Karen's Journey

Our first day together -- I don't think I was worried yet. There are days when I think we're making progress, and then there are days like today. I'm feeling discouraged, and maybe a little depressed. I'm tired of being rejected, tired of the arguments, tired of the opposition, tired of the defiance. When did I first begin to think maybe we were in for more than we'd bargained for? I'm not really sure, but we met our son on a Saturday afternoon, and by Monday morning when we were scheduled to travel to the embassy, I was already concerned about what to expect from him behaviorally. He'd already exhibited enough signs of defiance that I was worried he might try to bolt, or refuse to go upstairs when we were called, or have some kind of tantrum if he tried to get into something that we had to say "no" to. Going to and being in the embassy went fine. I think he was excited to be wearing his new clothes that belonged just to him, and he was apprehe...

The road out of Awassa on our way to Arbegona. We arrived at the guest house after 11 p.m. the day of our arrival in Ethiopia. We needed to be up at 4:30 the next morningj to prepare for our 6 a.m. departure for our birth family visist -- a trip that would take us away from Addis Ababa for a day and a half. The staff offered to wake Teshale up so we could meet him, but that seemed cruel, so we declined. We would wait out the 36 hours. We thought we were going to wake up at 4:30, but it turns out that in Ethiopia, Jan. 29 is the Festival of St. Mary -- a holy day -- and the calls to prayer from the orthodox churches around the guest house began at 4 a.m., instead of the usual 6 a.m. The prayers might be soothing and somewhat charming, if they weren't broadcast through loudspeakers. That just makes them annoying. Our driver appeared and loaded up the Land Rover with us, another family, and some medical supplies, and we were off. We dodged -- goats, donkeys, trucks, camels, buse...

Hubs and me in the van at Bole International Airport, waiting to be taken to our guest house. We've got our game faces on and don't look too bad after 24 hours of travel, in my opinion. The referral we received for T was unremarkable. His age was listed as three, but the doctor thought it was more likely he was four, a tiny four, but four. He was generally healthy with a few scars. And the clincher: "gets along well with staff and other children." He looked pitiful in his photos: terrified, sad, and shy. There was nothing to indicate we should not accept this referral. We asked traveling families to be on the lookout for him, and report to us on how he was doing. We wanted to know if he was happier than he looked in his photos and if he was making friends at the orphanage. But he didn't arrive at our agency's facility until shortly before a measles outbreak. The families who were there when he was there ended up being immersed in caring for their own ...

I've always said that it's good that they're cute when they're asleep! The question along the lines of "We're considering adopting an older child (typically the ages 3 - 5 are mentioned) and wonder what we should be aware of" comes up at least twice a month on an Ethiopian adoption list serv I'm on. I've been answering this question on a case by case basis, and have decided it would be much more efficient to be able to refer people to my blog. There is so much to consider and so much to be aware of that I'm not even going to attempt to write it all down in one posting. If I were to do my "words" postings again, I would do them one word at at time -- easier for me to write and get posted and much easier for people to read. My first thought on older child adoption is "be prepared," which is kind of a loaded two word phrase. Mainly, I would advise that all adoptive parents should be prepared for the fact that any child who...

Teshale doing "grumpy." This is nothing compared to furious. Eleven months ago, we made our first visit to the pediatrician with T, two days after arriving home. He was three days into his winter jacket boycott at the time, so we just carried it with us wherever we went. He was so angry after being poked and prodded during that exam -- even having the doctor listen to his heart and breathing with her stethescope brought blood curdling screams heard 'round the office. When it was all over and done with, and he'd gotten his first four vaccines, he was so furious that as soon as we put his socks and shirt back on, he tore them off and threw them on the floor in the middle of the room. We'd already learned not to do clothing wars with him, after the first round in the "I will not wear a winter jacket" battle, so Sean calmly picked up our sockless, bootless, shirtless, coatless, hatless, mittenless boy and carried him to the car on a sub-20 degree sno...

One of T's 2010 accomplishments: learning to ride a two-wheeler (no training wheels necessary) over Memorial Day weekend. As many of us do at this time of year, I have been contemplating what I accomplished in 2010. Without further ado, here is my short, but somewhat exhausting list: * Became a mother. For years, actually decades, this was on my list of resolutions. A couple of years ago I came to that "if I don't do it now, I will never do it, and always regret my inaction" moment. It's not that I hadn't tried the biological way. But that didn't work, and the adoption route was going to be my only option. Financial considerations and daunting amounts of paperwork had held me back. But bolstered by a conviction that "it will come from somewhere" I forged ahead, determined to be a mom before I turned 50. That didn't quite happen, but it did happen in my 50th year when we brought home T two months before I turned 51. Am I the mother I...