Our adoption story actually began in January of 2010! Our story began well before we brought Potato bug home from China in May of 2013. Right around Christmas of 2009 Gamer and I really started discussing how we wanted to grow our family. Boom Boom was a rough pregnancy for me and another would've landed me on bed rest! So we seriously began the discussion of adoption. Adoption had always been in my heart and I was so hoping Gamer would feel the same! It seemed a bit overwhelming, huge, impossible, expensive, and complicated. Really complicated.
After some research I found a local agency, Wacap, that had been bringing families together for over 35 years! That's a long time!!! We spent another month or two just stalking their website and really wondering if we could do this. Did I mention how complicated and overwhelming it seemed? I am not organized at all and the unsurmountable amount of paperwork scared the pantaloons off me!!! Baby steps, we took a lot of baby steps! We looked at the countries available, got on the internet to learn about the countries that interested us. We researched as much as we could about the culture, the people, the ethics, the food, traditions, and everything we could find! We knew that this country would become ours as well and it was important for us to embrace this new culture. So we took a baby step. Gamer and I were both curious about Ethiopia, it really captured our attention!
In February of 2010 we took the plunge and went to Wacaps Pre-adoption training class. At this point we we had one foot firmly planted in Ethiopia. It was a very stable program. From the time of joining the programs families we're being matched and bringing home their babies in 12-15 months! And in all honesty I had a plan!!!! If you're adopting it seems logical to believe that if you follow the rules, do the paperwork, you wait and viola, you get a baby!! Easy peasy! So the plan was this: healthy baby girl! As the mother of two boys I really really really wanted a baby girl!! I felt that this was a guarantee, I was going to pick the gender of my child! So that is what we did! We joined the program in hopes of bringing home our sweet beautiful baby girl! We jumped into the program with open hearts, went to Ethiopian restaurants, researched the culture, and started learning about Ethiopian activities in our area.
In September of 2010 we went to our local Ethiopian Community Center in Seattle and that is when we knew for sure, these were our people! They had us at "hello!!" When we got there a young Ethiopian girl of about 12 said hi to us in the parking lot. She asked if we were coming to the celebration inside. We said yes, that we were excited to celebrate the New Year! She was so excited, grabbed our hands and pulled us in! We had my (very very Norwegian mother) with us as well. We walked in and were the only white people there. Several ladies came up to us and did ask what brought us to their event. We told them that we were in the process of adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia and that it was important to us to attend and celebrate her culture. They were so happy for us!!! They hugged us, led us to some seats, fed us (that is a huge honor!), and led us onto the floor to celebrate in traditional dances. Now, back to my very very very Norwegian mother.....I was a bit apprehensive for her when all this was going on! I peeked at her and she was smiling, laughing, eating, and dancing! When we left she said that the Ethiopians were the nicest people ever and that we were so lucky that we were going to be a part of this beautiful family! So we left with smiles, full hearts, and peace that we had made the right decision.
As that day faded so did our hopes and dreams. When we joined the program in April of 2010 we were about the 65th family waiting for a referral of a baby girl. By August we were at about 10th in line. Seemed promising. The program was moving along just like it had for years!!! My perfectly planned adoption was cruising along until it wasn't anymore. Every Friday we got an email newsletter talking about all the activity in the program. Months went by when there was no progress, it kind of came to a screeching halt! There was a lot of vague explanations at first. To be honest I don't even think our program manager had answers. It just stopped. After months of no progress and answers we were finally told that several of our partnerships were being closed. Adoptions in Ethiopia are monitored by MOWA (Ministry of Women's Affairs). The MOWA put a halt on adoptions to investigate the ethics of children being adopted. Of course we were 100% supportive of that as was our agency. We weren't too worried at first. They were investigating and hopefully would have things resolved. We waited, and waited, and waited! Seemed that progress was being made, there were a lot of positive changes made and we felt hopeful for the program. It's actually a very conflicting place to be! All children should have the opportunity to be raised by their birth parents or existing family. In a perfect world these children would never have to leave their home, country, and culture. We didn't want to possibly take a child away from a family. We wanted to adopt a child that was an orphan with no other possibilities in their birth country.
At some point you have to face reality, mourn your loss and move on. This was when I realized that adoption is hard. Just like a pregnancy there is no choosing gender and there is no guarantee of a "birth." I felt robbed. I felt that my perfectly laid plan was blown to bits. I felt despair and such a huge huge loss. But we can hope. We can try again for a baby and hope that we will be blessed.
And then there was our Potato bug...........he was our perfectly laid plan. He was the one waiting this whole time! He was there and when we finally heard him we got there as fast as we could!!
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