Downer post

The adoption is still stuck, stagnant. The explanation we are being given is that the person who needs to sign the document (the Minister by my understanding) is still not in. But I did some fancy calendar referencing and it seems very suspicious to me that the Minister would be out of the office for three weeks straight. Now who am I to pass judgment, but she is head hauncho there and I can only think of three possibilities. Either the adoption agency misinterpreted and she really is there, but just hasn't signed it yet (cause we all know how hard it is to get time to write your name in cursive at the bottom of a page stuck under your nose), or she Minister who was new when I traveled just couldn't hack the job and she hasn't been replaced yet, or they have no intention of signing the letter or just the same, there is no letter to sign. Regardless, it is all out of my control obviously and is discouraging me to no end.

Honestly, I want to quit. Kinda. Let's be honest: if a baby was dropped from the sky and landed at my feet, I would be happy beyond belief. But enduring what seems like an impossible journey at this point puts me over the top. I just don't want to expend energy on it. And you might say, "So don't. Don't think about it." But that is just not possible. If we quit I'll think about it and if we keep going, I will also.

The only thing new here is another wave of nearly paralyzing grief. I can't determine why it is surging now... perhaps this longing for a baby left unsatiated... perhaps the arrival of Mother's day. Perhaps the anniversary of my dear friend's death. Regardless, the nightmarish dreams that I had in the beginning are back. If you have lost a child, you know the ones: where you dream some hell, perhaps your child dies in the dream, and when you awake you realize there is no escape of the hell. You get to live it in real life. It is the exact opposite response from usually bad dreams where you startle yourself awake only to say "Phew... it was just a dream." Someone made a joke to me the other day when I was with Ariah. They joked about leaving our children behind with the facilitator of the group. "And never come back" the joker said, referring to the children. Oh, how he didn't know how that sounded to a mother whose child is dead. On Mother's day we attended a choral performance, some of the singers sang a tribute to mothers to the tune of Amazing Grace. All I heard of it was something about watching your child learn to walk, and holding his hand through this or that... I bolted for the door, needing fresh air and trying desperately to escape the pain of never being that kind of mother to my child.

So life goes on, but there is a painful emptiness here... a suspension between the loss and the longing, an inertia that penetrates me.

Just the other night I watched the most fantastic movie on the genocide to date: "Sometimes in April." It renewed my commitment to Rwanda and the people there. What a heartbreaking story they live every day, a journey that seems utterly impossible and yet it is taken, has been taken, one step at a time for 14 years. What a testament they are to the power of humans to endure.

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Well, to answer everyone's question... no there is no update. I am beginning to really believe that this was all a joke. A nice expensive vacation in Rwanda... the hope we needed to get us through the hell of losing so much. Now though, still nothing and I just can't believe that it will ever happen. I am grateful to be with my family and that feels like enough right now.

Spring is upon us and gardens need to be planted, summer camp needs to be planned for and fuel needs to be saved for. Life happens. So I have let go of the process of this adoption.

I am still feeling very connected to my Rwandan friends, though. Happy has lost his job and all his friends have left for the US. I feel awful for him and wish there was something I could do. Richard has come to the US only to find out how cost prohibitive the college he was hoping to attend is... and now I hear that the baby of the family I am helping is very sick. That is where my mind is, not so much on the adoption.

Mother's day approaches and feels different this year than it did last year. I think then I stayed in bed all day long feeling awful... how could it be mother's day when I had failed as a mother and only managed to "kill" my baby, or so I chose to view it... this year I know I am a mother of all my babies regardless of what world they are in. I am grateful for that healing.

I'm off to dig in the dirt,
Jaya