Thanks to all of you who are keeping us in your hearts... I still have not heard anything, suffice it to say that as far as I know the Dossier is not lost, just still sitting in the Embassy's office for some reason. Hmmm?!?!?!?
I am going crazy. There is so much swirling around in my mind and heart. The fearful place is that this will never happen. Gods how I just want to be home with a baby! What if it doesn't work this time? I don't think that would be survivable... anyway, I am really going thru the mill as they say. I even lost my milk supply! Down from 16 ounces to 4! See what stress does to the body?
I did have two good dreams last night- for my whole adult life I have had a repeating dream of my first true love. In the dream I always want him and he doesn't give me the time of day... I awake in tears, all my high school feeling of love come rushing back in and I feel like I miss him desperately and made the wrong choice to marry my dear husband, lol. (I have no idea why.. I have no contact with the old boyfriend). Anyway, I dreamt that I was with him and this time we were together (as together as two can get, lol) and guess what? I decided to leave him! Told him it would never work between us, and literally turned my back and walked away as he called after me... I kept walkin'.
I'm healed!!!! LOL.
And then one of my dear friend Amy Donaldson who passed away 8 months ago... she was there and I was so happy she hadn't left us.. she told me this adoption would happen, but it would be harder than I thought.
Amy would be so supportive of this, she always wanted to adopt. I know she is smiling down on us, cheering us on in our endeavor. I love that she visited last night. Thanks, Amy. It was so good to see your face again.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
An Ugh and a Sigh
Alright, they lost our Dossier! This is what they mean when they say adoption is a roller coaster, huh?
It supposedly went to the Embassy, but never got back to the agency in the pile of others that did get returned over the weekend. Or maybe it just didn't get approved and it is at the embassy still. So time will tell. Stay tuned, I got wind yesterday that I may be on the brink of leaving. I should know more today, even if that more is that I know nothing at all, lol.
I'll keep ya'll posted...
It supposedly went to the Embassy, but never got back to the agency in the pile of others that did get returned over the weekend. Or maybe it just didn't get approved and it is at the embassy still. So time will tell. Stay tuned, I got wind yesterday that I may be on the brink of leaving. I should know more today, even if that more is that I know nothing at all, lol.
I'll keep ya'll posted...
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
I had great plans for tonight... Install my Vonage phone, file an amended tax return (forgot I had a job when I filed the first time, lol!), take a bath, do a herbal face steam, read my new Paulo Coelho book, maybe watch an Angelina Jolie movie I've had my eye on for two weeks...
Yup. I did none of those. I sat my ass in front of this screen and worked on my blog.
So, I may as well do what I was planning to do all week, and that is update you all. Right after I told J of my aches and pains with the waiting for this adoption while pumping milk she called me and was tremendously reassuring and patient. She was kind and generous with her time and sensitivity, which really made me feel like I had climbed into a warm lap, secure and content.
J thinks this will go quickly still, she recommended I keep up the pumping and pack my bags! Supposedly we should have an approval from the Embassy today or tomorrow, and then they send it to Rwanda. It takes a few days to get there, but once it does that is the last place it needs to go before it goes to the courts! The approval there could be instantaneous since it already has the Embassy's approval. Time will tell. Cross your fingers.
I'm scared shitless (can't think of a better word to use at the moment). When "nothing" seems to be happening, I freak out that it never will happen. When it speeds up and there is evidence of progress, I freak out that it is happening. Either way, it is just plain scary. Whatever. At the end of the day it is just fear and never did hold me down much. I can move despite it.
But can you imagine? We may have our child soon!
Yup. I did none of those. I sat my ass in front of this screen and worked on my blog.
So, I may as well do what I was planning to do all week, and that is update you all. Right after I told J of my aches and pains with the waiting for this adoption while pumping milk she called me and was tremendously reassuring and patient. She was kind and generous with her time and sensitivity, which really made me feel like I had climbed into a warm lap, secure and content.
J thinks this will go quickly still, she recommended I keep up the pumping and pack my bags! Supposedly we should have an approval from the Embassy today or tomorrow, and then they send it to Rwanda. It takes a few days to get there, but once it does that is the last place it needs to go before it goes to the courts! The approval there could be instantaneous since it already has the Embassy's approval. Time will tell. Cross your fingers.
I'm scared shitless (can't think of a better word to use at the moment). When "nothing" seems to be happening, I freak out that it never will happen. When it speeds up and there is evidence of progress, I freak out that it is happening. Either way, it is just plain scary. Whatever. At the end of the day it is just fear and never did hold me down much. I can move despite it.
But can you imagine? We may have our child soon!
Friday, February 15, 2008
What It Is To Wait After A Term Infant Loss and While Lactating
What It Is To Wait After A Term Infant Loss and While Lactating:
An open letter to those working with us in this adoption…
My husband and I have been longing to enlarge our family since 2004. In that year I did get pregnant easily, just as I had with my daughter, but I miscarried that already loved child early on in the pregnancy. It was a great loss, and we were happy when we felt ready to conceive again. At the turn of 2006 we conceived our son, who after 10 months of a very healthy pregnancy was killed during birth from a uterine rupture. Just after the cesarean surgery that attempted to save him, I began to bleed to death. I bled for nearly two hours before I implored the doctors to take my womb... and they did. So not only now did I have to drop to my knees with grief over my son, I also had to integrate somewhere into my being the fact that I would never be woman again in the manner of being able to hold life within. Very literally the only thing that kept me afloat during those times (aside from our living daughter) was hope.
We hoped and prayed that there was some way a child would still come into our lives, either by surrogacy or adoption. I threw all my baby supplies out the window (I really did; right onto the grass below), emptied my boy’s room, and waffled between despair and resolution that I would be doomed to a lifetime of unmet dreams (never having another baby) and a feeling of peace when the image of mothering a new child despite all this tragedy moved in.
And then along came J who introduced to us an opportunity to build our family and our love for another culture in a far away place that to us now seems not-so-far away, Rwanda. This child is already loved in so many mysterious ways stirring within me. I sit at night and chant his name (despite the fact that it could very well be a girl). I light a candle below Trace’s photo and ask for guidance on this journey to this baby and this country. Trace assures me everything is as it should be. Every two hours when I hook my sore, dripping breasts up to a hospital-grade pump and begin my 15 minutes of milk expression I visualize the baby suckling at the breast.
And none of this is easy. It sounds graceful, but really it is filled with faltering stumbling efforts to keep my chin up, my heart open and my resolve and courage high. A million times a day I sink. When I pump and picture a baby, I remember expecting Trace and picturing him… images of changing a diaper, giving him a massage, letting Ariah snuggle him to sleep, suckling at the breast, slinging him close to my body, his round curved, hunched over body conforming to my torso, swaying as I walk. Anyone who has slung a newborn knows this feeling in their cells. And then immediately my mind does a “Well, you visualized all of this with Trace and he died. This baby will not manifest either. You are doomed.”
Ugh. Dead in the water with fear.
And so it goes. Up and down, up and down… Terrified that it will never work or is all a joke, just like last time when everyone was excited and I had to come home from the hospital with my baby in a box. I could get to Rwanda and they could say no, and I could come home to all the excited people and have to say, “Just kidding. There’s no baby.” I know from my friends who have experienced infant loss that these feelings are totally normal. I know it from reading all the books pertaining to the subject. It is just very difficult to navigate a pregnancy or expectancy after the loss of a child; hard to have any faith in all the hope and faith. After all, we had that last time and it didn’t ensure anything.
And so now I walk this journey even differently from the woman who goes thru a subsequent pregnancy, because this is an international adoption and heck I haven’t ever even seen the faces of the people that are supposedly working on this other than J. The agency is in a different state, I have never seen the building, I have only ever talked to someone from there once, and it is impossible so far to get an answer to a call, difficult if possible to get a return call or email. I don’t really want to say it, but it can make me feel as if there may not really be an agency…. Maybe they are not legit? How would I know? I want to believe they are, believe me. What I would do for some hand holding—for someone at the agency to communicate with me on where things are, check in to see how everything is going with the process, with the waiting. Just a kind voice on the other end that reaches out, touches base, gives us an update and asks how we are. That would help to make things real for me. It would help to feel connected to the process and to trust that everything is legit and that the people we are working with and paying money to are indeed real humans.
I look at the diapers I got out when I thought that travel would be within a few weeks (we do cloth). There are diapers around the house, Ariah is using them for her baby dolls, and I am grumpier and grumpier by the minute. I got these out with Trace. He didn’t need them. I have one dead baby (not counting the miscarried one, and why shouldn’t I?) and an incinerated womb and maybe I really am doomed to a life with no future children. Maybe I will have to throw the diapers out the window again. I know this sounds dramatic, but it really is where my mind goes.
The pumping routine: Most women can get pregnant, carry a pregnancy to term, push the baby out and milk comes in. But I am not most women. I have to induce lactation since I cannot go thru the hormonal changes of a pregnancy, and so in November I began the process of doing this. I went on birth control and began a prescription medication to cause lactation. Then in January I began pumping with a double-sided hospital grade pump. Every. Two. Hours. In case you can’t quite understand what every two hours means, it means this: pump 6:45-7:00 am. Brush teeth, get dressed, let dog out, get medications ready, daughter wakes up. 8:45 am pump again. Get daughter breakfast, eat with her, clean up, wash all bottles for pump, store milk, pump again 10:45. 12: 45. 2:45. 4:45. 6:45 when your family has just sat down for dinner. 8:45 while I read a bedtime story to my daughter. Up in the night to pump too. In between those times of expressing milk to the rhythmic whir of the pump, I get to boil milk, store milk, take herbs to produce milk, wash bottles and pump parts. EVERY. TWO. HOURS. EVERY. DAY. for six weeks now. I do not know how much longer I can do this. In fact, if this is going to be more than a month of waiting (which if someone would talk to me I may very well find out that it will be) then I need to stop and start up again later. I just want the people working with me to take this into strong consideration. I know there is no way to know how long a thing will take, but communicating with me and having a dialogue would help immensely at this time. Right now I have to gather information that is our best guess in order to make a decision on what to do about pumping, about whether to stop and resume at another time. I cannot do this without communication.
The bottom line is that I am a mother who is ready to parent a child. There is a child in need of a mother and a family. I have lots of nutritious milk waiting to feed this baby. I need him/her at my breast just as (s)he need me to hold him gently and sing him his story.
Please take these things into consideration when working with me. I write this not as a criticism, but in hopes of helping you to do your jobs in a way that is gentle to families like ours. This is no easy place to be.
I am off to go pump.
Sincerely,
Jessica Holliman
Lactating mama to an angel baby
An open letter to those working with us in this adoption…
My husband and I have been longing to enlarge our family since 2004. In that year I did get pregnant easily, just as I had with my daughter, but I miscarried that already loved child early on in the pregnancy. It was a great loss, and we were happy when we felt ready to conceive again. At the turn of 2006 we conceived our son, who after 10 months of a very healthy pregnancy was killed during birth from a uterine rupture. Just after the cesarean surgery that attempted to save him, I began to bleed to death. I bled for nearly two hours before I implored the doctors to take my womb... and they did. So not only now did I have to drop to my knees with grief over my son, I also had to integrate somewhere into my being the fact that I would never be woman again in the manner of being able to hold life within. Very literally the only thing that kept me afloat during those times (aside from our living daughter) was hope.
We hoped and prayed that there was some way a child would still come into our lives, either by surrogacy or adoption. I threw all my baby supplies out the window (I really did; right onto the grass below), emptied my boy’s room, and waffled between despair and resolution that I would be doomed to a lifetime of unmet dreams (never having another baby) and a feeling of peace when the image of mothering a new child despite all this tragedy moved in.
And then along came J who introduced to us an opportunity to build our family and our love for another culture in a far away place that to us now seems not-so-far away, Rwanda. This child is already loved in so many mysterious ways stirring within me. I sit at night and chant his name (despite the fact that it could very well be a girl). I light a candle below Trace’s photo and ask for guidance on this journey to this baby and this country. Trace assures me everything is as it should be. Every two hours when I hook my sore, dripping breasts up to a hospital-grade pump and begin my 15 minutes of milk expression I visualize the baby suckling at the breast.
And none of this is easy. It sounds graceful, but really it is filled with faltering stumbling efforts to keep my chin up, my heart open and my resolve and courage high. A million times a day I sink. When I pump and picture a baby, I remember expecting Trace and picturing him… images of changing a diaper, giving him a massage, letting Ariah snuggle him to sleep, suckling at the breast, slinging him close to my body, his round curved, hunched over body conforming to my torso, swaying as I walk. Anyone who has slung a newborn knows this feeling in their cells. And then immediately my mind does a “Well, you visualized all of this with Trace and he died. This baby will not manifest either. You are doomed.”
Ugh. Dead in the water with fear.
And so it goes. Up and down, up and down… Terrified that it will never work or is all a joke, just like last time when everyone was excited and I had to come home from the hospital with my baby in a box. I could get to Rwanda and they could say no, and I could come home to all the excited people and have to say, “Just kidding. There’s no baby.” I know from my friends who have experienced infant loss that these feelings are totally normal. I know it from reading all the books pertaining to the subject. It is just very difficult to navigate a pregnancy or expectancy after the loss of a child; hard to have any faith in all the hope and faith. After all, we had that last time and it didn’t ensure anything.
And so now I walk this journey even differently from the woman who goes thru a subsequent pregnancy, because this is an international adoption and heck I haven’t ever even seen the faces of the people that are supposedly working on this other than J. The agency is in a different state, I have never seen the building, I have only ever talked to someone from there once, and it is impossible so far to get an answer to a call, difficult if possible to get a return call or email. I don’t really want to say it, but it can make me feel as if there may not really be an agency…. Maybe they are not legit? How would I know? I want to believe they are, believe me. What I would do for some hand holding—for someone at the agency to communicate with me on where things are, check in to see how everything is going with the process, with the waiting. Just a kind voice on the other end that reaches out, touches base, gives us an update and asks how we are. That would help to make things real for me. It would help to feel connected to the process and to trust that everything is legit and that the people we are working with and paying money to are indeed real humans.
I look at the diapers I got out when I thought that travel would be within a few weeks (we do cloth). There are diapers around the house, Ariah is using them for her baby dolls, and I am grumpier and grumpier by the minute. I got these out with Trace. He didn’t need them. I have one dead baby (not counting the miscarried one, and why shouldn’t I?) and an incinerated womb and maybe I really am doomed to a life with no future children. Maybe I will have to throw the diapers out the window again. I know this sounds dramatic, but it really is where my mind goes.
The pumping routine: Most women can get pregnant, carry a pregnancy to term, push the baby out and milk comes in. But I am not most women. I have to induce lactation since I cannot go thru the hormonal changes of a pregnancy, and so in November I began the process of doing this. I went on birth control and began a prescription medication to cause lactation. Then in January I began pumping with a double-sided hospital grade pump. Every. Two. Hours. In case you can’t quite understand what every two hours means, it means this: pump 6:45-7:00 am. Brush teeth, get dressed, let dog out, get medications ready, daughter wakes up. 8:45 am pump again. Get daughter breakfast, eat with her, clean up, wash all bottles for pump, store milk, pump again 10:45. 12: 45. 2:45. 4:45. 6:45 when your family has just sat down for dinner. 8:45 while I read a bedtime story to my daughter. Up in the night to pump too. In between those times of expressing milk to the rhythmic whir of the pump, I get to boil milk, store milk, take herbs to produce milk, wash bottles and pump parts. EVERY. TWO. HOURS. EVERY. DAY. for six weeks now. I do not know how much longer I can do this. In fact, if this is going to be more than a month of waiting (which if someone would talk to me I may very well find out that it will be) then I need to stop and start up again later. I just want the people working with me to take this into strong consideration. I know there is no way to know how long a thing will take, but communicating with me and having a dialogue would help immensely at this time. Right now I have to gather information that is our best guess in order to make a decision on what to do about pumping, about whether to stop and resume at another time. I cannot do this without communication.
The bottom line is that I am a mother who is ready to parent a child. There is a child in need of a mother and a family. I have lots of nutritious milk waiting to feed this baby. I need him/her at my breast just as (s)he need me to hold him gently and sing him his story.
Please take these things into consideration when working with me. I write this not as a criticism, but in hopes of helping you to do your jobs in a way that is gentle to families like ours. This is no easy place to be.
I am off to go pump.
Sincerely,
Jessica Holliman
Lactating mama to an angel baby
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Hitting the "Wall"
Alright, I'll admit it. The waiting is slowly eating away at me.
Eating away? How is that you might say? Well, I can no longer sleep. Just like pregnancy insomnia when the dark hits and my emotions hit the wall... suddenly I am sure of only one thing: that I cannot do this anymore, that this is never happening and really it is all just a joke. Harumph. And then there are the days when I awake and open one eye just a tiny reluctant slit, only enough to verify that there is light and that the light is actually real and not just a twist of my constantly morphing dreams. "Yup, I really am here," I think. "And it is another day so find one thing to be grateful for before you even move. Just think, you'll have your baby soon!" And then the day spirals downward from there, a constant fight to stay upbeat and happy in the moment and not slip into complete despair and assurance that this is never going to happen. I struggle all day, the ratio of positive vibes to resignation that this is all a cruel joke follows a definite downward decline. By the time night falls, I have given up completely and the insomnia of wretched feelings begin anew.
Fun. Fun.
So it is night and I give up. I found out that our paperwork is not even thru to the Embassy yet and I have no idea when it will be going... I feel as if all our longing and hopes and dreams are in the hands of some entity much like the Wizard of OZ himself (of course before we found out he was just a regular person). Last night I failed to sleep since I was worried sick about going into Kenya the whole night. The night before that I did fall asleep, but a clap of random wintertime thunder startled me awake. I nearly lept out of the bed gasping for breath as I thought I was being bombed in Africa. Hard to know where I am these days... my heart and body seem to already be stretched somewhere between Middletown Springs, Vermont and Kigali, Rwanda. Stretched between Trace and this new baby, both of whom I never really met. So if I seem distracted or not here completely these days, I would say it stands to reason.
So please send out all the vibes and prayers you have. Please pray for strength and lightheartedness and trust and guidance. Please pray for a safe journey, divine timing and patience. Gods know I need everything I can get right now.
All blessings,
Jaya
Eating away? How is that you might say? Well, I can no longer sleep. Just like pregnancy insomnia when the dark hits and my emotions hit the wall... suddenly I am sure of only one thing: that I cannot do this anymore, that this is never happening and really it is all just a joke. Harumph. And then there are the days when I awake and open one eye just a tiny reluctant slit, only enough to verify that there is light and that the light is actually real and not just a twist of my constantly morphing dreams. "Yup, I really am here," I think. "And it is another day so find one thing to be grateful for before you even move. Just think, you'll have your baby soon!" And then the day spirals downward from there, a constant fight to stay upbeat and happy in the moment and not slip into complete despair and assurance that this is never going to happen. I struggle all day, the ratio of positive vibes to resignation that this is all a cruel joke follows a definite downward decline. By the time night falls, I have given up completely and the insomnia of wretched feelings begin anew.
Fun. Fun.
So it is night and I give up. I found out that our paperwork is not even thru to the Embassy yet and I have no idea when it will be going... I feel as if all our longing and hopes and dreams are in the hands of some entity much like the Wizard of OZ himself (of course before we found out he was just a regular person). Last night I failed to sleep since I was worried sick about going into Kenya the whole night. The night before that I did fall asleep, but a clap of random wintertime thunder startled me awake. I nearly lept out of the bed gasping for breath as I thought I was being bombed in Africa. Hard to know where I am these days... my heart and body seem to already be stretched somewhere between Middletown Springs, Vermont and Kigali, Rwanda. Stretched between Trace and this new baby, both of whom I never really met. So if I seem distracted or not here completely these days, I would say it stands to reason.
So please send out all the vibes and prayers you have. Please pray for strength and lightheartedness and trust and guidance. Please pray for a safe journey, divine timing and patience. Gods know I need everything I can get right now.
All blessings,
Jaya
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