a bad internet sort of day

This is definitely not the sort of news you should be delivered via e-mail and I intend to take that up with the adoption agency when I'm a little more rational than right now.

Because we've gotten so much support from so many people, I posted an update on Facebook today that the birth mother had changed her mind and this child would no longer be available for adoption. Believe me when I tell you that I am happy for the birth mother and the child because I would never want to feel like I had made a mother child-less just so I could have another child.

Someone - an adoptive mother, no less - wrote back and said that she was sorry but she hoped it was some consolation that we hadn't grown attached to the child yet. W-H-A-T???? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? CAN SHE BE SERIOUS? (And yes, I am screaming and yelling via the internet).

Let me set the record straight for any of you that may not know what to say in these circumstances. You DO NOT say "at least you didn't grow attached". As a woman who miscarried a baby at 14 weeks, I had grown attached to a fetus and the loss was devastating. As a potential adoptive mother a year ago, I grew attached to the baby that the Brazilian woman was carrying that Brazilian law would ultimately not allow us to adopt that I had only seen in an ultrasound. As a potential adoptive mother on the second go-round, I had grown attached to a little boy that we'd laid claim to a few weeks ago. I might have only seen photos and video of him, but you may rest assured I considered him mine as much as I considered the miscarried baby mine as much as I consider Mac mine.

Forgive my rant. It's been a tough afternoon.

a Tuesday to beat the band

Today started out as any ordinary Tuesday. If an ordinary Tuesday involves getting a crown put a tooth. And now that I write this, that means this was an extraordinary Tuesday because never in 38 years, 5 months, and 8 days, have I ever had a crown put on.

Two hours and $750 later, I left the dentist's office and called Jimmy's mom to catch up with her on my drive back to Summerville. As we chatted, my cell phone beeped, but I didn't recognize the number as Mac's school, which would be the only reason I would ever cut a phone call short.

As soon as I got off the phone, I checked my voice mail and listened to a message from the adoption agency we're using. She told me they had news and needed to speak with me. Between you and me, I had a little meltdown with another woman at the agency last week because I was getting the runaround on having our home study update done. So I was sort of expecting this woman to tell me that upon closer look, they had decided I was crazy and not worthy of adoption.

But I called back.

And she said they had a referral.

Now I must tell you that I didn't know what she was talking about. A referral for a child was supposed to be months down the road. What did she mean by "referral"? Did she mean they'd gotten a reference for me to prove I wasn't crazy after all? So I said "really?" I've learned that little maneuver from living in foreign countries. When you have no idea what's being said, you just learn how to say "really" in that appropriate language, say it at regular intervals, and everybody thinks you're following.

So I said "really" with a slight intonation to indicate a question. And she proceeded to tell me about a little boy who's around 4 years old who is available for adoption in one of their orphanages in Ethiopia.

I sputtered out "how can this be?, we haven't filed our dossier yet, our updated home study isn't done, etc, etc, etc". She said that we were the only family on their waiting list who wants this age little boy and so they wanted to give us the chance of a referral. (And she assured me that everything would progress as long as we got the dossier done as quickly as possible but within 4 months of the referral).

I was hysterical on the phone. You hear adoption stories of people waiting and waiting and waiting for their referral and every time the phone rings, they jump, hoping it's their case worker. We never got to that stage so it was more of the stereotypical husband who panics at the time the wife says it's time to go the hospital because labor has begun. I could not focus and I'm a very good focus-er. I told the lady I thought I was going to vomit and then I thought I was going to cry. She just kept saying yes, yes, yes, yes. She gave me some basic information and then asked if I'd like her to send some photos.

D-U-H!

I kept telling her to hit send, send, send right then. Then I told her I was hanging up to go check email. But wait, did she have anything else to tell me? No. Good. Hit send and I'm going to check email now.

We got 14 photos of this little boy and he is GORGEOUS! I like signs from God and I think I clearly got a lightning bolt sign when I found out what this little boy's name was. It gives me goosebumps to think about it.

In another sign from God, I was able to share the news with Jimmy immediately, which is a miracle.

I can't share any photos or details with you yet but will as soon as we are legally able. We have two weeks to make a decision as to whether to accept the referral. Which way do you think we're leaning? :)

miscellaneous notes

1. Mac and I went to his school's Festa Junina on Saturday. For what "Festa Junina" means, go back in the blog a year and you can learn more than you ever wanted to know from asking a polite question. On Friday night, Mac informed me that he didn't want to go. I told him we were going. He insisted not. I asked why? Turns out he didn't want to dance the quadrilha (Brazilian square dance) or wear the costume (a plaid shirt with a big straw hat). You know what? I didn't really blame him. That didn't sound like too much fun to me either, so I told him he didn't have to dance or wear that funny get-up. So we went to the party and ate fried pastels and churros stuffed with doce de leite and cotton candy. He played more of the fishing game and the beanbag through the clown's mouth and the chicken catapult game that I care to admit. It was completely blissful and we both had a great time.

2. After the Festa Junina, we went with Mac's friend's family to their weekend house. I met Claudia, the friend's mom, at the kindergarten orientation and could tell I liked this woman from the get-go. She was a kindred spirit. We went to their house last year and it's just a big slice of relaxing heaven an hour and 15 minutes outside of Sao Paulo. We got there about 8:30 on Saturday night, and the children played and the adults visited and we all ate and it was lovely. Sunday was a big breakfast and a big lunch with playing in between and afterwards. It was all so nice and relaxing and peaceful until Mac had a total meltdown over giving up a 99-cent lightstick from Wal-Mart. I nearly died from embarrassment. I begged - to no avail; I offered to buy him 10 more lightsticks as soon as our plane touched down next week - to no avail; and finally I threatened. I set my watch to beep in 2 minutes (he'd been crying and sulking in the bedroom for at least 30 minutes by then) and told him if he did not come out when that timer went off, we were getting in a taxi and going back to Sao Paulo and he would regret that decision. Thankfully he came out and acted normal because I'm not totally sure where the nearest taxi stand was. And wouldn't you know- after turning in an Oscar-worthy performance for Most Dramatic Hissy Fit - he gave his friend the stupid lightstick in the car coming home?

3. After not checking email for 2 days, I came home last night to a terrible email from our real estate agent. The inspection was done on our house, and the potential buyers used some crazy inspection person who hyper-inflated the costs for the repairs in the house. For instance, it's very likely that the house will soon need a new boiler (but we were told 6 years ago that the house needed a new boiler and it's still functioning very well). I've never even seen a home inspection where the inspector listed "guesstimate" prices, but this guy did and he said it could cost them $13,000 for a new boiler. I called our plumbing company today to get an estimate and it's a max of $6000. There's a laundry list of repairs as is expected in a 103 year-old house, but when you jack up the repair prices so much, the buyers are understandably freaked out. They've now offered a ridiculously low price that would allow them to cover some of the repairs, but we will not accept that. We're waiting for our real estate agent's contractor to finalize some numbers and then we'll make our counter to their reduced offer. But I told the real estate agent today to get ready to list it to rent. We're in a position where we can make the mortgage payments without giving the house away.

So I was pretty bummed out about this news because we had definitely counted that chicken before it hatched, and then....

4. I was just cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and noticed that a letter had been slipped under the back door. And guess what this letter was??? It's our "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition" from the US Department of Homeland Security office in Lima, Peru (this stems from my Rio trip on April 2). WOO-HOO!! This is a huge, huge, huge hurdle and I cried when I realized what it was and that they didn't deny us or request more information.

We have to sit tight a little longer before we submit the dossier which is all ready to go and just hanging out with Jimmy now. This portion of the adoption process is the big money portion. And we thought we had the money all figured out, but timing of expected incoming funds hasn't worked in our favor to date. But I know it's going to work in our favor soon and we'll be that much closer to bringing home our son.

some inspiration from Mother Teresa

A friend who adopted a sibling set in Ethiopia last year posted these quotes by Mother Teresa on her blog to accompany her prayer request specifically for two sibling sets who were orphanage friends with one of her daughters. These quotes were so moving to me, as someone who's trying to bring home a child, that I wanted to share them with you. Thanks Kristy!

"The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted."

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread."

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat . . . We must find each other."

"Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go."

"How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers."

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

dossier SO close to being ready

Our adoption dossier is this close to being ready to be sent in. Just some documents to get notarized at the consulate next week, and we're set to get this show on the road.

Today I went to my neighborhood copy shop to copy a mountain of documents. Okay maybe it wasn't a mountain, but it was definitely a minor hill. The guy spoke to me in great English, which was very surprising as I have patronized this store before and nobody came close to saving me from my Portuguese. As I waited for the copying to be completed, he must have been reviewing my documents while making copies, and he surmised we were adopting.

When he returned with two minor hills of paper, he told me that we didn't need to buy our new child any clothes when we got him home. I asked why and he said we could make clothes out of all the paper he'd just used for the dossier and he'd be well-clothed for a long time. I like that guy's way of thinking - it is a lot of paper - and am trying to figure out what else I can copy just to give him more business!

nightly prayers

As we progress more fully in the adoption process, we continue to address with Mac what it will mean to bring home an African-born child in terms of race, this child's life as an orphan and his subsequent assimilation into a family, and Mac's adjustment from only-child status.

Tonight during prayers, as normal, we prayed that our child would feel our love all the way from Brazil to Ethiopia and that he would know we were preparing our hearts and our home for his arrival. I reminded Mac during the prayer that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" and that this meant God didn't just love America or Brazil but that God loved Africa, too. Mac interjected and said God loved even the aliens. My teachable moment was entirely lost on this precious 6 year-old. Yes, God does love the aliens too.

random thoughts...

1. Mac is on a field trip today and he was SO excited to get up and out of the house this morning. Too bad I can't call everyday a Field Trip Day.

2. Mac has his Spring Picnic and Easter Party tomorrow at school. I bet tomorrow's wake-up will be just as easy as today's.

3. It's a very fast descent from happiest happy to saddest sad. A worse ride than Space Mountain at Disneyworld and I hate Space Mountain.

4. Jimmy helped organized and played in a charity softball tournament all day on Saturday. When we got back home, we ran by the grocery store and while he was parallel parking (and holding up traffic for approximately 20 seconds), some old guy yelled at him to "go back to his own country." That really stung me, especially after having spent the past 11.5 hours raising money for charity in this man's country. In 11 years of foreign service life, we've never been told to go back to our own country. Wow.

5. The trip to Rio last Thursday was successful. I had all my documents and the package was DHL'ed to Lima, Peru yesterday. The last immigration form Rio sent took Lima 6 months to approve. We are praying for a faster turnaround.

6. I had Round 2 with Carla, the Trainer, today. Tomorrow's going to be painful.

sore....but going to Rio

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. In fact, for a little while, I thought maybe I hadn't gotten my money's worth out of trainer Carla yesterday. Now here we are, a mere 7.5 hours after the alarm clock's ring, and I can barely move. Everything hurts. Even the parts that I didn't know she was working yesterday. OUCH!

In more pleasant and exciting news, I am going by myself to Rio tomorrow to the consulate to file our petition for advance approval to adopt an international orphan. I am so nervous about this. I've spent the last couple hours running around, making copies of documents and buying little plastic folders to keep all my documents organized.

And yes, to any State Department people reading, I have become that person who shows up at the consulate with reams of unnecessary paper. They ask you to bring your last Form 1040; I'm taking not only the last three Form 1040s, but also every supporting document that went into filing our taxes. We're talking 6 or 7 inches of paper just for that. I realize this is overkill and I don't intend to pull these documents out unless I'm asked. I have the "required" documents in one binder; two copies of every "required" document in another binder (overkill again, but you never know); and all my other Nervous Nellie documents in a third binder. There will be no need for anybody at the consulate to even know I've brought the Nervous Nellie documents. But if they need to see proof of rental income in 2005 from the beach condo we sold a year ago, I have got it. Better safe than sorry, I say.

I fly out at 9:55 tomorrow morning, supposedly landing in Rio at 10:55am. I intend to go to the Copacabana Palace Hotel to treat myself to a celebratory early lunch (celebratory because we've made it this far in the adoption process) by their spectacular pool and then I will go to the consulate for my 1pm appointment. I get back on a plane at 3:55pm and land in Sao Paulo at 5pm. Pray that all goes well and smoothly and without incident.

Also pray that with the current soreness in my body, I am physically able to carry my pounds of paper!:)

Friday: the day that would not end

My days in Sao Paulo aren't generally stressful as I don't plan too much for any one day. You never know if traffic is going to cooperate, and I need to be home by 3:30 to get Mac off the bus.

So my planned schedule for Friday was the following:
7:45am - get Mac on the bus

10am - go to grocery store to pick up care package stuff for one of Jimmy's colleagues who was in the hospital

11am - arrive at hospital to visit Jimmy's colleague

11:30am - go to Starbucks because my favorite Starbucks in Sao Paulo is conveniently located near the hospital

1pm - go to Mac's school to help set up American booth for International Festival on Saturday

3pm - pick up Jimmy at consulate (Mac had a playdate arranged) so we could get to Brazilian Federal Police by 4pm to get our federal police record (YEAH!)


Sometimes planned and actual don't jive. Here's what happened:
7:45am - got Mac on the bus

10am - went to grocery store to pick up care package stuff for Jimmy's colleagues

11am - arrived at hospital and visited with colleague and his parents. Volunteered to go by consulate to take care of some stuff for colleague.

11:15am - called Jimmy from car to see if he was at consulate to drop off colleague's stuff. He said he was there and could I come by then? Starbucks off the schedule but thinking that I can swing by McDonald's after consulate for a Happy Meal.

11:25am - pulling into consulate, I received a phone call from a friend asking if I was still at the hospital. She'd just had a dizzy spell (after a car accident when she hit her head) and was understandably nervous. She said she was going to take a taxi to the hospital, but I told her I would come get her and take her back to the hospital. No Starbucks, no McDonald's. Now chewing a stick of gum for lunch.

11:30am - dropped off stuff from colleague for Jimmy. Had him meet me in the parking lot to save time in picking up friend.

11:50am - picked up friend to go back to hospital (which, in 1.5 years in Sao Paulo, I had never visited - now twice in one day!)

11:52am - dropped off International Festival decorations at school because I knew there was no way I'd be back by 1pm meeting time.

12:15pm - arrived at Emergency Room and learned how the intake process works (which hopefully we won't need in the next 2.5 months). Called other American booth mothers from school to tell them I'd be late but that my stuff was there.

1:15pm - received call from one of the school moms asking if anybody else was coming as she was the only person who'd shown up.

1:30pm - left ER (friend's husband joined her there by now), but had to wait - for second time that day - an inordinately long time for hospital valet to bring car around. Chewed another stick of gum for second course of lunch.

2:10pm - arrived at school, thinking I only had 30 minutes to work before leaving to get Jimmy.

2:30pm - received a voice mail from Jimmy (no reception inside school) that said we didn't have to leave consulate until 3:45pm (and not 3pm).

3:30pm - left school and realized I was almost out of gas after traversing the city a couple times today. Quick stop at gas station where I finally had a nice attendant who wanted to wash all the windows of the car, but sadly I didn't have time to sit there while he washed everything.

3:40pm - ran through drive-through of McDonald's for french fries and Coke Zero. Before circling the block, everything has been devoured. I even dug out the straggler fries and ate the ice in the coke. Should have gotten a supersized meal.

3:45pm - arrive at consulate and miss Jimmy while he comes back from mailroom and I'm using the bathroom. Go to his office, he wraps up stuff and we leave with a map in hand of how to get to this police superintendency which is way on the northern side of the city.

4pm - on the road

4:45pm - stuck in traffic

4:50pm - talk to our police contact who's going to meet us. He asks where we are, we tell him, he says we've gone too far, but we tell him the address we were given and it turns out we were supposed to meet him at a mall parking lot so he could get there a short-cut way. Shoot. I hate miscommunication. Police department closes at 5:30pm. Will we have time to get there and actually get the report?

5pm - get to police department but our contact is still en route after crossed signals. He gets somebody else to help us and we get started.

5:15pm - our contact shows up

5:30pm - we start getting nervous because the guy doing the check tells us it'll be 20 minutes and the garage where we've parked our car is only open until 6pm.

5:45pm - do we need to move the car? Fique tranquilo, we're told (stay calm). The reports should be ready any minute.

5:50pm - the man comes out with our reports, we thank everybody profusely, and we get back to the car before the garage closes. Our contact is so nice - he escorts us the short-cut way that we missed so we can avoid some of the bad traffic.

7:15pm - a mere 1 hour and 15 minutes later of horrible Friday afternoon, rush-hour traffic, we arrive back at our apartment complex to pick up Mac

7:45pm - arrive at our neighborhood churrascaria because we think we've earned a lot of meat and grilled cheese after this day.

The bad news: Friday's long day was followed by Saturday's long day at the festival and then dinner with friends. I need a weekend to recover from the weekend.

The good news: all's well that ends well. At the end of the day, the missing piece of our adoption paperwork puzzle (for at least this part of the puzzle) is done. We have the federal police report and now just need to make that quick trip to Rio to the consulate. More to come...

success!

I am pleased to report that we have our Sao Paulo State police reports. We arrived promptly at 4pm, were escorted right to one of the two people we were to ask for, filled out our forms, got our fingerprints taken, and VOILA! Twenty minutes later we were the proud owners of two pieces of paper that said that my beloved and I had not committed any crimes in the great state of Sao Paulo.

After thanking this woman profusely, we then went to the cartorio, where we had to pay $R6 for these notary-type people to say they recognized the signatures of the delegate who signed the police report (which I guess attests to the fact that we didn't forge this document).

The use of the cartorio is a topic for another day, but Brazilian have to do everything by way of the cartorio. You want to buy or sell a house? You want to register the birth of a baby? You want to change the board members of the American Women's Club in Brasilia? You go to the cartorio.

Now we wait for the jeitinho to take effect for the federal police report and we are on our way to Rio.

and the hits keep coming...

After nearly a month of not hearing anything from the American agency we were hoping to adopt through, I decided to be a pest and contact them today. Turns out they sent us a note on December 31 but we haven't received it yet. Beyond the pleasantries, the letter says they regret to inform us that at this time they are not able to work with families living outside the United States.

Will we ever win for losing?

I am so disappointed and frustrated and I am now attempting to eat an entire can of Brazilian Pringle substitutes and drink 2 liters of Coca Cola. I hope I don't get any bad news next week after we start the South Beach Diet - there is no room for comfort food on that plan.

Update on adoption front

Some of you have asked about our adoption efforts, and I really, genuinely appreciate your interest and concern. Sadly there's not much to report. We started the home study process and are nearly complete with that and that's about the only good news there is to share.

We really wanted to adopt in Brazil as this will likely be the place we live the longest in Jimmy's diplomatic career. As some of you know, the United States signed the Hague Convention on international adoption last December and ratified the convention (or whatever you do with a convention) in April. Brazil has also signed the Hague Convention, so it seems like it should be really easy to process an international adoption between the two countries. So much for my thinking on that matter.

The United States has Hague-accredited a long list of American adoption agencies and now Brazil has to choose a few of those that we Americans will use who want to adopt in Brazil. Seems easy enough, right? Well the meeting to discuss these agencies has been scheduled and postponed at least 4 times that I know of since October. Now it's Christmas time and not too much gets done in Brazil between Christmas and Carnival (end of February), so I'm not hopeful that the meeting will happen until sometime after February, which means there will continue to be NO adoptions by Americans in Brazil.

The psychologist who is doing our home study was confident as late as Thanksgiving that we still had time to adopt in Brazil given our departure next summer even with these delayed meetings. But I have just heard from her and she now believes this nonsense could drag on indefinitely. She has decided to assist in adoptions only in non-Hague countries and wanted to tell us that. Our home study could still be used for a Hague country adoption, but, for instance, if we decided to try for Brazil, we'd have to present our home study to one of these agencies that eventually Brazil will one day approve and that agency would review the home study and hopefully be able to use it.

And actually the same process will still happen if we go with a non-Hague country - we'll select an agency in the US to help us and they'll use the home study that we're nearing completion on.

In a big step forward, yesterday I contacted an adoption agency in the US that our friends, the Schnabels, used to adopt their girls from Ethiopia. As it's the weekend, I won't hear from anybody until tomorrow (hopefully they're working even though it's Christmas week), but we are moving forward and will now try to adopt in a non-Hague country. Ethiopia is our first choice.

At this point there wouldn't be much difference going Hague or non-Hague for us because we have decided Brazil is out of the running. The real reason we've decided to go non-Hague is because we'd have to get a police report from every place we've ever lived in since we were something like 18. That's fine for places like Columbia, South Carolina, but Maputo, Mozambique? It sounds so difficult that I can't even contemplate how you go about getting that done.

So we press on. The thing that makes me maddest and saddest in all this is that I know there are thousands of children in orphanages here in Brazil that are waiting to be adopted and because of bureaucratic nonsense, they're going to stay in orphanages longer instead of being placed with decent families who can provide them a home. It's infuriating but we can't beat our heads against a brick wall when we can find another wall that's a little softer, a little more accommodating and a little more willing to be knocked down.

I'll keep you posted as events develop!

Sitting in a hotel room in Brasilia...

I'm in Brasilia for a week's consultancy for my old job. It's nice to be needed again and I'm very much enjoying being back on familiar turf. But I should be here to pick up our new baby - his due date is a mere 4 days away on September 20. I've had no contact with the adoptive mother since she first made contact with the birth mother. I assume the adoptive mother is here as she was to come around September 10 to wait for the baby to be born. I hope and pray he's born healthy and he provides this new family with what they've missed for 6 years.

We had our first home study visit with the psychologist last Friday morning to start our adoption approval. She was very nice but the whole thing is a little weird and I have what I hope is an irrational and unfounded fear that she'll think we're unfit parents. What if we answer a question wrong? Jimmy and I have to go for the next two appointments separately and what if she asks the same question of each of us and we answer differently? Are we automatically disqualified? I don't feel like it's a trap, but there's a lot riding on this and we need her to think we're worthy of having more children.

Mac had a school holiday on Friday so after we had our early morning home study visit, we took off for a weekend at the beach. Friday was spectacular, Saturday had some showers and clouds, and Sunday was downright cold, rainy, and miserable. But we had a wonderful time, relaxing, watching movies in our pousada, and playing in the sand when we could. It is still late winter here, and I have to remind myself that we wouldn't be sitting on the beach in our bathing suits in Charleston in March without very mixed results.

Life is very good to us in spite of these twists and turns.

How can it be so hard to find a good family for a perfect baby boy?

My quest for a family for this sweet baby boy continues.

The teacher doesn't want the baby because her husband "has his heart set on a baby girl". Wow. When I heard that, I was struck speechless which really rarely happens. How could you be choosy at a time like this?

She has contacted her social worker who apparently has a Brazilian family that desperately wants the baby. The social worker was supposed to call me tonight and she hasn't called yet so have they fallen through too?

Then tonight, the American woman in Brasilia had an idea: why not let the birth mother keep the baby until we get habilitated and then we adopt directly from the mother? This would take a number of months but it sounded like a good solution (if, in fact, the Brazilian government would allow us to adopt directly from the mother - and that's a big "IF".)

The American talked to her housekeeper, who is the birth mother's cousin. The cousin said the birth mother will not agree to do this. She's so desperate to get rid of the baby, she will throw him in the garbage if somebody doesn't take him from her in the hospital. I cannot imagine the desperation she must feel to be at that point. It's critically more important to her that he be placed with a family and not "in the system", and I have been told not to tell her yet that we can't adopt him for fear of sending her over the edge.

When I drove her to her house, she told me that she was embarrassed for me to see the poverty in which she lived. I told her that she was rich in something that money couldn't buy me but that she was willing to give me. I feel such an enormous weight that I've failed to live up to my end of the deal with her after she was going to give me a bigger gift than I deserved. I have to find this baby a home so the mother doesn't reach the point of desperate measures where she'll do something awful that she and I will have to live with for the rest of our lives.

"You must abandon the birth mother."

The fight is over. The lawyer uttered the words "you must abandon the birth mother" last night as we simply do not have enough time to complete our paperwork and get registered and approved before the baby is born.

After I hung up with the lawyer, I called the American family in Brasilia to tell them. The wife just could not understand how it worked for them and why it wasn't working for us. I could offer her no real reason because I had no idea.

The wife called our shared lawyer to discuss the situation and the difference in our situations became very clear. This family started their adoption process when the husband was not here on a diplomatic visa. He had a regular working visa which allows a foreigner to claim resident status in Brazil after something like 6 months of being in-country. Even though we've lived in Brazil for nearly 3 years and still have a year to go, we will never be able to claim resident status because we're here on a diplomatic visa. It all boils down to what kind of sticker page we have in our passport. The Brazilian government doesn't take into account how long we've lived here or the resulting affinity we feel for this country.

Our own devastating disappointment and selfishness aside, what's important right now is the baby's welfare. I started attending a Bible Study among friends on Tuesday and the adoption came up. While I was talking about the Brazilian government's insistence on placing newborns with Brazilian families who are apparently lined up in droves, a friend said that was interesting because her husband's Portuguese teacher and her husband have been waiting for 5 years for a baby and still there are babies put into orphanages. I have spoken to the Portuguese teacher this morning and I am hopeful that I can connect her with the birth mother.

As for us, the attorney has talked to a lot of her contacts and she's insistent that we can do the paperwork and get "habilitated" or registered in the system and she can help us adopt a child sooner rather than later. The child won't be a baby, which really is okay for us because we'd like a smaller age gap between Mac and a younger child. So we remain prayerful and hopeful and we're going to start the process.

Through all of this, I have known that there was no certainty or guarantee in this process. It's not like Christmas where you know you'll wake up on December 25 to find a present. I have wrestled with what God's plan was and is for us through all this and I still don't know where this is all going. What I do know is that Jimmy and I thought we'd closed the door on having more children and this has made us realize that we really do want more children and that it is worth fighting to grow our family.

Two days ago, we had decided to pursue international adoption outside of Brazil because both of us were so disgusted by the system here that we couldn't bear to fight it. But after talking to Vera last night, we've decided to put in our paperwork here to try and get habilitated so we can adopt a child from here. Brazil will likely be the place we live the longest in Jimmy's diplomatic career, so to have one of our children be born here would be a special reminder of a country and its people that we do love. We'll keep you posted.

Poetic thought for the day

"I know
it's hard to be reconciled
not everything is exactly
the way it ought to be

but please turn around
and step into the future
leave memories behind
enter the land of hope"

- from Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert's "A Life"

There's not much to report in the way of breaking news. We have two attorneys looking into our case. One is the woman who helped the other family adopt and one is a lawyer referred by my brother-in-law's firm. The woman has said she'll have more to talk to us about on Monday and the man said his firm is reviewing the legal statutes and will get back to us as soon as possible.

So we wait and we pray as we enter the land of hope.

I found a Yes (wo)Man!

Yesterday was a truly spectacularly disappointing day. Everywhere I turned I just got bad news.

Our preacher at church anonymously called the Santo Amaro (where we live) adoption agency (government-run) to ask about the process, our odds, etc, and he was told that Sao Paulo is not currently doing any international adoptions to the US. STRIKE ONE.

I called a recommended lawyer in Brasilia and she said she wouldn't even tell us if she'd consider taking the case until we talked... in Brasilia. STRIKE TWO.

Then a friend in the consular section in Rio told Jimmy that Brazil-US adoption protocol had just been finalized according to the Hague Convention on International Adoption and things really didn't look good for international adoptions right now. STRIKE THREE.

I exaggerate because there were moments of goodness. You all have reached far and wide into your network of contacts and have provided us with lawyers, advice, encouragement, and prayer. So that really, truly negates the strikes.

And then last night we got our first bit of really encouraging, concrete news. The lawyer in Rio who helped the American couple in Brasilia to adopt was willing to review our case.

I have spoken to her today and have just sent off a long email that tells our story, our desire to adopt and why, all the details I know of the birth mother, etc. She's going to see what she can do to help us. She believes in adoptions like these because she recognizes the benefits for the child and the adoptive parents. Prayers have been answered!! We at least have our "Yes Woman."

Today started out as the sequel to yesterday's terrible day. Do you know the children's story about Alexander and his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? Well that's how my day started out. I took our car back to the shop (it's already spent 7 of the last 10 days there) to be told now that the car isn't firing on all cylinders. Join the club of the Story family. I started crying in front of the poor mechanic and told him this was just one more thing on a mountain of things that I just didn't need. He felt so bad that he offered to rent me a car to use until they fix our car. I declined, but the goodness of people shines through all over the world.

Then I went to the bank at the consulate to pay the internet bill, only to find out the bank didn't open until 30 minutes later. Then I tried to get more minutes on my cell phone, only to give them the wrong number. Fortunately the number I gave them didn't exist or else somebody would've thought they'd won the mini-lottery.

But then I had lunch with 3 lovely friends and it was a great respite from stress and worry and aggravation. Just what the doctor ordered. The car may still not be firing on all cylinders, but I think I'm at least up one more cylinder now.

We are waiting to hear from the lawyer and will go to Rio to meet with her as soon as she calls. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later. She understands the urgency of this since this baby could be born a month from yesterday.

The possibilities for total disappointment are mind-numbing so I'm choosing to stay focused on my Yes Woman who might not be able to say with 100% conviction "you can" but at least she recognizes the power of "you might can". I'll take that any day over NO!

Unexpected gifts from friends

I really debated about "going public" with our current adoption struggle. Infertility and, for us, the urgent and resultant desire to adopt are such personal things - even though many people invade that privacy by being quick to ask about our plans to have more children. (As an aside, I have learned that nothing gets somebody to change the topic faster after asking that question than answering "I apparently have used up all my eggs.")

I also worried about going public because my email was ultimately a prayer request. We have so many friends of different faiths that I was afraid of offending somebody.

So as I was clicking the boxes of who to send the email, I left out a lot of people. Then my computer froze and the email didn't send and I had to start all over. So when I got to the point of clicking the boxes again, I decided to go for broke and click everybody I know. I decided that as people read the part about praying for God's direction, even if they never uttered another prayer about our plight, God would've heard that single utterance and heard my cry.

I have gotten so many emails this afternoon from people near and far who have promised to pray for us and remember us, and knowing that all these people are sending up prayers and sending us well wishes is just more than I could have imagined.

Several friends have sent their emails on to other people and tiny rays of hope have come through in what has otherwise been a dismal, tear-filled day of nothing but discouraging news. A friend of a friend of friends works in the legal arena in Brasilia who might can help and somebody else knows someone who adopted two children here and he's going to get me the names of his legal team and somebody else called the local government adoption agency here in Sao Paulo to discuss our situation to find out the possibilities. I asked for prayer and got so much above and beyond.

Jimmy has tried to prepare me for what I think he sees as nearly unavoidable and eventual disappointment. He works within the confines of the bureaucracy here nearly everyday, but fortunately I don't, so I'm not jaded into thinking that this can't happen.

We had a discussion last night about what could be God's purpose in bringing us through this if not to have a baby at the end of it. Jimmy feels like even if we don't get the baby, maybe having this birth mother brought into our lives might be part of God's purpose. Meeting the birth mother and understanding her plight and her desire to find a good home for this new baby so she can get back to her other children and our trying to help her meet that goal might have to be enough.

Or it might be the unexpected outpouring of gifts from our friends today of prayer and love and trying to help us get this baby. I knew we had great friends, but today I know we have the most extraordinary friends on the planet.

Yesterday I started reading a fictional work called "Unaccustomed Earth" by Jhumpa Lahiri. I don't know what you technically call it when an author chooses to put a little quote in the front of the book before Chapter One starts, but she chose a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Custom-House". The quote spoke to me for different reasons than it spoke to the author, I'm sure, but here it is:

"Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."

Brazilian adoption law heavily favors keeping adoptable children in Brazil. I can completely understand their desire for the continuation of heritage, culture, language, etc. But is this baby the potato that needs to stretch its roots in the unaccustomed earth of a home made by American parents? Would that be as awful a thing for that child as the lady in Brasilia seems to think? I can't help but think that a home filled with love is more important than what language this child grows up to speak.

Tomorrow's a new day and we'll see what it brings.

The Power of YOU CAN!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF9wo9sVn2c&feature=email


Either cut and paste this link into your browser or click on the YouTube link over to the right! It's so worth watching.

Post-Brasilia Update on Adoption

I met the birth mother on Monday afternoon in what was a slightly awkward meeting. She's 28, appears healthy, and has had 4 other healthy children (who either live with her mother or their fathers). She is from the state of Maranhao and came down to the state of Goias because she had family there and she thought she could make more money down there than she could in Maranhao (where she was lucky to earn R$100 ($60 USD) a month). She didn't realize she was pregnant until she got to Goias.

She appears very eager to hand the baby over and return to her family in Maranhao. Her intention is to get on a bus for Maranhao as soon as she leaves the hospital. I would like to think that she's willing to hand over this baby to us because she liked us the best and thought we'd do the best job with her child, but I think she was just looking for anybody who seemed halfway decent and responsible.

She agreed to allow me to take her for an ultrasound so I could see the baby. We tried to get an appointment with my former doctor there but she wasn't working on Monday afternoon, so the birth mother had the idea that I could drive her back to her town and we could go to the little private hospital there to have the ultrasound. In what was a lapse of sanity, I agreed. I think now of everything that could've happened, but thankfully nothing did so it is not regrettable.

We got lost getting there (it's only 30km from Brasilia but we took the wrong road and a quick trip ended up a little longer). Our hospital visit ended up taking 2 hours - about 1 hour and 55 minutes of waiting and 5 minutes of the ultrasound. It was all worth it because I got to see the baby and he is beautiful and big and healthy (and definitely a boy).

By now it was getting dark and I was getting nervous. Her house is way up in this rabbit warren of dirt roads and it was at this point that I thought things could go terribly awry. We stopped at a grocery store to get her some food and then I delivered her home (her aunt's house). It's a very humble dwelling - she has lived a far more difficult existence than I can even imagine. I left her there and set off for Brasilia. Fortunately I didn't get lost and the 30 km passed very quickly.

On the plane going to BSB, I randomly opened my Bible and read a lot from the Psalms. The verse that I kept repeating to myself before I went into my meeting with her (when I feared rejection) and then again on the road home (when I feared for my safety) was Psalm 118:6 - "The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"

I should have been reciting that verse yesterday when I went to the Vara de Infancia in Brasilia (the government adoption agency). Jimmy and I met with a woman there 14 months ago when we were first trying to start the adoption process and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. We have taught Mac that we don't "hate" people, so I don't "hate" this lady who runs the office on international adoptions, but I -- insert verb for whatever is the closest thing to hating without hating --- this lady. I explained the situation to her and she said "esse nao pode acontecer" - "this (foreigners adopting a baby that is handed over from the birth mother) cannot happen." Apparently there are a million Brazilians in line in front of us who want newborns and so there's no way a foreigner can adopt a baby. (My question is if there are so many people willing to adopt newborns in Brazil, why are there so many unadoptable teenagers in Brazilian orphanages? Did they become burdensome only as they got older and so their moms put them in the orphanage then??)

Anyway, I told her that it can happen because there's an American family (who facilitated my meeting with the birth mother) in Brasilia who has just finalized an adoption of a Brazilian baby who was handed over specifically to them by the mother. Our meeting went nowhere because she just kept telling me no, so I left and decided then that I was going to follow some advice Jimmy subscribes to: Why take no from somebody when there's somebody out there who can give you a yes?

So I'm now on a quest for my "yes man". I am desperate to find a lawyer in this country who can work on this with me because time is of the essence. I ask that you pray specifically for God's direction for us in this process. I know that our answer may ultimately turn out to be "no", but I'm not stopping yet. Right now we need some guidance from an expert who can navigate this bureaucratic nightmare with us.