Threads

Threads. Weaving together, pulling apart.
You know, adopting an older child is a completely different deal than adopting an infant or toddler. And its all new to us. (I know, doh!)
This time around is a strange new experience and process. Its surreal and odd and impossible to anticipate and filled with unexpected experiences, feelings, thoughts.
This time around, the entire event is much more complex, on all levels.
Really, it's just harder.

I know, this shouldn't be news. We were prepped, or thought we were (by which I mean, me). But really, some things in life you can "prep" for, you can intellectualize, do the research, do the math, run the numbers, stock the pantry, pray, wonder, imagine, speculate. But you know, just like anything else, you never really know what it's like until you do it. (Again, I hear you, doh.)

All this is to say that so far, already, this adoption has taken me places I didn't expect to go; both good and bad. But, one of the surprises to me are the threads.

There are a few tiny little threads hanging out, that we have been able to follow to the back of this tapestry and see. And it's one cool thing that, especially in these early days, I will hold onto.

You see, our Marta turns out, unknown to us prior to our meeting, to have a deep devotion to Mary. Yes, that's right, the Blessed Mother, Mary. Maram, she calls her, with a sigh and a smile.

Now, as Coffeedoc points out....no matter the new strangeness of this fit....what are the odds? Of all the children, millions of orphans, what are the odds that we would bring home a child who is so devoted to Mary? Good, you say? Maybe. But, honestly, we both think maybe not so much. How many deeply, openly devout teens do you know? How many of them have lived one or two lifetimes in the toughest of conditions already and still have that deep love and devotion? Well, we think the odds get pretty slim there.
But we, in our home, have a deep devotion to Mary (um, remember, Catholic...). Heck, our house is full of Mary icons and pictures and books and paintings and sculptures of Mary and her son - a veritable folk art/high art/kitschy/antique/homemade collectors corner of this. Our home might give someone who didn't have a love of religious art a start {Fair warning, visitors!}. But this part of our home sent her clasping her hand to her chest, saying "Oh! Konjo! Mom! Dad!" All with a mega-watt smile.

So, I write this to remind myself of this thread. It is knotted on the back of our tapestry. And I might need to lift it up and see it from time to time to remember that the odds are against us being brought together. As such, say what you will, I do believe that Mary had a hand in this. She loves with a perfect love and as such I can only hope that her love also rubs off on all of us.
Marta told us she prayed daily in front of an icon of Mary for her to pray for her and bring her a family, a mom and a dad.
Oh.
Visiting her church, Coffeedoc asked her if she wanted anything special from there, to take home with her. She asked to buy a bible and a prayer umbrella to present to the priest in thanksgiving.
Oh.So on those days (Why yes, this afternoon, now that you mention it) when I get a little overwhelmed and am juggling the senses and feelings and questions and hows of weaving all my kids together into a family - I want to be able to look and see this thread, this very important thread, and see the knot on the back. No matter the strangeness or the adjusting and discomfort or tugs, this is a reminder that just maybe, this one too was part of a bigger plan.

Being sewn together isn't always comfortable, perhaps.
But the tapestry, I hope and pray (and pray for trust), someday will be a beauty.

In the meantime......the Meet

Ok, I am jet lagged and recovering from being sicker than I've ever been....Not to mention the re-entry (and other ones now falling sick, but different kind) and reconnecting with my dear, sorely missed boys and the beginning of a whole new weave in our family. So, no real post for a bit.

There is SO much to process and adjust and sort out. It's wonderful surreal and strange all at the same time. Unexpected and indescribable and impossible to have guessed at all the things that come with adopting an older child, good, hard, wrenching, funny, surprising...the works. Either many posts coming or maybe not so many at all, we will feel our way through {calling on friends for tips; you know who you are!}. For now we are keeping close in, finding our way to new normal....

Until then.....{Shelly, here you go}:

Finally!

I don't have a picture yet, can't upload yet, I'm surprised I can even access Blogger.

That said...
We are here, we are here! In Addis Ababa!
And we are all together, finally!!!!

We have our Marta and I can't describe it. This is as best as I can do before my minutes run out, I promise more and better later but right now my muzzy jet lagged emotion whipped brain can only babble:
Tiny, sweet, smiling, shy, sweet, happy, overwhelmed, shy, tiny, nervous me, waiting to meet, leaping bear hugs, tearing up mom, unexpected, surprise, smiling, holding on, exhausted us, jet lag, long flight, good flight, Ayat house, hoorah, lots of rain, no language, pointing, laughing, looking, smiling, shy, eyebrow lifts, breaths intake, hugs, squeezes, hands holding, sitting close, sleepy, smiling, happy, crazy language gap, smiles, shy, sweet, tiny, together.

Sisters, all FOUR, together and smiling!!
Family no longer apart (soon all to be in same place, but for now, together) and smiling.

Whew.

Diving

So. Here we are. It's the day before we leave. And this time, we haven't gotten ANY phone call from the agency and instead of me in the curled up sniffling fetal position in the recliner as I watch my furious husband man the phones to Africa and the CDC in Atlanta....I am surfing back and forth through the house, up and down, packing, sorting, zipping, counting.

Duffel: zip. Laundry: fold. Shoes: find. Toddler: kiss. List: check.

It is a huge undertaking to travel, anytime, really... as a mom. With a trip where the family is split, you have to also plan and sort and prep for the kids left behind. You make the daily surprise bags with little happy nothings in them that will buy the babysitter a few extra minutes of happy busy time and you draw hearts on them from mom. You make these and set them aside, one per day per kid, no matter how old. You prep the babysitter notes and backups and house. You look at the garden and hope, again, that it doesn't die while you're gone. Then you turn to your packing, again, and you sort the clothes and backpacks and meds and books. And, inevitably, something is forgotten. Every time. {Ok, me...not SO organized after all}

And it's so easy, this time, so jumping giddy after so long waiting, to get swallowed up in this busy pack-o-rama. But last night, it hit me. Right about dinnertime, my stomach knew it before I did......we are about to plunge.

We are diving off a cliff.
That's sure what it feels like anyhow.

I've done that before, literally, on a baby cliff in northern California as a teen. It was what? Twenty feet high? Surely nothing. But I remember standing on the edge, trembling, afraid to stand too close, and feeling this same sick in my stomach. It looked so fun and everybody had splashed safely into the river. They didn't bash open their heads, they came up smiling...all good. Way back forever ago, in the dark ages when I stood on that cliff, a cute guy was standing by the edge and finally helped talk me into the jump. So, finally, feeling like a fool and with a great lurch in my stomach as the butterflies flew inside, I jumped. Not dove gracefully, mind you, but jumped feet first with a scream all the way down.
Obviously, I survived, with my dork factor intact, and in fact increased, but I did it. And I was glad.

I tell you all this to say that I have those exact same feelings now. I have looked over the edge, and I have a dear handsome husband standing next to me, encouraging me. But even so, I have those same butterflies swirling inside my stomach with both the excitement and the fear of jumping off this cliff. That may shock some of you, after all our ranting raging pining away to go get our girl.

But there you have it.

Every single time I have a child: by labor and c-section, by racing in planes or automobiles to go get them, near or half a world away, I have to fight off a bit of terror.
Because life changes, the universe shifts.
I know, I know, it already did.
But now, I am really, truly, leaping into the abyss of the new, the shifted.
And it's a little scary.

So I'm almost ready to go. Our bags are packed, almost. Our goddaughter arrives in the early morning to drive us to the airport. My toes are hanging on the edge. My husband is holding my hand to help my courage and I'm looking over the rim of the world, swallowing my fear and knowing I will make a fool of myself as I jump. I don't really know everything that will meet us, except a girl on the other side of the world....who might be just as nervous as me.

TOLO! TOLO! TOLO!

We got the all clear!
Marta's cultures are all clear!
We have an embassy date of next Wednesday, July 8th (my brother's 50th bday!)!

Natalie called this morning, early, right after Belay emailed her to say that the final report is in, it's all clear and the embassy will have the papers for Wednesday and we are good to travel.
I started to cry, because I'm a dork.
I couldn't help it and didn't expect to.
(Stop laughing, I know what you're thinking..but really I didn't expect to.)

And now it begins.
We travel today to go home, to do the final whirlwind of prep to leave for Ethiopia!
We go to bring home our new daughter and become a family of ten.
It's a good thing Coffeedad was right there and heard it all too as I keep having to double check to make sure it's real...it feels almost surreal.

Just. Wow.
Finally.
Thanks be to God!!
And to all of you, every one, for your prayers and support and, everything....and now I'm starting to cry again, so I'd better go pack.

Tolo! That's Amharic for "hurry, go fast!"
We are going, to Addis Ababa.
Gabey says this: "Fast fast fast!"
Marta too, I think, will say, "Tolo, tolo tolo!"

Because they have faces.......

This bill affects kids like my Gabey and our Marta (below), just a reminder...

Ok, you all know I don't do the politics thing...not really. Not here.
However, this is a political issue that is worth breaking that habit.

This bill needs support, it needs you all to contact your reps and let them know that it means something to you. This bill makes a difference, finally. This bill would keep families from getting stuck in the protocol snare that we did. This bill would bring families together, sooner. This bill would bring children home, sooner. This bill supports families. This bill makes an actual difference in our world, for good, not just for some pork barrel agenda. This is what the political process should be used for. So, contact your Senators, contact your Congressmen and women. Let them know that this bill is important to YOU.

And, once again, go to to the EACH site and sign up. McLane Layton is doing great important work. Help her make it happen! Read this, below, and then go do something to help.

Here's the press release, below:

Bill Introduced to Provide Citizenship Rights
to Internationally Adoption Children
of American Families

June 29, 2009 (Washington, DC) -- The Families for Orphans Coalition announces its support for the Foreign Adopted Children Equality Act (FACE Act) which was introduced last week in the Senate and House of Representatives. The FACE Act will allow American families to bring their internationally adopted children home as American citizens instead of as immigrants. The bill is spearheaded by Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and James Inhofe (R-OK) and Representatives Diane Watson (D-CA) and John Boozman (R-AR). The FACE Act simplifies the acquisition of citizenship for internationally adopted children and removes these children of American citizens from the immigration process.

The Foreign Adopted Children Equality Act addresses needed changes to the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (CCA) which was enacted to provide automatic U.S. citizenship to internationally adopted children of American citizens. As it stands now, the internationally adopted child of a U.S. citizen receives U.S. citizenship once the child enters the U.S. to reside permanently. If enacted, the FACE Act would allow such children to acquire U.S. citizenship at the time their adoptions are finalized in the country of the child’s birth. The child would then enter the U.S. as a U.S. citizen with citizenship documentation in hand.

“Passage of the FACE Act will eliminate the need for an immigration visa for internationally adopted children and instead will treat these children as children of American citizens, not immigrants subject to immigration regulations,” said McLane Layton, President of Equality for Adopted Children (EACH) and a member of the Families for Orphans Coalition. “Additionally, the FACE Act classifies internationally adopted children as “citizens from birth” just like children born of Americans overseas, thus providing them with equal rights of citizenship, including the right to run for President of the United States.”

“Under current law, the type of immigration visa an adopted child is given to enter the United States determines whether the child receives U.S. citizenship upon entry. Those children who do not receive U.S. citizenship upon entry and whose parents overlook the bureaucratic steps necessary to secure citizenship for their children are often later denied scholarships, passports, and the right to serve in the U.S. military. Most tragically, some young adults who have lived in the United States with loving, American families their entire lives have been deported to their birth countries - places they have no knowledge or memory of – for committing minor juvenile offenses. Half the children adopted internationally each year currently enter the States on the visa that places them at risk,” said Chuck Johnson, a Coalition member and Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for the National Council for Adoption. “The Face Act will resolve these issues and provide U.S. citizenship to all internationally adopted children of American citizens.”

The FACE Act also provides older orphans the ability to be adopted – children who were overlooked in the Hague Treaty on Intercountry adoption. “Prior to the Hague’s passage, children age 16 to 18 whose younger siblings had been adopted by an American were able to be adopted by the same American family,” said Terry Baugh, President of Kidsave. “The Hague eliminated all adoption opportunities for children 16 and over. The FACE Act will fix this oversight and expand the opportunity of a permanent family to all children up to age 18.”

The Families for Orphans Coalition was established in 2008 to support both domestic and foreign efforts that ensure every child lives, grows and thrives in a safe, permanent and loving family.

Marta, last summer.
This bill, if it had been passed, would have changed so much.
It still can, for so many others....

Final Countdown Approach; Second Edition

It is Sunday. It is my favorite time of day on the beach: that quiet time between afternoon and evening when the beach empties and the sun lowers and the sand still has the warmth of the day running between your toes. I look out to the waves and watch my Little Man and Miss M on the boogie boards, still. And I realize that I have loved this spot in the world best since I was a child, their age. And I know that they will bring their children here, or I hope they do...and they can love it as a home for their heart to rest too.

And then it crowds back in: we are at week nine. We are in the final countdown. The cultures are done. The final final (? yeah, it confuses us too) report is due at the embassy and doc on Wed.

And so once again, we are in a final countdown to launch.

We will soak up our last two days at the beach, gathering up the calm and the soothing of the waves and the sand.....packing it to overflowing as best we can in anticipation of the rocket launch of travel across the world to our new daughter and family.
A dear blog friend pointed out to me that this is our last time together as a family of nine.
Soon, we will be ten, together.

Officially we have to wait to Thursday (or God forbid, Friday, again) to get the all clear to go.
But, we all dare to believe that we are going.

And so, in my mind I have the checklist forming:
Donations: packed, still, in foyer.
Marta's suitcase: packed, still, in foyer.
And then the list of to do's before we go.....it can expand at warp speed in my brain.

But not yet.
For the next two days, I get to dig my toes in the sand and soak in the salty sun.
I am deeply grateful for the time here, in this special place.
I feel the countdown approach but I am going to push it back to enjoy this last sandy time on this beach before our world changes in my arms.
Or, I will pretend to.....because inside, I feel it.
The countdown, it's beginning.

Time

Salvador Dali, 1931, "La Persistencia de la Memoria."

The adoption process is about so many things: desire, love, fear, courage, grinding paperwork, intrusive questions (official and unofficial), endurance, faith, hope, delight, joy, despair, physical stamina, finances, community..... The list can go on and on.

But what is glaring throughout the entire process adoption is the element of time.

Timing, in adoption, IS everything.
Most of us have lived through, in exquisite detail, the time issues that press and pull during the process: the initial thrilling phase of deciding to adopt, the daydreaming, the fantasies played out in a 'not too distant future." Then comes the excruciating paperchase, the hurry up and wait on CIS or the social worker or this form or that. Then we have the exhilaration of the referral; time stops, because it has been redefined into "before and after."

It is not only 'before and after' referral, however, because time has, seemingly, just changed. The waiting has changed. Now it has a new layer to it. Now you are counting the hours and living with your heart and mind in two very distant time zones: what you are doing and what your child (who has a face and name that your are searing into your soul) is doing. But you can sort of move forward in more precise preparation and know that court will come. It becomes a goal. After you pass court (hopefully swiftly) typically you have that giddy breathless rush of packing and arrangements and sense that time has sped up. It has become a speeding locomotive, rushing straight at you. And your heart beats faster at it's approach.

I know those kinds of time. I've been there. Done them. I know how to 'surf' those kinds of waves of rushing or bogging time. Now, I am in a new kind of time. It's odd to me. I've been quiet for a few days or so, cut back blog and facebook, because I am literally in "process" time. I feel a bit like the painting above: surreal and droopy and just......hanging there.

This is not my kind of time.

We are in week seven, entering week eight actually. And I know I should be starting to feel the wind of that approaching locomotive: time is gathering itself to rush at me. But still, I am still. I feel the wait. I feel the weight. And I don't know what may come.

And so, in this surreal wait time; uncharted by others as of yet (this tb culture protocal wait), I find myself slipping between things. I get very busy, it's been slamming busy actually. And even so, it's like two layers: the busy right here, do this now layer, and the set aside twilight zone "waiting" layer. Very split. Surreal. It's not that I'm blue or depressed or fretting (tho I've hit those often enough of late). It just so different. It's Time out of time....even as it is Time so swamped in time. And it's bizarre. And I don't know much what else to do except kind of muddle through it in my usual clumsy fashion.

It's a different, unique, new, not so great, part of the adoption process time. Maybe, as it gets more familiar or God forbid, common, it will be less strange. I pray and hope and will fight if I can for it to not become common and in fact for it to be abolished...for this tacked on last endless minute of the process to be revamped or, best, cut off. This is a clock I would love to smash. I know, such a whiny post. This is why I have been quieter. I don't mean to whine. But I think that since this is part of the new international, Ethiopian, adoption process for some....it's maybe worth talking about.

I know, someday I will understand how this delay, this surreal drooping time, will have been woven into our lives for a purpose. I believe that. But right now, it's hard to see. I accept it because I have no choice. But I still object to it. And it has, to be frank, thrown me into a weird state of stopped clock. The activities of any given day, from the most mundane laundry sorting to the most sweet and profound of my kids kisses goodnight or a quiet real talk with my teen son....they are functioning on two levels: the here/now and the filler. Not that the actions of the moment mean nothing, they mean everything...more so perhaps as I cling to their normal. But. It's filling time too.

Time has stopped or it has slowed into a Dali-esque droop. This wait. The end approaches and my head and stomach can feel it. I now have three clocks: real present time and activity, eight hours ahead for my daughter's time, and the culture countdown clock. Their hands have been independent, circling on their own cogs. Soon, soon, I hope those clocks will merge. And then perhaps time will reset back to a new normal. I am ready for that time, now.

Novena, day nine

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Novena, day eight

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Novena, day seven

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Feast of Corpus Christi

It's the feast of Corpus Christi: the Body of Christ.
It's one of the greatest Mysteries of the faith, capital "M" mystery again...one of those that boggle and baffle the mind. One of those you belief or you don't. Period.
I do.

It's the Eucharist. The body of Christ. It's a gift, a sacrament, it's utterly holy and sacred and, at the same time, the most intimate thing on earth.

I can't do this justice of course. To read more about this, with historical support, go here.
To read a good piece on how to bring together your mind, heart and senses on this, go here.

All I know is that I like thinking about connections a lot. You know that. I like that whole connected relational brought together linked adopted bonded sense in (my) life. I see it so many places that it gives me chills if I stop to think about it. And that is what I find to the utmost, mindblowing, heart zinging way in the sacrament of Communion and the Eucharist: the most intimate connection and unity that can be. Ever - in this world. And I yearn for it and reach for it and I sink into it with relief and gratitude and wallowing comfort and gratitude.
And I don't understand it with my mind.
But my heart and soul know it's more real than anything else.
John 6

"Institution of the Eucharist," painting by Nicolas Poussin

Novena, day six

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Novena, day five

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Another Day Older, Again!

Well, today is my birthday, again!
I am 47 years old today. Whew.
Since this seems to come around every year, I can't really justify any big ol' post about it.
It's another day. Another day older and another year to claim.

Last year's bday.

And as I mentioned last year, here, I have always had this weird "go underground" sense about my birthday. "Don't make a big deal of it, don't tell anyone, you don't deserve the notice or the fuss" But I did finally realize that my children deserve the example of rejoicing in a birthday (not that they have much problem with that...but you know that particular oddness sneaks up on you...maybe at, say, age 32, fair warning!).

And I want them to be grateful for every year and day they are given: good, bad, frustrating, harried, stressful, electric, dull, full and overflowing. Every one, it's a gift. And every bit of my old body; it's a gift, even when I notice all the many ways that age is taking it's inexorable claim on me. I could go on, you know I do {But it's my bday so I'll give YOU a gift a spare you. You're welcome...}.

But here is what I choose today to think about: instead of the 'whats," (as in what's wrong, what's old) I prefer, if only today, to think of the "who's"....by which I mean the people who mean something or so much to me.

The connections.
That is where you find the riches of getting older, another day, another year.
With that in mind, there are connections that spring to mind today...
And while I would go on about my husband, children, family, friends....this is not an award show or a roast and I'm not Sally Field.

Today the connections that spring to my mind are of a ridiculously cute small boy, who is precociously potty trained (not that I'm envious, not me, no sir...) and has a smile that lights up a room (I think it's actually a combo of his smile and his beautiful mama). It's his bday today too, go give him a big bday shout!

Another connection, dear to my heart: Today is the feast of St. Anthony of Padua.

Painting by El Greco

St. Anthony is a saint that I have long loved. Not only because we share a special day, but because I have found him to be a comfort and a trusted saint to turn to for prayers. He was known for his kindness, his courtesy, and his deep humanity. His appeal endures even now in this modern age; and it's no wonder, really. Because in this modern age, what we lack the most in our postmodern harsh world is just that: kindness, courtesy, humanity.

Which brings me back to the whole point of this post. To mark another day, another year older. And with that, to remember the best part: I am happier now than ever and I seem to be happier each year I get older.
How cool is that?
This inexorable claim of time gives me my mother's hands, and now feet and hair. This added day, added year, also gives me more connections, more relationships, deeper ones. Love is the wealth in life.
And so, on my birthday, I have the best gift.
I know.
I love so many.
I am rich.

Novena, day four

St. Therese dressed in costume as St. Joan of Arc for a play put on in the convent.

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Shouting for joy for friends

GO AND SEE!!!

SHOUT FOR JOY!!!

It's finally happened!!!
Go, see, congratulate the Fournet family, pop champagne, throw confetti, toot some horns.
We are doing cartwheels here!!!!

They deserve every bit of celebration, around the world....surely the saints and angels too are rejoicing for this great gift today.
They have waited over a year to pass court, enduring the disappointments and excruciating wait beyond what most of us could ever manage (certainly not me!).
And they did it with grace and steadfast faith.

I am beyond thrilled for them. This is big big news. Go, see, shout, congratulate them. I know, I want to shout for each person who passes court. But some, some elicit a louder whoop when they wait so very long and through such hardship. I can't help it, I hope their comment box simply overflows with joy. They deserve it. Yippee!!! Those babies are coming home!

Novena, day three

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Almost Wordless Wednesday

More summer:

...wheels spinning all around!

Novena, day two

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

Novena begins today

Today I have decided to begin a novena. This novena is special to me, personally, because it is a petition for prayers from one of my favorite saints (I know, I have many favorites, but this saint is special): St. Therese of Lisieux.

I have written about St. Therese before, here, and there is much to learn from this young saint. But for today, I am putting up a simple novena. I have chosen a simple one because St. Therese was all about the "little way." Meaning, she knew that she was not able to complete grandstand acts of heroism and sacrifice. Most of us are not either. She was a cloistered nun, young and often dismissed or overlooked, even by her own sisters in the convent of Carmel. However, she knew that she could offer "little" acts of love. She strove to do even the smallest of things with great love, whether or not anyone ever saw them. Sound familiar? Yeah, our dear Mother Teresa has the same famous quote and heart for love. And you know, both of these women, on this track....they changed the world. You all know Mother Teresa and how she has made the world a better place and touched millions through her acts of love for the poorest of the poor. St. Therese of Lisieux has also influenced countless people by this concept of the "little way," and I would argue, by her prayers on our behalf.

I cannot make any grand heroic sacrifice or gesture to help my girl get home, or to make sure the resolution and reporting of this TB culture moves along simply and smoothly and swiftly. Goodness knows, we've tried. And tried. And will not quit trying. I'm still ready to talk to Michelle Obama whenever she's ready! So, since our big efforts haven't helped at all....I will do what I can in a little way. I will pray. I will hit up a dear wonderful saint to pray for us. St. Therese died of TB. I think that is a connection that means something.

So brace yourself, you know what's coming: nine days of novena posts. If you're inclined to pray along with us (for our intention for Marta and the kids stuck in this tb cutlure mess and a special intention for a friend and/or for any of your own private intentions), then, by all means, join in! If you're not interested...well, bear with me. I'll post some of the usual prattling as well.

So, here we go!

Simple Novena to St. Therese of Lisieux :
The first Novena is easy, and is most dear to the Little Flower. It is the Twenty Four “Glory Be To the Father’s Novena and there is a little story attached with this one. In this fashion, from the ninth to the seventeenth of each month (although it can be said at any time), those who want to participate in this novena, should add to those of their own, the intentions of all who are at that time making the novena, thus forming one great prayer in common.

Father Putigan, a Jesuit priest, began the Novena to Saint Therese of the Child Jesus on December 3, 1925, asking the glorious Saint for one great favour. For nine days, he recited the “Glory Be” 24 times thanking the Holy Trinity for the favours and Graces showered on Saint Therese during the 24 years that she lived on this earth. The good father asked Saint Therese that as a sign that his novena was being heard, he would receive from someone a freshly plucked rose. On the third day of the novena, an unknown person sought out Father Putigan and presented him with a beautiful rose.

Father Putigan began the second novena on December 24 of the same year, and as a sign, asked for a white rose. On the fourth day of this novena, one of the Sister-nurses brought him a white rose, saying, “Saint Therese sent you this”

Amazed the priest asked “where did you get this?”

“I was in the chapel,” said the Sister, “and as I was leaving, I passed the alter above which hangs the beautiful picture of Saint Therese. This rose fell at my feet. I wanted to put it back in the bouquet, but a thought came to me that you should have it.”

---

The Twenty-four 'Glory Be's’ Novena to St. Therese

Father Putigan received the favours he had petitioned of the Little Flower of Jesus, and promised to spread the novena to increase devotion to, and bring her more honour. In this fashion, from the ninth to the seventeenth of each month, those who want to participate in the 24 Glory Be’s novena, should add to those of their own, the intentions of all who are at that time making the novena, thus forming one great prayer in common. This novena can be said at any time, however.

The Glory Be is said 24 times each day for nine days, in thanksgiving for all the blessings and favours given to Saint Therese of the Child Jesus during the 24 years of her life. Start the novena each day with this prayer:

“Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, I thank You for all the blessings and favours You have showered upon the soul of Your servant Therese of the Child Jesus, during the 24 years she spent here on earth, and in consideration of the merits of this, Your most beloved Saint, I beseech You to grant me this favour, if it is in accordance with Your most Holy Will and is not an obstacle to my salvation.”

After this prayer, follow with the 24 Glory Be’s, between each of which should be included this short prayer”

“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, pray for us.”

---

Original icon by
Sr. Marie-Celeste Fadden, Carmel of Reno

Feast of the Holy Trinity

By El Greco

Today is the feast of the Holy Trinity.
Now this is one of those Mysteries (one of the "Capital M" mysteries...by which I mean, truth that is just too big for our puny brains to fully comprehend): the Trinity.
But for a good piece on it, one that helps me just begin to grasp the concept and why today is worth a pause and thought or two, go here.

All I know is that I am grateful for the Trinity, I believe in the Trinity, because it just makes sense in a way - even though it scrambles my mind at the same time.
But.
Love needs to love Someone and their love is SO much, SO intense, that it creates a whole 'nother being: Love. That's just cool. Again, Fr. Ranier Cantalamessa says it best (being a preacher to the papal household and all):

"In every love there are always three realities or subjects:
one who loves, one who is loved and the love that unites them."

Holy Trinity Icon.

Go love someone and celebrate!

Summer Saturday

While mom cleans and reorganizes some out of control closets (pantry!)...this is what kids do on a summer Saturday....
Compare toes, grin, squeal, holler, play, squabble, laugh and most of all, RUN far from where mom might grab them and put them to work!
We love summer.

Leap of faith

Ok, jumping in again....
Closing our eyes, holding our breath...
SPLASH
And buying tickets tonight (By which I mean, reticketing and paying a bundle more) for Addis.

July 4.
Embassy, July 8.
We hope.
We pray.
This is a blind faith ticketing.....no new news.
Just travel dates for first embassy appointment after the 8 weeks of sputum culture.

Please please, pray we travel then, and bring our Marta home.

Hope in wait

Some days it's hard.
Waiting.
Some days, not as hard, and life feels almost but not quite regular.
Those days there is a frisson of "Almost there...just half a bubble off plumb."
Then, some days it's harder still.

Last Sunday was Pentecost, as mentioned, I love Pentecost.
Because it brings the Holy Spirit: Grace, Hope.

Hope, spiritual hope, makes my heart skip a beat, or two.
It is a kind of dance.
A flutter of hands, to grasp, hold fast, squeeze tight as if it can be captured and kept.
Extend, let go and toss it back up in the air so it can shimmer down around me.
Filling the room, the air, my prayer, my breath, my heart.

Yesterday we got another photo of our sweet Marta.
And her face simply shines and sparkles.
She is laughing.
Dare I hope, her smile is bigger, her eyes dancing, more now than months ago?
Could it be us {yes, I'm so vain}?
Could it be simply being healthy again?
I don' t know, but I know that they said she is a reader. Me too!
And somehow this news makes my heart skip a beat, silly I know.
But it's a connection, when one is so desperately needed.
It's a floating glitter of hope.
This is why the wait is so hard, for all of us maybe.
Because we can't see our children, the path before us, the unknown.
That's why these updates and pictures are so treasured, poured over, every last pixel perused, every letter analyzed.
We yearn to see, we yearn and grasp for hope.

But, today, I ran across this.
And I saw, "Ah."
And it made my heart float a bit, my hands open...(this is for you too, Jen):

...Now hope that sees is not hope.
For who hopes for what one sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.
In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness...
From Romans 8

So.
I wait.
What I yearned for, hope.....
In a way, I've had it all along.
Because I wait.
I hope in this wait.

Wonder and light

It's the Feast of Pentecost!

Mexican Icon of Pentecost.

I think this is some cool feast. This is the day the apostles experienced the fire of the Holy Spirit in a great rush of wind and light. With a mind blowing arrival of Grace Himself, they could stop grieving in the upper room, hiding in uncertainty and worry and fear. It had been a wild ride for seven weeks, Christ was crucified, rose, appeared, cooked them fish, noshed with them, instructed them, chided them, comforted them, hung out..and then left. He promised to go prepare a better place for them and to send a Comforter and Counselor.

How confusing! So they huddled together, to wait, to pray. Were they confused about just what that meant...a comforter? Waiting is extra hard when you don't know exactly what you're waiting for...think any of those in that room maybe had control issues? Ok, well, I like to think so...(no, I'm not projecting, whatever do you mean?? Ahem.) I love imagining the scene of it, the rush of wind, the light, the understanding, the terror, the amazement, the joy. Were they knocked down, covering their heads and eyes in shock and maybe some primal fear? Ecstatic with, finally, full understanding, crying and laughing with joy? Wide eyed, holding on to each other?
I don't know, but you gotta admit, it's a great visual, very Cecil B. DeMille, don't ya think?
I love Pentecost.
To think that the Holy Spirit, that ineffable Grace, is there for the asking, or begging and pleading (ok, me again). And what amazes me, every time, is that it really IS!
That just blows me away.

Sometimes things are hard. Sometimes things are utterly confusing or just deep down scary. Thankfully, enough, not too often. But. When I get to the point of being unable to even construct proper sentences and word phrasings, when my prayers of deep fear and worry are the most primal and I've lost proper adult speech patterns but still have the deep need urge push compulsion to pray - somehow ....I know that I am still heard. I know, that God knows my deepest longing and fear and can move past my babbling blathering gabble and the Holy Spirit can intercede on my behalf in prayer.

And He does.
That's pure gift.
That's Grace: the Holy Spirit, Comfort, Counsel.
And, why, yes, in the past six weeks I've been relying on that Grace a fair lot.
And for that I am grateful.
And that is joy, the deepest most wondrous kind.
To borrow a word from a dear blog friend, it's wonderment.

That sums it up for me: Pentecost is Wonderment.

So today I like to think of that wonderment of the apostles at Pentecost. I love a feast day. I imagine the apostles were filled with sheer wonderment, and in that amazing ecstatic electric event, they were then sent out to face the world....but not alone.
In my self absorbed microcosm of life here, I'm not thinking anyone is gonna be able to see any flames above my head {unless it's my temper having gotten the best of me, again}. But for me the Holy Spirit is such a gift and I am so grateful for being able to call on that Grace when I need it {And to rely on it in my typically thoughtless way for the rest of the the time}. I don't know what I'd do without it. And really, who wants to face life alone anyhow???
So, here is the prayer of the day, for me:

Come Holy Spirit

Come Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your faithful,
and kindle in them the fire of Your Divine Love.
Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created,
and You shall renew the face of the earth.
Oh God,
Who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructed the hearts of the faithful,
Grant, that by the same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in His consolation.
We ask this through Christ Our Lord.
Amen.

I do, too. Every day.

May is the month of Mary, and the rosary.
I would challenge you to try it if you don't already.

It's probably the best thing I do every day, even when I don't do the best one ever.
Doing this makes every day just a little better, on all levels. Period.
So. Yeah.
I pray the rosary.

First Garden

This is what we did last weekend: finished my veggie garden, a kitchen garden!

Coffeedoc made the lovely raised beds from found wood (by which I mean, free! yay!).

My brother and the boys and Coffeedoc all worked hard to put in the edging and fence and pea gravel, in between downpours.

I got to do the fun part: planting and placing my Mary statue to "watch" over the veggies.
(Right then, just to clarify: I don't think the statue is real, it just makes me happy to have and see this little statue in my garden with my veggies and flowers, ok? Good then, happy to clarify further if needed, just email please.)

It's my first 'real' garden, instead of only pots.
It makes me ridiculously happy.
Thanks guys!

{And yeah, I know, Michelle Obama has one now too....
so hey, Michelle, give me a call, just one more thing we can chat about...
kids, TB protocols, organic gardening...it'll be fun!}

Ascension

It's Ascension Sunday.
Well, officially the Feast of the Ascension was last Thursday....but here in the U.S., in most dioceses, the celebration of it is moved to Sunday.
Perhaps a touch confusing, yes....but really, the Ascension can be too.
How did He go? Floating serenely, in a flash of light, a crack of thunder, or just, gone? (I know, goofy, but I'm a visual gal, I think about it!)
I always wonder, how come the apostles weren't crying, Mary weeping again?
I would be! I cry every time I have to say goodbye to most anyone, especially my son. But, apparently, they did not. Not ugly crying anyhow. I'm sure it was bittersweet though, it always is, isn't it?

But here is the cool thing of Ascension, for me.
Ascension is all about preparation and promise.
Ascension is about home.
Yes, Christ had to go, we are left to walk this on our own in many ways.
But not really.
Because He promised to go to prepare for us to join him, to prepare us a place, a home, with Him, left us helpers and each other along the way.

And as a mom, as a mom who is awaiting her daughter to come home....soon soon please....this really resonates with me.
My Marta can't really KNOW we are coming back to her, except we've told her so.
She has to be there on her own, but with our far-away-support and love and prayers and helpers...for now.
And we are prepared, have prepared, a place for her: a new room to share, fresh paint, new furniture, new clothes. We've carved out a spot in our home and hearts for our Marta, our new daughter.
We are all anticipating bringing her into her new place.
She is. We are.
And we wait for it.
She does. We do.

And even in this, this hard time.....if we look, once again, the family can model the most real thing in life: faith and love.
We can't do it as well, or as graciously, or widely, as the Church.
But we can stumble along trying.
And today, I think about the idea of preparation; what it really is.

Today we are reminded that Christ prepares a place for each of us.
We prepare a place for each of our children and each other.
Doing so, even the small tiny mundane things of sippy cups and diapers, groceries and clean sheets...it's all love in action.
Happily, we have feast days like today so we, (ok, I mean me) can see it more clearly through all the hubub of our busy days.
To remind us.
To say, "Remember."
We each have a place.
It's home.

Open letter to Michelle Obama

This post is an open letter to Michelle Obama.
I know, I know...another letter. Really?
And to Michelle Obama?
A joke right? Um, no.

Yes, I wrote a letter, here, and Coffeedoc wrote a letter, here, with the details about this whole situation.
So, yeah, you could say we are on a letter binge...
But I prefer to say that we are determined to let no avenue shut down before we've tried it, no stone be unturned, or miss shouting from a rooftop.
My best rooftop, right now, is a cyber roof.
And this is mine.

Lest anyone forget, this is my beautiful daughter, Marta, above.
And that picture was taken this past Saturday, the 15th of May.
That's an notable day in that I was in DC, hoping to meet Michelle Obama. {no, really....} Michelle Obama was in Merced, speaking. We missed each other.
Yes, I'm kidding. Mostly.
But the 15th is also a day when my Marta was supposed to be home and we were supposed to be pantomiming to each other in a desperate bid to communicate, and laughing as we failed once again.
But she is not here. So I have decided to shout from my cyber rooftop and send an open letter to our First Lady. If any of you are good pals with her, please pass this along.



Dear First Lady,

I am writing to you out of sheer, shimmering, waning hope. It is the hope of one mother, reaching out to another mother.
It is, to steal a phrase, a call to hope. A call to change.
But this time, the change and hope are those of a mother, of a family, of a girl. That one, in the picture above.

That is my daughter, Marta. She is currently in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On March 31st, 2009, she legally became our daughter. She was so, in our hearts and souls, for the past year. She is staying in a foster care home until our government allows us to go and bring her home. You see, she got stuck in the rollout of the new TB screening protocols of the CDC. But this is the catch: she doesn't need screening. She's had TB. She has successfully completed documented treatment for TB. But since she will always show a scar on her xray, the CDC protocol shifted her forward to the sputum culture requirement and that takes eight weeks to clear. And so she is stuck, away from her home and family.

We have spoken with as many people as we can find about this at the CDC and US Embassy and many have agreed that it is an "unfortunate" snare. But we have also been told that this sort of protocol certainly can't just be changed for one girl, or, as we also believe, that an adopted child can be considered a different class of immigrant and be allowed to come home. That just can't be done.

Mrs. Obama, respectfully, as a mother, I ask you, "Why not?"

Why can't we change this?
It's a bureaucratic hitch. It's not what anyone intended. It's not what is best for the child or any children who are affected by this. My husband (a physician), the W.H.O., even the man who wrote the instructions for this protocol at the CDC, agree that the data shows that a child who has gone through TB treatment is no risk to the public, and suffers by being kept from the love and care of their family. Instead these children are kept for months in orphanages, without the level of love, care and provision they would have here at home where they could begin to grow and thrive and learn to love in a family again.

This protocol for immigrants is an effort by our CDC to lower the incidence of TB. That is an admirable effort. However, in this application, to the adopted children of U.S. citizens, it becomes instead a trap. It is a trap for our children that does nothing to lower the incidence of TB in the world, rather it might even make it worse by keeping vulnerable children in difficult conditions; those not conducive to optimal health or healing on any level.

It puts our children in the category of "other." "Stranger." "Risk."
They are not "other." But they are being treated as such.
They are not a risk or threat. They are OUR children. America's children.
Already.

Mrs. Obama, you are the woman who represents hope and change and action in our nation.
So, I want to ask you if we can look at this closer...indeed, if we can hope?
Can we dream and make change?
These are our children. The children of U.S. citizens.
They are our hope, as all our children are. These children are the embodiment of hope, for our families, for our country, for each other. They are living waiting breathing hope; waiting for their families, their legal, matched, real families, to come and get them to bring them home.
They wait.
They dare, still, to hope.
They dream, even so, of change.

Any mom, but most certainly an adoptive mom, lives hope every day.
She dreams of and for her children.
She sees the challenges and faces them as clearly as she can, even while she yearns for the best for her child.
You are the First Lady, as well as the "First Mom."
You understand this.
You see the challenges of our nation's children, face them clearly and you hope and work for change and for them to live to their fullest potential.
These children, the orphans who have been adopted into our families, are our children, our nation's children and all of our future as well.

So, I am appealing to you.
Some will laugh at me, again, and point and say I am a fool.
But I don't care. I can take it, I am a mom.
Any mom will advocate - as far and high as she must - for her child, for her children.
Marta is my daughter, my child. And she needs to come home.
The other children caught in the trap of this protocol are the children of American moms, our children. And they need to come home.
You are a mom. You are the "First Mom."
I think, if you can know of this, you would understand... so, foolishly perhaps, I appeal to you.
You know that any mom will try to change the world if she has to, for her child.
Because, we can. Yes, we can. We are mom's. And we hope.

Thank you for your time and attention reading this, if you do.
Thank you for your willingness to step out to face the challenges.
Thank you for being willing to make change happen.
This may be a ridiculous shout into the cyber void.
But thank you for the hope.

Respectfully,

Michele Gautsch
schoolmom5@comcast.net

I went to DC but I didn't see Michelle Obama

But I DID get to see my nephew graduate!

David is our first college graduate of this generation. Frankly, none of can quite believe he is, or we are, already that old!

Ah, but we are all so proud. He's graduated from Georgetown and he's going to South Africa this summer for the second time/year in a row. He is working with a community-building foundation there and is now doing fellowship with them; fundraising as well as hands on work on the ground. His younger brother (19, Matt, shades, below) is going too, six weeks of teeny township and community living. I am one proud aunt!

And I did get to go to a swishy ball at Penn Station and have a fun two days with my only sister and her family! Crazy crowded (this pic is before it got crowded) and great people watching, music, food, bars...
Cool decor with living statues of important historic figures and models of buildings....turning the lovely Penn Station into a faboo swell party. But the best thing about the party was hanging with my nephews (Michael and David, below, Matt came later) and my Sis and bro-in-law.
Graduation was on the lawn, it was the perfect afternoon in that the rain held off and I got to hang in the fresh air with my favorite sister!
We had a big time. Two old middle aged moms, watching the world pass by, having a nice afternoon in the sun, saving seats, smiling at nervous grads. Lovely. Just a lovely proud afternoon.

My sis and I kept scanning the crowd for "very important people" to accost, erm, politely approach and speak to about the TB protocols. But we didn't see anyone we recognized. I had hoped to get a meeting with Michelle Obama, but she was in Merced. Something about a commencement speech.... I've been in Merced. I got a speeding ticket there once...hmmmm. Anyhow, so we just missed each other. But I can hop a plane back anytime...so Michelle, give me a call!

Dads United. Coffeedad's letter

This post is from Coffeedad. It's his turn. This letter is his, the dad side of things, and from his perspective as a Father, and also as a physician.

This letter is an open letter to anyone who has a heart to hear us and also wants to know why we are pushing so hard.
Why don't we just quit and accept that we have to wait?
Stop being so pushy already...sheesh. Right???
NO.
We are advocating for our daughter to come home because she needs to be home, because we love her, because it is right to allow her to travel to join her family.
We are advocating for this protocol to change in it's application to adopted children because to apply it to adopted children, especially those who have already completed treatment for TB and/or who are HIV+ is, simply, wrong.

So we won't quit.
We will fight for our child.
We will fight for these children.
Here is Tom's letter. Please read it. Please forward it, along with mine, to anyone who might hear or listen or get it to anyone who can.
Thank you!

To Whom it May Concern:

This is a picture of my beautiful daughter, Marta, above.

My wife Michele and I have recently become the parents of my new 12 year old daughter Marta. Marta is Ethiopian, and sadly left orphaned by the ravages of AIDS in her country. Without any family, she was taken into an Ethiopian government run orphanage in Addis Ababa. Somehow in her young life, she also contracted tuberculosis for which she has recently completed eight months of standard tuberculosis treatment, with thankfully good response and several follow up sputum smear tests, all of which were negative. On March 31 of this year her adoption was finalized and we legally became her parents. Both Michele and I are United States citizens. Had our adoption become finalized just one month earlier Marta would be home with us now and I wouldn’t be soliciting your help.

The day before we were to travel to Addis to pick her up and bring her home we were notified by the Embassy through our agency that she would not be cleared to travel for a minimum of two additional months, and perhaps longer, due to very recently implemented new CDC Technical Instructions for the Screening of Immigrants. This new protocol requires negative sputum cultures in anyone with any suspicion or history of tuberculosis, without any regard whatsoever to whether it was known or unknown, treated or untreated, successfully or unsuccessfully.

This very burdensome and overly stringent requirement has been implemented only by the US and only piecemeal, in regard to some countries, despite the fact that the CDC and World Health Organization as well as the American Thoracic Society and the Infectious Diseases Society of America all individually or in collaboration have reported that:

“patients with drug susceptible pulmonary and other forms of infectious tuberculosis rapidly become noninfectious after institution of effective multiple drug chemotherapy” – A.T.S., CDC, I.D.S.A.

“after 14-21 days of treatment, infectiousness averages less than 1% of the pretreatment level” -- A.T.S., CDC, I.D.S.A.

“as yet no case of clinical or bacteriologically confirmed tuberculosis disease associated with exposure during air travel has been identified”
-- W.H.O

“the overall public health importance of such events [potential transmission of tuberculosis during air travel] is negligible” -- A.T.S., CDC, I.D.S.A.

Three weeks before our scheduled Embassy Visa appointment for her, the CDC implemented their new guidelines in Ethiopia and a few other countries only. If Marta were from China, India or Russia or any one of a hundred other countries, her negative sputum smears would be sufficient for the CDC, and the State Department would issue her Visa and allow her to travel. What is more, if we had given birth to her while living in Addis Ababa and she was now coming back to the United States with us for the first time, she would not be subject to any kind of screening at all. If she was coming on a student Visa, a work Visa, a visitor’s Visa, a diplomat’s Visa or any one of 50 other Visas she would be here now and also subject to no screening.

The injustice of this situation is compounded not only by the very questionable medical basis for subjecting her to it in the first place, when virtually every one of the other 300 plus passengers on any flight here from Addis Ababa is not subjected to any kind of medical screening and statistically at least one of them or more will have active tuberculosis, and dozens are likely infected, but the situation is further worsened by the Embassy’s false assertion that no one there has the authority to waive her CDC required two month long sputum culture test for any reason and the CDC’s Department of Quarantine assertions that no one there has the authority to direct the Embassy to waive the requirement since the CDC is only advisory to the State Department.

I had a long conversation this week with one of the head doctor in the Atlanta Office of the CDC Division of Quarantine who could not refute any of my above assertions, acknowledged the inconsistency with which this screening algorithm was being applied and even that the legally adopted minor child of US citizens was a very different “immigrant” than the general immigrant population for whom the Technical Instructions were written. Nevertheless, he also told me that they would not waive the testing requirement for Marta or anyone else and that they would also not process our I-601 medical waiver “for persons with Class A or suspected tuberculosis” on the technicality that until the two month test was over, her medical evaluation was still incomplete. If after the two months that the test takes, it came back positive, then we could use the waiver. This loop invalidates the use of this waiver; it negates it's use.

My request for your help is two fold. First, please help us get this test waived by whoever has that authority and get my Marta, child of US citizens, home now. Second, please realize that many, many other families who have or are in the process of adopting orphans are caught in the same net since all children with positive HIV tests are also subjected to it and that an ultimate solution is to recognize these legally adopted children of US citizens, as “US citizens” when the adoption is finalized not after they have come to US soil.

I can supply copious medical documentation of the marginal impact of this sputum culture requirement on the importation of tuberculosis and the negligible or non-existent risks of infectiousness to travelers and our citizenry for persons who have received or are receiving treatment for tuberculosis and have negative sputum smear tests.

Please consider this letter with a mind to what is right and decent, and with the medical data supporting our case. If you are a father, please consider if this was your child and what you would do. Please help us bring our daughter home and change this policy for adopted children, our children.

Sincerely,
Thomas L Gautsch, MD
tlgautsch@comcast.net

Mothers connected united

It's Mother's Day. And I'm missing my daughter.

So, I'm stewing and reaching further and further the only way I can in my effort to bring my girl home. I'm sending this out to the world of moms, a plea that is relying on our connectedness, our unity as moms.

You see, you all know that we are having a hard time getting the right person to hear us. To HEAR us, see us, really look at this as a real live girl who is stuck away from her family, her mom....

And so today my mind is spinning..who can help people be heard? Who gets heard and seen? If Oprah Winfrey had a daughter stuck in this, would she be heard? Would Hilary Clinton be heard? Would Michelle Obama? Do you have to be a major world leader or celebrity to be heard or seen?

I don't know....but I do know the power of connection.
I know the power of women to reach out to each other.
I know the amazing surprising connectedness of the blogosphere.

So, I'm taking a giant step. I'm posting this letter. It is a letter that was sent to join with other stories of the human cost of this policy. It's about us. It's about what this means to my family. This letter IS about us, our family, our daughter. However, this policy will snare other families, it already has and it will more. This policy has to change. So this letter is for the families coming behind us too.

And if you know anyone who might be able to hear and see this and make a difference, or just plain care....to try, to pray, to help - us or the next family snared by this..then please, pass it on.
Because we are united, we moms, I think...in wanting our children to be with us, safe, happy, ok. We want all the kids to be home, to find a home.
To come home.
That's what we moms do....every day.

It's long...but it's real. It's not meant to be along whining rant: it's an attempt to show the layers of personal cost. Thank you for indulging a mom who will do whatever it takes to get her daughter home safe, now.

To whom it may concern:

We have a daughter in Africa, an AIDS orphan . . . placed in limbo by our own government. We are Tom and Michele Gautsch, we live in Tennessee. Tom is an Orthopedic Surgeon and Michele is a full time mom. We have a total of eight children now that we have adopted Marta (12 yrs old) in Ethiopia. Three of our children are biological and now five are adopted, three from the U.S. and two from Ethiopia.

We are very, very anxious to unite our family. We had the unfortunate timing of our court date being scheduled just behind the new TB screening regulations and we have been stopped in our effort to go and bring home our daughter, Marta, from Ethiopia.

We passed court successfully March 31, 2009, after just short of a year of work in the extensive adoption process. According to the Ethiopian government, Marta is our daughter in all ways, most certainly, legally. We know she is our daughter not only legally, but spiritually, morally, ethically - in all ways, she is our daughter. However, on March 23, 2009, the U.S. CDC began phasing in new TB SCREENING requirements, and it is the rigid interpretation of this protocol which is preventing us from bringing our daughter home, for at least two more months and possibly many more. Marta is a post tb patient, however her tb left a scar on her lungs, and thus on her chest xray. It will never be normal. The rigid application of this screening protocol doesn't allow the panel physician to clear Marta to travel, even though she has a known tb status: post treatment. This protocol was for screening unknown tb status. Our Marta's status is documented: adequate treatment, successfully completed.

The screening that Marta is being delayed for has never been proven to effectively reduce the rates of tuberculosis in the immigrant population. In fact, the vast majority of first world countries don't do this screening at all, and the ones that do, screen the immigrants after they arrive in the country. If we were British, or French, or Norwegian, Marta would be home with us, right now. The CDC has arbitrarily decided to implement this policy in only twenty countries. There are seven countries with a higher endemic incidence of TB than Ethiopia, where the CDC does not require screening with TB cultures. If Marta was from China or India, both countries with ten times more TB prevalence than the U.S., she'd be home right now.

Our family was supposed to travel Saturday, April 25th to Addis Ababa to meet our daughter again and bring her home. We had an Embassy appointment for our visa scheduled on April 29th. On Friday afternoon, April 24th, the day before we were to travel, we were called by our agency and told not to come. This news, to say the least, was devastating. We had spent the past many weeks organizing and preparing for our trip. We had to make arrangements for the younger children to have a good caregiver in our home, plus of course prepare them for our time away. We had been gathering and organizing and packing our donations and humanitarian aid for many weeks. Thomas, the dad, had to make extensive arrangements to be away from his solo surgical practice, schedule patients for surgery around his planned trip in order to maximize their care as well. By Friday we were packed and ready to go, the excitement at the house was at a peak for all...until that call came. Then it all came crashing down.

In disbelief, Tom started manning the phones, trying to find a way, any way to talk to someone about this. Michele was simply devastated, crying, trying to console the kids while her heart was breaking. Tom spent until almost four a.m. researching the protocols, the actual risks of a post TB patient and learning the data on TB in immigrants in the US and around the world. He spoke with contacts at the CDC, as far away as Kenya, and everyone said, "This is silly, she should be able to travel, she's post treatment." So, until sometime after 4 a.m., the morning of the 25th, (we had to leave by 5:30 a.m.), we hoped to still make our flights and go meet our girl. However, we hit a wall of bureaucracy and were told, again, in the early hours of that morning, "don't come."

And so we did not go. Full stop. We have been wracked with worry over our daughter and depression over the situation. This manifests physically, in all the normal ways. It is hard to not be depressed, it is hard to kick back into the regular cheerful routines of a busy family life.

On a practical, material level, this has also had a tremendous cost. For Tom, he lost a week of work. When you schedule 10 days out of a solo surgical practice, it is not a simple matter to just fill your work schedule back up on the spur of the moment. You lose the days and the income that would have been generated. In fact, you continue to pay the normal operating expenses, but are not, literally, operating. This would have been a planned financial cost. But now, having to plan for an entire new trip, we will have to incur it twice. That is a very significant, large, financial burden. Of course our plane tickets, six of them, had to be returned, with penalties for cancellation and changes. Many other summer plans have had to be reworked and still have not been able to be figured out; this delay affects our children and extended families and their plans - put on hold - as well. Our bags of humanitarian aid remain stacked in our foyer. Our suitcases with personal clothes have been unpacked, but our smallest children still ask when we are going, confused.

For Marta's health, she needs to come home and have adequate nutrition, safe surroundings and the love of a family to help her heal from the many traumas she has experienced in her life. Staying in an orphanage, half a world away from her parents and family, does nothing to help heal the heart and body of this child, our daughter. Even several months away from her family makes a difference to a child, especially one this age and with her life experiences.

The hardest part, perhaps, for our hearts as parents, is Marta's experience. Marta is not a toddler or infant. She is an older child. She is twelve. So she has awareness of what is going on, but is not yet old enough to fully understand the details. Any older orphan, in particular, is going to really wonder if it could possibly be true: "do they really have a family? For real? Is it really going to happen?" Because to an orphan, one who has already lost both her parents and everything she ever had, ANYTHING can happen and NOTHING is forever or for sure. And this is what our Marta now has experienced: she wondered if we were really coming...they said we were. But - we didn't show. And that was explained to her, they said, and they tried to make her understand the delays and that we would come as soon as we could. However, even if her head can hear and understand a bit of the explanation, what is imprinted on her psyche and her heart is the confirmation of her deepest fear: we didn't show. Period. And that will have a long term cost to this young girl, and our family, that you can't measure in computer data.

The CDC cannot measure the scar that is left by this. They can quantify the scar left on her lungs by the TB. But they cannot, nor do they care to, measure the scar left by this unwarranted delay. We can, we will live with it and try to help her over it. But this didn't have to happen.

This can be changed with a simple decision to see Marta as an individual, as a patient if you like, but best, as a child. Marta is not a random immigrant who will vanish into the unknown masses in our country. She will not drain the country's resources, nor will she be a risk to the health of the greater population. She is our child. She is coming into a family where her dad is a doctor. We had to prove we were willing and able to care of her, to the fullest extent, in every way and document this with Homeland Security, even before we were allowed to proceed with the long adoption process. We think you would be hard pressed to have a more documented or well tracked person come into the U.S. than an adopted child.

Marta is a child of U.S. citizens, her life and family is here. She is our daughter, and she needs to come home.

Sincerely,

Tom and Michele Gautsch
schoolmom5@comcast.net
tlgautsch@comcast.net

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

Happy Mother's Day!

Today is the day I think of all the moms: my kids' birthmoms, my sisters, my friends, my mother-in-law I miss, and of course, my own mom.

I wish I could be with her and my sibs today as they celebrate.
In lieu of that I'm putting up a few rare pictures of her.
Above is one of the rarest:
Mom and all her kids, at the house where I grew up (I'm in front in the way short sundress).

I love her and wish I could hug her today..but am saving up all our hugs and kisses for when I see her next month.

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms!
And to you, Mom, you're the best, I love you!

Did you know?

What's the goal, really?

As many of you know, our family is being held up in a bureaucratic snare. A trap, a mill...call it what you will. We are coming to think of new terms for it. We will admit, we are frustrated.

We are receiving the run around, ever so politely expressed, but that is what it is. Our inquiries, indeed, the inquiries from senator's offices even, are being punted back and forth like a football: "We are not in charge of that." "They oversee this decision." "That would be the __(fill in the blank: CDC, State Dept, Health and Human Services)_____ domain."

And so it goes, no one wants to own this, no one wants to really look at it and see what is being said.
And really, we have decided, that no one really wants to look at what is not being said.

So we will. It is not politically correct. I don't care anymore.
Everyone has said, "It's not personal, please understand."
I beg to differ.
It is very much personal, and I don't understand.
Not at all. Or, actually, I think, we do all too well.

Let me back up. This is the quick summary of the trap: The US CDC has determined to put in place screening measures for all immigrants for tuberculosis. This sounds like a reasonable and reasoned, thoughtful measure. Until you start examining the data. And you realize that most first world countries do not do this, rather, they screen immigrants once they have arrived. And then, if needed, they treat them.

However, our country has decided that the rates of TB have risen enough that they need to do something. And so they have put in place sweeping protocols to screen for tb. Our country has decided to screen immigrants before they arrive on our shores. These are called the 2007 technical instructions. The problem is, these do not outline what to do if a person already HAD tb, and had already been treated. [The 2008 technical instructions for immigrants already in the US expand on the 2007 and they point out that any person who has already been treated, does not need screening, and in fact, may travel freely.] Therefore, any person wishing to come to the U.S. must have a clear skin test, or chest xray or 8 week sputum culture. Period. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

Does it?

What is this really?
Dare I suggest, this is a case of "other."
Us. Them.
We are here safe and sound in our country. I believe this is a protective measure, but misplaced. I love my country, don't get me wrong. But 'they' are there, and we don't know what 'they' have that might hurt us. And so 'they' have to be screened, and kept there until we are sure 'they' are "ok," right? Right?

Do they? What's the goal? What does that mean?
Is this a measure to lower the levels of TB in our country, only? Is it a measure to lower the levels of TB in other countries? Or is it to keep out risk, or those who are "other?" Is this a question of comfort? Are our levels of comfort being challenged? Well, I think so. This screening is not being done, for instance, on European immigrants, nor Chinese, nor East Indian.

Should children, any of them, of American families, be swept under this measure?

The reason I question all this is because this policy is being applied to kids, without seeing them as individuals, each unique. Kids. It is not being applied foreign temporary workers, not students, not most of the immigrants who arrive on our shores: adults who can easily slip into the system and disappear. This policy, in our particular case and others too, is being applied in broad sweeping strokes to kids. Our kids. Our Ethiopian kids.

Hmm. Look closely. Who are "they?" Are they dangerous to us? Really? Is their goal to come into the country and infect us all? Or to milk the system and our resources? I don't think so. These kids have one goal: find a family. Find a safe place and a home. That's it. Do we need to think of these kids as a threat somehow to us? Um, no. Are we at risk from them, these children, really, are we? No. The data supports that. Coffeedoc is more than happy to provide it to anyone interested. The CDC should be too.

This is Christmas dinner at the government orphanage where my daughter lived. This is what
they had as a special celebration feast. Hard to get better, if you DO have tb or any illness on that diet, don't ya think?

If we were really screening for TB as a matter of compassion and concern for health, wouldn't the answer be that if you found TB, you would bring that kid home to their family so they could be treated swiftly? Really? Or is it better to leave that child who has a family here, there, alone, sick and scared where they can't even get the proper nutrition to support the medicine?

We have been told that the CDC is trying to keep our communities, our family, the population at large, 'safe' from infection. Um, really? Because on that plane coming home, it's almost exclusively a population that has been walking around being exposed to all sorts of viruses and infections, utterly unknown in type or quantity. How does letting a child who has already completed treatment for TB keep that community 'safe?'

I know. You are rolling your eyes, thinking, "she's on a rant." Maybe.
But I am tired of this.
This is a stigma.
There is a stigma against scary words and labels: "HIV+" "TB" "Immigrant" "Virus."
I'm tired of the stigma, of wondering if I can say that my daughter had TB.
Well, she did.
My daughter had TB. She was treated for it, successfully.
She's over it now.
But they won't let her come home, because of arbitrary, political, well meaning but misapplied protocols.

But look closely, just below. These aren't adults. These are children. Our children. This is their Christmas dinner, again. Do they look like something we should fear, somehow?
Are they, really, "other?"
So, I am asking again. What's the goal, really?
Is it to help with compassion, to help find and treat a treatable disease? Is it to help lower the rates of this worldwide, as the world leader our country is and should be? Is it to help these children be united with a family? Or is it, to somehow attempt to protect, ineffectively, "us." I'm asking. What's the goal?

Look closer

Today is World Aids Orphans Day.

These are the faces of the littlest ones. Not necessarily the youngest, I mean, the littlest.

These are the ones it's so easy to pass over and look beyond. But these are our children too. We are so bombarded with causes and pictures that it's easy to get overwhelmed, desensitized, numb.

But look at these faces. Really, look at them. These are kids. They are orphans. They lost their moms and or dads to AIDS.

See them with your heart and soul. Do something, even if only to give them the dignity and humanity to really SEE them, and say a prayer for them, donate, reach out.
They are just kids...our kids....who have a future, or should.

Not So Wordless Wednesday

Well, it's Wednesday and I was up a fair lot last night, with insomnia. But, oddly, enough, with a newer sense of calm. And so in that spirit I figured I'd put up this pic today. I like it. That's my Buddybug up there with the guitar (squint real hard, or click the pic, you'll see him). This was the Eucharistic Procession up at his college about a week or so ago. It was cool and my boy and one of the music groups he plays in, the Four-Seven Band, were stationed to play at the third altar for the procession. He said it was great. Of course it was. It's always great, to carry Christ out to the world...whether in a reverent official procession, above, or mindfully in our own selves, every day (ideally).

That said, I need to give a particular nod of thanks to Fr. Gideon. Well, really, to all of you faithful generous souls who have been praying.

No. We have no news.

But I have reached a state of some peace and while still very sad that we are not united as a family yet, I am not raging to control the universe or sway God's own mind. Not today at any rate. I'll take a few days off, maybe. {And yeah, I'm sure I'll be right back at it in a day or so...old habits and all.}

My Pastor, Fr. Gideon, has been nudging me, ok, not so subtly, he's been pushing me to accept God's will and that this might well be beyond our control without the spinning twirling whirling dervish of my control buttons gone wild. He continues to point out how much more peaceful and gentle and calm life is when you do.

I know this, intellectually. It's not rocket science. It's not a huge secret.
It's just the doing that is so hard, especially for us type A gals....

He has laughed gently at me, listened to my tears, and prayed for me and us and kindly smiled at me when he saw I was still thrashing about. So. Father Gideon, just so you know: I'm there, for the moment, for today. And you're right, what a surprise, ahem..... I'll take it. Thank you. All.

Tennesh Tuesday

We are all feeling a little like this today.
{But red shoes always make things a tiny bit better
in my book...and little man's too!}

Connected. Part 2: The beauty

It's the feast day of St. Joseph the Worker.

That's the same St. Joseph that is the dad on earth of Jesus and the patron of families.
Plus of course, he was no slouch as a worker...hence a day to remember that.
And today, as our family is in a struggle and we are working hard to somehow find a way through it, I have offered up my petitions to St. Joseph, for his intercession, relying on his kindness and understanding as a father, and a worker-bee too.

That said, I have spent this past week tumbling many thoughts around in my head. And yeah, you know what that means: I gotta post. And this is a stumbling exploration of all those thoughts and yup it's centered on faith and prayer, and it's Catholic too - so fair warning. Just stop right now if you're not interested. But I gotta, I've already told you, it's how I process.

Way back in July, I wrote a post on connections, here.
And in that post I marveled at the connections we find in blogland, and beyond.
This week, I've been able to marvel at those connections all over again, much more viscerally and intimately than ever before.

As most of you know, this time, almost exactly last week, our trip to Addis was boxed. I had just finished up my ugly-crying scene at Barnes and Noble and was at home, doubled over in sobs, watching Coffeedoc turn his mouth to that determined set and get to work trying to find another way to get to our daughter. I sniffed up my tears again and again and he kept researching and calling. We are still in that same process, just beating different bushes.

This week has been one of physical grief and frustration, glimmers of hope and kicks in the gut of reality...again and again. Worry and fretting and fear.
And much much prayer.
And this is what I've been tumbling around...all this messy mass of contradiction: hope, prayer, suffering, worry, acceptance, and connections. Coffeedoc and I have been talking a lot about all this, what it means, how to walk through it.

So, bear with me as I lurch along here:
Prayer. We have been praying. So hard. My prayers and this struggle is so much that I don't actually have real, speakable words to verbalize anymore. Those were gone, just about this time last week. We are taught that the Holy Spirit will interpret out meager prayers, with unutterable groans, and carry them to the Father.
And really, I think that at this point maybe I've saved him a step.
My prayers are sort of an unspeakable toss. They are sort of "You know what's best and You know my heart of hearts, here, here take it..it's too much for me." And after that, even then, I can't actually iterate those or any words, they are kind of silently, internally groaned. But this leaves me to question..is that prayer? Is that good enough? What if they are not? But those, that, is what I've been left with before - in those most stressful times of hospitals and threats. So, maybe those prayers are worth enough anyhow.

Suffering. You know, this is a suffering. Not nearly so deep or intense as so many out there, I so realize that. We are grateful it's not more, we recognize how fortunate we are to have this, relatively measly, suffering. God knows what wusses we are. But, even so, it is a suffering. It is full of fear and worry and physical literal hurt and depression. And for what? So many say, "worry won't change anything."
Well. Hmm. True.
However, suffering, it does.
Suffering, it transforms.
This is not to say we want to suffer.
Uh-uh, not me, um, ever, ok?
But that when we do, it transforms - not only us, dare I say it, but the world.
A little bit.
And in that, there is such beauty.

Now, before you all wig out and think I am some creepy masochist, I'll tell ya now, "I'm not."
But I have seen the beauty of this suffering first hand, intimately, both times connected to a daughter. The first time was when my little four year old girl had a life threatening status epilepticus seizure and was life flighted to the downtown children's hospital and was in the pediatric ICU for three days. (A different long story. She recovered, thanks be to God.) This time, it is with another daughter, one I haven't hugged yet and she is stuck in a bureaucratic trap, half a world away. Both times, the outpouring of love and caring and prayers and support, helped us, lifted us up, and also humbled us and blew our minds. Yup, now, I'm there.

Because here is where the transforming, the prayer, the connecting, the suffering becomes beauty. Prayer doesn't change God's mind. We are not praying as if we can somehow pick a tune on a jukebox, "I'll take Elvis, B6." Prayer transforms our hearts to grow to accept God's will, if we truly want God's will. And in the process of that prayer, we are brought closer to His heart. And in suffering, we get a chance to also come closer and have others called closer to that same heart.

Erk. I'm not saying this well, or right. {I talked about some of this to dear sweet Becca, too.}
But, through our suffering (and really, this is hardly cancer or dying or anything, it is just really really hard and frustrating and feeling so desperate....and that's our own doing, as the pills we are)....I have seen such beauty in the compassion and outreach of friends and family and most of all, the blog community. Blog friends gave up food for us, fasted, for our needs yesterday. So many have been praying, and fasting even, for us. It is utterly humbling.

But, I think, me {so really, take it for what very little it's worth}, that really is where the transformative nature of prayer - and suffering - starts to play in. By our (measly) suffering (tho doesn't feel measly, you get my drift); we offer it in prayer, and unite it intimately with the suffering Christ experienced. And that, Christs own suffering is what is calling to all of you others who are so giving and kind and supportive of US....that intimacy, that call to help, that urge to help that you/others feel is a response in LOVE which is nothing if not Christ, who IS love and so we are all transformed, and there, there is the glory of God.

It's not in having our wants/needs worked out perfectly, but in bringing more of that glory, that love, into this dark hard world. It's in each of us stretching out in love to console the other...there it is, right there.
It's us getting to participate, willingly suffer/help carry the burdens of others, so that, like a small kid, we can help, even to change the world a little bit by the effort. We get to help. I see the big huge GLORY of it even as I feel and know the small personal intimate union of it all too..... Ack.

That is the transformative nature of suffering...you get the whole package, and it calls to others and so, mirrors, images, unites, us to Christ.

So. That's just way cool to me. Even as I wallow and feel sick and so so deep blue down.....I can recognize that much, because God knows what a weenie I am and need something to hang on to. And I can, and do, and will hang on to the connections...and hope to be able to do the same for someone else, next time it's needed. I see it in many many repeated emails, the flowers Jess sent me, and in the fasting Becca started, in the unexpected, providential or coincedental (?), connections like Lori.......and it all humbles me and makes me shiver in awe.

My kids make fun of me for my blog and my blog friends. But I don't care. Because I said it last time, and I'll say it again: We are connected, amazingly enough. I, even if only I, am lifted up by the connections. Which help me to remember one of my very favorite hymns, and one of Jana's and one of it's really good lines:

"We lift our hearts before you and wait upon your word"

At the best, when we are all at our best, when we, dare I say, are transformed into our best......we can walk through this all together - adoptions or other things - suffer, wait, help bear the burden and shout with glee, as we each wind our way through this long, often difficult, road....looking for the light at the end, waiting on His word.

"and whether our tomorrows

be filled with good or ill,
we'II triumph through our sorrows
and rise to bless you still"

So, maybe this is just a very long stream of consciousness thank you, because I don't really have the words to say it well or nearly nearly enough. But for all of you, your thoughts, prayers, support...no matter the outcome: Oh, my, thank you. Thank you.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Blast from the past edition:Everything is better with a great hat.

Tennesh Tuesday

As promised: a little respite.

Goofy Gabey and girls.

Two year old treasure: the bike graveyard, way out back.....

Where's the Map?

** warning**
I process things by talking and typing...
it's how I do it, 'thinking out loud, so to speak/type'
and so I have to post and then I'll try to stop whining.
But I will put up a kid pic tomorrow instead, I promise, you've done your time.**

So.
Here we are.
We've been over the what's and why's, below.
We are stuck, my daughter is stuck in a bureaucratic mill.

And so now, while Coffeedoc still tries to figure out how to turn this around, if remotely possible, we have to move forward.
And I want to know: where's the map?

I know, I know.
There IS NO map.
I am to move forward in faith.
Next step, pitch black.
Next step, go.
Well....I'm trying.
I really am.

I'd just dearly love to do this with tremendous grace and ease and show that it's not so hard, it can be done with a minimum of effort and a smidgeon of faith.

But you know, I am not graceful, never have been.
I am a clumsy mess, most of the time.
And apparently, especially now.

And, even for those with faith, this sort of thing is a challenge.
And I DO believe God knows what the perfect timing is, and I do really want His choice....but I'd sure really like it to jive up with mine, when push comes to shove.
So, yeah, I'd like to holler out: "I want a map, please."

How do we move forward?
This is uncharted water, in many ways.
What do I do with this grief and this worry and fear?
Do I just set it aside and pray over it and look at it as I pass by in the normal hectic rush of my days?
Do I just set it aside and ignore it, hoping it will go away if I don't give it any attention?
Do I ogle it and lose myself inside it, my very own "precious" as I morph into Gollum?
Do we blithely throw ourselves back into the hum of our busy lives here, and just kind of not think about it all, lose ourselves in the busy?
Can I?
No.
I don't know what to do with all this.
I want a map.

What do I do with the very real fact that I have a daughter, there, not here...
in every way she is mine: legally, sacredly, morally, committedly (I know it's not a real word, but I don't care), ethically, our responsibility, and growing in our hearts to what degree she can at this point.
What do we tell the world? "Yeah, we have a daughter, she's in a foster home, in Ethiopia."
{Not that the world is so important here; I find this not sitting well within my own chest either}
According to the Ethiopian government, she is our responsibility.
Our child.
According to the US govt, that may be true but we can't get her.
What do we do with that?
How long? What if it's for so very, very long?
Do we set her up with a Nanny in a separate home?
Do we move there and ditch the business and life we've built here?
What's realistic?
Do we move over there temporarily, also ditching the business and school and doctors and life here that we have built and also need and others who need us?
Do we split the family up to move there for awhile?
Live separately?
How do we honor our ties to her and care for her from here, when our hands are tied in so many ways?

sigh.

I don't know what to do with all this, this grief and worry and wonder.
I DO so so want a map.
But I know, in faith, that I don't get one.

So, I will do the only thing I know how: I will hurt through this and I will do the next thing.
I will do the next load of laundry.
I will make the next meal.
I will referee the next fuss.
I will pick up that set of shoes off the floor.
I will hug my sweaty toddler, Gabey, when he wakes up from his nap.
And I will think about her, aching, every single step of the way.
And I will offer it all up, in faith, and hope, and a little bit of kvetching in my prayers.

And I will remember God's answer to one who was truly really hurt {Yeah, Job} when He said "Did you hang the moon, the sun, the heavens?" (That's my paraphrase, you get the idea...I say the same thing in essence to my kids:'I know what you want, leave me alone I know what I"m doing and you don't have a clue').

Yesterday, I read this, it helped a bit, it's from a French Carthusian, named Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart.

In all that we do, and at every moment, God has ordained an exact balance between what we have to do and the necessary strength to do it; and this we call grace. Our part is to bring ourselves into line with grace.
God uses all the horrors of this world for an infinitely perfect end, and always with an infinite calm. It is part of his plan that we should feel the blows and experience the wounds of life: but more than anything else he wants us to dominate them by virtues of faith, hope and charity, and so live on his level. It is these latter which will raise us up to him, and then we shall share in his calm, and in the highest part of our being.

h/t Anchoress

So I will do the next thing, again and ongoing: pray for the virtues of faith, hope and charity, and so hope to find the calm in the ache.
And try hard to stop searching for that map and just keep taking the next step.

Full Stop: No Go Pt 2

Well, here we are.
And here we will be.

Despite Coffeedoc's superhuman effort for the past 48 hours {and still he keeps turning things over in his head, stewing, examining, looking for a way}, we now know: we don't go.

We are full of those fruitless useless "what if's": "if only the embassy doc interpreted the protocol more specifically" "if only the embassy doc had her classified properly" "if we had only had a court date a few weeks earlier" "if they didn't have such a lag when our papers hit" etc etc etc.
Recrimination and fretting is ridiculous selfish sad bitter taste.
Those "ifs" are pure torture and pure pity party, but almost impossible to stem {and I'd by lying if I said they didn't flit through our heads}.

Make no mistake, while our pity party has been thrown for us to be sure, it is ever more so iced with the deep worry over our Marta, what this means for her, to her, how she is understanding and dealing with it all and how it might pan out. And that worry is deep and true. She is a child, caught in a bureaucratic machine.
And I can find myself frozen in the fears of that.

But. Here is where we are, on the objective surface of things:
New proposed Embassy date: July 8 (my big brother's bday).
New proposed travel date: July 4

New prayer bleg, even more serious: please please pray for a clear culture (our CDC friend pointed out that cultures in kids are always dicey, easily contaminated, unpredictable..frequent false positives....which would lead to disaster for our girl).
That's it. Just a clear culture, no growth, heck, sterile even!

My unspeakable thanks and gratitude for the support and prayers and emails.
They mean the world and help so much. Thank you.
And I do trust in God's will, even when I cannot fathom it and it's hard to walk through...
I choose to trust it {even when my controlling reflex is to rail at it and cause a scene in Barnes and Noble}.

And, in the meantime, we try to stand back up and catch back our breath from the hollowed out cavity in our chest that is scraped clean and raw but is somehow so much heavier.
And we pray through the hurt and sorrow of it all, pray through the hard.

Because even though, even that, is so hard and our words are gone....
what else do we have to do, or hang on to, but that?

No Go

One last, last ditch effort to explore.
Otherwise it's July, at the earliest.
Govt' protocols are complex, and you can get caught by them when they are left to individual interpretation.
International adoption is not for the faint of heart.

Ours hurt.
We are devastated.

Packing in Prayer

Yup. Packing. Praying.Not done yet.

{You might think so....but NO,
still missing three more suitcases
and three more backpacks.
And quite a bit more prayer for good news to go.}
Tomorrow.....?

Limbo

Axum Cathedral Fresco, Madonna and Child

Just in: Marta had her Embassy doctor visit who was in touch with the Gladney pediatrician, {who gave her an all clear}, and has the documentation of Marta's series of meds, finished, {and then some}. But the doc wants, and did, a short saliva test, and will know enough by Friday to say "come on" or "not yet." We are booked to leave Saturday, before dawn....but even so....

We wait.
Two days.

We keep acting like we are going, and try to step through the next two days in faith and hope.
We pray, hard, for God's will, and only that, because I obviously am nonfunctional, left to my own devices.

And I beg, shamelessly, for my daughter, for me, for us, for your prayers if you have any mind to do so.
I thank you for the ones you've sent forth and for the support I've received (I am humbled and unspeakably grateful for that), but still...
I beg, I bleg, because even though much of this is about ME, it's hard on me, it's making me cry....It is ever so much more so, about HER, my daughter.....who was at the doctor, who waits to come home.
I beg for your prayers.

Two days....I'm hoping, not sure why it makes me cry, but still, it does.
And all, ALL I can do, is pray.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother;
to thee do I come, before thee I stand,sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions,
but in thy mercy hear and answer me.

Amen

Almost Wordless Wednesday

This one is for our far flung family.
It's the prom pics!This is Booboo and his sweet date; a lovely girl in every way.
They sure 'clean up good!'
And below is a happy pic of happy son and happy parents, so we need it officially "on the record!"I know, I know..... prom pics. But, indulge me....Besides, you knew they were coming...it's the only way for much of my family to see them. (Not everyone is on facebook...)
And besides, you youngsters...someday this will be you, the mom w/ the pics of her kids....
The best part of prom is that it was seemingly a great success (big shindig at our house, faboo food by another mom, amazing cook!), and it's done!

Hubub

Well, this pretty much sums it up, right above.
That is what it is looking like in my house of late, and I am guessing it will for the rest of this week. And that is if we get GOOD news on Wednesday!
If we get bad news....well, I'm not sure anyone wants to see a picture of me sitting on the floor crying and holding my heart. I'll try to spare you that, at least.

But, we had the insane prom-o-rama this past weekend.
It was wonderful but the days of crazy prep?
Hubub.
Commotion.

Yesterday every one of us simply crashed into still prone states of migraine and/or sheer exhausted sleep deprivation, with an icing on top of too much sugar (amazing food by Mrs. DelG, one of the moms). Because when you have twenty teens in the house for an "up all night" party, you provide sugary and salty things. And when you are chaperoning twenty teens all night, you eat sugary and salty things. So...you can imagine the crash the next day. I'll let you do that.

Now. It's Monday.
And maybe, maybe we are flying halfway across the world in five days, half of us.
And it's another whole round of it.
Hubub.
Commotion.
Packing, soothing, stopping, starting, finding, copying, typing, sorting, zipping, folding, washing, cooking, hugging, listening, stopping, referring, directing, sighing, smiling.
Hubub.
From us all.

The kids sense it, I swear they are like dogs that way. (As soon as I move the duffels downstairs the dog will switch into anxiety too, I promise.)
And so, um, there is just a touch more work to do....
And the girls who are traveling know it, and are starting to move into overdrive: "Will we need this? Did you get that? Have you seen my shoes? Will I need this? What will I do for this?" and so on.
And the little boys and one big one who are not traveling are starting to move into underdrive: "I'm so tired. I have homework (the teen)" and more concerning to this mom's heart, "How long will you be gone? Will you call? Who is staying with us? Where will you be? When are you coming back? What if I have bad dreams?"

And I worry that they will have bad dreams.
And I worry that they will miss me.
And I worry that they will fall ill.
And I worry that they will fuss and fight.
And I worry that they won't miss me.
And I worry that my Gabey will not want me when I get home
(I KNOW better, it's primal I can't help it).

I worry about changing long standing doc appointments for next week, and know that I'll be thrilled to do so, but cannot yet. Everything I say is with a caveat, "We might be gone." "If we go, we will need to do this..." "I might not be able to..." and so on.

This week, these three days to be exact, is a balancing act. One foot on one side of a cliff, one foot on the other, don't look down, just look ahead and keep the balls juggling as you wiggle for balance.

So I am balancing, even as I am moving into final packing overdrive too, and pretending we are flying out on Saturday. Trying to slow down enough for the small boys {and the teen too}, for us all to get our fill of each other for a week or so, if you can do such a thing. But you know, there is really no balance, not really.

But there is one thing, inescapably, and I think it's best to accept it and move through it:
Hubub.

Mercy Me

It's Divine Mercy Sunday!
And this is one of those days where we are reminded, formally so we really get it, of the most important things in life.
Possibly, THE most important thing:
Mercy.
Which means love.
For everyone, everyone deserves it: mercy and love.
We just forget that.

And today, we not only try to remember, but the church all around the world celebrates it and rejoices in it and shouts to us: "Don't forget this! Trust in it: mercy and love."

"Doubting Thomas" by Caravaggio

And we all know by now that I have trust issues, it seems.
That's where the worry and fretting and control freak comes from.
But today we are told, again, and again: "Trust. It's all about the mercy and love. Trust."
Ahhhhhh. Relief for the asking, or, the trusting.
Now, that is worth a celebration to me!

And since I can't say it well, I will send you to Deacon who says it so much better. Really, go read, it only takes a minute and you'll be glad you did, he connects the dots with our current world so well:

"God’s mercy says to us, very simply,
“You are loved -- no matter what. Because everybody is somebody.”

And that is what we celebrate, officially, today.
Ah, mercy, mercy.

At the Gate

And we wait.

Last year, waiting for our plane to be fixed on our way to Addis.

Do we stay or do we go??

On the one hand, we have been given the good news of TENTATIVE travel dates!
IF we get the go-ahead, we fly out April 25th.

Hoorah!
BUT, and this is a big but, we won't know for sure until April 22.

And, on the other hand, there is a chance we will be asked to wait, possibly for a good while and I can't even really type it out because it stresses me and I am in denial for the moment and I am happy here in my hopeful spot.
So.
Don't ask about the 'what if's' right now. Just tear a page from my current book of hope and say a prayer for us to have lift off.

We are in something of a travel gate/limbo.
And that's ok with us, because HEY we live for this kind of excitement!
Um, ok, maybe not so much.
It's yet another step forward on that dimly lit path of faith, for me, aka "Miss Control Freak."

But I am hopeful.
I am even maybe a little bit more than hopeful, I am, shhhh, anticipating.

I keep telling myself, on the one hand, that I should hold back and brace myself for not going.
But somehow, even for a cynical control freak like me, that just seems like such a downer and well....I am too selfish to rob even myself of the joy. I'm not going whole hog, there is a tiny little twinge of "but maybe not" every time I think of getting on that plane, early that Saturday morning.

But a bigger part of me can't help it, and I feel like maybe, just maybe, it's really gonna happen and we can go. We got good news from the agency last week that signals that it is very possible we might be able to go get our girl. On April 25th. I stood in Target and cried, making a minor spectacle of myself when I got the email. And Belay himself, kind of like the "Great Oz" of Gladney adoptions in Ethiopia, he himself said to give us the dates.

So I'm running with it.
I'm hoping like mad.
I'm praying even more so.

And I'm packing like a dervish.
Because prepping a babysitter, the teen and the small ones to stay and the others to go across the world is like coordinating troop movements, realigning the planets, or some other crazy humongous game show task....it takes some doing folks!

And we have made an important decision, much discussed and debated: we are taking all the girls to go and welcome our new daughter into the family!

Yes, this pic is old, but goofy fun.

It will be an all girl trip (except for dear Coffeedad, of course!).
We are very excited about it and think it will be a lifelong neat and good thing, even if it has it's own particular ups and downs. And the little girls are excited about it too, really. Or, they will be once they get over the three shots they need and then eat the ice cream promised to make it all easier. One scoop per shot. Yeah, that's not a bad deal....score!

So that's the update. We knew we'd be in a little limbo after court.
That's why I have been silent on this. I debated putting this up.
But I've decided that I'd rather have the prayers that might be thrown our way to go, instead of pacing in worry alone. And because I know from experience how awesome this blog community is, I'm also thanking you for those very prayers, deeply, in advance.

So, we wait to the 22nd for firm news.
Go.
Or no go.
We hope.
We pray.
We beg for prayers in blogland: I believe it's called a "bleg."
I'm blegging.
Again.

And we're waiting at the gate.

Day Four

Day Four.
That is a label that has come to have new meaning.

We just went on a road trip for a long weekend to visit my eldest, so we could all be together for Easter and also get to participate in the entire Easter Triduum liturgy at one of the most glorious ones in the country.
We really enjoy doing this and the Vigil Mass gives me chills and makes me cry and makes our hearts soar.
It's stunning.
It's a great way to spend Easter, mindful, rich, and so nice to be all together.

But it's a busy weekend. Some folks have half-jokingly called the Triduum (the Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday liturgies, culminating in Easter Sunday) the Catholic Olympics or Decathlon. Because, yeah, its a spiritual and physical workout.

And there is that day....Coffeedoc has pointed it out over the past few trips.
But it's the Dday. Day Four.
It's the day that any trip, for us at least, is a bear.
That shiny excitement of a trip has worn off.
That out of sorts, out of your element, out of your comfort zone has crept in.
And for us, Day Four is the day of cranky tired family travel.
No matter whether we are at the beach or in Addis Ababa, visiting family or touring museums...it's the day: Day Four.

And the reason for me to post this is twofold: one, to be honest enough to show the gritty parts of family life. And two, to hope that others have been there done that and are recovered enough to laugh about it and remind me today.
We will be too.....but it's gonna take at least a day or two of re-entry settling back in and regrouping, remembering that it is all good, most of the time, not all crabby more of the time (by which I mean, yesterday).

On another note, this makes me rethink Coffeedoc's other point.
Lately, he has been mildly pushing, erk, presenting, the idea of a bigger car.
"We'll never fit all everyone into the car and we can't go anywhere as a family," he says.
"Don't be ridiculous," I say, "we can just squeeze in, we'll be fine. We'll put the jump seat back in the car. We'll tow our bags. It'll work. I'm never driving a bigger car! I don't want a bigger car!"
Well, so we did.
We put the jump seat back in the cargo space.
We squooshed Little Man back there and squeezed everyone else into every last available inch.
And it worked...by which I mean, we arrived at our destinations together and in one piece.
But.....by Day Four, yesterday, it was a very very long drive home.
Nine and half hours.
Like in a clown car.

Between the squeeze and the infamous Day Four (granted aggravated by not nearly enough sleep for all due to late vigil Mass and too much sugar) it was a pretty grouchy day.
For all of us.
It is the sort of trip that someday, we will tell stories about, small ones...be able to tease a bit, remind each other of the scary diner and crazy-bad five year old's jokes.
But really, considering that next year (or, this summer) we will have one more teen in the car?
We have to either add a seat or take two cars, or......
I am rethinking Coffeedoc's car ideas.
And once again, I am reminded, "Never, never, say never."
Day Four.

Easter Sunday!

Rubens, "The Resurrection of Christ"

Hallelujah, He is Risen!
He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!
It's Easter Sunday!!

This is it.
This is the reason I get out of bed in the morning, ultimately.
If it wasn't for this, I'm not sure I could, so many days.
It would just be too too hard.
But this, this makes it all worth it, more than worth it....
this makes it glorious.
Every day.
I don't even have the words....

Happy Happy Easter.
Go hop for joy!

Holy Saturday, Lamentations

Painting by Mantengna, c 1490

Holy Saturday.
We wait.
It is finished.
It is so silent, so sad.
It is a somber quiet day.
I think of his Mom.
And I ache for her.

Painting by Franz von Stuck, 1891

And today is an achy day, all around.
It hurts.
It should.
It is too quiet, too somber.
And yet, of course, not.
And we wait, happily for us, in joyful knowledge and hope, for tomorrow.
But still, today, we wait.

Good Friday

Detail of painting, Tissot

Good Friday.
High Holy Day.
The Passion of Christ.
Via Dolorosa.
Crucifixion.
Utter sorrow.
Fasting.
Veneration of the Cross.
Empty tabernacles.
Hungry, tired, hard, sad.

Really, horror.

Nikolaï Gay (1831-1894)

Unfathomable.
An unspeakable, truly, tough day.
Good, yes, but the hardest most unspeakable kind of good.

A mystery of good.

Painting by Tissot, "What Christ saw from the Cross"

But yes, glorious good; if unseen as such then, and sometimes now.
We wait.

Holy Thursday

Painting by Tissot

Holy Thursday.
Maundy Thursday.
Last Supper.
Washing Feet.
Beginning of the Passion.
Tenebrae.
A hard somber night, leading into a hard day.
Jangled, disjointed, stripping the altar, moving the Blessed Sacrament out of the tabernacle.
Empty.
I always feel like crying at this service, "Don't take him!" my heart foolishly calls.
And then it is silent.
And we file out, in the sad silent dark from the now empty church.
He is gone.
It's Holy Thursday.....so it begins.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Just because they have so much fun with each other.
Just because it's so much fun to watch them have so much fun together!
The little brothers, they make us all smile and grin.

Tennish Tuesday

Yup, it's a quiet little Tuesday here.

We are waiting.

Waiting to hear if we can travel, and when.Trying hard to be patient, and full of hope....

as we are full of prayer for it all.

And really, this week in particular, I guess it's okay.
It's Holy Week.
And waiting is just right in that sense.

But it's hard to wait, even so...for all of us!

So, for today, it is just a Tennish Tuesday.

Waking up today....Updated

this was rolling through my head.



Not exactly the Basilica where Buddybug is this morning...But still, apropos of the day I suppose.
Today is one of the longest Masses of the year, and it's one of the hard ones. Sure it seems like it's all the rejoicing like in the video above...but no we also have to read the long reading of when it all turns and Christ is taken to Pilate, and in the liturgy we respond, "Crucify him!" again and again.
I HATE that.
It makes me cringe.
It hurts and makes me wince.
I often want to stand silent, thinking, "No. I won't. I can't say that."
But of course, I do, darn near every day in my selfish thoughtless words and snapping temper.
So, sure I could stand there and be silent today.....but oh, what a hypocrite.
And since I'm already that already too.....I will quietly, achingly whisper, "Crucify him" and try not to cry.

For more, ever so much better stuff on Palm Sunday, go here and here and, always, go here. anytime!

** Note: Palm Sunday Mass with toddlers means you don't actually hear all the readings because you are juggling small boys who are playing swords with the palms that are given out. Long Mass, somber readings (Mark 14:1-15: 47), (Psalm 22), crowded pews, and toys, erk, palms...equals chaotic Mass!**

The BackStory

So. Now we have passed court!
Our feet are still floating a bit...ok, a lot.
We have a new daughter, we knew it long ago, but it's nice to be really official.
The words, "Our new daughter, Marta" still feel new on our tongues.
It's been a long road to her, we are still on it, but still...

So, now that we have passed, now some of the questions have begun flying.
We knew they would.
We had many of the same questions, ourselves, last summer - when we started this whole process.
So, I figure we should address, at least a few of them, here.
So, here's the back story, complete with the zingers:
See that pic up right above?
That is our Marta, last May. Yeah, the one in the ray of light (nice, huh?) .
When we were in Addis Ababa, last May to pick up Gabey, we went to Kebebetsehay.
Kebebetsehay is the government orphanage where Gabriel Tariku first was placed.
And there were, and are, many kids there.
And it is kind of a heartbreaking place.
They all are, the orphanages, of course.

Anyhow, the visits to the orphanage are kind of devastating...as is the trip on the whole. I posted some about it here, it's hard to describe it well. And what happens is that you come home with your heart kind of shredded up. Frayed around the edges. Ok, kind of with a hole torn in it that won't ever be mended up nice and smooth and invisible, ever again.

And on one level you go and come home and are OH so grateful for the little things that you took for granted: convenient clean bathrooms, pounding hot water, ice in drinks, understanding anyone you might happen to speak to, salad, being able to read signs, clear(ish) air, the sheer convenience of getting around and daily life here in the States.

And that, that gratitude for the ease and comfort in daily life, inevitably fades. You slip back into the usual routine that was there before you made the trip. It's our natural way, you know it. But what we found was that one thing didn't just go back to size and form. Our hearts. Our hearts, mine and Coffeedoc's, were reshaped. Tugged and torn and pulled into new versions, akin to old colanders in a weird way. Poked full of holes, dented, bumped up. Each hole was the place of a kid we met in Addis, stuck in our hearts. Or someone we saw in the city, seared into our brains and now heart and prayers.

We kind of tried to gloss over that part, because it was too raw, and hard to talk about really. I mean, what is there to say? How? But we would mention it, in that old married shorthand kind of way. And we'd nod to each other. Or look at each other. And we'd pray. Or we'd find each other looking at the pictures, again. And again. Especially that one up there. And this one, just below.
And finally, we emailed Joanna (the in-country rep, we had made friends...). And we asked about a number of the kids we met, just so we could put them very precisely in our prayers. And she kindly wrote us back about most of them. Good info to have, happily, most of them matched already. Others we put into our prayers, precisely. We knew their names, most of them, so we could ask about them. We had been praying to their patron saints (determined by their names) if we could. And one of them, she needed to get more info on, as she was still at the gov't orphanage and it might take a little time. We said ok, thanks so much and waited. Because I wasn't really thinking about anything other than knowing more and praying, although Coffeedoc was... I had already been stewing about the older girls left there, but I didn't yet know that he had one, her, in mind for more, for bringing home.

Then she emailed back, she confirmed her name: Marta. (Spelled, in Ethiopia, as "Martha", pronounced, and to be spelled here, as "Marta.") And that she was ten to twelve, an orphan, no family, a few other things, and she was available for adoption. And I sent the email on to Coffeedoc, who was working. And he called me. And he said, "Do you know what day it is?" And I gulped and said, "Yes." "It's St. Martha's feast day," he said, voice cracked just a bit. "I know," I said. And I knew. Ow.

For us, think what you like, that is a brick dropped on our Catholic heads. {To recap and explain that, we had been praying to St. Martha, for prayers for her; and we got her info on St. Martha's feast day? Coincidence? Not in my world....} But we hung up, enough had been said. For now. Later, Coffeedoc called back. I knew he would. He said, "I think we need to go get her." "I know," I said. But I'm still needing to think and pray...this is big, so big, I told him. And he said, "I know." And then he let me think pray talk stew pray study research pray talk wonder and pray. He waited. He waited for me to move past my fear and imagination and worry. He never wavered. He doesn't. That would be me, at that point in the game (ok, other points too...). I fret. I stew. I wallow in fear. Yup. That's me. And adopting an older child is more complicated, many more layers and complexities. I talked a little bit about it all in my post announcing our start back in process, here. But it only alluded to how big this was, this decision that was as surprise to us both. Finally it came down to were we willing? And, so, yes.
But then, and now again of course, come the questions, the opinions (Because everyone's got an opinion, and not all, not nearly all, are positive), the zingers:
Why her? Why this child? Why not another one? Did you guys pick her? Did the agency refer her? Was she picked for you? What are you thinking? Are you crazy? How did you know she was your daughter? How do you know? Are you scared? Are you excited? Why her?

And I don't have the perfect answer to that, certainly not any satisfactory answer to anyone who asks. Some ask with "nerve" (oh, the nerve of them, right? sigh), and some with genuine interest. And they have asked. And are. And will. I did too. But here's what I've got, now:

No, the agency didn't refer her to us, she was in a government orphanage, not the agency one.
Yes, we believe she was picked for us, but not by the agency, but instead, God (Even tho so many will scoff at this, there you have it. And yes, we know that sounds prideful...we get that. Maybe it is, maybe we just have the big heads....but try living it, it sure won't feel it.).
We probably are thinking too much, all this time; now we are very anxious to start living it, and yes, we are probably a bit crazy. {But that's old news.}
We know she is our daughter because she is (why yes, we are Zen Catholics, didn't you know? :)).
We also know she is our daughter because the courts say she is, because our faith says she is, because we have jumped through hoops for her, whittled stacks of paper for her, fought for her, prayed for her, loved her, dreamt of her, forged her into our hearts and selves, even before we truly KNOW her in person.
Yes, we are scared (ok, me)!
Yes, we are excited!
And lastly, finally, why not her?

Why her? Because this is our daughter, Marta.
You know, I tend to pray for bricks on my head.
I really need to remember to start wearing a helmet.

We Passed!!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We are overjoyed!!!

Thanks be to God!
We can't begin to thank everyone who supported us in prayer and thoughts and well wishes ( but I will, another post!)!
We are shaking and crying with joy (ok, me!)
and we still need prayers for her to clear her medicals but for now, we simply shout and rejoice!!!

Weekend Race, proud mom

Buddybug ran his first official Half-marathon yesterday! That's him, on the end in the yellow shirt, green cap, number 142.
Yup, it was the Holy Half up at ND and he had a lot of fun running with his buddies.He did well, a steady pace of eight minute miles, 1:43.
** Official Race Result Update (because we care about this sort of thing): 1:43:15, pace 7:53, place 142 out of 600. ** {Hey, I'm impressed!}
I think he is built for running...and it's in his genes. His grandfather and uncle are both very good runners.... Grandpa ran long (crazy long sometimes), and Uncle David ran fast (did Boston, and sometimes crazy long). I love running but {when I do it, not lately..ahem} just shuffle and gasp along, so he clearly got this from his uncle.

I'm proud of him for sticking out the training for this; amidst ice snow exams music friends music late nights and the myriad distractions of college life.

It was cold, wet, and snowing...perfect for a spring Sunday run, don't ya think?
Well, not for me, but they seemed to have a good time!

Novena to St. Jude, day nine

Day 9
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)

Novena to St. Jude, day eight

Day 8
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)

I do. Twenty-two times

I do.

Twenty-two years ago.
A lifetime, several maybe....
We were SO young, and didn't even know it.
But then again, not so much maybe.
We had dated for...ever.
Seven years.
In some ways, we practically grew up together...
seven years, springing into adulthood.

{It was the eighties, don't judge me.
And yes, we were young!}

We've been through so much:
times when we weren't sure we'd make it,
times when we couldn't imagine not.
Eras.
Just like any "old married couple."

That's what we are now....
Foolishly, perhaps,
it surprises us.
We used to be that young couple....
Now we are the old one,
the one with how many kids?

But here's the secret, shhhhhhhh:
Now, it's so much better.

We might be that old married couple...
Not as shiny, or smooth, or skinny....
But we are molded into each other, part and parcel.

It surprises us both, how so long ago it was such a fragile event, really.
It wouldn't have taken much, he says, for it not to have happened.
A little more fear, a little less hope...
a different choice, or two.
But then again...maybe not.
Seems like it was meant to be.

Twenty-two years.
Lifetimes.
And we can, even now, look at each other with deep wonder and say
"I love you so."
"And, ever, I do."

Happy Anniversary Honey, I love you!

Novena to St. Jude, day seven

Day 7
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)

Novena to St. Jude, day six

Etching by Jacques Callot, 1632

Day 6
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)

Falling down rabbit holes: What they don't tell you about the wait, part 4

Consider Alice.
She fell into a world she only wondered at from above.
Above, all made sense.
Below, down the rabbit hole, not everything did.
Almost, but things were different.

Very similar to the wait in adoption, particularly international adoption.
Things seem to mostly make sense.
But not exactly, and they don't always work in the expected way.

Take falling in love.
That's a classic, right?
We all know it, been there, done that, can sigh and wilt into a reverie over the magic of it all...humming the latest love song as we go about our normal day.
Until you fall down the rabbit hole of adopting a child from a world away.

And then love is all topsy turvy.
It's love, but in a different way, at least while you wait to see if you can officially declare this child "yours."
You are virtually given the child, through pictures and information.
Sometimes (like us, this time) even meeting them briefly and getting snagged and connected then (whether you realized it at the time or not).
Then you have to jump through many many hoops for them, in order to be allowed to claim them.
Then you are approved to claim them; you are "referred" officially.
And then you wait for court, and hopefully travel.
Hop, hop, hop.

And this is where Wonderland becomes so very literal.
You wonder, will you pass court, pass visa, travel soon?
Or be stuck, held up, and have to wait in this weird no man's land of parental limbo.
You want to love this child, you have written them letters of love and received them back.
The words have been given.
But it's a strange sort of love, before you hold the child.
It's a weird uncomfortable suspension....

And the fear of not being able to go get them and hold them soon, of being told, hurry up and wait some more, maybe for a long time, no we don't know..... it hurts.
It hurts just like regulation style love, when it's not accepted or allowed.
It hurts like a mom, who is fighting for her kid,...right there in that breathless hollow just below your ribs.

And you think: I was given to her to love, she was given to me to love.
I need to climb out of this rabbit hole and just be allowed to do it.
And then, as I am stifled in the wait, I realize and important thing.
I do.
I love her.
I love her, not with the lingering gaze and brimming heart as I watch her sit nearby....
But I love her, in that I will fight for her and am consumed with figuring out how to get to her, how to make things right for her.

My kids, one or another, have wondered out loud about how we get so focused on her, we don't even know her, really, she's not here.
And I agree, but point out that love is also true commitment, not only sparkly eyed blushes.
That we committed to her, head, heart, will.....she is our child, and so now she feels like our child in that acceptance and commitment...that love.

And she is far away.
And she needs to come home.
And we will move mountains to make it happen, if only given the chance.
Because whether we are in our normal regular life or in the rabbit hole of the wait.....we do love her, we looked at her, and we fell.
We committed.
We love her.

We want her home.

I am Alice.
Curiouser and curiouser....will we pass, will we travel?
Five days to court.
Maybe a week or two before we know if or when we can travel....

Books, Books, Books!

Just finished this book, by one of my favorite bloggers, Mary Ostyn, aka "Owlhaven." This book, "A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family" is like a cross between a long conversation with her and an in depth extension of her blog.

Mary has long been one of the women/blogs I check in with, daily, if possible. Her family is a great example of a successful large household. Even better, they are a family built by birth as well as adoption and she too has a love for Ethiopia. So, no surprise, great connections for me there. But the bigger picture is that Mary is a real mom. One who has the normal ups and downs and successes and failings, one who I can relate to. She says she's not a "supermom" in the usual tabloid sense of the term. And maybe she's not. She's better. She's a real mom, who is in the trenches, trying her best and has been for a good while....and therein lies the charm.

This book is an easy breezy read. It is not fluff though, it is full of good ideas, many I hadn't thought of before. Yes, she is extra good at putting in a huge garden (Which both inspires me to find my spade and also to a bit of jealousy) and then canning it all up. So, maybe a bit of that is just not gonna happen here in my house.... However, the low key practical, thoughtful ways of running her home and caring for, loving and living with her big family is very much an inspiration for me. I am thinking about good new solutions around here in our busy house as well.

The book is organized into easy to find chapters, you could skip around if you prefer that mode. But I read the book straight through in a day (ok, I'm a pretty darn fast reader). It is not only tips and tricks, it is also thoughtful reasoning behind her stances on issues and ways of doing things. Helpfully, she admits that she is not an uber organized gal by nature, which makes me like her all the more. I tend to drop books by uber organized gals by nature, since I am alien to them and will never be that. But she has found a middle ground and that is where the treasure lies in this book. It's for real moms. And not only real moms of very large families (And I admit, I am sliding into that category, but still, I remember the smaller days), any size family can find some connection moments in this book.

It's an easy happy read for the start of spring. Pick it up, be inspired, get a deeper glimpse into a popular blog mom's real life: the how's and why's, the what worked, what didn'ts. It might inspire you to try something new....for me, I think I might need to learn a few new card games. And this might just be the year to really put in a garden, I've been dreaming about one....
She says she is no "Supermom"...but I suspect she's got at least a cape in her closet somewhere!

Novena to St. Jude, day five

Fresco by Bicci di Lorenzo, 1440

Day 5
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)

Annunciation

Painting by Antonella da Messina

It's the Feast of the Annunciation!

This is an important solemnity, of course. It is when Christ actually was made man, in Mary's womb, but present, truly, here on earth. This feast always falls in Lent, another way to remind us of the reason for the season, so to speak. We have that circularity to meditate upon as we close in to Easter and the Vio Dolorosa of Holy Week.

Painting by Orazio Gentileschi

For me, this year, once again, this feast is especially meaningful.

Last year, we were awaiting our court date of our little Gabriel. His referral and arrival was another personal annunciation for us. And to have his name, we knew, to be Gabriel, was especially meaningful.

This year, we are in the waiting again.
We don't have the name connection this time.
But we do have another.
We await a young girl, possibly not too different in age from Mary at that time.

Painting by John Collier

And this time, it's all about that oh so important word, the word that this entire feast hangs on: "fiat."
Fiat.
I will.
"Thy will be done."

And once again, we try to ponder Mary's answer..made when she was scared, didn't know how things would play out, work out, seeming impossible, probably so hard, but already beautiful and amazing.

Painting by Henry Tanner

And all I can say is that if we look, our, my, little lives all too often reflect what's bigger, what's more important.
And so I look to Mary and her answer...for the strength to wait, even when I am scared, don't know how things will play out, work out, seeming impossible, probably so hard, but already beautiful and amazing.

I wait for court.
I wait for visa.
I wait to bring her home, my daughter.

And I will celebrate the feast of the Annunciation.

"Fiat."

Painting by Caravaggio

Hail Mary, full of grace
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women
and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death. Amen

Novena to St. Jude, day four

Painting by El Greco

Day 4
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)

Tennesh Tuesday

Tennish: "little" or "a small thing", in Amharic. So, this is almost like wordless wednesday...but without the wordless part. Which works for me! So, this is just a little something for the day. It's a little bit of spring.

Novena to St. Jude, day three

Day 3
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)

Novena to St. Jude, day two

Day 2
Novena To
St. Jude

Most holy Apostle, St. Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of, Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.
Intercede with God for me that He bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly -
That our daughter passes court and visa and comes home in April.
- and that I may praise God with you and all the saints forever. I promise, O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor granted me by God and to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen

PRAYER

May the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, and loved in all the tabernacles until the end of time. Amen.

May the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be praised and glorified now and forever. Amen

St. Jude pray for us and hear our prayers. Amen.

Blessed be the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Blessed be the Immaculate Heart of Mary
Blessed be St. Jude Thaddeus, in all the world and for all Eternity.
(say this prayer, followed by the Our Father and the Hail Mary)