Happy 2010!!!

My BFF Aimee and I have celebrated New Year's together for the past 15 years. She usually made the 3 1/2 hour trek to my house and we would spend the last few days of the year hanging out.

When we were younger we tried to make NYE an exciting event. We don't drink, so there was never any of that. We tried having other people over, but somehow they just didn't mesh with our NYE style. We tried attending the community's First Night celebration (the first and only year they ever had it), but we were frozen solid by the time 8 p.m. rolled around and we headed back to my apartment. We tried attending a Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre event, but were split up as we arrived. So I fained sickness and we left before dessert was served. We even tried traveling. We once spent it in Bethlehem PA with plans to head into New York for New Year's Day, but the weather was so awful we spent the evening in our hotel room and headed back to my apartment the next morning. After all of these attempts to make it special, we resigned ourselves to no hoopla. Usually dinner out, followed by watching a movie or playing a game until the clock struck midnight and have loved New Year's since.

When I moved closer and we added a couple more children to the equation this year, we considered not carrying on the holiday tradition, but I am so very glad that we did. Ringing in 2010 was probably our most low key year...I made frozen pizzas, provided party hats for the girls, we watched High School Musical, played the Wii and the kids were in bed by 9:30. Aimee and I watched a true crime documentary (which my brother thought was truly disturbing), at 11:54 p.m. we turned the TV to see the ball drop, made fun of some of the songs and performances and went to bed.

It was truly a great New Year!

Christmas Traditions

How different Christmas was this year! Last year I had a photo of my sweet girl and had accepted her referral. I even had photos of her receiving her first care package from me. But I was still waiting for a court date and the process had taken its toll. I am sad to say, but last Christmas I really felt like I just went through the motions.
This year I was really purposeful in making plans and trying to capture the traditions that I want to continue for our family in the years to come, but what I discovered was that it really gave me an amazing opportunity to resurrect the traditions I remember from my own childhood.

This year on Christmas Eve our home was filled with love and laughter of more than a dozen of our favorite people! I prepared an appetizer buffet, we handed out gifts, listened to Christmas music and watched the kids play.
Jacinda and my niece Leah (with my help) tracked Santa's progress on the computer, prepared a plate of cookies and left some sugar out on the porch for the reindeer.
Since Santa was making his visit to my house for both Jacinda and Leah, the adults stayed up late to wait for him before heading home. On Christmas morning I got up early and started making our traditional Christmas breakfast. My dad is a huge fan of the meal, so it is never a simple bowl of cereal on Christmas. My brother and I started making the Christmas morning breakfast when I was a teen, so it is a long-standing tradition except this year I got to make it in my very own kitchen! YAY!!
Jacinda woke up around 8 a.m. and just took it all in. Santa had left packages wrapped in pink for her and packages wrapped in purple for Leah. A few minutes later Leah arrived and the two of them opened their stockings.
Then we had breakfast. When I was younger my mom always had a birthday cake for Jesus, so we did too. And after breakfast we all sang Happy Birthday Jesus and read the Christmas story from the Bible.
It was really a special time and one I will never forget. The Jacinda and Leah headed toward their presents. We had Christmas dinner (deliciously prepared by my mom) and then we relaxed, played and enjoyed the rest of the day!

Bad Blogger

It's seems the blog posts have been coming few and far between. I have so many things I want to say, so many things I want to capture, so many moments I want to make sure are not forgotten. I have so many blog entries that are sitting in draft form and never see publication.

In 2010 - I am going to be better! And until then I am going to try and finish up as many of these entries as possible.

First Snow!

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!