It’s Happening

On Thursday morning I woke up to my alarm and checked my email while I was still in bed. This is a habit I’ve gotten into over the last few months. Constantly checking my email. Waiting for any information about our case moving forward.

There was an email from our case manager who is in Ethiopia right now and 9 hours ahead of us. It was just a generic “Hey Tye and Kali, as your court date will be assigned soon here is some information . . .” Communicating travel plans, setting up a driver, guest house, packing lists, getting a prescription for anxiety medication. I went to work and checked my email again.

That was when the most exciting and terrifying and wonderful email came. After just a few hours we got another update from our case manager who sounded as surprised as we were about to be. “It looks like you could be traveling very soon! I’ve requested a court date for December 1st or 3rd. Does that work for you?”

“Ooooooooo, ummmmm, shoot. No, actually, we’re busy those days. How about the next week?” Was not our reply.

“YESSSSSSSSSSSS! ABSOLUTELY! Either one would be great.” Was our reply.

The next day we received confirmation that we need to be in court in Ethiopia on December 3rd. Within an hour we had flights and a guest house booked.

And now,

time.

Is.

Standing.

Still.

In just over a week we will meet our son for the first time and our lives will change. I am assuming this is similar to pregnancy. You wait and wait and wait and wait for months and all of a sudden CONTRACTIONS! PUSHING! PEOPLE ALL UP IN THERE! DILATED TO 30 OR WHATEVER! A BABY! And now there is a little person counting on you for everything. Forever.

There have only been a couple other times in my life I’ve had this combination of feelings of nervous/anxious/excited. One was taking my exam for my PT license. For days leading up to the test I felt completely unprepared, pressured, and like if I moved the wrong way all of the information I needed would just fall out of my head.

In comparison, right now I feel completely unprepared, pressured, and like if I look at him the wrong way my child will hate me forever or I will just break him. I’ve heard of that happening.

What am I afraid of?

that he will cry / that he won’t eat / that he won’t sleep / that he will be too scared and I won’t be able to comfort him / that he will fall / him eating things he shouldn’t / he stops breathing / he hates me / he falls out a window / he doesn’t like any of the toys I brought / that he get’s lost / he cries during the whole flight and people know that he hates me / that he won’t like Happy Meals or dessert / Roger eats him / Roger knocks him over and he hates Roger / he doesn’t like his room / he can’t sleep / he’s scared and I can’t comfort him / because he hates me

I think all of this fear and anxiety is based on a realistic idea that he will be so scared. I would be, too. He’s going to be faced with a lot of changes and all I can do is love him and help him through it. I can help him to know that there is a family who has been waiting for and praying for and talking about him for months and they are ready to meet all of his basic needs and raise him to feel accepted and loved.

If Restu had a blog I think there would be titles like

Who are You and Where are You Taking Me?

 

Or

What Are You Trying to Feed Me?

 

Or

What. Is. THAT. And Why is it in Our House. And is it Going to Eat Me. (Roger)

 

Or

I Have to Sleep by MYSELF?: Where are all My Friends.

 

Approved!

Today we received our approval letter for our home study. Thank you, State of Illinois and The Department of Children and Family Services for deeming us suitable to raise children. We have good motives, strong values, and working fire and carbon monoxide alarms. We’re ready!

Thank you for asking us how the adoption process is going. We’re so glad to be able to say something other than, “we’re waiting for our home study to be approved.” Now we’re one step closer to meeting our child!

Next steps are:

– pray
– dossier (more paperwork/documents to send internationally)
– pray
– wait for a referral (“you’ve been paired with a child”)
– pray
– trip 1 to Ethiopia to meet out child, start in-country paperwork in court
– pray
– trip 2 to Ethiopia to bring him/her home
– pray
– learn how to be parents

This will continue to be a “hurry up and wait” situation. We’re (outwardly) keeping our cool for now.

Uncle Roger is going to be a great big brother. That’s him with our niece, Alayna.

And this is just my latte from Everybody’s Coffee this morning. You KNOW it’s going to be a good day when it starts with this.

 

Woohoo!

 

 

Diversity Day

This weekend we went to our first course for the required education part of the adoption. The social worker was an excellent presenter and has 35 years of experience working with adoptive families. She had a lot of great stories to tell and the course was really great.

We talked about everything from giving your child pictures of you so they know what to expect to cultural differences like why it’s important for an African American to have healthy skin and frequent trips to the barber shop.

My least/most favorite part was 3 hours in, sitting in a big circle with 6 families representing many ethnic groups. The instructor put up a presentation slide titled “Stereotypes.” The activity was to start naming as many stereotypes as possible for all of the groups represented.

Awkward. I thought she was joking.

For the first few seconds (which felt like an hour) everyone was silent. By the end of it people were throwing out words like

“manual laborers”

“bad drivers”

“lazy”

“criminals”

“elitists”

“drunks”

“crazy smart!”

It was SO much fun!

Rather than getting upset or defensive and hating these new friends we made 3 hours ago, we were all laughing at the stereotypes associated with cultures of people who are all around us every day.

It looked a little bit like this, but less ridiculous

This diversity (stereotype) exercise was a great way to introduce the idea of cultural sensitivity to families like us who are adopting a child of another race. We talked about strategies for answering (or avoiding answering) questions from strangers when they see our colorful family. We talked about how to model some ways for our child to answer questions from his friends. We talked about ways to help our child process identity in a positive way so he doesn’t feel like he’s being disloyal to us. We talked about how to have the topic of adoption and family part of every day life. We talked and talked . . . and I feel like it was all just the tip of the iceberg.

It was informative and educational, but also really emotional.

One exercise asked us to list (+) and (-) for three columns:

Adoptive Parent/Birth Mother/Adoptee

We were to list the pros and cons of adoption from the perspective of each of these people. The first one was easy. I know why we’re adopting and I know the cons of the decision, too. Filling out the next two columns was  not as easy. I can guess and assume why adoption is positive and negative for these two people, but I will never know what it feels like from either perspective.

We are one corner of a love triangle. All we know is that there is a child in an orphanage, it is better for him to have a family than to stay there, and someday we will have to do our best to explain why the people he was born to chose not to raise him.

And then help him process that.

Probably for the rest of his life.

Without knowing what that feels like.

Lord help us. Give us wisdom to know his questions and fears when he can’t specifically say them. Give us strength to let him ask questions and search for answers even when it might be painful. Give us love to guide him through it and point him back to You for his true identity. I think of all the broken families and the hurt they face every day, and all of the adopted kids and their parents who are wrestling with these issues.

On the other hand, we do think we can handle the learning curve for adopting trans-racially. After the course Tye asked his stylish black friend, Ethan, to help us out. We want to make sure our kid has awesome hair, nice shoes and no ashy elbows. If it’s important to his culture, it’s important to us. He said yes, so we’re good.

And in our neighborhood white people are actually the minority sooooo, bonus.

A Very Ethiopian Christmas

Last night we went to an Ethiopian Christmas party. Mainly we ate and talked about Ethiopia.

Here is some riveting information about how Christmas is done in the fine country of Ethiopia. I found it on the World Wide Web.

The Ethiopian name for Christmas is Genna, which comes from the word Gennana (eminent) and expresses the coming of the Lord to free mankind of its sins. Genna is also the name of a hockey-like game which is said to have been played by the shepherds when they heard of the birth Christ. Men and boys in villages now play the traditional Genna in the afternoon of Christmas day while elders and community members watch. Genna begins early in the day, around 6 AM, when people gather in churches for mass. Genna is celebrated on January 7th.

People receive candles as they enter the church. After lighting the candles everyone walks around the church three times, then stands throughout the mass, which may last up to three hours.

Food served at Christmas usually includes injera. Tye made doro wat and our friends made lentil dishes, beef tibs, cabbage and other vegetables.

I didn’t think I would like the food. I was nervous. I do love the concept of scooping everything up with bread. That’s just genius. But I was afraid of the spices. I’m not very good at loving foods I’m not used to.

Surprisingly, I really liked it! Bread, good. Doro wat, gooooood. Lentils, goooooood!

(who remembers when Rachel made a trifle with beef, sautéed with peas and onions, raspberry jam, and whipped cream or something because the cookbook pages were stuck together? Joey loved it. “What’s not to love? Beef, goooood. Jam, gooooooooood.”)

The injera was strange at first. It was sort of foamy/spongy. But then I got more used to it and it was great.

The spices- fantastic. I loved all the spices everyone used. Berbere, cardamom, turmeric and fenugreek mostly.

One more important fact about Ethiopian Christmas- gift giving is a very small part of it. Time is spent with family and friends and small gifts are exchanged. None of that consumer driven rushing around holiday stress. We can take a lesson from that, I think. 

What’s your favorite holiday tradition?

Two Things About the Tree

1.) When the social worker comes to complete our home study I will tell him/her that Tye will be the best dad ever.

5 nights in a row I have asked for a Christmas tree. 4 nights I was turned down.

It’s too early. It’s too cold. I don’t want to. I’m tired.

Yesterday we went to get a tree. Not because Tye wanted to. He made it obvious that he doesn’t care if he ever sees a Christmas tree again, let alone set one up as a three-week long fixture in our apartment.

And yet, there we were. Velazquez Christmas Trees in Uptown, Chicago (support local business plug).

He didn’t do it right away, he made me wait for it. Not because he’s mean but because he knew the whole experience of going to that Jewel parking lot where the Velazquez brothers were waiting for us to spend too much money on a tree that began dying 3 days ago would be best if it had a least 5 days of build up, begging and pleading. And he was so right.

He tied that tree to the roof of our station wagon in 15 degree weather and carried it upstairs just because he knew how happy it would make me. He’s going to be a terrific dad. He makes everything better!

This is a just a picture of the part when I was praying a baby squirrel or bird would be rustling around in the tree and we would have a new pet. It would be like winning Lucky Tray Day in elementary school. Out of all the trees, WE got the one with rodent! No such luck. It’s a normal, boring, beautiful tree.

Uncle Roger was waiting for a rodent, too.

2.) Christmas Trees = Family

While I was decorating the tree I realized my favorite part is looking at our ornaments. I don’t care about the 200 piece ornament set we got at Costco last year, I’m talking about the really good ones. I think the reason I love Christmas trees so much is because they are full of family memories.

Last year we decided we’d get an ornament anytime we went somewhere together. At that point it was December 10th so I quick went online to catch up and ordered ornaments for 1) our wedding 2) our honeymoon 3) a trip to Vail for Tye’s work 4) one for Uncle Roger and 5) Chicago because that’s where we live. Since then we’ve picked up a couple more.

Here’s a view of the Eckert Collection so far:

When we’re 50 we’ll have all kinds of cheap, tacky, meaningful ornaments.

As I get more excited about Christmas I think about what our lives will be like when we have a kid to share it with. Holidays are always more fun with kids around! They love the lights, the snow, waiting for Santa, drinking hot chocolate, all of the things that adults usually overlook or over think. When was the last time I played in the snow for hours without caring about how cold I was? Or drank hot chocolate without thinking about the sugar content?

When we have a kid we’ll be getting “Our First Christmas” ornaments with baby booties on them (I know my grandma will make that). We’ll go to the Velazquez Tree Farm at Jewel and pick out a tree together. We’ll tell the kid why Christmas is so important and why we love him so much.

I can’t think of anything more exciting than that.

I know this child will be on my side about the Christmas tree. If not, I’ll be happy to say, “you got that from your dad.”

Tye and Kali’s Tale

To know us better, you should know how we got together.

We went to the same college and knew each other but never talked. It wasn’t until after college that we met again through friends and became good friends ourselves. We were such good friends that it took a little while before we were both on board for dating. Instead, we just talked on the phone until 6am for 3 weeks. When we were both ready to date, we did. From that minute we knew we would get married. We didn’t question it, worry about whether it would work, or wonder if we would be happy. We had faith that we were doing the right thing. And we totally are.

Some wedding pics for you:

The best bridal party

So fun being followed and doted over all day by my best friends

Mr. and Mrs.

Most awesome kids

So there you have it. We were in love then. We are in love now. Fall in love with the same person over and over, that’s our plan.

Photo cred : Philip Anema

Nice to meet you

I am Kali and my husband is Tye. We have a dog named Uncle Roger. We are The Eckerts.

Some bits about us:
– we love and follow Jesus
– we live in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago
– we are newly weds (when do you stop saying that?)
– we like to eat (all), cook (Tye), bake (Kali), run (Kali), bike (Tye), drink water (Uncle Roger), lay in front of the air conditioner (Uncle Roger) and hang out in our community (all)

That’s enough for now, you’ll learn more as we go.

We started this blog to involve our family and friends in our adoption. More to come about that!