I didn’t mean to.
I’m in the middle of this huge emergency at work yesterday, and a very nice lady from CHI calls to introduce herself as our social worker, and I had to tell her that I was too busy to talk. I did apologize before telling her I had to go, at least I think I did. Does this mean she’s going to think I’m too busy to be a good mom?
My goodness, that’s not a good start at all.We were warned in the beginning there would be a lot of paperwork involved, but until you see the “books” they send you, you have no idea. None of is particularly difficult, except maybe the autobiography part, but it is going to require a time commitment. We haven’t had a chance to look beyond a skim though because we have been so busy. I would like to look through it more closely this weekend and develop a checklist for us - that’s scary, me trying to be organized.
First things first, figuring out funding.
This is the first weekend Adam hasn’t been under the weather for quite some time. Back in October, he was in the hospital for 5 days with an atypical pneumonia. I think it did a number on his immunity because since then he seems to catch everything going around. He used to never get sick. He’s feeling much better today, and he doesn’t have to work this weekend, so we’re going to get in some “us” time, before he gets sick again.
Sometimes we like to just get in the car and drive, without a plan, just to see where it takes us. I think this is going to be one of those days. You know, with children that can be even more exciting. I can’t wait!!!Ethiopia is a proud country who’s people speak over 80 languages, none of which are taught in a St. Louis Community College Continuing Education class. French and Arabic are also spoken there, both of which are taught in a St. Louis Community College Continuing Education class. Yet, we are currently taking Conversational German I. Why? No clue - I quit trying to figure out my husband years ago.
He speaks a bit of the language and since we were dating (can you believe I’ve known him 10 years now!!) he has wanted to take a refresher course, and always thought it would be fun if I took it with him. It just happens to be now that we are doing it. Maybe we’ll fly into
At least this past Tuesday, I learned the one phrase that I believe will get us through any German speaking country, if we ever end up in one.
Ein bier bitte.
We got the call at
We did go to the information seminar last Saturday morning. It was… a lot to take in. We got to try Ethiopian food. There was chicken doro, which is a type of stew, with vegetables, served on top of injera, which is a large round flat, but spongy bread. It is fermented, like sourdough. You pile the doro and veggies on top of the injera and break off pieces of the injera with which to eat the stew - no utensils. So flavorful, and we were warned the heat level of the spices was toned down for us.
While we were eating, one of the directors at the agency who was born and raised in Ethiopia, talked to us a little about the country, the culture, the politics there, and about the Ethiopian community here in St. Louis. I’m embarassed to say I forgot his name. Hopefully we’ll get to hear him speak more in the future.
Now, I just described only 1 hour of the 3 hour seminar. The other two hours were devoted to issues relating to trans-racial adoption. We have been thinking about this from the beginning, and they want us to be thinking about it. What that morning did, was to give us more direction on how to be thinking about it. It was rather eye-opening, not to mention deep, even with us already giving it considerable thought. That’s really all we want to say about that right now, because we just want to celebrate getting accepted into the program. However, in no way do we want to diminish this subject because it is very important - we are going to be 2 white parents with 2 black kids - unfortunately, not all of American society accepts that. We plan to write something jointly on the subject later on as we get further along in our journey.
I think this calls for wine with the meatloaf I had already planned for dinner. Cheers!
As Adam put it, “we finally did it.” It’s taken us 5 years of trying to become parents to get to this point. You’d think we’d be all prepared and ready? Ha! Clueless would be a better word to describe us, but we’re going to learn.
The purpose of this blog is to both inform our friends and family where we are in the process and to have something to show our kids when they get old enough to understand. Also, if anyone else wants to go through this, then I hope something we share helps them in their journey. Finally, we hope to explore the reasons we picked this fascinating country.
First things first, we have to get out application approved. I guess you can say we already ran into our first snag. The agency wants a little more information about Adam’s health. He doesn’t have anything serious, but he has to take medication, and they are asking for a letter from his doctor saying he’s healthy. We were told that everything else is in order, and that having to get a letter from the doctor shouldn’t be a problem, but they also didn’t tell us our application has been accepted either. Does this mean our blogging stops right after it starts? We should know soon.
Meanwhile, we are planning on attending a 1/2 day information seminar on