Glimpses

I do just want to put it out there that even for me/us it doesn't all suck being home. :) How's that for a cheery disposition? This absolutely does join my list of "Top Three Hardest Things I've Ever Done". I'm not sure what got bumped off the list to make room for this. It was probably something like "Dear diary today I went to Starbucks and they had already sold out of cheese danishes, life blows".

It still is hard. It's still more than I feel comfortable/willing/happy/successful at being engaged in, but I'm working through it. In my own special way. It is not like what I feel for the boys. It's just not. Part of me says that it will NEVER be the same and then another part of me tells that first part of me to SHUT UP! I mean, KABOOM, that's the biggie right there. It's nothing like my feelings toward my sons. I adopted specifically because I thought I could love another woman's child just like I do the boys. And right now I'm not, I can't and part of me feels like I don't even want to. Can you all see me drowning in a rushing wave of guilt? I don't know why (maybe so Peanut doesn't feel bad when he learns how batty I went after he was born) I have to walk this road right now (sorry, I'm mixing my metaphors) and I've asked God constantly to take struggle away from me, but instead he says "Let's walk together"  and so I sigh, whine, cry and stomp my feet along the way. But since God is much more gracious than me I'm getting glimpses of the other side so that I'll know where I come to it whenever and however I get there.

I do have a diagnosis, but I'm not ready to share it. Be prepared though....

Sorry, FB friends, you've all seen these. I thought we had some newer ones, but I guess they're still on the camera. Just to recap....

1) Struggling mightily
2) We are making strides
3) Thanks for praying

Travel Post 2

Thursday Afternoon-Union Hotel: I'm sitting at a table looking out a wall of windows. Behind me Andrew is napping on a bed that is the smidgiest bit softer than the floor. Luckily, the last two weeks of crazy preparations included eating a lot of junk food so I have extra padding even though the bed has none.

Outside our window and to the right in the background are green trees and then rising hills in browns and greens with houses, buildings, roads here and there. It is beautiful. It's the kind of land that you can see is still natural, unspoiled by a demand of "more, more, more" and covered up by an ugly city. It's real countryside. I can't wait to have an opportunity to see more of it.

To the left directly across the street is a building under construction. It's surrounded by a wooden scaffolding that looks woven together like the track of a rollercoaster, the kind of rollercoaster that you would not ride. Directly beside that is what looks like a big house, even to me, so maybe a mansion by standards here. It's pretty sweet. I'd live there! It also looks empty.... The slope of the roof is a little modern (for me), but I don't mind. It's 3 stories (!), lots of windows on the front, a 2nd story balcony and a very nice courtyard. I think we'd be very happy there. :) Next to that are two other houses. One is a littler nicer than the other, but I guess to an American viewpoint they'd both be "slums", but that's not what they are. They both have aluminum gates and roofs. The walls are crumbly, but intact and I can see someone has their laundry hung out to dry. They're just living their lives. People are coming and going. It's just life like it is anywhere else. Beside those is another new, bug building that is pretty fancy. It only has scaffolding left on the back portion. Our driver told us it will be another hotel.

To the left of all that is the Holt Care Center. We don't get to visit today so I'll just keep staring.I can see down into their courtyard. I've seen nannies walking about in their uniforms, but no kids yet. The curtains into the rooms are closed. (In hindsight...I don't think they ever open the curtains, ever. I don't think the kids are used to much sunlight...) We can see into the guard shack with a cot and a sleeping guard. They've spraypainted the insides of the gates with brightly colored swirls, dots, ABCs, and shapes. There's nothing to indicate that the kids play outside anywhere.

Looking back: The hotel is really nice despite our rock-hard  bed. The staff are friendly and constantly available. The internet never never never worked and that was frustrating. The food was excellent. I thought it was as good as and better than most other places that we ate. Breakfast as a buffet and was actually my least favorite meal. There were a few things that we good, but there could be quantity issues and then the thing that you like wouldn't be available. Lunch and dinner were both by order and were very good no matter what I got although they could be very slow. The steps are hardcore! I always kind of thought the people who whined about the steps were babies...but wowza! It's a lot of steps, high elevation,and then carrying a reluctant thirty pound toddler. Yikes! My apologies to you have gone before me! :) I also liked that the hotel wasn't squirreled away and guarded like some of the fancier hotels. It's Ethiopian owned and operated and just tucked away in a little neighborhood. My only issue with our entire experience was the incredible foul raw sewage smell that would sometimes float up from the duct taped grate in the floor. It wasn't all the time, it wasn't even most of the time, but it sure was sometimes and it was AWFUL. To cope we kept the bathroom door shut all the time preemptively and kept the window in there open and at the most worst peak smell I rubbed my perfume under my nose..

A little more about the food at the hotel...the traditional Ethiopian tibs with injera rolls was really good. I ate that multiple times.The pizza was always very good. I can't remember the name of the one that was my favorite...the Union Pizza maybe... The pizza is big enough that you'll need two people to eat it. Shonda and I shared several times. The spaghetti with chicken was very good too. Little Miss liked the rice dishes, but made a HUGE mess everytime. I didn't really like the juice because it was just so thick. It was like juice-gel and I'm a texture person and it just wasn't working out for me...They make a great cappuccino, it's basically a glorified hot chocolate, but it's great. The coffee is obviously good, but very strong so watch out if you don't like flavor. They do serve it in little tiny cups, but they'll keep making it for you. :)  I also liked the shredded barbecue chicken sandwich, but I don't remember what it was called. The food is all added to your bill (the prices are ridiculously reasonable) when you tell them your room number each time and sign a slip of paper. We just tipped at the end instead of tipping for each meal. It was a really great setup and I never got tired of the food there although I was longing for familiar food halfway through the time...hence the cappuccino.

Truth & Disclaimers

It's hard to talk about our "situation". For a lot of reasons. My social worker told me that it was great that I was/am so open about how I'm feeling and what's going on. I brushed it off because as I explained to her I'm a really bad liar. I've been through bad situations before and I was ashamed at the mess that I had gotten myself into and so I lied lied lied. Funny thing about lying. It doesn't help. It leaves you alone, scared, and unhelped. And since I'm a bad liar people would know that "something" was wrong, but they wouldn't know what and people who love you and want to support you don't know how. Lying makes everything worse. Ya'll if there's anything that I do NOT want right now it's "worse"!

So, I talk honestly even when it's hard. And it IS hard on so many levels. It's hard to talk to almost everyone. But I am trying. I am talking to my husband, to my social worker, to my mom, and to select friends here and there. It's still hard. It's like having your heart grated and then the shredded pieces spread out on a platter so that your guests poke and prod until they find the one that looks the most interesting to them. It's all done with the best of intentions and in the name of healing a wound, but it hurts every time just the same. (Kind of like being adopted, I'd guess)

There are so many emotions involved in our adjustment issues and those emotions have a lot of depth. Talking is good, but words can be misused. Deep emotions can lead to saying something that shouldn't be said, to mislabeling something, to ascribing too much or to little importance to something. Deep emotion pretty much guarantees a misstep somewhere.

I plan on being pretty honest on this blog about our process, progress, successes and failures. But, before I open up like that I have to put out my disclaimer.

Dear Little Miss,

"IT'S NOT YOU. IT'S ME."

Love,

Your momma

Now, that was kind of a funny (in my opinion) way of stating something serious.  

The issues that we're dealing with are MINE. This child is not "doing anything" to me. She isn't bad. (No Pat Robertson, there were no demonic influences in her early life...) This is not her fault. She is the victim here, NOT ME.

 She is reacting to a series of events totally beyond her control. Can you even IMAGINE how whacked out her world has been for the past not-yet three weeks? As an adult, I cannot fathom how stressed out and miserable I would be if our situations were reversed.

I really am trying to remember this in my dealings with her throughout the day. She is a scared, sad little girl. This is NOT her fault.

I'm trying to remember that and I need you to remember that I'm remembering too. So, three days, three weeks, three months from now when I'm freaking out about how hard it is and something "terrible" that happened during the day and I'm not careful enough about how I phrase my post and I make it sound like she's somehow responsible for my less than emotionally stable self don't worry I know better.

Travel Post 1

I'm taking a little break from being the Queen of Whine to bring you the first installment of our travel series.

We left on Tuesday, April 27, 2010. The majority of my posts will be straight out of the travel journal that I took with me. I will intersperse some comments and memories that I did not get journaled. The last posts from after we took custody on May 4th are not from my journal. As you all know at this point, our experience with Little Miss has been challenging and it started immediately. I did not get any "on the spot" journaling done after we took custody so there will be a little more "distance" in those posts. I think that is probably good for everyone! A note about the pictures...they are all unedited. I actually haven't had a lot of free moments for photo editing....

So, without further ado:

We left Tuesday afternoon. Andrew's mom was here to watch the boys. We put Pickle down for a nap before we left. It was very sad. I just wanted to hold him forever. There was no  part of me that wanted to take them with us, but I did not want to leave them. We kept Peanut up until we left. He is old enough that we felt like it would be better for him to see us leave and say goodbye then to say goodbye and just be gone when he woke up. All morning he would tell me how sad he was that we were leaving and how he didn't think it was a good idea. It was hard. I shed a few tears upstairs alone at a couple points over the morning. Overall, I think I was just really quiet that morning. I was determined not to cry when I said goodbye to Peanut. I was worried  about leaving him. He's our sensitive soul (okay, I'm tearing up now in retrospect...) and I knew it was going to be hard on him to have us gone, but I didn't want him to see me crying. I did manage to leave without crying and I didn't fall apart in the car either. It was so hard to leave. I wanted just to lock myself inside the house with my boys.

We flew from Regan to JFK via Delta. It was short and uneventful.

9:27pm, 4/27/2010: We're getting ready to board for Dubai. It still feels surreal to me. I can't get it to stick in my brain that this is real, NOW. All this time I've thought about "the end" of our adoption, but only  in brief spurts because it made the waiting worse. Now is the time to let my mind dwell on the end, but my brain has ingrained the "think and move on" tactic. I don't think it will be real until I'm seeing AFRICA. I want to know what Africa looks like. I've wanted to go my entire life and now I'm on my way.

We flew Emirates and it was pretty swanky. I mean we were in coach and there was the normal four inches of space between you and the seat in front of you, but it was nice. Each seat had it's own tv with a TON of music, movies, and games to play. The food was pretty good, and it made the flight pretty bearable. I think Andrew has a few choice words for people who get into their seat and immediately recline all the way back and stay that way for the entire flight, but oh well.... The business class and first class sections were WAY nice. I mean, WOW! If we could have afforded an upgrade it would have been totally worth it. A few people got bumped up and that's just stupid. :)  We were on the right hand side of the plane where it was three seats deep. We had the aisle and window seats booked and we were happy that the middle seat stayed empty.

4/28 or 4/27...I don't even know...Dubai: I thought Dubai was going to be cool, but it seems a bit overrated. It doesn't seem to have any depth or substance to it--it's a like a city of shopping malls and fancy-pants hotels. We got to the airport in the evening. It was pretty empty which seemed strange. It was clean and fancy, lots of Rolex wall clocks if that's your thing. It was confusing about what we were supposed to do after getting off the plane. I was so glad I wasn't by myself. Already, it's bringing to mind how normal it is for me to be part of the majority and know what I need to know. Being on the outside of that even as an adult with my husband only temporarily out of my element is intimidating. It's not scary to be in the airport or the hotel, but it would be to be "loose" in the city with no language skills. I recognize a few useless phrases from listening to Andrew over the years, but I'm content not to go wandering here.

The hotel is nice. Strange to see receipts written out by hand. Andrew talked to a guy with two little kids on the shuttle to the hotel. They started in English and when the other man was struggling with that Andrew switched to Arabic. He (Andrew) smirked at me when I had to ask what they talked about. Mean. :) We signed up for a 2 hour night tour of the city. It cost $60 and we thought it would be cool, but it was a let down. At least we got to see some things, but it wasn't what  I expected.

I was exhausted after the tour and fell asleep pretty quickly. We had two twin beds in the room, a sticker on the ceiling to show us where Mecca was, and a strange light system thing. To turn the lights on and KEEP them on you have to put your room key in this little box thing on the wall. It took us a few minutes to figure that out. We saw the men's and women's prayer rooms, walked through a gift shop (I still wish I had bought a little camel toy) and ate an overpriced dinner in the hotel (that we were supposed to receive a voucher for, but did not). We spent $100 on tour, dinner, and candy to combat exhaustion.

Thursday: We got up this morning before our wake up call because that seemed like it was cutting it too close.  We ate power bars in the room, got our stuff and went down to the shuttle for the airport. They pack those buses full. Everyone sits down and then there's seats that pop up in the aisles.

There was a little more confusion about figuring the airport out and lots of walking. It's a big place. There were many more people this morning which felt more natural. We had Cinnabuns and coffee for breakfast. Mmmmm. I was also able to use the Wi-fi on my phone to check my email, facebook, and do some chatting. It was a very nice last chance to connect with people.

I can see Africa out my window!! We're flying over some water...geography, not my strong suit...and Andrew says I'm looking at Dijbouti. The lady sitting next to me took my window seat and since it was a short flight I didn't say anything so no pictures.

I started to get emotional in the airport. I might get to meet my daughter today, or if not today then tomorrow for sure. (It was not that day) My sweet girl. Okay, small break to fill out some kind of entry card. We don't know what's going on when we get off the plane, again, so this will surely bring out the best in us...

I can't believe this is finally happening. There's been a bubble of expectation and hope slowly building in my chest since we started this adoption process. I can feel it building building building making my heart and lungs work faster. It's like a loaf of bread dough--left to double in a warm place for 60 minutes, then you punch it down. We're almost to the "punching" part when I'm not left to rise/wait anymore.

I wonder how ready she is, how ready we are, but I'm ready. Good thing too because "ready or not here we come!" 22 minutes until we land in Addis.

Those pictures are 1) me in New York before we really traveled anywhere. You'll note that I'm reading my JD Robb book while in New York and they all take place IN New York. No, I didn't plan it like that, exactly.  2) The direction of Mecca. 3) The Atlantis resort in Dubai where you have to pay to even enter the lobby. All the oppulance of Dubai really irritated me when I was on my way to a country where children starve to death everyday. 3 & 4) More big fancy buildings in Dubai.

This is a song that's really speaking to me right now.

"Hold Me Jesus" by Rich Mullins

Well, sometimes my life
Just don't make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small 


CHORUS: 

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace
And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It's so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart 


CHORUS 


Surrender don't come natural to me
I'd rather fight You for something
I don't really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I've beat my head against so many walls
Now I'm falling down, I'm falling on my knees
And this Salvation Army band
Is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin 


CHORUS 


You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace