Embassy FB Posts

Pam ~ I have utilized Facebook throughout our adoption journey to keep people updated and to record things that have been going on so that I don't forget. But not everyone who reads this blog are FB friends, so I thought it would be fun to share our FB posts from our Embassy trip!!!!

September 21, 2012 ~ We have arrived safely in D.C. and are checked into our hotel for the night. We head back to the airport first thing in the morning and fly to go get our GIRL!!!!

September 22, 2012 ~ It's breakfast time and then it's airport time and then it's sitting down for a very long time in a very small space with a lot of people I don't know and then it's time to go implement "Gotcha Day"!!!!

September 23, 2012 ~ Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us!!! We've made it safely to Ethiopia and are checked in at the guesthouse. We've got 1 hour here, then we'll meet other traveling families for lunch and then it's time to go GET OUR GIRL!!!!

We LOVE our little girl soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!!!!! I was hoping to get a video of us meeting her again, but she appeared out of nowhere and jumped into my arms with a HUGE smile on her face!!!!! Nathan and I are VERY tired, but hanging in there. She is FULL of energy (and didn't get a nap today so she is also tired and has NO attention span)!!!! Prayers for strength would be greatly appreciated!!!!

We put Maya K to bed EARLY tonight because she was sooooo tired. So we're praying that she doesn't wake up crazy early. I greased her skin up with baby oil) and some in her hair too), put her in footsie pajamas, brushed her teeth (YAY for her knowing how to do it already; I'm lovin' those nannies that have been taking care of her), "greased" up her face with cream, Nathan read a story to her and we put her in bed. It only took about 15-20 times of laying her back down with me laying down in the bed next to her crib (I know she's too old for a crib, but it's what we have available to us here), for her to finally fall asleep. Please pray that she sleeps the whole night through and doesn't wake up scared or confused!!!! (Sorry for the long post. There's been a lot happening!!!!)

September 24, 2012 ~ Kisanet slept for 12 hours last night and woke up smiling and laughing!!!! What a blessing to get to cuddle and snuggle with our little girl first thing in the morning!!! We will be leaving for our first lunch out with her in a few minutes, and we're praying that it will go well!!!.

She just called me "Enat"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That means "mommy" in Amharic!!!! Be still my heart!!!!!

We got through lunch (remind me to buy some large bibs when we get home; she is a VERY messy eater!!!) and came back to the guesthouse for a late nap (we ALL needed one). It took a half hour for her to settle down and go to sleep, but then she slept for an hour. We just woke her up (it's 4 p.m. here and we want her to sleep tonight) and she's cuddling with her daddy while eating a granola bar. We are soooooooooooooo thankful for the bonding that is already taking place!!!!! God is good!!!!!

September 25, 2012 ~ We need prayers for strength and energy today. Last night was rough. Kisanet screamed for THREE HOURS straight!!!! And she's got a powerful set of 5-year old lungs!!!! No amount of holding or rocking would make her stop. We are grateful that she allowed us to at least try to comfort her!!! She's running on about 6 and a half hours of sleep and Nathan and I are running on even less. She woke up happy and smiling (at 5:15 a.m.!!!!) but we are TIRED!!!! We leave to go shopping in about an hour, then we have lunch, and then we have our Embassy appointment.

We had our Embassy appointment and everything went as it was supposed to. We're not putting Kisanet down for a nap today because we are PRAYING that she will be so tired tonight that she will fall right asleep!!!! But, in the meantime, she is CRANKY!!! We are VERY thankful that there is a play room on the roof of the guesthouse and Kisanet is LOVING playing in there. Nathan and she just headed up there again and Mommy is having a little quiet time in the room!!! But I'm heading up soon to "relieve" Daddy!!!

September 26, 2012 ~ Yes, we gave in. She cried for 45 minutes in her bed last night and then we put her in our bed. She fell asleep in under 2 minutes and we moved her back to her crib where she slept for 9 hours!!!! It's probably the start of a bad habit, but we all NEEDED the sleep and are feeling much better today. We are also trying to take into account all the changes that are going on in her life right now. She needs to know that we will ALWAYS take care of her and when she is crying "Enat" and "Dada" we want to answer her!!!! We are going to the older child Transition Home today to try to get some video of Kisanet singing with the nannies and teachers. She LOVES to sing and is singing different songs ALL day!!! "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" is a favorite and after we sang "Jesus Loves Me" to her at bedtime last night, she sang another "Jesus" song to us in English. It was soooooooooooooooooooooo sweet!!!!!

Today was a little rough. I had a meltdown of emotions this afternoon and Nathan is such an AWESOME daddy!!!! He kept Kisanet occupied for an hour while I lay down on the bed (and believe me when I say that keeping her occupied for an hour is a VERY hard task). When I got up, I still couldn't stop crying and my sweet little girl climbed up on my lap and hugged me and fed me from her granola bar and tried to wipe my tears with her shirt!!!! That afternoon was GOOD!!!!! We are all changed for bed and just need to brush her teeth, have story time with daddy, sing some songs, and then it's bedtime!!!! We're starting her in bed with us tonight, so please pray that she settles in and goes to sleep QUICKLY!!!!!

September 27, 2012 ~ Kisanet fell asleep right away and was moved to her crib within 15 minutes of laying down and slept for 9 1/2 hours!!!! Daddy slept fantastic; Mommy is sleeping light and didn't get a ton of sleep but was able to rest. Kisanet didn't wake up as happy as before and was very serious and sober until finishing her breakfast. She ate a TON this morning, so she was obviously very hungry!!! We are taking a trip to a mountain and then a zoo this morning. Then daddy is going to try to occupy Kisanet while mommy packs for us to go HOME!!!!!

This will probably be my last post until we're HOME!!!! Nathan has taken Kisanet up to the play room on the roof of the guesthouse while I stay in the room to shower and pack. We have dinner in about two hours and then leave straight from dinner to head to the airport. There are 4 or 5 other families that have been here with us this week that are on the same flight to D.C. with us, so we will all have lots of moral support!!!! Please pray that Kisanet will be good on the plane. That she will allow herself to be buckled in, that she won't cry or be scared, that she will be entertained by the entertainment on the flight, and, most importantly, that she will SLEEP for several hours!!!! The flight is about 16-17 hours long and that is a very long time for a 5-year old (and for her mommy and daddy!!!!).

Ways to Help

Pam ~ As we have been busily getting all these last minute things done to get ready to head halfway around the world to bring our daughter home, people have been asking me what they can do to help us when we are just home with Maya K. So I've been brainstorming a list of suggestions :-)

~ PRAY!!!! Maya K is being uprooted from everything and everyone she has ever known and being asked to learn a new language, sleep in a new bedroom in a new house, live in the same house as a CAT!!!!, eat new and strange foods, see new things, wear new clothes, and on it goes. WE will be experiencing the newness of being parents to this wonderful child that we are not able to fully communicate with. We have been married for over eight years with it just being the two of us in our house and our lives will never be the same again. We are sooooooooo very excited and have been preparing for this for a long time, both physically and emotionally. But we know that we are going to face MANY challenges and frustrations and we need your PRAYER SUPPORT!!!!!!

~ Bring us meals. A very practicical way to help us would be to provide an evening (or maybe even a light lunch) meal. The first few weeks that Maya K is home we will be focusing on her and on helping her to adjust to our family and us adjusting to her being in our family :-). Having a meal provided would help me to not have to think about preparing a meal and would give me more time with her. However, you would need to be aware that if you bring us a meal, we will not be inviting you into our house or letting you "meet" Maya K during her first few weeks home. We will be keeping to a minimum how many "new" people she meets. She will possibly be feeling very overwhelmed and keeping our lives "simple" will be the best for her.

~ Volunteer to pick up groceries. We will be limiting the number of places we take Maya K when she first gets home, and WalMart or Fareway are NOT places that we will take her!!!! Can you imagine how overwhelmed YOU would feel if you had just come from Ethiopia and were taken into a place that had sooooooooo much STUFF and so many PEOPLE and so many strange SMELLS?!?!? We're just not going to do that to her!!!!!! So we will probably be needing some volunteers to go buy milk, cereal, eggs, etc. for us during our first few weeks. Don't think you need to go way out of your way to do this!!!! Just send me an e-mail or text message and ask if there is anything we have run out of :-).

~ Send us e-mails and FB messages. We will be limiting our physical contact with the "outside world" so I'm sure it would be VERY encouraging to us to open our e-mail/FB and have notes from friends and family letting us know that we are being prayed for!!!!! You most likely will not receive a personal note back from us, but you can know we will read everything anyone sends our way!!!!!

Thank you!!!!!

Pictures

Pam ~ If you're friends with me on FB, you've probably already seen these. But since I can't seem to find the time to sit down long enough to finish blogging about our court trip, I thought I could at least share a few photos. Enjoy!!!!

Our Attachment Plan

Attachment ~ "The formation by a child of significant and stable emotional connections with the significant people in its life. This process begins in early infancy as the child bonds with one or more primary caregivers. A failure by a child to establish these types of important connections before the age of about five years may result in the child experiencing difficulties with a wide variety of social relationships for significant periods of time in its life."

We are not perfect people. We will not be perfect parents. We know this.

But we also know that we are going to be prayerfully doing our best as God leads and directs us.

One of the things that we believe is needed when adopting a child is an attachment plan. An attachment plan is, very simply, a plan of how we intent to foster and promote our attachment to Maya K and Maya K's attachment to us.

This plan is unique to our family and is what we feel we need for OUR family!!! We are not "promoting" this as some new fabulous and perfect way of parenting. This is simply our plan for our family.

We have created this plan after doing much research via reading adoption books, talking to our social worker, reading adoption blogs, talking with families who have adopted, etc.

This plan will probably change!!!! But everyone needs a starting place, right?!?! So here is our starting place.

• We are planning to both stay home with Maya K for the first full week that she is home. Nathan is taking the week off from work and we will focus on getting to know our daughter in our home and to allow her to get to know us with out any outside distractions. If people bring us meals (which we will GREATLY appreciate!!!) we will not be inviting them into our house or asking Maya K to come to the door to meet them.
• Once Nathan goes back to work, we will be keeping our schedule VERY limited. Most evenings and weekends will be spent at home, trying to keep to a very normal routine. Maya K needs a fairly strict routine when she comes home to allow her to work through her emotions as she may be grieving the "loss" of the only life, country, and culture she has ever known. There will be so many new sights, smells, sounds, language, food, EVERYTHING, that the more "normal" and simple we keep things, the better she will be able to process and adjust.
• We are going to pay attention to what MAYA K needs during this time and will not rush this. If things are going well and she seems to be adjusting to us and to her new life, we will begin introducing her to other people and to take her to new places.
• When we start taking her to new places and she begin to meet new people, we are asking that people give her (and us) plenty of space. Don't crowd around us and overwhelm Maya K. We would LOVE to have you meet her, but we are going to be paying the most attention to how SHE is doing with all the attention in a new environment. Feel free to tell Maya K "Hi", that you are excited to meet her, or whatever you want to say, but don't try to hug her our touch her in any way.
• We are asking that our friends and family, during this transition period, have a "hands-off" policy when it comes to Maya K. Because she has had so many different care-givers, it is important that she learn that WE are her mommy and daddy and that WE meet her needs, no one else. This may seem to us like a normal thing for her to realize, but it is often a difficult concept for newly adopted children. Especially children who are older when they are adopted. This is sometimes called "indiscriminate affection." The child is basically not able to distinguish WHO they are supposed to be showing their affection to. Often it happens that whoever the adult is nearest to them at the time becomes their "new" mommy or daddy in their eyes. Because of this potential issue, we are asking that you do not hug her, tie her shoes, give her food or candy, personally give her any gifts or anything, pick her up, etc. If she is need of something and you are with her, tell her to come ask her mommy or daddy or come get us yourself. This might not even be necessary at the beginning because we intend to be with her almost all the time. This is a VERY serious potential issue and because we aren't going to take the time to delve into all of it here, please ask us if you have any questions. We want family and friends to hold to this "hands-off" policy for a while, possibly as long as six months or so. This will really be dependent on how Maya K is doing!!! We don't anticipate this being something that will ALWAYS be the case, but we are wanting to do everything we can early on to help Maya K. And, by the way, this does not include other children. Other children can interact and play with Maya K just like they would with any new friend!!! This "hands-off" policy is just for the high school and college students and adults.

We know that some or all of this might sound a little crazy and different to some of you, and yes, we are new parents :-). But we are also drawing from the experiences of other parents who have adopted. Even from others who have both biological children and adopted children and who have seen the differences that are needed in parenting your newly adopted child. Differences that will probably not always be there, but that need to be addressed in a unique way early on. Since we haven't done this before ourselves, we are praying that God will give us wisdom and direction as we seek to raise Maya K into a godly young woman.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us!!! We know that you will be respectful of our wishes and our plans even if you don't necessarily understand or agree. Please continue praying for us and for Maya K. This transition will be hard for all of us, but especially for Maya K!!!

Submitted to Embassy

Pam ~ Yesterday, we got an e-mail from the US Embassy in Ethiopia telling us . . . . . .

Congratulations! Your adoption case has been submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Your authorized agent, America World Adoption, submitted the case to us on September 5, 2012.

One more piece of the final puzzle has been put into place!!!! We're almost there!!!!!

We honestly were not expecting to be submitted quite this quickly. Our agency told us that we would be submitted 3-5 weeks from passing court and we can only be submitted on Wednesdays. So, our case was submitted the quickest that it possibly could!!!! Praise the Lord!!!!

We are now waiting for a second e-mail to come within the next 10 business days that will give us the next piece. There are three possibilities of what will happen. 1) The Embassy will ask to interview Maya K's birth dad, 2) They will tell us our case is "not clearly approvable" and it will be forwarded to the USCIS office in Nairobi, Kenya, or 3) We will be CLEARED to travel!!!!!

We are anticipating that #1 will be what happens with our case. They will probably request an interview with Maya K's birth dad and we will wait to hear when the interview will be. Then we will wait to hear the outcome. Then we will wait to hear if we are CLEARED to travel!!!!! (I'm glad we've already gotten so good at the waiting game!!!)

Whatever happens first, at some point in the next few weeks we should receive an e-mail telling us that our case has cleared the Embassy and we will get to request three interview dates. We will have to wait one day to hear what interview date we have been given, and then we will make our travel arrangements and fly back to Ethiopia to bring our little girl home!!!!!!

Right now, there is a small possibility that we could be traveling back to Ethiopia in just a couple week {squeal}!!!!! The great probability is that we will be traveling back the very beginning of October. Whenever God chooses, we will go!!!!!

There are still so many things that I want to get done around the house, so I'm trying to stay focused and get as much done now as I can!!!!! Once we are cleared to travel, my house won't get any more attention for a while!!!!!

Keep up the prayers!!!!!!