A visit from Sarah and Maya!

When Brian and I traveled to Ethiopia to adopt the boys, I got to know these two other adoptive moms. They are both such awesome ladies, and I'm so glad to still be in touch with them!

I was so excited when Sarah (pictured at right) called to tell me that she and her adorable baby Maya would be coming to TX for a visit!!! Maya and Zachary were born in the same hospital two weeks apart. As far as we can tell from some paperwork, they made their first airplane flight together from Mekele to Addis Ababa when they were newborns, and they were roommates at the Gladney care center.

Sarah and I were so happy to see each other and for these two to have a little reunion!

I couldn't resist doing a little photo shoot while they were here!

We love you girls, and we hope to see you again real soon!

Awesome visit with another ET Adoptive Family

Ten years ago, I got to know a wonderful woman named Carrie. At the time, she was pregnant with her first child. She now has five children, the youngest of whom they adopted from Ethiopia about a year before we adopted our boys. They live overseas, but are currently stateside, so we seized the moment to get our kids together and to catch up a bit. She took some wonderful photos of the kids that I want to share with you:

Selah and Zachary... they loved each other!

Makaria and Jeremy. Don't they look adorable in their matching colors?
(We went to a parade over the weekend, and Jeremy LOVES his Mardi Gras beads!)

Three Ethiopian-American cuties!

God has been so gracious and good to me, giving me sweet times with old friends lately. And I'm very thankful for this visit! I'm also thankful that we've gotten to know so many other families who have adopted from Ethiopia. I think it will be so wonderful for these kids to grow up knowing other kids who share their story and history!

Ethiopia - Day 3 - The Oromo Countryside, Adaddi Mariam and the Alert Hospital Gift Shop

One of the fabulous things about this blogging community is having the benefit of reading what other adoptive families chose to do and see while they were in Ethiopia. We are so grateful to Heidi and Mark for their suggestion to visit the Oromo countryside. We decided to do the same trip, which is a drive from the city of Addis Ababa out to a church called Adaddi Mariam. It is about an hour and a half drive. Not too long at all, and we got to see the most beautiful countryside. I would highly recommend this trip as an opportunity to see something outside of the city.

Farming still done with yoked oxen.

At one point on our trip, we shared the road with these donkeys!

And hello! Horse taxi!

About two thirds of the way out to Adaddi Mariam, we came to the Awash River, where we got out...

...and encountered these beautiful faces!

And soon, we arrived at this sign, where we turned off on a dirt road that we stayed on for seven more miles to the church.

Along the way, the sites were amazing...

Farming communities living in these grass roof houses. We also saw dung ovens used for cooking that I had only ever read about in social studies class growing up!

We arrived at Adaddi Mariam, which is the last of the rock hewn churches built by Saint Lalibela. It is an unfinished church. We were told that God told Lalibela that his work on the church was done and that he needed to go home because a visitor was awaiting him there. So he made the long trek home, and upon his arrival at home, he died.

The church is carved out of a rock and is underground. Here is our driver Solomon at the top, looking down on the church.

We walked down some stairs to enter the church.

Here we are inside of the outermost portion of the church. Most Orthodox churches are built on the model of the Old Testament tabernacle, in three concentric circles--the innermost part reserved for (a replica of) the arc of the covenant. The Ethiopian Orthodox people believe that the original arc of the covenant exists in a church in Axum in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. I confess that I tend to believe it is true.

The outside walking area around the church.

After our day in the countryside, we stopped at the Alert Hospital, which is a leprosy hospital. There is a whole community of men and women (some who are patients and some who are not) who make the most beautiful hand embroidered cloths. This woman was actually spinning yarn from cotton. It was amazing, and something I'd never seen before in my life! There was a man who wove the yarn into fabric on a loom and then lots of women were doing the hand embroidery.

All of the goods they make are sold in a gift shop right there on the hospital grounds and all of the funds go back to the people who make them. The things they make are just beautiful, and I would highly recommend stopping by the Alert Hospital if you are a traveling family!

Introducing Our Sons!

We passed court and are now the proud parents of two wonderful boys!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We'll be returning to Ethiopia in less than a month for our appointment at the U.S. Embassy to get the boys' visas and will bring them home in early September!

Our heartfelt thanks goes out to all of our dear family and friends who have supported us through this amazing adoption journey. We're especially grateful for the support we've found right here in the blog world from other adoptive families. Somehow, it feels like we've been "in the trenches" together, and the friendships that have formed along the way are true treasures. Thank you!

Amazing Morning!

This morning, I woke up at 3:30, and I thought that maybe God woke me up to pray for our court date. When I glanced over at my cell phone, I saw that my sister had sent me a text message at 3 am. When I checked it, she had written, "My water just broke!"

Of course, I called her right away, and she said that they were waiting for my mom to get to their house to stay with their older child, and then they were off to the hospital. Their new son was born at 7:06 this morning via c-section. He is beautiful, and I'm already in love! I'm so excited that there will be 4 grandsons on my side of the family!

Soon after I arrived at the hospital and met him, my own phone rang with more good news--all went well in court this morning in Ethiopia! Our case worker told us to make our travel plans!

Our official court date is August 4th. We'll be in country from Aug. 1 - Aug. 7!

We're not totally sure where we'll be staying yet, but if you're a traveling family who will be there when we are, let us know where you'll be staying! We're looking forward to getting to know other Gladney families while we're there!

God is good, and He has blessed us this morning. I just feel like I want to acknowledge Him! Thank you all for your prayers for us and for our boys! We would certainly appreciate your continued prayers that all will go well on Aug. 4th, and that we can bring them home as soon as possible! Thank you, dear family, friends and blog friends!

Number One!

Can I just say how wild it is to see our names at the very top of the "unofficial list"? (For those of you who don't know, our adoption agency doesn't publish an official waiting list for adoptive families, but that hasn't stopped us all from trying to figure it out for ourselves! The result? The unofficial "F.B.I. List"!)

We know that being at the top of this list means that this blog is being stalked like mad by many of the other waiting families! How do we know this? From experience, friends--we've stalked all of the blogs ahead of us as those families ascended the list to the top!

If this is your first time on our blog...welcome! If not, we're glad you've been reading along with our journey. We hope to have some exciting news to share with you here soon.

Leave us a comment...we'd love to know who is out there reading our blog! May God bless all of you other adoptive families as you journey toward your children.

Love and hugs,

Brian and Tracy

Reflections On Mother’s Day As a Mom-in-Waiting

Several years ago, my sister Jill had a miscarriage. It was her first pregnancy, and naturally, the loss was devastating. Our stepfather passed away only a month or two later, and the thing I remember my sister saying just after he passed was, "Now John is with my baby." The loss of the baby she loved but never knew was just as real and profound as the loss of the stepfather she knew and loved and saw with her own two eyes and hugged with her own two arms.

The Mother's Day immediately following was a painful one for Jill. We went to church and all of the mothers were asked to stand and they received a special flower. While the church was well meaning in its intention to honor all mothers present that day, it failed to remember how difficult those moments can be for women who want nothing more than to be a mother. It stung my sister more than a little bit.

As the church service ended and the pews were emptying, one wonderful woman approached Jill and gave her the flower she had received that day. She wanted my sister to know that she recognized that she was a mother too, and even though my sister had nothing but a broken heart to show for it, she deserved to be honored as well. It was a holy moment.

Brian and I began our adoption process in March of 2009. Two months later, it was Mother's Day, and I was fine. I felt hopeful and full of anticipation that perhaps next year I could celebrate being a mother myself. I might not have my baby in my arms yet, but hopefully we'd be matched with a precious little one (I'm an optimist!), and I could celebrate being a mother then.

Well, "next year" is here, and we still haven't received our referral.

My husband was so sweet to me--he gave me a beautiful bouquet of tulips with a note wishing me a Happy Mother's Day. My Mom gave me a book about motherhood. I was being celebrated, and I so appreciated it. Somehow, though, my emotions were dominated by a general wave of melancholy that had washed over me, and I wasn't sure why. When we went to church that morning, I felt like I was going to cry a couple of time, but I held back the tears because I honestly wasn't in the mood "to go there".

I felt blah, and I couldn't quite figure out why. Rather than give into the doldrums, I decided to call another "Mom-in-waiting". Emily and her husband are adopting through our agency, and we're currently #1 and #2 on the "unofficial waiting list". We both would have loved to get our referrals the week before Mother's Day, so we'd have some "proof" of our maternity. At the very least, a photo to show everyone! But alas, we didn't. I called her cell phone and it went to voicemail. As I left a message for her, I started to cry, but it was okay because I knew she'd understand.

She called me back a few minutes later, and we had a great conversation full of commiserating and venting. When I hung up, I felt so much lighter. My circumstances hadn't changed, but Emily really heard me and offered the compassion I needed. The beautiful thing about being in the trenches with someone else is that you don't have to explain anything! She didn't need any explanation for my tears or my melancholy. She didn't have to try to "get" why I still felt blah even after my sweet husband bent over backward to celebrate me on Mother's Day. She got it because she's living it, too.

God bless you, Emily! One day our commiseration will turn to celebration...I'm hoping we can crack open a bottle of champagne on the airplane en route to Ethiopia to meet our babies one day real soon!

Dinner Conversation

Me: So, this whole waiting for a referral thing is starting to get kind of old.

Him: Ya think?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that's where we are in our journey. Each new day feels like another opportunity for hope, but by about 4pm when the phone hasn't rung with news again, well it's just getting so monotonous. It's like a daily roller coaster ride, and I fear that hope is starting to feel like a phony friend--like Lucy was to Charlie Brown--"Sure, I'll hold the football in place for you!...Not!" But like Charlie Brown, I keep running toward that ball over and over again, because I know that one day, she won't pull the ball away, and I will make contact with that ball, and all those other times that were fake-outs won't matter because I held out hope and hope finally came through.

It's sort of like that.

I don't mean to sound like a pity party. I really am doing okay. I know in my head that one day very soon our phone will ring and there will be good news! And I definitely am hopeful about that!

It's more the journey of the heart. It's the daily wondering of "Will today be the day? Maybe today? Or maybe today?" Now matter how you try to guard it or try to tell it to be sensible, the heart hopes. It hoped today. And tomorrow it will hope again. And no matter how many days in a row that hope is dashed...well, the heart is a bit of a glutton for punishment.

Because the thing is? The heart knows that it's day is coming. And just as with the pain of childbirth, the joy of that day will overshadow the pain of waiting, if it doesn't erase it all together.

A Happy Homecoming for our Friends!

I've mentioned before that we are part of a wonderful small group at our church called Orphans' Hope. Many of the families who are part of our group are adoptive families, and it is so exciting when we get to celebrate a new adoption within our group. On Friday, our dear friends came home from Kazakhstan with their two beautiful newly adopted children. Our group and some other friends gathered at their house to welcome them home.

It was so exciting to see their minivan approaching the house:

But this was the moment when I couldn't hold back the tears... Mama getting out of the car with her son:

It was like the best block party ever!

Lots of hugs!

Here is Mama with her sweet baby girl:
And Papa with his beautiful son:

Welcome home, friends! We're so blessed to be a part of your journey, and we look forward to getting to know your newest family members!

Baby A's First Birthday!

One of the wonderful adoptive families I've met through the adoption blog world are the Galindos. When we realized that we don't live too far apart, we decided to meet in person shortly before they traveled in June to meet their beautiful son.

In the fall, I photographed their family (you can see a few of those pictures here), and then they asked me if I would photograph their baby's first birthday party this past Sunday. Without further ado...(drumroll please)...meet the man of the hour! Don't you just want to kiss those adorable cheeks?!!

When it came time for the birthday cake, he knew just what to do:

He loved his cake!

I mean LOVED it!

Happy birthday, little guy!

You are precious!