My heart is aching

My heart is aching and breaking for people I don't really know. Adoptive parents waiting for their children, some who found out devastating news over the last few weeks that children they thought were "paper-ready" (which is the golden ticket term in international adoption) are not ready at all. Worse yet, they don't know when they will be. Virtual strangers whose stories I follow in blog form, whose only advocate they have known is now gone from this agency. The only voice in the darkness they have been hearing is now silenced.
And everyone is scared. I am lost in a sea of emotions bouncing between being irate and eternally grateful.
To put it into perspective one of the parents who I know, accepted her referral of two beautiful princesses on Dec. 24, 2008. Just forty days after I accepted Jacinda's referral and yet tonight while I tuck Jacinda in and hear all about her school day and get to make dinner with her and watch Christmas specials with her tonight, this other mother's arms are still empty.
My daughter has been home for six months and yet her children are still sitting in a care center in Ethiopia. She has met them, touched them, laughed with them and held them...but yet another blow yesterday has left her and countless others wondering if they will ever hear the laughter of these little ones in their own homes.
What is interesting to me is that so many of us know that International Adoption is a crap shoot. It just is. You hope for ethical agencies and smooth sailing. You pray for it. But sometimes things change on a dime. Sometimes the wind changes and things just fall through. Sometimes the experiences that others had and sing praises about, just don't hold true for you. They didn't for me. And yet at every turn when you try to tell your story, to express your frustration at your experience and maybe just let others know that the road is not always sunshine and roses...there was always someone to try to shut you up. Someone who "knew better." Someone to tell you that once your child was home, it would be worth it and that you would forget all of the messiness.
Was Bizunesh worth the heartache...ABSOLUTELY. Was the heartbreak, untruths, misleadings and poor communication necessary evils to wade through to get my daughter? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
There is no excuse for what happened to me and more importantly what is happening to others.
It's heartbreaking to watch from a distance. It was heartbreaking to experience being passed over for a referral. It was heartbreaking to have to call day after day and get no response and no answers for when my second court date was. It was one of the scariest things I ever did, boarding a plane and heading across the globe with NO INFORMATION or contact from my agency about what I was about to experience. It was frustrating beyond belief that my agency personnel were so busy servicing families from another umbrella agency when I did arrive in Ethiopia that I sat and waited and was then told I couldn't see my daughter when all other families were picking up their children. It was heart-stopping when the gentleman at the embassy questioned the agency reps and accused them of having fudged paperwork and made me feel like there was a chance that we would not be leaving the country together.
No, I did not have an ideal time with my agency and I would NEVER recommend them to someone else. But I pray that they get their acts together and bring these children home to their waiting forever families. Some have been waiting for years and have watched their children growing up in photos. I admire their tenacity. I pray they find peace and tonight I HOPE with them that someone from this agency steps up to the plate, does the right thing and brings these children home.
These children are not nameless photos from across the globe. These are my daughter's friends. The little girls that she played with, the ones she shared a bed and clothes with. The little girl Jacinda Hope Bizunesh gave her eggs to. The ones who braided her hair, the ones she shared secrets with and the ones she dreamed along side of about coming to America.
It is time their dreams come true too!