. This is called "Excessive Chattering" and some post-institutionalized kids do it to block out fear and grief. He doesn't do it at all anymore.

The tantrums are lessening in both intensity and length. When I had pneumonia, Erik wisely implemented a plan where every time Yonas began to tantrum, he picked him up. No matter what. Even if he had to chase him down because he didn't want anything to do with him. It worked. So that's what we do. We pick him up. This has not always been easy for me. This has taken real work on my part and I struggled with it. Sometimes the last thing I want to do is pick him up. But I do it anyway. Most of Yonas' tantrums are born out of being told "no" in some form. There's this idea that adoptees have experienced the "Primal No". Their birth families said, "no", the orphanage said, "no". For many adopted children being told "no" feels like rejection. It feels like, "You are unlovable. You are not good enough. You are unworthy." As we work to earn his trust, he softens. He begins to accept a "no" for what it is.

He is funny, affectionate, loud, daring, short-tempered, and generally at his core, I think, happy. He loves his sisters and they love him. He has begun to understand when Erik leaves for work in the morning it won't be the last time he sees him. In the first weeks we went to the school to pick up Ava and Eden, he was friends with everyone. Indiscriminate with his interactions and play. Now he's more wary. He checks in with me, asks for help, comes back to the safety of my lap when he needs a break.

It has not been easy. I still have moments of dread and fear and sadness. I wake up some mornings, think of the day that lies ahead, how much emotional and physical energy I need to usher us all through the day, and I take a deep breath and think shit, here we go again.

But we are getting there. We are doing it together. And when Yonas says, "Nah, Mama. Nah." (come, Mama), I know I want to follow.

Wordless Wednesday

February 16th, 2010

Our trip to Ethiopia is settling in my soul. I knew it would take awhile. As you might imagine, I haven't had just a ton of time to devote to processing our trip, so I've just had to let it quietly roll over me without working very hard at it. And over the past five weeks Ethiopia has found its way into the deepest places of who I am. I'm not finished. In fact, I'm not sure I will ever be finished processing it and I think that's a good thing.

On Monday as I was driving Ava and Eden to school, we were listening to this. K'naan is Somali, not Ethiopian. But the lyrics always make me teary. And on this day they reminded me of the lovely driver, Elias, Erik and I had on a day trip we took to see Yonas' birthplace.

I didn't get teary that morning because I pitied Elias, or even wished for something better for him. I got teary because I missed him. Ethiopia and her people will do that to you.

Soon, I think, I will begin to recount our trip here. I took a journal. I think of myself as a writer, but didn't write down anything about our trip while we were there. Not one thing. I just couldn't do it.

The day we met Yonas, I took off the necklace that I'd been wearing for 10 months in honor of him. It had the Ethiopian flag on one side, his name engraved on the other. I was wearing another necklace, one I meant to leave at home and I took off that one too. And on the day we went to the U.S. Embassy to take legal custody of Yonas, my purse got turned upside down and the other one, the one not bearing Yonas' name, got lost. I really liked that necklace. I was bummed when I couldn't find it.

This morning, as I was driving to a parent-teacher conference I realized something. That necklace, whether it is now around someone else's neck, whether it gets thrown away or lost, it will probably always be in Ethiopia, even after I stop breathing.

On that day, I lost something inconsequential in the scheme of things in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while Ethiopia lost one of her sons.

One

Three

I have started and erased this post three times now. I'm unable to convey everything I'm feeling now. Earlier today I had a moment when I thought, I can't wait to get on that plane so I can get a little rest.

Unofficial birthday celebrations for Erik and Ava have gone well. We have been blessed with an amazing amount of support and love coming our way. It is humbling.

I'm hyper-aware of our remaining time with the girls, these days becoming moments before we leave. I think of them as babies, how quickly the time has passed; see them now, the people they have become.

And although I feel no desire to return to those times, it is a reminder to me to let these last few days permeate me. Because I know years from now I will sit and remember this time, these days before we left; the days before Yonas. The days when we were five. And it will be hard to imagine that we ever lived without him.

Four

I may have entered the realm of diminishing returns today. I would walk to my lists, look at them for awhile, decide I was too tired to have to think much, move on to something physical because that seemed easier somehow, decide it wasn't, go back to something that required mental effort and realize I was fooling myself.

Erik returned mid-afternoon from a guys, pre-birthday 24 hours that involved horse racing, whiskey and pecan pie. I took a nap and it was good. I should be in bed now, but need to do this first.

Being so close to meeting Yonas feels surreal right now. I look at his picture and can't fathom what strange magic is granting me the honor of being his. There's a sweetness about this boy I know. Something around the mouth that already feels familiar. I imagine the softness of his cheek. The sound of his laugh. The weight of his body on mine.

Soon.

Five: I Think I Fell Asleep While I Was Peeing

Just for a second. I have not been wanting to mention that Erik and I are fighting back simultaneous colds for fear that writing it down would tempt the pre-travel gods. Especially since we both seemed to have escaped the stomach virus. But it is time to face facts. I also haven't mentioned that Erik is currently closing a deal and is working every bit as hard as I am. We are run down in body and mind. Last night in bed I was an overtired infant unable to calm my body enough to fall asleep. So this morning I took a quick nap while I was peeing.

Last night five of my lovely friends took me out. (Thank you Bryna, Janna, Leslie, Mima, and Wendy!!!) Toasted me and Yonas with Prosecco. They asked me questions because they really care. They held me up and promised support that I already knew was there. And in return, do you know what I did? (Besides feel blessed and humbled?) I accepted.

Not too long ago it was hard for me to accept help. Nearly impossible for me to ask for it. But in the last few months the futility of living that kind of life has become clear. We aren't meant to do it alone. I don't mean just parenting. I mean all of it. Life. It's too much.

So now when someone asks what they can do to help, I tell them. When someone offers to take my girls to school or fold my laundry, I say yes. It's still a bit outside my comfort zone sometimes. But each time I allow someone who cares about me, my life; each time I yield and surrender, I grow. My heart opens. And my own experience of helping someone I care about tells me that theirs does too.

In this final countdown to bringing Yonas home I may be stumbling a little, but I know there are people who care enough to catch me before I fall.

Seven

So far so good on the vomiting front. My bravado diminished a little when it came time to eat last night, and I went for half the burger and about two-thirds of the shake. I was certain I was going down around 9:30, but nothing happened. It could have been how creepy Lost was. Or maybe I was having a panic attack.

Ava was well enough to go back school. Safa and I got more birthday crap and dropped a load of money at Costco. Seriously, I made a kind of painful grunting noise when the eternally grumpy cashier told me my total.

I found out today that not only is the day we're leaving Ava's birthday, it's also the day of the culminating performance for Ava's and Eden's theater class. Yes, you read that correctly. Most of you that read this blog don't know my kids. But if you did, you might be doing a spit take at the notion of either of my oldest two being in a drama class, much less LOVING it. But they do. And we will miss their performance.

Also, I checked our itinerary for our return flight and saw that Yonas is assigned to the seat in front of us on the last leg. I'm sure he'll be fine. He's almost 2 for goodness sake.

I took out the recycling in the cold rain.
The next time I do it, I will be back home. With my son.

Ten

My grandfather died on Sunday January 24th, on his 94th birthday. I spent most of last week in West Virginia. I will write about it some time, but not now. Now I'm back home and we leave in ten days. I will meet and touch Yonas in 12. Can that be right? Can it be that this journey to him is almost over? It doesn't seem possible.

It is 7:41 in the morning. I have printed off the registration form for the next school year. I have solidified plans for the girls while we are gone. I have worked on birthday plans for both Erik's 40th and Ava's 8th. I have added something to three of the five lists I have going. I will spend the day adding more to my lists than crossing off.

Erik and I will begin organizing and packing all the stuff we will take to Ethiopia. I need him to know where I've put things, because it would be just like me to need something and not remember that I actually packed it. Erik will probably work tonight, because he has so much to do before we leave. While he's working I will continue to catch up on the laundry that rose up and multiplied in my absence, compile all our Amharic references, and visit i-Tunes to gather pod casts that might help to keep us entertained during 26 hours of travel.

We will try daily to connect with the girls in a meaningful way because the days of "the girls" are almost over. We are in the transition phase of this metamorphosis. Together we are birthing a new version of this family. It's stretching and pulling and opening each of us in different ways. It's hard work to get to the next place. We are growing and that is not without it's challenges. It's full of uncomfortable stuff like grief, surrender, and fear. It's also full of impossible beauty and tenderness. We will push and work our way through together. And we will try to remember to carry each other as we go. When we emerge, we will be stronger and more beautiful than before. A family of six.

Confirmed

No more "tentative" are we. We will meet Yonas in 27 days.

We leave on February 10th to go get him. The day Ava turns 8. Two days after Erik turns 40. We return on February 19th. Five days later, Safa will turn 4. For a long time, February has been a month of celebration. It has been, in many ways, a pain in the ass. (Love you Erik, Ava, and Safa!!) Six weeks after Christmas here come the birthdays, which for the mama, means party planning and cake making, and present buying for three. It makes weird sense that February would be the month we will forever celebrate the anniversary of Yonas joining our family. The only other choice would have been in May when we celebrate Eden's birthday, then Yonas' 9 days later. (Maybe Five will share a September birthday with me.)

In the next few days, we will buy our tickets. Soon, we will begin packing in earnest. We will figure out how to help a girl have a happy birthday without her parents. We will make lists and more lists. We will get the carpets cleaned. I will start stocking the freezer and buying birthday presents.

Soon, I will fly to West Virginia to mourn and remember my grandfather.

But tonight, we celebrate.

Because We're a Family

Last week in Ava's second grade class, they did a project where the kids had to make an acrostic with their names. She hadn't mentioned it and as I walking Eden to class, I saw them hung along the hallway. I looked for Ava's and found it:

A- adopting a brother from Ethiopia
V- vegetarian
A- awesome

I could have fallen to my knees. We have planned to adopt for so long, she's been hearing about it since she was 4. We began this process of adopting from Ethiopia in April of 2007, two months after her 4th birthday. This journey is in her like it's in us. So much that when she had to write a description of herself, it came up first, even before "awesome". I've wondered over the past almost-year since we were matched with Yonas, what the girls' internal experience of the process has been. Of course we talk about it a lot. We read books. They act out adoption and transracial families stories in their play.

I know what it means to wait for a child. But what does it mean to wait for a brother? What does it mean for the finish line to keep moving when you are 7, or 5, or 3?

I know the toll that it has had on me, all the ways I've been changed on this journey that has been so much harder and sweeter, so much more challenging and beautiful than I thought possible when we began. But I won't ever know all the ways it has changed my daughters.

I won't know who Ava would have been without this as part of her life's journey. I like to think that it has made her life richer and fuller. That it has lent a sweet expectancy to her middle childhood that it wouldn't have otherwise had. But I also know it has given them all a more distracted, irritable mother than they would have otherwise had.

We are all in it together. Including Yonas, 8000 miles away, who has borne more than all of us put together. We are all in it together, and have been from the start, because that's how families are. We drag each other along our paths, chosen and not chosen. We stand beside each other, we fight together, we make our clumsy way on this crazy ride together and hope we're all holding hands tightly enough to still be standing at the end.

Ava can't realize now how choosing to label herself through the lens of this adoption felt like an act of solidarity to me. How it opened my heart to her, how I wanted to cry, "Yes! Yes! I'm A- adopting a son from Ethiopia, Ashley!!". She doesn't know she reached across the cosmic thread to me, not as a daughter to her mother, but from one human to another struggling one. She doesn't know she reached across to Yonas that day too. Neither does he. But they will someday. Because we're a family.

Why We Couldn't Possibly Travel on the 27th. Even if They Begged.

It's become painfully clear that traveling on the 27th would have been a disaster. First of all, I'm quite certain we are going to have a stomach virus that day and you can't possibly fly while you're busy vomiting. And I now can see that for some insane reason Erik and I would have spent the longest leg of our journey seated apart, but both next to people who snore and wear too much perfume.

And I hate to say it, but I know now that at some point the plane would have crashed. AND they would have lost our luggage.

And most importantly of all, we would have missed the first episode of the new season of Lost.

We were saved by the skin of our teeth.

Back to February 11th

It didn't work. Even though the NVC electronically forwarded our paperwork onto Ethiopia on Friday, when our agency checked, we were not in the system. So our tentative travel date is now February 11th again. We thought for sure we'd make it. As Erik said, we needed a win.

Yesterday evening, another traveling mama that promised to check on Yonas for us emailed me. She said he was sweet. That when she asked the nannies where Yonas was, he recognized his name and looked up. They were outside for sunbathing time and Yonas was sucking his thumb. She said his hair was long and curly and that he was wearing a Green Bay Packers shirt. She rubbed his back and he smiled at her without taking his thumb out of his mouth.

I hardly slept at all last night. But I did dream of Yonas. Erik put him on the changing pad in our room, the place I changed Safa's diapers, and I took over. It was a giant, messy poop diaper and I kept needing more and more wipes. It was everywhere. He did that thing toddlers do sometimes and kind of kicked a little and poop got on my hands, and I dropped the poopy wipe on the floor. Then I woke up.

It was heaven.

On the Horizon

We now have a new tentative travel date for January 27th. It's only a two week difference from February 11th, but it feels much more reasonable somehow.

The Great Eastern Sun is rising.

Winter

On Friday we were given a tentative travel date of February 11th. At the earliest.

After Erik and I picked our hearts up off the dirty ground, dusted them off, and put them back inside, we realized this is 7 weeks before the year anniversary of when we were matched with Yonas. A year.

The holidays both here in the States and in Ethiopia are causing added delay. January 7th is Genna, Ethiopian Christmas. People like to celebrate this time of year. They like to take breaks from work. They like to be with friends and family.

This time of year people stop to remember a birth and re-birth. That life on earth will begin to return because soon there will be more light in our days. And hope for better things to come.

Mindful Monday: Expanded

I began a post Thursday morning to tell you that Erik was meeting with someone from our congressman's office at the urging of our specialist to try to help speed up the processing of our adoption case. I didn't finish that post. Later that afternoon we received a letter from USCIS, which is the governmental agency that processes international adoptions. It said our update was incomplete. The one we sent three weeks ago after the Social Work Scramble. Erik quickly made an appointment online and drove to the USCIS field office in San Antonio Friday morning. He met with with the officer that has been handling our case. It doesn't change the time we've lost, but we did put a human face to our names. A desperate father wanting help to bring his son home is hard to forget.

If you only recently began reading this blog, you might not even know we were adopting a son for as little as I've been able to write about Yonas lately. You might not know how my heart aches for him. How much I miss him. How I can't stare at his picture anymore. How I no longer look at the clock in the living room that reads Ethiopian time multiple times a day and wonder what he's doing. You wouldn't know I can't go into his room without my stomach hurting.

Sitting 9 months post referral with no travel date in sight, it begins to feel like a fantasy. Or maybe not a fantasy, but something so far away, so nebulous, that I begin to lose my sense of it. I begin to feel as though I've made the whole thing up.

Sometime over the summer, I made peace with this process. I was full of genuine grace and patience. I could see and believe and trust. Last Thursday night it all fell away. It broke me. I'm a "where's the lesson here?" kind of gal. Because if I'm struggling, then I'll be damned if I'm not going to try to see the bigger picture, find the lesson. So I've been searching. And I can't find anything. But I have an annoying, gnawing suspicion that it's the searching that's enough. I don't want it to be. I want to shut down, to fill up on tequila and dark chocolate and movies. And I have done that a little bit. But what I see through the lens of my busted heart right now is a hint of that idea that all of it; the waiting, the uncertainty, the love and sympathetic tears of friends and family, our pain, the occasional shutting down for self-preservation, the moments of grace; it's all just how it's supposed to be.

And it kills me. And it doesn't feel bearable. But it is, just because it has to be.

Wordless Wednesday

His Last Name Is Romberg

We found out earlier in the week that Yonas has now been moved from the Bethel Orphange in Nazret to our agency's care center. And although it was a necessary step, I hate that he has left the place that he has known for so long. All new nannies, new bed, new food, new toys, new smells. The good news is that the other children being adopted from Nazret all moved at the same time, so he will have some familiar faces. This is a bittersweet time now, as we make the final steps to get him home, he is bearing the pain and loss without adults he trusts. It is a necessary part of the journey he makes to become our son.

We also received his birth certificate today, which is a huge next hurdle. This was the next big step, so that feels really good. In the top left corner there is a small picture of him, a copy of his passport photo that was taken this week. He looks worn down, traumatized, and weary. It kills me. They also shaved off all his beautiful hair. This is standard procedure, it lessens the amount of work for the nannies and keeps lice to a minimum. I knew it was coming, but he is not the boy he was in his social report. He has lost more in his 18 months than I ever will. And it shows all over his face right now.

I want to be there now, to hold his chubby hand while he walks, to watch him sleep, to help him heal and trust we are his final, forever stop. No more sweet boy. No more. Hang on just a bit longer.

We are coming.




P.S. I will bring the funny tomorrow. I swear.