Meetcha Day Sunday January 30, 2011

How do you write about something that is one of the greatest days of your life? I choke up when I see these pictures and remember this incredible day. It reminds me of the moment when each of my biological children were born. You go through something so intense, so difficult, and then so beautiful, something beyond words. Adoption brings feelings every bit as difficult, intense, tender, and full of love. Beyond words.

Let me start by saying that all of the photos in this post were taken by Wes and Nina Mullins. Two people we consider dear and true friends. We love and admire these two. They are good people and very talented. They came with us on this special day and not only took these photos, but took video. Thanks Wes and Nina! If you are looking for photographers, we definitely recommend.
When we arrived at the orphanage, we were invited into the Director's office. I was just anxious to meet the kids, but we survived the extra 5 minute or so wait. We then were escorted out to the entrance of where the children stay. We watched as they all piled outside together. We immediately spotted our two children. Tears of joy and giant grins could not be held back.
Then they began to approach us.





After all the initial greetings, we played together.
We hugged and kissed lots and lots that day and even more on the days following. The more we hugged and kissed the more natural and comfortable it felt.
All of the children in the orphanage were the best children you would ever meet. Extremely sweet, good, gentle, fun, smart, talented, grateful and loving. We fell in love with all of these children and it breaks my heart that we cannot bring each and every one of them home! The boys often flocked around Steve and girls flocked around me.
I promise you that you absolutely can love an adoptive child every bit as much as your biological children.
One thing I know from this trip, like I know the sun will rise tomorrow, is that we were definitely supposed to adopt these children. It is a miracle God led us to them. They are extremely special. They will touch every life that has the gift to know them. I pray we can bless their lives too.
Every child deserves a chance to have a home, a family, food, clothing, love, and a mom and a dad to love and care for them. I have much more I want to tell you. I will tell you more in future posts. I hope you don't get sick of hearing about it!

But just one more thing now before I wrap this up...
When we were leaving a boy who I can't tell you enough amazing things about and who I bonded to so much while there asked me if we would adopt him too. Talk about ripping someone's heart out! I could not tell him yes. It hurts so much to think about! I have had dreams about these children since we have left. About taking them all home. I know I can't. I hate that feeling! When he realized I could not take him, this was his second request: "Will you bring us shoes?" These children have the most awful shoes! They are all rubber, cheap, trashy, broken, worn out, rubber. They are slip-ons. They share. They play soccer in these shoes. I told him "Yes!" He then asked me a few times to make sure we were clear, "15 shoes for everyone". Of course I agreed. I traced all of their feet. I want to buy a nice new pair of tennis shoes for each of these children to bring back. Think of it! These children have probably never owned their own pair of shoes. New shoes, NEVER. Nice shoes, NEVER. This would be like Christmas Day times 100 to them. They would be so thrilled! If you are interested in pitching in so we can do this, drop me a line. If you are interested in adopting one of the most special children in the world, call me ASAP!

News from Addis

We are doing so great here! All has gone better than we could have hoped for. Each day with our children gets better and better. They are very sweet and gentle and affectionate with us. The affection is more and more strong and sincere. Yesterday they each said to us, "I love you Mama. I love you Papa." We have completely treasured all moments with them.

We had court yesterday. Both Andy's family and Hana's family came to court. But, by the time we got there, Andy's family had left. We are hoping to meet them later. They live nearby. We have spent probably 7 hours with Hana's grandmother. She lives hours away but made the journey here to see Hana, us and come to court. WE have a very special relationship with her and a strong bond was made. We interviewed her for probably a total of 2 hours with a translator. I took notes, Steve video recorded it and we got photos too. Lots of tears, kisses and hugs were exchanged. She was profoundly grateful and happy to have Hana come to our family. She said she can die in peace now. We hope she lives many more years though. She is 66, which is quite old for Ethiopians.

At court we saw the judge and our notes on our case were good. We were approved. Hana's case is completely 100% finished. She is legally our daughter. Andy's case is approved, but they asked for a better copy of just one document. Our facilitator told us it will be very easy for him to do that. He will get it submitted immediately and he will report back in court on this next Tuesday and Andy's adoption will then be final as well. So, it was really wonderful news!

We have had the experience of a lifetime. Something we will treasure and be grateful for forever.

We will blog more when we get home.

About to Leave!

We leave in 36 hours for the airport. I can't even believe it. It just doesn't feel real! The past two weeks have been a different brand of crazy. I got the idea in my head that I needed to go through my entire house and reorganize and gut it out completely. All the drawers, cabinets, closets, etc... It took forever. I had the kids pile ALL (and I mean ALL,) of the clothes into an enormous mound in our Family Room. Do you people realize that we American's are like clothes hoarders? Holy crap! Why do we acquire so many clothes?! Then I spent all day going through each item of clothing, deciding on whether or not to toss it, take it to DI, or which kid needed it. Then I moved Eden into Celeste's room with her. I got Jonah's bunk beds set up. I got Andy and Hana's clothes all situated. I think we are pretty much set to bring those kids home! I just wish it weren't so far off. I spent about 6 entire days working on my house. I even put up shelves in my shelve-less laundry room. The whole thing was well worth it. I love an organized, clean home! I doubt it will be that way when we get back. But I tried.
I also got all of our travel preparations done. I got things all ready and situated for the kids here at home. Tim and Brenda are coming too to help out Molly with my kids. That was a huge relief! That was just too much for one person.
I got things all in order with my church calling. I feel fine about leaving that behind for a bit.
Things were good.
Then last night I had a panic attack hit. I was struck with intense fear. Fear about everything. Fear we would die. Fear the kids wouldn't be ok here. Fear we'd forget something. Fear the court hearing wont go well. You name it. Fear. And not just your typical fear. It felt like I was sitting on an airplane and getting ready to skydive off of it. An uncomfortable adrenalin rush. That kind of fear. I asked Steve last night if he was afraid and he was like "Not really." Lucky him! When I woke up this morning (earlier than normal,) the fear kicked right back in. It continued on for hours. I kept thinking "I can't handle this, I need to get my doctor to get me a happy, sedating pill or something before I lose it entirely!" To make matters worse, I get this email from the US Government, (I had signed up with them for travel notifications,) warning travelers to the city we are going to of some kind of international summit going on while we are there and that there are terrorists possibly plotting bombings, and bla bla bla. Yeah. Thanks US Government. I was really needing that little morsel of info.
Then I prayed. HARD. I listened to some comforting music and just laid there for a while. My fear went away. And for the past several hours, it's stayed gone. Totally. I feel peace, comfort, happiness, and excitement. It's all going to be OK. Not that things couldn't go wrong, but I am alright with that for now. I know and feel that God is watching over us. He is mindful of our little insignificant lives and His will be done in our case. I just need to sit back and enjoy the ride. And I will.

Lots of Thoughts Today

I have a To Do list that is unusually long. Last night I sat down and wrote up a minute-by-minute plan of my day today in order to fit in as much as possible. Then this morning started with one kid puking and Charity waking up hardly able to breathe. Celeste and Eden are home from school today with the stomach yuckies. I took Charity in to the Doc first thing and she's got croup. I've never had a kid get croup before and I was surprised that she could seem perfectly healthy yesterday and wake up in this scary condition today. I cried in the doctors office. I hate to see my babies suffer. But he gave her a steroid shot and assured me she should be improving within a few hours. I'm currently on the couch now with her on my chest in a deep, wheezing sleep. Man, I love these children so much and it's interesting how all those things on my stupid To Do list now seem a lot less important.
I feel like talking to someone, but I don't want to wake Charity here. So I thought I'd open my handy dandy netbook and blog a bit.

Things on my mind lately...

Mom and Wife
I feel so blessed. I really really do! I can't believe how lucky I am to be married to Steven Bishop. He is so good to me. He is such a wonderful father and husband. He is such a great friend to me. He is so smart. He has always been so good at providing for our family. The other day he wasn't feeling too well and said "I wish I didn't have to go to work today." I was surprised to hear him say that because he has never ever ever complained about having to be the breadwinner of our family. He just does it. I have taken that for granted at times. But most of all, I am so thankful for how good he is. He is the epitome of a person with a good, kind, clean, honest character. Love him so much!
I love our kids like crazy too. I feel so grateful to be their mom. I feel like this is what I was born to do. Being a mom rocks. I love spending time with them. I love snuggling with them. I love meaningful conversations we have together. I love to teach them. I love how they teach me too. I love to be friends with them.
Being a wife and mother has brought me more joy and satisfaction than I had ever dreamed possible. And I hope that my kids will grow up to be of great value to their communities and this world. I think they will.

Friends
I am really grateful for good friends. I don't have a whole lot of them. But I don' t think I could get by without them. A good friend is someone that even after knowing your darkest side, still loves and accepts you. A good friend respects you and you don't feel judged by. A good friend makes you feel comfortable with who you are. To my good friends out there, I want you to know how much I love and appreciate you. I know I've got issues and I'm glad you love me anyways.

Our upcoming trip
I can't believe it's just 16 days away! Time has flown by! I am so incredibly busy lately. It's gotten to where I find myself with often pressure in my chest and racing of the heart because I'm worried about getting things done. My calling is so demanding and this is the first time in my life that I am worried I really can't handle my calling well enough, but at the same time I am not willing to tell the Bishop because I really don't want to be released. It is my dream to get to go to Girls Camp with my little girl this Summer and so I am just praying I can at least stay in until then. I'm doing the very best that I can.
I have so many emotions and thoughts attached to our upcoming trip. Some rational, some not so much. Here are some of my sources of worry and excitement in order of what gives me the most of that emotion.
Worry:
*I'm worried about leaving my kids behind while we are gone for 9 days! We've left them before but the longest was for 4 days and we haven't left Charity before. I am mostly worried about her. She is so spoiled. She gets held and snuggled and loved on all day every day and I worry that she will be in total shock when we go. It makes me sad to think about. I had wanted to take her with us, but it's more dangerous to bring her than to leave her. Plus a lot of money.
*I'm worried that something will go wrong with the court hearing. This can happen in many different ways. Some distant relative could theoretically show up and say they want to dispute the adoption, some paperwork could be missing or inadequate, who knows. But scary scary to me.
*I'm worried that our kids wont like us. Since we are adopting older children I think this is different than from people that are adopting babies. Our children are old enough to where they have had plenty of trauma and worry in their lives and this can possibly be a hard thing to have some strange couple show up who is so different and be in love with them already! The orphanage has told us more than once that these kids are excited about our family and being adopted. They love reading their books I made them. But you never know what could happen. It feels like a first date to me. I want to make sure I look my best for them. I want to make the best impression. I want to do anything and everything I can to help them feel comfortable and happy about coming to our family. The whole thing makes me nervous.
*I'm worried about not getting all the preparations done in time for our trip. There is so much to do to get things here ready and things for the trip ready. I need several days time to devote to getting that all done and I don't know where that time will come from.
*I'm worried about all the unknown. How the heck do you travel internationally? We've never even had passports before. Where do we go? How do we communicate with people? Will I be able to communicate with my kids back home? Getting around, language, culture, crime, rules and regulations, disease, eating the food, all these kinds of things are concerning.

Sources of excitement:
*I'm most of all excited to meet our children! I want to cry just thinking about it and I often do. I can't wait to hug them. I can't wait to tell them in person I love them. I can't wait to be their mom. I can't wait to let them see what a family with a healthy and active mom and dad is like. I can't wait for them to see a life that is not just about survival, but a lot of other wonderful things. I can't wait to get better photos of them. I can't wait to give them a few things. I can't wait for all of that!
*I am looking forward to meeting the friends we've made in this journey. There are a couple of women I have come to love that are also adopting. These two ladies are amazing!!! I am so excited that both of them will actually be there while we are there! It's funny that when we meet in person at last it will be in Ethiopia.
*I am looking forward to getting out of this horrible miserable Winter weather! I hate Winter. I hate being cold. I hate the gloom outside. It's going to be probably highs in the 70's while we are there. That is perfection. Can't wait for that.
*I am looking forward to having 9 days with my sweetheart. It's not just gonna be a kind of mini-moon. It's gonna be an adventure together. Possibly our greatest adventure we'll ever have. So excited for that.
*I am looking forward to the experience of something totally new. I hope to learn and grow a lot from all we are able to see and do.
*I am looking forward to getting a bit of a break from all the normal responsibilities that load my plate here at home. Love all that stuff. But every now and then a mom needs a break from being a homemaker and all the other stuff that I am involved in.

Miracles
Lately I have been a personal witness to several miracles. I wish I could write about them in detail here, but I can't. I just want to say that it's totally strengthened my testimony of God. Not just that there is a God, but that He really and truly is involved in our lives. He really hears prayers. He really answers them, through good people here on this earth. So many miracles are happening all the time and I am thankful I have been able to witness a few of those.

A couple of photos found

Christmas

This was such a wonderful Christmas for us. Unfortunately, I can't find the camera cable to upload the photos. So all I've got is this one photo from my phone that I took right after we got all the gifts set up on Christmas Eve.

This year we kept with our tradition of having a Ghetto Christmas Tree. We outdid ourselves with the Ghetto this time because we have a toddler in our home again after a long hiatus. She did what toddlers do best and stripped the tree clean of any decor within her reach.

Last year we started a new tradition and we did that again this year. We took the kids shopping on Black Friday to pick out their gifts. They enjoyed that. I got a bit of flack from people over not surprising my kids with their presents last year, but someone suggested getting them one surprise gift and I thought that was a good idea. So we did that. We've always kept our budget right around $35 (including stocking stuffers) per kid. Not because we couldn't afford to spend more on them in the past. This year for the first time ever, it was actually all we could really afford to do. I had planned on telling the kids that their Christmas budget this year was gonna be lowered to $20 and secretly spend $10 on a surprise gift. I was worried this would make them bummed out when I told them the lower budget, but they weren't. In fact, when we went to go shopping I told them they had $20 to spend, and before I could even give them some excuse as to why the budget was so low, they cheered and were so excited! I was proud of them.
So they bought their presents and I went out and spent another $10 surprise gift on them and $5 in surprise stocking stuffers. All these were taken home, wrapped and hidden away.
On Christmas morning the kids cleaned up the basement while Steve and I slept in. Then I got them all ready while Steve went running.
When Steve got back we prayed together. It was a special prayer that Celeste gave that expressed gratitude for our Savior and his life and birth. I was so touched I actually cried.
Then we all opened our gifts. Everyone loved all their gifts and to see my kids being so grateful and happy for what they got, got me crying again.
We have always been so blessed and I sure hope that God will see fit to keep taking care of us. Most of all I am so thankful to have such a sweet husband who works so hard for us and is so good and for our wonderful children who I am so in love with and so proud of. They are good people and the love that we share is so strong.
We also enjoyed reading the story of Christ's birth in Luke together. This year, we truly felt the Spirit of the Lord in our home as we celebrated his birth. It really was a great Christmas. I would say that it couldn't be topped, except for next year we will have two more special children with us who have never in their lives experienced a Christmas anything like this before. That is going to be priceless for sure.

A Difference

One thing that I've been thinking about is that everyone in this world has something to offer. One might look at all the good to be done and rate it in order of importance. I think that is something that is completely inaccurate. Everyone gives in different ways. Adoption is not, nor should it be everyone's mission. Donating money is not, nor should it be everyone's mission. Volunteer work is not, nor should it be everyone's mission. You get the idea. There's too much out there to do for everyone to be expected to do it all! Some times the smallest things can cause the greatest good. I think of examples in my own life. Things that could seem small to some, but were huge to me.

I will never forget when we first moved to Idaho 9 years ago. When we got there, even though we knew people, I still managed to feel alone. I was 9 months pregnant, had 2 children ages 1 and 2, was staying in a temporary apartment for what we were told we could only have for a few weeks, and trying to get acclimated. I wasn't sure if this was where I wanted to be. Then one day at the grocery store a stranger was simply friendly to me. It was enough to totally change my spirits and make me feel great about our move and I never looked back. This person I am sure has no idea of the affect they had on me. But it was a great blessing and something I will always be grateful for.

Those little things mean so much!

When we decided to adopt a second child from Ethiopia, our financial reserves were almost gone. Because of my oldest sister and her husband's financial generosity we were able to move forward and pay for that second child referral. I hope she isn't mortified of me mentioning this because I know she did it without any desire for reward or praise. But if it weren't for their help, it's possible we would have missed out on the chance to get Hana! Which the thought itself rips my heart out! Their help was so generous, and so profound in our lives and the life of our Hana. I jokingly tell them Hana is 10% their daughter now. Which I hope they remember when it comes time to pay for her wedding. :)

Maybe a kind word, or a note is the thing that actually saves someone from suicide? You never know. I love the scripture that talks about the body (of Christ) and how every single part of the body (member) is vitally important. This makes more sense when you are sick, or you lose the functioning of the smallest body part. Have you ever done something like smash your thumb? And then when your thumb was something you could go weeks without ever thinking about, you suddenly realize how life without it working right is quite difficult?

I also think of Helen Keller. She was both blind and deaf. If you compared what she accomplished in her life alongside what many people in this world have done, you wouldn't think it was a big deal. But the fact that she did what she did with her limited capabilities, has made a huge impact on thousands upon thousands of people.

We all have different resources. We all have different lives and circumstances. That's why comparing yourself to others can never be done fairly.

Everything good you do, no matter how small or big you think it might be, is IMPORTANT. It makes a DIFFERENCE!

I hope and pray that I never make anyone feel that they are not good enough or aren't doing enough. If I have, I am so sorry! The life of those around me are such a vital part of my happiness. Just your association with me makes a difference in my life alone. Thank you. Keep it up.

Make someone smile.
Help someone out.
Hug your kids.
Tell someone you are thankful for them.
Give what you can. Whatever that is.

Everyone has a different mission in life. Find it and love it. My mission is no better than yours. I guarantee it.

Blog Change

I was blog surfing today and found a couple of really inspiring blogs. (Thanks Nina & Em!) I have gotten a large amount of help in my personal life from visiting random blogs that discussed various topics that concerned me at any given time. It got me thinking about my blog here. And other people's blogs. It seems a blog defines a person in a round-about way. Whether we realize it or not. Blogs typically talk about the same kind of things, or follow a similar vein of ideas or purposes. And as a result, you associate those topics or feelings with that person. Which I think is totally fine. For instance I love love LOVE visiting Jespy's blog for the purpose of entertainment, and a really good belly laugh that brightens my day. (Thank you Jenny! What would I do without your happy medicine???)

I think my blog barely touches on some of the things that occupy my thoughts and concerns most of the time. In an effort to not be judged or not to be too personal, I feel like I can't be me some times. So it's kind of taken the joy out of blogging. And I know some people that actually DO care, have missed that. I'd like to get that back. There may be people that are put off or annoyed by me. And as much as I care about them and what they think or feel, I don't know how to fix it. So I don't want to let that determine how I blog anymore. Nobody HAS to come here. Nobody HAS to read this. Nobody HAS to agree with me. I do want people to come and I do want people to appreciate it. But not to the point where I'm walking on eggshells here. I'm ready to move on I guess you could say and whoever wants to come along, that's great!

I want to organize my blog a bit differently among the things that matter most to me; as well as the topics that seem to be getting the most hits, (like miscarriage and adoption.) I know there are many people (my counter is currently over 25,000 visits,) who come here to read about different things and I want to make that a bit easier to navigate. So I'm gonna start working on that now. You can do that easier now with the tabs above. I sincerely hope you enjoy.

This guy is my hero

I've watched this over and over again and it never gets old. So inspiring!

Little Updates

It's been a month since I've posted. Goodness, this blogging thing is getting harder for me as times goes on. Life has just been very busy. All with good things of course, but BUSY.

Just a couple of things here.

Celeste was mentioned in an article on the cover of the local newspaper! The article is about our Serving With Smiles humanitarian group for kids. I will just type here the little blurb about her here:

"The blog website administrator is an 11-year-old named Anna Celeste, whose mother is one of the group leaders. Anna is responsible for posting updates about the SWSSS group to the website. As she writes, she does so from her own perspective which brings a fresh approach to the stories..."

So cool. Now maybe I can get her to go on there more and do some more posts that have her fun writing personality in them. That's been a bit hard to get her to do lately. Her first post was really great, but since then, she just isn't in to it.

Also, on an entirely different topic...

We got our court dates for our Ethiopian kids! But I must say that as excited as I was to get the dates, I was disappointed and shocked by the lateness of the date. We aren't sure why we were assigned such a late date, and there isn't anything we can do about it. But we are excited to have the date and to start making our travel plans!

The court date is Feb. 1st. Which means we should probably be heading over there around January 28/29ish. Just as a reminder, this court date is not our trip to pick up the kids. You do that when you go for your Embassy hearing which isn't scheduled until you've passed court. Those Embassy hearings I have been told are typically 6-8 weeks after your court date. That is when you pick up your kids. Which means, we are looking at bringing them home end of of March'ish. Here are a couple of new photos they sent us recently.
In these last updates they told us that Hana is the same: happy, energetic and loving. And Andualem is smiling more, happy and feeling grateful that there is a family that is concerned about him.
I can't tell you how excited we are to meet these kids in the flesh and make them part of our family!