I'm happy to report that I have rebounded somewhat since my last post. Yes, I am still disappointed that the closing is delaying my referral but in a strange way, it's been a bit of a relief. Since I know that nothing is happening until MOWA reopens, I don't have the daily stress of wondering if the call will come today. If it comes today will I remember to have my phone with me, will I be able to take the call, will I be near a computer when they call so I can see the picture ASAP? Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to know who the punkin is, but a little less stress has done me a world of good.
So I read an interesting book over the weekend. It's called My Father's Daughter and it's by Hannah Pool. She was adopted as an infant from Eritrea(which used to be a part of Ethiopia years ago) by an English couple who had been told both her birth parents were deceased. It turns out that her birth father was alive, as were several siblings and the book chronicles her trip back to Eritrea to meet them. It was a fascinating book and it brings up a lot of the things I think about on a daily basis. Will they always feel that longing for their birth family? Will they always feel out of place being a black child in a white family? Will they feel more isolated if they have the chance to return back for a visit? Will they feel guilty because others got left behind and they got whisked off to a more stable life? The bottom line is that I can't answer any of these questions. I can't predict what my child's experience will be but I think my responsibility is to always be honest and upfront with what I know and to be a safe place where they can share these feelings. In the book Hannah Pool talks about not wanting to tell her dad that she was going to meet her birth family because she was afraid that it might make him feel like he wasn't enough. I don't want my child to worry that way about me, but I can't guarantee they won't. One of the reasons I was drawn to Ethiopia is that whenever possible, there is a birth family meeting where the adoptive parent travels to the village of the birth family to meet whomever relinquished the child. As emotional as this meeting will be, I'm grateful that these meetings are possible through my agency(not every agency does this). I hope that having pictures, and information about their birth family will help to answer some of the questions they'll have later on. I never want the punkin to feel like their birth family is something we put behind us. It's a part of what brought us together as a family, so why would we want to brush it under the rug? On the other hand, it's their story and I have to be ready to tell it when they're ready to hear it. There's so much to think about and yet, you can't spend too much time theorizing about how you'll handle this when it comes up because if you do, it won't be authentic.
From what I have been told, MOWA should reopen around the 24th of this month and then I'll be back on red alert again. My nephew Jacob (2 1/2) announced to me last week that he is taking matters into his own hands. He said "Dante, I going Epiopia. I take my truck and my rescue rope(he watches a little too much Diego)and I going to get you baby!" I said well, why don't you take a plane and he said "No pane, pane take too long. I gonna do myself!" Too bad his truck is a little red fisher price fire truck and his rescue rope is actually a winter scarf. But hey, it's the thought that counts.
