Sleeping With Lamb-Fly

Donovan and I went to purchase items for Noemi’s “welcome bag” this week. AAI asks that each family sends a gallon-size freezer bag with the following items:
• a simple one-piece outfit
• two small, plush toys
• a disposable camera that the Nannies will use to take photos of Noemi, including one of her in her outfit from us
• a small photo album with photos of us for the Nannies to get to know us better

It's all that we will get to send to her...so you can imagine the pressure. What started as a laid-back trip to Target’s baby section turned into me tearing up at the thought of trying to find two toys to meet all of her needs. But how can I possibly know what type of stimulation she needs most? Donovan and I laughed as the tears started to slowly roll and I realized my hysterics. It’s the early interventionist in me to want to make sure each developmental domain is being properly targeted. Oh my. I’m a case already. We settled on a half-lamb, half-butterfly thingy that serves as a teether and toy at the same time. Little did Donovan know that I had intentions of sleeping with our new lamb-fly friend so that I could get my scent on him. I think it’s safe to say that Donovan has been a little freaked out by me going to bed at night with a stuffed toy shoved down my shirt, and he gets really cranky when I roll over on its wing and it makes that annoying crinkle sound at 3AM. Donovan has had to remind me more than once that the lamb-fly is NOT our daughter, and that I shouldn’t get too attached to the dang toy. But it’s all I got right now and I’m going to keep shoving that thing down my shirt until it smells like me. And I know that he secretly loves little lamb-fly, too.


The toy Donovan really wanted for Noemi...



Donovan upgraded to the disposable camera with a zoom feature. Of course.

Everyone Keeps Asking...What's Next?

Welp, we shipped off our "Parent Agreement" to AAI, saying that we agree to smother Noemi with love forever. Let's just take a second to think about how unbelievable that feels...

OK.  The next big step is our court hearing in Ethiopia.  We will be assigned a court date by our agency, hopefully, in another month or so.  The court date will likely be a few months after that.  In fact, the director of our agency told me that she hopes to get us in before the court closes for a two-month break in August.  The courts close during Ethiopia’s rainy season, so if we do not get in before that we will have to wait until October (aaaaaack!).  The court date is our actual adoption hearing.  Once we “pass” court, we will be Noemi’s legal parents.  AAI will assign us a group, whereby a number of AAI families will be heard in court on the same date.  We will not travel for this date as it often changes last minute.  A Power of Attorney will represent all of the AAI families on that day. 

In recent weeks, many families have not been passing court and have had a new, later court date assigned. As you can imagine, this has been extremely frustrating and discouraging for all of the families involved.   There are numerous reasons why a family might fail—a document is missing—something is not properly sealed, etc.  Even though all of our documents on the US side of things are in order, Ethiopian officials will need to prepare a host of things on Noemi’s end.  We have no control over that.  It is entirely out of our hands. Ethiopia is very overwhelmed with increasing number of adoptions and it can only be adding to the court struggles.

After the adoption decree is issued and we are officially Noemi’s parents, an appointment with the Embassy will be scheduled.  The appointment will be for Noemi’s visa to travel to the USA.  We will be given a few weeks warning to pack our bags and fly over the Ethiopia for that appointment; and we will stay for approximately two weeks. 

All told…

It’ll be a while before we go to Ethiopia (sigh).  As I have said before, I am not in the business of banking on dates because it can only lead to disappointment. And right now we have so much to be thankful for.  We are choosing to focus on the gift we have been given this week and pray for a speedy court date so that we can bring Noemi home.  We are going to try (try being the operative word) not to focus on timelines and the complicated process ahead, but just pray and celebrate through it!  Please continue to pray and celebrate with us!

 

Finding Happiness ... Revealed

We are squealing with delight here in the Witmer household over our new baby girl! So here is the highly anticipated rundown….

...I’m out of breath just writing this…

We accepted a referral for an approximately 4-month-old baby girl named S* this morning. We are keeping her Ethiopian name abbreviated for privacy reasons.   S* is an uncommon Ethiopian name that means, “you will find happiness.” How freakin’ beautifully magical is that?

Donovan and I have decided to name her Noemi S* Witmer. Noemi (no-eh-me) is a form of Naomi, which has always held a special place for Donovan and me. We have a verse from the story of Naomi and Ruth inscribed in our wedding bands and written on our Ketubah. We love the way Noemi sounds with S* and the way the three names look when written together with all of those pretty vowels. You know, we think of these things! Donovan has been experimenting with writing her name in different fonts ever since we named her.

So here it is: Noemi S* Witmer. We will call her Noemi.

She came into the care of our agency on February 28th. Reportedly, she has been eating and growing and sleeping and cooing and crying and doing all of the things that we want babies to do . . . she is being very cooperative and has a very sweet disposition according to AAI. Simply stated, she’s puuuuuurrrrrrfect.

We got the celebratory phone call on Thursday afternoon when I was home. Alone. I promptly called Donovan, only to find out he was over an hour away. What a torturous hour of waiting for his return so that we could open our email to read the baby’s file and see her picture for the first time together! We are not permitted to publicly post any photos of our darling until the adoption is official, so these videos will have to do for now. I will tell you that she has chunker cheeks, rosebud lips that every girl dreams of and sweet, wide-set almond eyes. She even has some curls on top of that brown sugar head.

So why the wait from Thursday until now, you ask? Well, we had some official things we needed to sort out first. Secondly, we wanted to witness the screams of Nana and Pappy, Grandma and Grandpa and Aunties and Uncles before we made it public.

More info to come on our new little bambino! I’ve got to get back to staring at her photo. Oh, happy time of rejoicing!

And now for two video responses by Grandma Witmer and Nana Roberts . . . 

We apologize in advance for the shaky video. We're still getting used our new camera.

It Begs The Question ...

"Did you get THE call??????"

Hang tight.  Trust me, this is gonna be good...

Wrap 'Em Up!

The last week has reminded me I need to figure out how I am going to carry around this new child of mine. You see, I’ve got this trick shoulder and need something that will help me carry my little monkey as much as possible. I’m not so keen on having too many baby accessories, but finding a quality wrap/carrier that works for my bum shoulder is one of the best investments I can make. So I’m on the ultimate wrap hunt. Help me if you like. I’m looking for a wrap that distributes weight equally across both shoulders and my back and can be adjusted so that when I do feel something slip, I can re-wrap it to accommodate the area I am trying to avoid weight being on.

Any suggestions? I figured so many of you were such great help with the cloth diaper decision-making process that I thought I would challenge ya’ll to the ultimate wrap hunt. I’m currently investigating the following products and wonder what your experiences may be:

Hotslings
Baby Ktan Baby Carrier
Ultimate Baby Wrap  ** This is the one I am leaning toward.  Note:  This is NOT Donovan or our baby in the picture.

Crucifixes & Cracks

Growing up, I was the protestant girl in a primarily Catholic community. Besides being jealous of my Catholic friends getting to pick new names for themselves during their catechism in middle school (I wanted to be re-named Janet--don't ask why-- but Janet was no saint), the only real difference I noticed was that the cross around their necks had Jesus on it and my cross was blank. I understand the theology behind the empty cross—the focusing on the risen Christ; but as I have aged I see the wonder in the crucifixion that was largely ignored during my formative years. I sought to befriend this complexity as I grew in my faith, sensing that something was missing from my myopic understanding of the Easter story.

The first Easter Donovan and I were married we went to Guatemala to visit his aunt who was living there at the time. We planned our trip during holy week so that we could be witness to the processionals that took place in cities all over the country. Whole towns would participate in depicting Christ’s journey to his death, re-enacting the stations of the cross. I remember standing on cobble stone streets decorated with carpets of flowers, watching women sobbing as an almost life-sized plastic Christ and accompanying Mary were carried down the street by men dressed as Roman soldiers. Some would call the cracked and painted plastic statues incredibly campy, and they were, but there was undeniable life in witnessing other people’s tears. There was a juxtaposition between the fakeness of the icons and the realness of the people connecting to the symbols. They connected to the suffering of Jesus and his blessed mother and mourned for them, with them. Something many protestants don’t feel comfortable doing. They skip to the end—to the celebration—to the praise and hallelujahs. We need to learn how to formally connect to the grief so that the lilies that bloom three days later feel even whiter. There is an added appreciation for the risen Christ that comes when one has stepped into the darkness of his death and swam in that suffering, even if just for a little while.

I bought three carved wooden statues that day in Guatemala, three santos. My favorite is Mary of Guadeloupe. When I recently unpacked Mary from a box in the attic I was immediately reminded of the split up her back that I had originally discovered years ago. It was the day after my dear Uncle Bob died that I was dusting and noticed the pale Mary had begun to split in two from behind. The symbolic crack silenced me. It now serves as a precious reminder for me to allow for cracks and cleansing tears.

This holy week, this holy season of my life as I wait for our child to be given to us, is almost over. Somehow this year’s church calendar has corresponded with my own personal calendar. Lent is almost over in more ways than one and I am allowing myself to connect to the cracks and crevices of these last days. To connect to the darkness of Jesus’ final hours when he begged his father for answers and when Mary cried for her son. To connect to that eerie and long silence that existed between Friday and Sunday. Before we knew the answer—before we knew that Jesus would rise up—before we connected the dots and saw the promise. Then, and only then, will we truly know the elation of that Sunday morning.

Thumbs Up for Preschool

I invite you to read this article about how Ethiopia is exploring a child-to-child initiative as a new way to provide a preschool experience to its children. Through a pilot program supported by UNICEF, older children are taking on the role as teachers and leading younger, preschool-age children through fun play-based instruction in efforts to better prepare them for primary school. Fabulous. Being a Service Coordinator for our local early intervention's preschool program has me particularly delighted by this article. There is nothing more effective than children teaching children!

Click here to read UNICEF's April 1st article:
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/ethiopia_48899.html

Diggin' My Team

I dig friendship. I dig the excitement of looking forward to breakfast with a friend who loves me just the way I am. She is the ultimate sleep-over, go on vacation with, eat Indian food and talk cynically all night long friend. She just gets it and is ever clever. I dig the wisdom that exists between two people who have known each other since they were 5 years old and can read each other’s pulses. She shares my antiquing pace and knows my taste--and always understood that one's hair ribbons should clearly coordinate with one's argyle sweater. She is the most loyal person I know. I dig the security that comes from a best friend who doesn’t mind my trashy breath when I wake up in the morning. He holds me up when I just don’t know that I can get out of bed and start another day.  And we like each other—really, really genuinely like being with each other. The day that I don’t see him feels strange and somewhat incomplete. I dig the laughter that is shared with someone who lets me talk too much…and go on and on and on… and finally jokingly points out that I have done so. Her listening is genuine, as are her prayers. She sees motherhood as her craft and I admire her immensely for working so hard at it each and every day. I dig the joy that toasting with a glass of cabernet sauvignon brings to two people who haven’t seen each other in a while. Daily routines have taken us in different directions, but we still care. She knows that kindness matters, plain and simple.  I dig the trust of friendships that have reinvented themselves over the years; those that have changed according to time and place. Dear old friends who know the history, who know the girl, who know the funny and embarrassing, who know the faith walk and who know how to always look forward. They carry me in so many ways. And I dig new friendships that keep life fresh and present. They bring a relevancy that comes with the here and now and aren't fussy. They remind me to nurture the good and abandon those things that are not life-giving. So cheers to you, my long-haul friends. You know who you are. My baby will be oh-so blessed to have such a well-oiled team as ya'll.