completion

since i was 14 years old, i've wanted to adopt. i remember being in my room, listening to the radio. they were doing a story on the crisis with china's children. the girls. i was dumb-founded. i couldn't believe it. i was in 8th grade. it was in this moment, my dream of adoption began.



so how do you pursue something like adoption in 8th grade? well, you don't. technically. but i guess when this became what i wanted, i was like the kid who decides to be a doctor. you live your kid life, and you have this adult dream on the horizon that you slowly move towards. i never, ever faltered from this dream. it morphed, (the when, the where etc.) but in my heart it was always going to happen.



on my 3rd date with my now husband, i asked what he thought about adoption. not marriage. adoption. we were at the botanic gardens by the little japanese house, by the trees, by the water. he shrugged and said, "um, why not?" good answer. because, if he had answered "no", he wouldn't have become my husband. maybe that sounds terrible, but would you stay with a person who wouldn't support and share your life dreams? i hope not.



did he share my long honed passion for the idea? of course not. i introduced the idea to him. he was 24 years old. i can look back on that moment and many moments since then and see how freaking lucky i was. it was a weird question to ask. in general and specifically on like, a 3rd date. but he gave a good answer. which worked out, since i'm in love with him.



so life went on. we got engaged a year later, married the year after that. i wanted kids right away. my husband? not so much. kids? yes. but not immediately. so 5 years passed and we had our 1st child. 21 months later came #2, and 22 months later #3. suddenly we had a loud, joyful chaos: 3 maniac boys, 2 dogs and a house in the burbs. life was good. life was great. but life was incomplete. someone was missing.



we both wanted to pursue adoption internationally. for me, since i first heard that radio broadcast which was about children in a far away land , i always imagined a child in my life that didn't look like me. came from somewhere different. came from somewhere i wanted to celebrate. the journey to that "where" was never a straight line for us.



there were places we ruled out immediately. and places that ruled us out. there were countries we didn't have an interest in for all kinds of reasons: no interest in the culture; no desire to explore the land; dislike of the cuisine; politics... some of the reasons may seem petty, but one thing we knew for sure. wherever our child was to come from, we had to be not just willing, but passionate about learning more. we had to be committed to incorporating the culture, language, art, food and essence of our child's homeland into our home the best we possibly could. through a variety of ways, through bumps and curves, for a number of reasons, our hearts led us to and landed us in, ethiopia.



so, we began this process 2 years ago january. i called my friend who is from ethiopia, and asked her to tell me, truthfully, how she felt about an ethiopian child being raised in an almost completely white suburb by jewish hippy folks. i shared with her every anxiety i had about it. she laughed and said we were a wonderful family. she said she knew the kind of love we had in our home. she said she thought it was meant to be. she said we had good friends, good people in our lives. i cried tears of joy in the trader joe's parking lot. the simplicity of her answer gave me courage.


it only took 4 months to submit all our initial paperwork and complete our home study. the real work began when all of that was over. the paperwork kept me busy. when that was done, all we had to do was wait. and wait. and wait. until july, when we received our referral and our daughters beautiful face came into focus. and you know what? it was a really, really long wait. because i've been waiting for this child since i was 14 years old.