Sledding

This was the first and only time this winter that we had a chance to go sledding. Sledding in Colorado is way different than sledding, say, in Nebraska where I grew up. It was probably 45-50 degrees this day and if you look really closely you can see a stairway that we took back up to the top of the hill. My kids had on ski pants and boots, hats and gloves although they really didn't need the hats or gloves. All in all a very comfortable, fun, way to spend the day. Again...very different from my sledding experiences as a child.

Elijah, looking very like a sledder

Our friend Kevin, his daughter Rachel and Rowan

Daddy and Rowan...by this time Rowan, who was getting sick had had enough!

Rowan and Rachel

Go Diana!

You can't see it but there is a little child on this wild man's lap.

Easter 2009

Grammy and Papa

My sister Laurel and Rowan eating sopapillas w/ whip cream and cherries!

More Sopapilla Fun!

Hmm??? These are the only photos I took that night? Oh, I remember this was a tiny window of sanity that occurred post-tray and drinks trauma and pre-lost children in a crowd of hundreds trauma....GOOD TIMES!

These photos are of our first night together with my older sister, Laurel, and her husband, Shawn, and three of her kids, Justice, Tearsa and Irelynn, along with my parents and my little sister Elaine. In these photos we are at a lovely little restaurant here in Lakewood called Casa Bonita's. Casa Bonita's is just about the weirdest/coolest/most nerve wracking/scary/ awesome place you could just about imagine. I have been going since I was a kid and it's still an adventure every time. Only now, instead of experiencing the thrill of the cliff divers or the joys of the cave (post bean burritos...great idea whoever came up with that one) I have the thrill of chasing my three kids while balancing a tray of drinks and velveeta cheese enchiladas through a dark and over crowded restaurant. I don't know if it's the smell of the chlorinated waterfall or the sopapillas and free toostie rolls that keeps us coming back, but we never miss an opportunity to force our family members to share in the fun.

Once you learn to ride a bike...

First time parents of any child have certain expectations that may in time have seemed a tad...shall we say....ambitious. It's not our fault. We have no idea, generally, of when certain developmental milestones are supposed to be met. Like, for instance, your child's ability to learn to ride a bike. I think we purchased Aria and Elijah's first tricycle when they were about 1 1/2. At one point, due to various donations by well meaning neighbors and friends, we might have had something like five different kinds of tricycles. We didn't expect that at such a young age they would immediately take off down the street, so we were content to simply push them along...and they were content for us to do that too. Three years and probably five more tricycles later we were still pushing them. In fact, for reasons I can not explain, Aria and Elijah NEVER learned to ride a tricycle. A year and a half ago, we gave up on tricycles and just went and purchased bikes with training wheels. Somewhere deep inside of me a doubt was lurking. I was losing faith that my beautiful and able bodied first born children would EVER ride a bike. This was shocking for me because I spent most of my childhood riding around the neighborhood and all over town on a bike.
We took training wheels off, we put training wheels back on, we pushed them and encouraged them, we drove ourselves MAD, we shook our heads and wondered where we had failed as parents. And you know what happened? That's right...about two months ago Aria taught HERSELF how to ride a bike. Then about a month later Elijah followed suit. That's just how it all goes down in the Carson household. No amount of encouraging (aka pressuring) or threatening on our part is as effective as when Aria decides she is GOING to do something. Then, once she has conquered it Elijah sees that it can be done and he does it to. Then Rowan, who has been watching everything from the sidelines, skips several steps in normal toddler development and stuns us all by joining in (no, he is not riding a bike...but a tricycle...YES!)Let that be a lesson...to us!

Dossier in Ethiopia!

This Easter weekend we had such a good time with my family that drove all the way from Nebraska for a quick visit with us. The weather for Easter was very sad, but we had a great time. As soon as I get some pics. uploaded I'll share more of our Easter weekend fun. I just wanted to post today that on Friday our agency emailed to let us know that our paperwork, or Dossier, has officially been sent to Ethiopia. Now we wait for our REFERRAL...our Baby!!! We are officially pregnant on paper!!

Answers, Part I

I just returned from a forty-five minute trip across town to be finger printed by immigration for our adoption. Actually the whole process ended up taking about three hours if you include the drive time out there, the wait to get the finger printing done (not to bad a wait actually), lunch for the kids and then a drive home. The finger printing office was in the worst part of town though. SO all in all, not a very fun trip that took a HUGE chunk out of my day. So I sat down once we got home and read my last post and felt that I could address at least a couple of the issues I raised earlier. If you are an adoption savvy person or an expert on Africa or Ethiopia, please forgive me if I seem to make broad statements that seem obvious. But if you are reading this blog from the perspective I had on adoption or Ethiopia only a few months ago, this should be informative.

Answer to Questions #1, from my personal Ethiopian adoption experience:

1. Adoption is expensive. The question of how much we are going to have to pay to bring home our baby is the #1 question we hear. I don't easily take offense and gladly answer that question truthfully. It is awkward however, when the answer I give is received with raised eyebrows and the response "wow, it's really expensive". I think, "it is also expensive to purchase a mini-van, or a flat screen TV, or to have your house repainted, or to take a really nice family vacation". But I am not "purchasing" my child. And actually, if I were to give birth to a child and I didn't have the most awesome insurance ever, that would also be expensive. I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the money we are paying towards our adoption is not for someone to drive out into the bush and pluck a child out of it's mothers arms and sell it to us. A very large portion of these fees is for paperwork that insures that that very thing does not happen. For example, there's a homestudy fee that goes towards having a social worker visit your home and interview you and your family, to make sure you have child safety locks on your medicine cabinet and smoke alarms in your kitchen. There is a fee for the immigration paperwork that will allow you to bring a child from another country into the US. There are fingerprinting fees and Visa fees and background check fees...all these fees insure that you are not engaged in child trafficking. Once you have been referred a child, you must then pass court. At court the Ethiopian government does everything is it's power to prove that your child is legally an orphan either due to death or abandonment.

It does not help when someone like say, Madonna, attempts to adopt a child from a country that does not have these policies in place. To many, it may seem that families simply waltz into the these countries and walk out with a child. Believe me, that is not the truth. Obviously, not even for Madonna.

Are there agencies that seem to have less than ethical standards for their international adoptions. YES! But at this point, I really couldn't see how the United States could do any more to make sure that international adoptions are done as safely and legally as possible. I have filled out endless paperwork, been finger printed twice and had two background checks done to make sure I wasn't a criminal or child abuser.

Only a fourth of what we will ultimately pay for our adoption actually goes to Ethiopia for things such as document translation and processing, medical expenses, and orphanage costs.

Has adopting a child from another country become a status symbol for wealthy Americans? If it has then I guess I don't see it. The families I have watched go through this process are not the wealthy elite. In fact the majority of families I see struggle to pay all the costs, sometimes even completely emptying out their saving accounts, doing fund raisers, garage sales... Sadly these families aren't in the public eye. Adopted children aren't Fendi bags or Gucci shoes. They don't have monetary value. To the families that are adopting them these children are priceless, because they are their CHILDREN.

Processing the Process

As a critical thinker (thanks to three years of high school debate) and a woman with much time on her hands for thinking, I have been processing. I have laid all of my adoption worries at the feet of Jesus, but that doesn't stop me from ruminating, or sometimes wavering in my faith. As the good book says "I do believe...help my unbelief!"
One issue that has stood at the forefront of my mind since the beginning has been the question "Why are you adopting and especially from Ethiopia?" This question is put to every adopting parent going through the homestudy process by their social worker. It was not difficult for us to come up with a really nice sounding, very truthful answer. We want another child. We do not believe we should go through another pregnancy. We believe God has called us to adopt from Ethiopia.
Later, I wanted to bask a little bit in the sweet vision of seeing a baby placed in my arms. So I would search out Internet videos that showed babies being brought to their new families. Then (mistakenly perhaps) I would scroll down and read the opinions of other viewers and I would be confounded, often just plain dumb struck. Not everyone supported international adoption. I began to ask: is there more to this adoption then simply falling in love with a child and bringing them into your home?

What I have read or heard:

1. Americans are "buying" babies. They want to purchase beautiful baby girls. They are not interested in older children or boys.
2. Adoption "exacerbates" the problem of abandoned children in Africa because families will see abandonment as a good option for children they can not care for.
3. African orphans are better off being raised by extended family members.
4. Adoption can not help Africa. It would be better if all the families who are adopting gave the same amount of money they are paying for their adoption to supported organizations that help Africans received food and medicine.
5. Americans are adopting from Africa because it is trendy.

(sigh)

Should we have an answer for those who might challenge our decision with such statements? What would it be? Well, I guess that means we have to look at the above mentioned question again from a different angle. And we have, and I just want to honestly say that we do not have all the answers. But if you are reading this and wondering if we (Ryan and I) are aware of these issues, we are. If you are wondering if these statements have influenced our decision to adopt from Ethiopia, they have not.

Maybe what makes adoption so special is that we are now listening in to the conversation over what should happen in countries like Africa? Won't Ethiopia always be connected to our family in a way it never was before?

Well, maybe I have over processed this whole thing. I really am a simple gal. I really do love being a Mom and simply can't wait to have another baby in my arms. Ultimately, God is orchestrating this entire adoption and becuase he is a good God I can only see good things coming.

Gain

"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world,

and forfeit his soul?"

Mark 8:36