Let's begin

 What I want this space for is so complex and painful to articulate, much less to live. My husband and I hope to adopt a child from Ethiopia. We’ve been “officially waiting”  (paperwork completed and submitted) for nearly 23 months to be matched with a child. We began the process nearly three years ago.

Yes I am and always have been aware of the complex and interrelated nature of international adoption and child trafficking. No, I cannot resolve this inter-relation. I struggle with this discrepancy every day. I haven’t resolved it and never will. I apologize for it every day. Just as I apologize when I walk into a big-box store and am overwhelmed and sickened at the amount of needless garbage on display.

I don’t consider myself a deeply private or modest person but I do have fears with this blog. Does the world need another freakin’ adoption blog? No. Another space for a prospective adoptive parent to whine like this? No. Another mommy blog? Absolutely not. I’m putting this out here to make one person’s struggles with this issues public and, more importantly, to connect with other adoptive—whether post or pre—parents.

Right now I’m alone in this. Twenty-two months with no end in sight. Twenty-two months and I’m not waiting for the phone to ring. Twenty-two months and our son gets older (and so do we). He’ll be five next week; he was two when we began. He’s already so much older than his sibling. Why bother any more? I can’t answer that right now, as today is a beaten-down day. But others aren’t.