An actual update

I spend my nights reading so many blogs of other families that have completed their adoption journey, or are getting close to bringing their children home, that I often forget to actually do some writing about our own journey.  It just seems that our waiting period is not as fun to read about...like reading about paint drying.

We did finally mail off all of our paperwork to the adoption agency last week, and Radu said that he sent everything off to Ethiopia (via D.C.) last Tuesday, and it arrived in Addis Ababa today!!  So now we are waiting to hear that it has been translated and registered by the Ethiopian government.  Then, we will officially become "waiting parents".  It does actually feel like a real step, to have everything out of our hands and just sit back and wait for the phone to ring (or an email to show up).

Tor and I have discussed names for our baby girl, hoping to keep her given name as a middle name at least.  I have been fighting the temptation to keep buying girl clothes (kinda).  I think we are doing well with being patient and trying to just enjoy each other.  Work has definitely been keeping both of us busy lately, and I will be in need of a vacation in the very near future.

We are also very excited about the trip to Ethiopia itself, as neither of us have been to any part of Africa.  I am sure it will be a very emotional trip and so I have tried not to make a long to-do list, but I think it is VERY important that we try to take in as much as we can while we are there.  Ethiopia will always be a part of our child's life, as well as our own.

I must admit, though I am excited and feeling very lucky to become a mother to a beautiful child in need, I am devastated that somewhere there is a mother realizing her poverty is too extreme to raise her own children.  Knowing that somewhere there is a mother dying of a disease she doesn't fully understand, or of a lifestyle she does not see a way out of.  It saddens me that one day I will have to tell such a sad story to my daughter, and explain to her why her birth mother and her 'forever mother' are two different people.  That could have been my life on the other side of the world, making what must be the hardest decision a parent must ever make.  I do not know who she is, but I already love this woman and feel for her.  I respect her, and I pity her.  I am angry and sad that adoption has become the only option for her, but I am making her a promise, that I will love her child with all my heart and until my last breath.  For I am grateful for the chance to become a mother to someone that needs all this love that I have to share.

-Drea