Water = Life = Love

Tomorrow. Let's talk H2O.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Silence.

The silence of my phone not ringing 817 is deafening.
Way more so than the silence before we received the call with our referral.

There is a long list, a super long list, of stuff that we need to get through before bringing home baby boy. But somehow it remains long without anything checked off.

We are trying to be patient.
Trying and failing.

Come on 817... Ring! Today!
:)

edited to add: this post got me off my bum and there are now three things checked off my list. Nothing like a little pity party to motivate! ;)

The theme of this adoption: Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

First you wait for your paperwork to be finished. Some of this is in your control and some of it is not.

You wait for your referral when you are matched with your child. :)

You have a few days of euphoria mixed with anxiety as you obsess over EVERY detail of EVERY picture and EVERY note written down about your child.

If you are lucky enough to receive your referral while courts are closed you get to relax (yeah right) in the knowledge that your phone will not be ringing with a court date for, in our case, seven weeks. While courts have been closed we are hoping hoping that our son’s original orphanage was able to collect all of his paperwork and get things in order ready to submit to the courts the day they open.

Back to The Wait and you wonder, “Did our paperwork get submitted yet? Will it happen today, tomorrow...”etc etc

Next step, you wait for the phone to ring again with your court date.

This wait, for those of you crumbling waiting for your referral, I’m sorry to report, that THIS wait is waaaaaay harder. As I look at every photo a bajillion times a day and watch the amazing short video clips we’ve received from other amazing Mamas....I am sad. I’m sad that he is growing and changing and we are missing it. I seriously want to hop a plane NOW.

All last weekend Davis pretended to be flying on a plane to Ethiopia to pick up her baby brother. Even when we grew weary of the game she just flew by herself and would say, “Look Mama! It’s my baby brudder! I went to pick him up all by myself...cuz I’m four years old and I can do that!”

When the phone finally rings with the lovely 817 area code we will receive two dates. One for the date our case will be presented to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, MOWA, and a second date for when we will go before the Ethiopian courts to make our statement of desire to adopt this child. MOWA must rule favorably on our case before moving to step 2 and we only have to be present for this second step.

And then?? Yup, you guessed it, we wait. The wait between passing court and the U.S. Embassy date is approx 2-6 weeks. It all depends on how many families are in the queue. We can either come back home while we wait for our embassy date, or we can stay in-country.

The moments we get down or frustrated or sad, we look at these pictures and video of a BEAUTIFUL BOY and we fall head-over-heels-in-love over and over and over. And we know that once we have him home all of this will fade and none of this waiting will matter one bit.

9.11

My heart and mind can instantly go back to that day nine years ago as if it were yesterday.

There is only one word to explain the feeling:
Heartbreak.

Name game.

We still have not decided on a name.

Davis has been throwing names in the hat for months. Here they are in a list, complete with her very solid and sure arguments for her choices.

Davis.
Mama: Really, Davis? TWO Davises?
Davis: Yes, TWO. Then you can just say "Daaaaaaaaaaavis" and we will both come running."
hmmmmm. Efficient. I like that.

Orla.
Davis' BFF had a baby sister in July. Her name is Orla.
Mama: TWO Orlas? Even if it's a brother? Orla?
Davis: Yes, then M will have an Orla and I will have an Orla. And it will be fair."
Laughter. But we eventually have to be very direct that there would not be TWO Orlas. She does not believe us.

Spencer. Nicholas. Jada.
Little brother of another friend. Children of two other babysitters in our neighborhood. Same reasoning as above.

In the car coming back from seeing Lion King with Mama, Auntie K, Mimi and fav cousin M, she says randomly "What about Luca for a name?"
Mama: I LIKE that.
Davis in disbelief/shock: You DO!?!

Other names in the mix:
Shu Shu, Tootsie, La La,
and my all time fav, Miss LaRose.

The story of THE call.

Here's how it all went down.

Monday morning Rolyn and I head to the NY International Gift Fair to work our booth for wee see. These are long days but also fun. The first two days of the show were great. I am wondering constantly where we will go IF we get the call. I have my flip camera in my purse, justincase. Monday comes and almost goes. About 10 to 5 I say to Rolyn, "Well, siiiiiigh, I guess it's not coming today." There was no need to explain that IT was. He simply answered, "yup."

My little cousin and her husband flew in earlier that day to spend the week. I sent a text asking where they were. They had stopped for a bathroom break and a cold drink at a bar just a few blocks from the convention center. So I decide to leave early to meet up with T&D and then head home. I mean, because, the call is NOT happening today...

So excited to see them and we are chatting away. They had been to our place and spent some time with Davis and then bravely headed into the city to explore. We were in the middle of the crazy scary story of how their house burned down just a month ago... when. my. phone. rang. 817.

I stared at the number in disbelief. And then thought ok, who is this? See I have lots of friends and family members that live in the 817 area code. Recently the IT dept at work "fixed" my email by deleting all of my contacts, so sometimes I'd get a call from 817... get excited and then it would not be the call. This has happened more than twice.

But. Something felt different as I said "Hello?" Then I heard Natalie's voice and the words "Hello Heather I have your referral!"

Instant tears. Bawling. Joy.

T&D knew what was happening but no one else in the bar did. I told Natalie I was not with Rolyn and I needed to call her back. Just as I was about to hang up, she mentioned I should write down her number. Oh. Right. Yes. So I look at our bartender and say scream "I NEED A PEN!" Every bartender handed me a pen. I wrote down the number and then realized this might look like something tragic just happened so I told the bartender this was HAPPINESS. T&D explained to everyone as I told Natalie I'd call her back in 10 minutes.

My head is spinning. WHAT?! This is it?! Where am I?

We hop into a taxi, going the wrong way, and head back to the convention center. I decide not to call Rolyn to warn him. And then it hit me I didn't ask if it was a boy or a girl! This was the one piece of info we had agreed I could ask Natalie before we could get together to hear all the info. And I completely spaced it. I told T&D how Davis had been certain it was a baby sister for months and months and months. That she was not backing down and I wondered if she was on to something. T&D then tell me Davis told them that she wanted a baby brother and that her baby was going to be a boy. REALLY??? Yes, really.

We get to the Wee See booth, I see Rolyn and again the tears start flowing. He is confused but he knows what's up. It's pretty much closing time at the show so we go out in the lobby to call Natalie back.

We were using my cell as a speaker phone and Rolyn pulls up the email on his phone. And then we saw our SON. There are no words. We are in awe. Instant LOVE.

We call our families. More tears.

We rush home to tell Davis. Rolyn and I spend the entire subway ride home flipping back and forth and forth and back through seven pictures of the most beautiful boy we've ever seen.

We let our babysitter go home for the day. Coincidentally another little cousin is at our place. She's here doing an internship for a few months and had stopped by to say hi to Davis. We sit on the sofa with Davis in between us. And then we show her his sweet face. "Awwwwwwwwwwww. He's so handsome!" declares Davis.

As we all prepare to have a champagne toast... we look over and see Davis flipping back and forth and forth and back between seven pictures. She is kissing the screen and talking to him and telling him how much she loves him. She was not doing this to put on a show for us. She is in her own world.

Tears.
Again.

And then she says, "Let's call him Tootsie!"

Smile.
Laughter.

Silent thought in my head: um, no. We shall not call him Tootsie.

Patience.

A good friend sent this to me after my desperate plea for patience on the book of face.



This wait is breaking my heart. Just want to hop a plane to Ethiopia and hold my boy. But for now, finding patience wherever I can will have to do.