"THE COCOONING POST"

We live in a world where everything is expected to happen quickly: fast coffee, fast food, fast everything. I need to share a hard truth with you: Adoption, unfortunately, is NOT a category in life where anything ever is fast.

I love all the encouraging comments people are leaving on the pictures we have posted of our new daughter on Facebook: "Love at first sight!" "I can see the connection!" or "She knows you're her mother/father now!" "Wonderful, she trusts you already!"... I accept the comments for the love and kindness that is behind these words. At the same time, it is SO important for us (and our friends and family!) to realize that there is nothing fast or instant about adoption and attachment, especially not from our daughter's perspective.

Our family has known for a long time that we wanted to adopt, and have had years to prepare our hearts to welcome our daughter into our lives. I have spent hours at night imagining the first moments of holding our daughter, and the happy life we will spend together. From the moment of her referral, I have stared at her photographs, imagining the wonderful little person who lives far away, and who is our daughter.
When we finally got to travel to meet our daughter, when we finally got to see her in person, it was amazing, and exciting. My entire being was flooded with love for this small girl whose eyes seem to reflect the whole world. Feeling her soft warmth in my arms, looking in her eyes for the first time created a connection in my heart that will last for our whole life.

From our daughter's perspective though, being handed over to us for the first time was NOT a rosy tinted moment of instant love and connection. It was terrifying for her. She is old enough to feel stranger danger, and everything about us is "OTHER" to her. Initially too shell shocked to react, she stared at us, without reaction. This made some beautiful 'first meeting' pictures possible, but we could tell our daughter had retracted inside herself.
Once the shock of meeting us wore off, her *fight* surfaced. Our daughter screamed. Our daughter cried. Our daughter hit, and kicked, and clawed, and pinched, and bent herself backwards to get away, and screamed some more when she couldn't. When fighting proved futile, she finally gave up and fell asleep - an avoidance mechanism that helped her mind protect itself.

I don't blame her. She had just been handed over, out of the safe and familiar arms of her nanny, into the arms of 2 people she had never seen before, who looked different, smelled different, and seemed incredibly, eerily happy to see her! She is old enough to know that something important was happening, but still small enough that nobody seemed to have explained anything to her. What a scary and confusing situation this must have been for her!

Over the course of the next days, our daughter became more comfortable spending time with us, even seemed to enjoy our company. The initial hand-off from the nannies each day was always tear-filled though, and she was relieved to return to her familiar surroundings at the end of the day.

Our daughter has known enormous loss and pain in the two years of her life. We are choosing to keep her story private, so that she can choose whether (and with whom) she wants to share it when she is older. I can tell you though that our joy of welcoming our daughter into our family is preceded by a situation of both tragedy and brokenness. She has lost her first mother, and we have the honor and privilege to be her second family, her forever family.
Our daughter has spent more than half of her life in orphanages, and has been moved at least 3 times, each time with different caretakers. She was lucky: the institutions she has lived in are clean, and the nannies are attentive and loving. We are SO thankful for the love and care her nannies have provided her with. It is clear, seeing how she interacts with them, that our daughter is well attached to her nannies, and this attachment is a precious gift. This attachment means that she will be able to attach to us, once she has grieved the loss of her beloved nannies. That's right. Our daughter will need to grieve - again.

Her life at the Transition Home is currently her whole world, and as soon as we clear Embassy, we will joyfully, excitedly, yank her out of this little world to bring her home. Hers isn't a perfect world, but it is the one that is familiar to her: a world of nannies, and other orphans, and routines. She doesn't know yet that we promise a happy life together, full of love and adventure. She doesn't know yet that we have prayed for her since before she was born. She doesn't know yet that we are trustworthy and kind.

Our daughter has lived in a series of homes and institutions, and has had multiple caretakers in each. We expect that she has guarded her heart increasingly after each consecutive move. She doesn't know yet that her world won't change, again, half a year after she comes home. She doesn't know yet that she won't have to adjust to another set of caretakers after us. She doesn't grasp yet that we are her parents forever.
In a way, our daughter's heart is broken. This brokenness is part of her story, and hopefully, with time and love, her heart will heal, and her story will turn into something beautiful. We will do everything in our power to help make this possible.

We need to ask you, dear friends and family, to support us in making this possible. You can do this by respecting the boundaries we will set, and by encouraging us, and by praying for us (if you are the praying type). We need to take several months during which we spend time together as a family, without outside visitors.
We know you are eager to meet our daughter. We know this is going to be a sacrifice for you, too! You can briefly see her when we arrive at the airport... and then we ask that you please wait yet a little longer before getting to know her. This initial time together is so important for our daughter's long-term well-being. This intense time together will allow our daughter to heal and to bond with us at the pace she needs. This may take 3 months, it may take 6... we will adjust our time frame depending on how our daughter adjusts to life in our family, and we ask that you respect this.

The initial months together after an adoption are often called "cocooning" - time spent together, isolated from the outside world.
We ask that you extend lots of patience and grace to us during this time - isolating ourselves like this will not feel natural, and will be difficult for us, too! We love our friends and family, and we are thankful that we will not be alone in this.
What will our time of cocooning look like, specifically?

1. When we arrive at the airport, we would love for you to be there! We know you are excited to see our bundle of joy in person, and the airport is a good place to do this. Please don't touch or hug or kiss our daughter. I plan to carry our daughter in a sling, so please don't hug and kiss me either...
   
   
2. For several months, our daughter will be at home with one or all of us at all times (except for brief car rides to bring our boys to school). We will take turns taking the boys to church and to sports, while the other parent stays home with our daughter. Our home and our yard will be her world initially.
   
   
3. During our first weeks at home, (even though we adults will hunger for contact with other adults!) we will not be hosting visitors. If you are dropping by a meal (which is so amazing, and kind, and generous!), please don't expect to visit and stay... even though selfishly, we want you to - our daughter needs us to keep our cocoon tight.
   The length of the 'no visit' time will depend on how well our daughter adjusts. Please trust our judgement in this, and respect our boundaries.
   After a few weeks, we may welcome brief visits. When you visit, please don't hug, kiss, or ask to hold our daughter. If she approaches you, please allow us to guide her back towards us. Also, please don't give her gifts. At this time, she does not need more things (though we love the generosity of so many of you!). We are trying to keep her initial months as simple and as predictable as possible.
   
   
4. During our first weeks at home, we will limit electronics. We might not answer our phones quickly, or may let calls go to voice mail. We will answer texts and emails as possible, but please extend us grace in that respect. Encouraging messages are welcome, and we are looking forward to hearing from you (the social butterfly in me hungers to hear from you). Snail mail is also always welcome, though we may not be able to answer promptly.
   
   
5. We will be the only ones who hold her, kiss her, feed her, and tend to her needs. Our daughter needs to learn that we are the ones who will care for her from now on. Once we start welcoming visitors or we venture out, our daughter may seek affection or assistance from you. Please allow us to guide her back towards us.
   A toddler who has grown up in a normal environment would absolutely be welcome to come and explore and interact with a new person, at their own pace. A child who, however, is not yet firmly attached to her parents, due to being raised in an institution, may often show some indiscriminate affection. This behavior is part of a behavior sometimes called "parent shopping." A child who is not yet firmly attached to her new family will sometimes engage and charm a new person with the motive of exploring if the new person might be a good parent person.
   This possible indiscriminate affection behavior is why initially it will be important for us to guide our daughter back to ourselves, to reinforce that she doesn't need to look for other future caretakers, but rather, is safe with us now.
   
   
6. Our boys might feel like they are going a little crazy, cooped up. We would welcome them getting to visit their friends for play dates occasionally, to help keep their life somewhat normal.
   
   
7. We adults will definitely may feel like we are going totally a little crazy, cooped up. Please pray for us, encourage us, and re-engage us once we feel that our daughter is ready for us to venture out and about. 5 minutes of sane adult conversation with someone we don't live with may be very welcome occasionally...
   
   
8. There is a good possibility that we will forget a few birthdays and other important holidays. Please don't take it personally... 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our cocooning plan - we know that not everything makes sense to everyone. We are happy to explain the psychological basis that is behind these principals, and we have much research at hand that backs up the decisions we have made. The initial months at home are key to the rest of our daughter's life with us, and we are thankful to be surrounded by loving friends and family who will support our decisions.

Trip 1 to Ethiopia (extra short version)

The (really) short version: We flew to Ethiopia, we met our wonderful little bug, we passed court, and she is officially our daughter!!!

We hope to go back for Embassy in about 4 weeks (hopefully less).

Our trip was amazing, but jet lag is rough, and I still haven't sorted through all our pictures... but just wanted to post this for those of you who don't follow our story anywhere else. :)

Getting ready to hop on an airplane to meet our daughter!

It's been a while since the last update! The Ethiopian courts have re-opened now that the rainy season is over. We are counting down the days (single digits!) until we get to hop on an airplane to FINALLY meet our daughter! 

We got our monthly update today. Seeing our daughter's sweet face, her beautiful smile, and her sparkling eyes is a major highlight. At the same time, it's so hard to watch her grow up so much before we even meet her in person. It has been 205 days since referral day... and our little girl will be 2 years old next month!

(we can't show her face publicly yet)

The flight is SOOOO long, but knowing that our sweet girl awaits us at the other end makes it 100% worth it. After nearly 2 days of travel, we arrive in Addis in the wee hours of the morning.
We spend the first few days getting to know our sweet girl, and then we go to court, where we formally adopt her. Once we pass court, we are traveling to our daughter's region of origin, where we hope to meet the woman who cared for her, and to visit the orphanage she was brought to initially. Then we get another few days to spend visiting with our daughter, and then comes the hardest part: we have to go back to the USA without her. The US Embassy still has to process her immigration paperwork, her passport (with OUR last name) has to be generated, and a few other things have to happen. Once we get Embassy clearance, we get to travel back to Ethiopia (about 2-6 weeks after court), to take custody, and to bring home our daughter.

Please pray for safe travels for us, and that everything goes smoothly in Ethiopia. We will try to post updates, but internet access can be patchy!

Good news (update)

The last months have been a little crazy, so I failed to update....
The cliff notes: we received our MOWCYA approval letter, and then we received our PAIR letter after a successful i-604 investigation was completed by the US Embassy in Addis Ababa. All the pieces are falling into place, and with these final documents, our agency was able to request a court date for us!

Because the rainy season had begun by the time we got the above documents, our assigned date isn't until late October... but the good news is: we HAVE a court date, and the days will pass quickly until we get to finally travel to meet our daughter!

Some cuteness to share

Please continue to pray for our daughter as we wait to bring her home... that she continues to be healthy, and that her heart is prepared to join our family!

...still waiting on PAIR letter and MOWCYA letter...

It has been a few months since we received our referral, so I thought you might like a small update.

(we can't share our daughter's face yet, sorry!)

We are still waiting for a few parts of the adoption paperwork to be processed in Ethiopia before we get to travel:

First, we need to wait for the Ministry of Women's Children's and Youth Affairs (MOWCYA) to review our paperwork and our daughter's paperwork, and then to write the recommendation letter necessary to get a court date. This review was scheduled for May 29th, but they are currently back-logged by about a month due to several factors, including an extended power-outage in the MOWCYA building in Addis.

Second, we are waiting for the US Embassy in Ethiopia to complete the Pre-Adoption Immigration Review (PAIR) process. A few of our daughter's documents need to be re-translated before we can be submitted to this - translation errors can send up red flags and delays.

Once we have the MOWCYA recommendation letter and the PAIR letter, we get a court date, and travel to Ethiopia to meet our daughter in person, and to adopt her in the Ethiopian court. After this, she will officially be ours.
Then we have to travel back home while we wait for final Embassy clearance. Once we receive our Embassy appointment, we then travel back to Addis Ababa, to take custody of our daughter, go to Embassy, and finally, FINALLY bring her home!

Please join us in praying that we get a court date BEFORE the rainy season, during which the Ethiopian courts close for 3 months... 

Referral! Referral! Referral!

After 1319 days (43.5 months) of waiting, we got THE CALL today from our agency!!!! We have a daughter! 

She is 16 months old and SOOOOO cute. We can't share pictures of her until after we have passed court, but here is her little hand.

 

We are so excited and happy!

It will take several more months before we get to travel to meet her, and then several more weeks or months after that before we get to bring her home... so the wait is far from over. However, being able to see her little face makes the wait SO much more rewarding!

We have a daughter!!!!!

...yep, still waiting....

There is no speck of doubt in my mind that THE CALL (aka, our referral call) will come at just the time it is supposed to be, for the exact little girl who is supposed to become our daughter.

However, knowing this does not necessarily make WAITING any easier. I keep reminding myself that many good things in life are worth waiting for - but I still may (or may not) be going very a little bit crazy waiting. Among other things, today I sorted 3 bins of mixed crayons/ colored pencils/ markers into 3 nicely organized bins, 1 each of markers, crayons, and colored pencils. You know, because that DEFINITELY needed to be done. Not only that, but I tested every single marker, and discarded the ones that were dried up.

Anyway, to put a bit of a humorous spin on the fact that we are still waiting, I drew this little cartoon. If you click on it, it should enlarge in your browser, so you can see it better.

For all my lovely family and friends, THANK YOU for putting up with the little bit of crazy I might be exhibiting lately. I hope promise that I will return back to fairly normal at some point in the near future!

On a side note, I am fully aware that waiting is exponentially harder for our daughter. My heart and arms ache to hold her, and I know that yearning to be held and loved must be so much more difficult for our daughter, because she probably doesn't understand what is going on right now.

In the meantime... we pray... and wait... and stare at the phone WILLING it to start ringing with that 703 area code... and wait some more.

43 months since DTE!

It has been 43 months since we sent our dossier to Ethiopia!
Monday also marked 4 years from the day we first applied to our agency... but families don't get onto the wait list until they send in their dossier, which is a compilation of documents required by the Ethiopian government.

I was really hoping that we would have some news by now, but at the same time, I know that many of the best things in life are WORTH WAITING FOR.

Our DTE buddies (their paperwork got sent to Ethiopia the same day as ours did) got their referral call yesterday, so we are confident it will be our turn SOON.

Yesterday's Bible study included the following verse:
"Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." (Psalm 5:1-3)
We will continue to wait in expectation, until we hold our girl in our arms!

Walking on a beautiful beach last weekend helped put things into perspective!

Please continue to pray for our daughter, and for the other children and families at all stages of their adoption.

42 months since DTE

Our dossier has been in Ethiopia for 42 months now. That is 3 years and 6 months. 

We don't have any exciting news right now... we continue to wait! Several families got little boy referrals in the last few weeks though, so that is encouraging!

Our agency has expanded the expected wait time from 36-42 months to 36-48 months. This means we have been 'riding the wait time expansion' wave from the very beginning. The wait is hard, but we trust in God that HIS timing will be perfect.

I just finished this painting. I have girly thoughts on my mind!

We are ready your our little girl!

41 months since DTE!

Yup, it's been 41 months since we sent our dossier to Ethiopia.

If our wait was compared to an elephant's gestation period (which is 21 months), we would now have a 20-month-old baby elephant. 

That is one heck of a wait, folks... and we know it will be 100% worth it in the end!

The projected wait time our agency quotes is 36-42 months... so THE call could very much happen any day now... or in a couple of months (in case I lost you, I'm talking about our daughter, not a baby elephant now).

We are so excited to get the referral call... hopefully very soon! We are praying and waiting for you, sweet girl!