Yonas Hailu Romberg

I sit here stunned, blessed, trying to find the words to convey the emotions and the meaning of this day. The sleepless nights, the anxiety, the ache I feel for him in the deep night...

all eased by the light that now shines at the end of this tunnel that has been so dark at times, so much harder than I imagined when we began this journey...

He is my son.

Building a Tribe

I have not stated here, but should, that our original October 9th court date has been pushed to October 26th. I guess the good thing about experiencing multiple delays lasting months is that a couple of weeks isn't the end of the world. The delays over the summer were made bearable in large part due to Sarah, whom I've mentioned before. She and her husband have three children in the same orphanage Yonas is in and are still waiting on a court date. (Soon Sarah, soon!!)

I have felt grateful for her presence in my life, this woman so many miles away, this woman I know only through the magic of the internet. So many times a moment has passed and I think of Sarah moving through her day, missing her children, wondering how they are, as I miss Yonas and wonder how he is. And this: our children are sharing a home. They know each other.

And so Sarah and I have been on a quest for months trying to find others with children in the Bethel Orphanage in Nazret. And until last week our efforts were futile. But there are more. And we have found each other. And it feels like the most beautiful, amazing, important thing. Our children know each other. They are playing and eating and sleeping together before any of us have even met them. They are living together. They are sharing what we cannot yet share with them right now as I type these words. And now we, their parents, have found each other. And we can lift each other up and make each other smile and plan for a time when we can all come together as a giant family for our children who once upon a time shared a life together before we ever knew them.

The Romberg Family Creed

We gathered around the table to have a discussion about what we wanted our family to be, to stand for, who we wanted to be as a group and as individuals as we make our way on this crazy journey together. We talked. We listened. I wrote it all down:

"Be nice."
"Talk kindly."
"Say you are sorry."
"Don't grab."
"Be respectful."
"Ask instead of tell."
"Share."
"Help each other."
"Don't yell."
"Have fun."

Then we compiled our list and I wrote it on the wall at the end of the hall.






Once I was walking down the hall and felt like continuing out the door. It didn't seem peace-making or respectful. So I stayed. After all, we shook on it.

Blocked

It's been two months since I've posted here. I've tried and failed posting a video a couple of times, but beyond that I've felt relatively uninspired. And herein lies the rub. I know better than to wait for inspiration. I know that motherhood, with all its sweetness and tedium, all its beauty and need, will suck me in and pull down into a place I find difficult to climb my way out of if I'm not careful. But here I am again. It's been months since I've written any fiction beyond a page or so. Even longer that my hands have created anything that wasn't edible. And so I'm sinking.

I'm accutely aware of Yonas' impending arrival, that I'd better get my ass in gear and figure this out before we bring him home. And so my gut is in pain, my breath short, my body in a perpetual state of panic. In short, I'm a mess.

The problem is that the balance I seek is one that must be perpetually sought if you are a woman. The balance of self-care over caring for others. We are by nature and by nuture, caregivers. I have long felt that a huge part of my path in this life is to learn to make peace with and find space for my maternal and creative selves. I believe they can not only co-exist, but inform and buoy each other. But I also know that for that to happen, one must fight the good fight of finding time for self, time for silence and solitude, and for me, time to create. And it's not happening. And there is no blaming children or laundry, or lack of time. There is only me looking back at myself wondering how long I'm going to let this continue before I do something about it. I've been a mother for alomost eight years. It's not like I haven't had this conversation before. But this is a conversation that needs repeating, that must be screamed, that never goes away.

I don't know what the answer is for me right now. I know it starts with loving myself enough to take the time to figure it out. I think it might end with a metaphorical swift kick to the ass.

But I Miss Him

We found out on Tuesday afternoon that we will not make it through Ethiopian court before closure. This means that our court date will be sometime in mid-October (hopefully). This means that we will not hold our boy until December (hopefully). He will be 19 months old in December.

I do not presume to know the workings of the universe. I do not presume to question the intelligence of the way our lives unfold. I implicitly trust that these delays have a deeper meaning for any one or all of us that are on this path of getting Yonas home. But I miss him.

Maybe Yonas needs more time in Ethiopia. Needs more time to absorb in his cells the beautiful country of his birth. When we finally pass court, Yonas will move from the place he's called home for almost his whole life, to an agency run care center. Sometimes nannies will go with the children, but in Yonas' case this is unlikely. Maybe he needs more time at Bethel orphanage to be with the nannies that have loved him from babyhood into toddlerhood. I even thought maybe his nanny needs him for a bit longer.

Maybe Safa needs more time with me before adding a brother to the mix. Maybe Erik and I need a bit more time before we begin this next journey that will undoubtedly be challenging, this journey to help a toddler heal his heart and trust that we are his final stop.

And finally, and maybe most importantly, it will bring us to number five, or as Erik and I call him/her--Five. This delay will bring us to the next child that is meant for our family in the same way that everything unfolded to bring us to Yonas.

I believe and trust and surrender. But I miss him.

The Price of a Tender Heart

On Sunday morning I got up with Safa and Eden while Erik and Ava slept. It was early, maybe 7:00 AM. Eden promptly found the biggest click bug I've ever seen on the kitchen floor. I'm sure you know these insects. I'm sure they have proper name. They are the unfortunate, seemingly ill-conceived creatures that simultaneously "click" with a quick bend of their bodies and then pop up into the air much to the delight of children. I've always found them odd and once remember hunting one particularly "clicky" one in the middle of the night because it was keeping me awake.

The click bug Eden found was not doing so well. And because she loves all things living, all things nature, she watched and held it for awhile. I made coffee, got Safa some milk, checked my email and then about 20 minutes later came to ask her if she wanted some milk. She turned her head away from me and nodded a small "yes" and I could see she was about to break.

"Did it die honey?"
A face was red, her eyes were full of tears, and she nodded.
"Oh, sweetheart, I know." And then she fell apart. I gathered her up in my lap. "Oh, Eden you have such a big heart. I love your big heart. I know how much it hurts because that's how I am too."
I was quiet for awhile and just let her cry. I cried with her for the pain of knowing that she will go through life with her tender heart exposed to the world. I know what it's like.

I said, "I believe that because that click bug was a living thing that it matters that you were with it when it died." I wasn't placating her. I do believe this.

"Eden, I know what it's like to go through the world with such a sensitive heart. And I will tell you it makes life harder, but it makes life so beautiful and I wouldn't want to change the way I am. " This is almost always true.

Once on a visit to see my parents we saw "Gladiator" in the theater. I don't remember very much about the movie, only that it knocked me to my knees. I was so broken by that movie I could barely walk. I wept afterwards as we walked as a family through Sam's amazed at all the ways people could find to hurt each other. It can be embarrassing to be the only sobbing mess at a movie like "Gladiator". It can be embarrassing to be known as the one who swerved the car to miss the butterfly. I have learned to see this as a gift most of the time, but it can prove very difficult when you are, say, waiting to go get your son in Ethiopia.

I brought Eden the dried petals from the orchid that my sister brought to me on the day we were matched with Yonas to hold with the click bug. I'm not sure why. They were pale purple and beautiful and I knew that holding something beautiful would help. So I held my big hearted girl while she held a dead bug and dried flower petals and we waited for the pain to pass enough to get up from the kitchen floor and face the world.

The Hundred Acre Wood Personality Theory

I love personality theories. Love them. The Enneagram, Myers-Briggs---I'll take them all. A while back I wrote a post (here) about how exploring the ways that personality affects parenting can be incredibly helpful in seeing one's strengths as a parent and can relieve some of the relentless mama-guilt that plagues so many of us.

On our way back from berry-picking a few weeks ago, the girls were watching a Winnie-the-Pooh movie on the portable dvd player that we allow during car trips that last longer than an hour. And I heard Rabbit bitching about something and said to Erik, "Ava is Rabbit." We declared Eden Pooh, and I looked at Erik for a moment and said, "Who are you?...Oh my gosh! You are totally Owl!!" (He didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did.) And thus, the Hundred Acre Wood Personality Theory was born.

I have refined the Theory and have come to the conclusion that it gives a more complete picture of the person to combine two characters when determining personality type.

Our family is made up of the following types:

Ashley- Kanga/Rabbit
Erik- Owl/Kanga
Ava- Rabbit/Piglet
Eden- Pooh/Tigger
Safa- Roo/Tigger

It is simple. It is powerful.

Okay, so it's not powerful, but it is funny. What's your Hundred Acre Wood Type?

May 18th

On May 18th we celebrated Yonas' birthday without him. We had cake, we sang him "Happy Birthday" then at Ava's suggestion, "Melkam Lidet" to the tune of the only birthday song we know. I cried. We bought him presents. A wooden woodpecker walker, a bright orange Ugly doll, and of course, a soccer ball. When we first got our referral pictures of him, I cropped his sweet face, printed it out, cut closely around his head, taped it to a paint stir stick, and stuck it on a chair. So he's been at our table for awhile, and for a short few weeks his head made the rounds in different carseats in the car. He ended up crumpled and on the floorboard which just seemed wrong and uncool, so I took that one out.

We put a piece of cake it front of him, lit a candle, and sang. Or rather everyone sang while I swallowed hard and tried to mouth the words. We videoed the entire thing and then I took the recorder back to the room that will be his and blubbered a birthday message to him. I'm not sure exactly what I said. It will be a long time before I feel the need to watch it. There is a sweet, and maybe a little creepy, picture of his floating head with a piece birthday cake in front of him. Next May 18th will be better.

Introducing: The Sisters Romberg!!!!

We're strongly considering taking the act on the road this summer to make a little cash...

Uncle Yonas

It took me days to write what follows and it is random, and I apologize. I've been uninterested in life aside from learning about bulk cooking and reading David Sedaris. I can't seem to answer my phone or bring myself to be social. But I'm trying. Here goes:

It's been awhile since I've posted. It's been at least two months since I've written anything at all. I'm hermit-crabbing. And my shell its getting a little tight these days. I'm not sure what I need to say here, but today has been harder than the past week. So here I am.

Last night in central Texas there was bad weather. Like tornado bad. When the news tells me there's a tornado a few miles away and to get in a closet, I wake up my kids and get in a closet. Ava was terrified. She 7 years old. Sometimes age brings just enough understanding to scare the shit out of you. Eden didn't start crying until many minutes into the ordeal. Safa was like that drunk girl from high school---confused, and a little pissed that someone woke her up. The tears and snot flowed freely as we sat sweating in Safa's closet. I kept reaching for the panties in her drawer to wipe Eden's running nose. Erik and I kept telling them that we would be fine. I asked them to take deep breaths, I delivered Rescue Remedy under all our tongues as we huddled up and listened to the news waiting to be released from the closet.

As we waited I told the girls this: "When you're a grown-up, you're going to tell your kids about the time you had to get in the closet because there was a tornado so close to our house. Your going to say, "That night, and then, whatever your children call us, say Nana and Poppy, came and woke us up and we had get in the closet and we were so scared and we cried so hard and Aunt Safa slept almost the whole time. And Aunt Eden had to keep blowing her nose into Aunt Safa's panties."

And then Ava stopped me and said, "What do you want to be called?"

And something tender and deep in my heart broke open. I've never given real thought to what I might like to be called as a grandmother, but it was so huge, that moment for me. I said, "I'm not sure."
And then Ava said, "So Eden will be Aunt Eden, and Safa will be Aunt Safa?"
"Uh-huh. Isn't that funny to think about?"
"And Yonas will be Uncle Yonas?"
"That's right."

And we continued to talk about how they would tell the story of that night. And then the news freed us. So we moved the mattress that was covering us all, and we put the girls back to bed.

Here's the thing:

We need a court date. We need one soon if we have any chance of getting Yonas home before Christmas. Someone commented that it must be like being perpetually pregnant, yet no one knows. And it is a little like that. But today I thought, when you're pregnant, the baby isn't 8,500 miles away. I have a friend known to me only through the magic of the internet. She and her husband are waiting on their letter too. They have three children (THREE!) that are in the same orphanage as Yonas. I like to imagine them altogether. And I like to imagine the day I get to meet their family.

Here's something else I imagine everyday with closed eyes. I imagine a new building. I see workers sitting down to paperwork about a baby boy that has a family waiting in Texas. A baby boy that has been in care for a long time. A boy that will one day grow up to be Uncle Yonas. I see them writing a letter for him. Then I see them writing the same letter for three siblings that need to get home to their mama and papa that have been waiting and planning for them for years. I see them mailing those letters to whomever they need to be mailed to, to get us our court dates so we can hold our children. My friend and her husband decided they would join me and Erik in this visualization. She suggested maybe readers of her blog could join us. Maybe you could too...