And we shall call him Scholar.

It's Monday and I'm exhausted!  Maybe you are too?  It was a busy weekend of friends, sun, and family so I'm not complaining!  Last night insomnia got it's hold on me and now I got my hold on my third cup of coffee!

So in light of it being Monday, just the beginning of a busy week, I think we should start it off with some exciting news!! Many of our friends and family know we are adopting again!  Yep, we have another son calling for us.  He's special, oh so special.  Can't even do justice in describing how special he is.  I know, seriously, 4th boy!!!!  I thought with adoption I had a choice.  Nope, not really.  Just like with a pregnancy you are blessed with the child you are meant to have.

This son really is a miracle, as all my children are.  But he wasn't meant to be our son.  I say that in that when we brought Potato bug home our intention was to return for a daughter.  That was our plan.  A 12 year old boy wasn't the plan.  But really, plans are just a guide to give us some focus and direction.  Without some planning though none of our kids would be here today.  It's the ability to not be locked into a plan that brings us treasures we couldn't have planned if we tried!

I know get to the point!  What made us change our plan?  When we were touring Potato bugs orphanage we were invited to stay for lunch.  As we were finishing up a gaggle of school kids came in for lunch.  Gamer and I were quite the spectacle in his long hair and my blond headed glory!  Also my tattoos were quite fascinating to behold!  I asked the nannies if I could say hi to the kids and give them some candy.  The kids were between the ages of 8-10 I'm guessing.  I gave this one boy a handful of suckers.  He proceeded to hand them to another child.  We repeated this until he made sure every child had a handful of suckers.  Finally he accepted the last handful.  He gave me the sweetest, shyest glances.  I was so moved by this experience.

Gamer and I left with cute adorable Potato bug and I could feel the stares of the older kids burning into my back.  We both had tears in our eyes and could barely speak when we got in the car.  I told Gamer that I was so grateful for all the adoptive parents who bring these kids home but I don't think I could do it.  Gamer said if we won the lottery we'd make it happen!   We'd have a houseful!!  I really wanted a girl and just couldn't change my plan, I was pretty stuck on my plan.  But this changed me and I was pretty heartbroken for these kids.  These older kids are always left behind.  They see all these cute little ones going home and it must break their heart every time to see them leave.  And they are left with a handful of suckers.

Fast forward a year!  We had just celebrated Potato bugs first Family Forever day.  Crazy how fast it went!  We found this most awesome group called Seattle Chinese Families.  We joined the Facebook group and finally we're going to meet some local families at a park.  We were so excited to meet other families that were local and also super excited to meet families with kids the same age!  The China program manager for our agency was there as well.  She is also a adoptive mama.  I decided to ask her about the boy at Potato bugs orphanage.  Mother's day had just come and I was thinking of him a lot.  I really just wanted to know that he was ok and was really hoping he was in a loving home.  I described him to her and she just looked at me, I can't even describe the look, but I'll try.  It was look of hope, excitement,  and I think I might pass out!  We all had goosebumps.  The minute I asked about him and saw her look I knew my plans were changing.  I still get all goose bumpy!  She had been advocating for him for 3 years!!  Our agency has a partnership with this orphanage so she has visited quite often.  In fact she took the 6 month photo of Potato bug in the previous blog post!  She is extra special to us as she advocated for both of them.  She was able to get the orphanage to make a file so Potato bug could be adopted.  She asked for this older boy as well.  They said no at the time.  She begged for 3 years!!!!  He was so special.  She said she would find him a family, he wanted and needed a family and she was going to make it happen!  She finally got his file, she rocks!!  As the hair was still standing up on my arm she looked at me and said, "I only have his file for five more days.'  That's it.  If we don't match him with a family in five days he goes out into the database that other agencies can then pull him from.  Once an agency has his file they get to keep it for 3 months.   We were just going for a playdate at the park!!!  Seriously, this is not what I had planned!  I believe her words were "no pressure but if you're interested he is available for adoption."

I kind of felt like we were leaving the orphanage all over again!  We had the stares of those children burning a hole into our back.  Again, we get in the van (our most awesome minivan!) and we were near tears.  This time, without any hesitation, we knew our plan changed again.  I decided that plans are stupid!!  Plans blind you, they keep you from seeing what's right in front of you.  Plans slow you down.  So no more plans!!  Woo hoo, we are going for boy number 4!!  And we shall call him Scholar.

Bringing home our Potato bug!

As, I'm sure you've noticed, we are using nicknames.  This blog is public, even though I know mostly family and friends are reading this, I want to protect our privacy.  This blog is to share our journey to adoption.  I also have to respect my children's privacy and think about what they would want exposed to the world as well.

Now back to our sweet Potato bug!  From our last post I shared our loss in the Ethiopia program.  I actually no longer look at it as a loss.  If we hadn't started there we would not be where we are today.  It was where we started our adoption journey and it's where I thought we were meant to be but it was just a detour that will always be special for me.  After years of waiting and talking with our Ethiopia case manager, we started asking questions.  Could we consider another country?  We actually had options.  However Ethiopia was the only country we had ever considered so we really didn't know where we were going to go next on this journey.  So we just laid low, stayed the course in Ethiopia and took a break from thinking.  I think I was still processing the loss.

But life goes on and you do your daily thing.  On one weekend in March (2012) Gamer and I went to Ikea to stock up on everything we didn't need.  It seriously is the store of I don't need that but it's $1.99 and I want 10!  We were cruising through the kid section with Boom Boom and then BAM, I knew where we were going next!!  Well I didn't know it then but the seed was planted.  I was looking at the toys and saw the soft baby dolls they had.  They had a Caucasian baby, an Asian baby, and an African American baby!  I grabbed all three and went running to Gamer with this big goofy smile and presented him with our family!  To seal the deal I showed them to Boom Boom who proceeded to grab all three and smother them in kisses!  However he preferred the Asian baby, it was his favorite. So we bought all 3 and went home with our new family.  I didn't say out loud that I was thinking of China and Gamer didn't acknowledge it either, we just let it lie there.   He humored me and bought Boom Boom some new babies.  But the seed was planted!

Boom Boom and his favorite baby.

Then another seed was planted!  Actually it was a blinking neon sign that we could not ignore!!  I started noticing that I was getting the Chinese newspaper every Friday.  It probably came for about a month when I finally really noticed it.  I think the first few I just tossed, not even looking at it.  One day, it was on my doorstep again and I looked at it.  It was the China Daily.  Why the heck am I getting the China Daily?????  I don't even get the Times or any other newspaper.  I asked my neighbors if they got it and no one else did,  just us.  Again, why????  It really was strange!  We started getting it a few weeks after we purchased the Ikea dolls.  So every Friday I checked and every Friday we got the paper.  I felt kind of cheesy saying it out loud but I told gamer that I think we should consider China.  He asked why?  It really wasn't on our list of countries we considered.  Well I told him, the signs, everywhere there are signs!!  The Ikea doll and the China Daily....come on, it's obvious!!!  

I love Gamer and his willingness and trust in this crazy ride!  He goes with the flow and says "yes dear" a lot!!!!  So I called our Ethiopian case manager and told her we wanted to adopt our second child first!  We had always talked about adopting two from Ethiopia but now felt our second child was going to come from China.  And it was a boy that was calling for us.  I could just feel it.  We were still going to wait for our baby girl from Ethiopia but felt she wasn't  ready for us. Her brother was the one that was calling us, LOUD AND CLEAR!

Ok, if you're still thinking this is cheesy, it gets better!!!  We joined the China program and within a month we found our son.  Our little Potato bug.  Seriously the minute I saw his file photo I new he was ours!

Potato bug 6 months old

Potato bug at about 18 months

 Boom Boom was so excited to announce he was going

to be a big brother!

Loving his stand in brother.

We found our Potato Bug in April 2012.  We had a trip planned to Norway and Italy in June and were going to be gone for 6 weeks!!  So we scrambled like crazy people and got our Homestudy done and approved before we left!  We managed to get the ball rolling before we left which was a huge relief.  Again, as I mentioned before I'm not organized.  If any of you have ever read an adoption blog you will be impressed at the detail.  Mine will not do that.  Sorry!  I suck at acronyms,  I'm horrible at remembering dates, and all my adoption paperwork is in a plastic tote.  That's it.  There will be no cool dates that list my adoption step by step, date by date, and acronyms that you probably wouldn't understand either.  Your welcome!  So any whoozle, back to my Potato bug.  We got back from our trip and had to compile our Dossier.  A Dossier is your life in a file.  It's your medical, financial. and a every little detail about you and your family.  We got that completed and sent to China.  Unlike Ethiopia, China was cruising along!!  We got in the system, we got approved, we were actually moving closer and closer to bringing home our son!  We got more updates and cute photos!

A birthday celebration!  Hoping it was his.

In the first week of May we got our travel notice.  Once you get this, it's happy crazy town!!!  You travel around two weeks after this notice.  Even though it was a bit overwhelming and I had a lot of ducks to get in a row I always looked forward to my friday China Daily.  It stopped coming.  After receiving this paper for almost a year, it was my comfort, I looked forward to it.  It was my connection to Potato bug and I was a really sad that it didn't come anymore.  I thought it was a fluke the first week. Maybe my mystery paper delivery person was sick and missed a paper for the first time in a year!  But it never came again, that was it.  And then it hit me.  Potato bug planned this whole thing!!!  He somehow knew we needed HIM as much as he needed us.  He planted that seed at Ikea,  he sent that Chinese paper, and once he knew the plane tickets were bought he knew we were coming.  The end.  No more paper needed!

China bear (he has since named it that) and his little back pack waiting for him.

On May 20th, 2013 at 2:21pm the phone rang that our son was on his way up to our hotel room.

 Potato bug with is mama and baba.

Potato bug's nannies that cared for him for the first 2.8 yrs of his life.

Gamer officially adopting Potato bug as his son.

Madre officially adopting Potato bug as her son.

Potato bug accepting us as his mama and baba.

Adoption is hard.  When you're in the process, the time from finding an agency to bringing home your baby seems like 500 years!!!  Especially if this is your first time.  It's overwhelming, it's scary at times, it's like waiting for Christmas morning every single day until you have your baby in your arms.  It's a leap of faith, it's hope, it's a growing family.  Adoption is awesome!  

So glad we listened!

Ethiopia had us at "hello!"

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!!

To Blog or not to blog....it's going to be a process!!

I have been wanting to blog for awhile.  It kinda scares me!  I'm a over thinker, I over complicate, and I want things to be perfect!  I look at other blogs for inspiration and am amazed by the creativity, the wit, the information, and how PERFECT it looks!  Well I'm over it.  I want to blog because I want to have a place to document our adventures.  It's for us and for those awesome family and friends that want to follow our crazy ride.  So it may not be pretty, my punctuation will be atrocious, I may figure out how to insert the cool butterfly picture I want as my background or I may just leave it as is!  What I can guarantee is is that we have surprises in store!