Waiting for the Sunshine

Well, it’s Friday guys and I gotta just keep it real with you as always. Today, I’m in a funk. I woke up to the sound of wind and rain (June rain in the morning?? What is this?) through our open bedroom window and it sorta just hit me like a ton of bricks: I miss our kids so much. As Drew got up to leave to the gym, I told him that I’m in a funk. His response: “I am, too.” It’s gunna be a long day, guys. Neither one of us have the energy to pull each other out.

We leave in just about 2 weeks to visit them again, thankfully, so there’s light at the end of that tunnel. But it’s the next tunnel that’s still flooded with darkness. We don’t know when we’ll be back to visit after that. There’s so much to juggle cost-wise and we’re trying to navigate it wisely.

There are a couple steps we breezed through rather quickly over these past few months. But now the longer, more unpredictable period starts where we wait on Haiti to shuffle papers and get us into the Haitian Court system. This will likely take several months, but we’re praying it is super speedy. Maybe we’ll be an exception, who knows. But once we get to that point, our kids will have our last name, making them legally ours! And that means we can take them out of the orphanage (but not out of the country just yet)!

Here’s where the navigating costs comes in: Ideally, I would be able to move to Haiti for about a month or so and live with the kids at On a Hill Guesthouse, where we usually stay. It would be an amazing place to have a little bit of transitional time since I’d have Creole speakers around me, Haitian food to learn how to cook, kids to play with and learn from and most importantly, FRIENDS who have walked this road with many families, not to mention their own adoption journey. Like I said, it’s ideal…aaannnd albeit terrifying to jump into parenting two kids in another country…by myself…in a friend’s home. Yikes! 😲We’re hoping Drew can come for a week or so at the beginning and he’ll have to come for a week at the end as well, per country requirements. But that’s where we’re at.

All of this is running through my head this morning while the wind blows my curtains and I’m forced to close the window to keep the rain from coming in. It’s quite symbolic actually…life feels like that sometimes. There’s a storm that comes out of nowhere and the most you can do right now is just close the window to keep out the rain. That’s where I’m at today, guys. I closed the window to keep out the rain but I still can’t shake the storm. Not today. Today it’s heavy and it’s crappy and just plain sucks. Tomorrow will probably be better and these gray clouds will make way to some sunshine. …But not today. Today I’m riding out the storm.

I’ve been asking myself since the storm woke me up…

  

      Do I need to get a job? Should I be looking for someone who needs me to watch their kiddos? It’s a struggle to give up my nesting time and my few months of working with Drew and having the freedom to just be me before two little people become the focus of my every day. The trouble too, is that I know the value of my work but a lot of people can’t afford to pay that.

      Is there someone out there who is just DYING to do something so incredibly kind for an adoptive family? Something we could never fully repay? There’s a business opportunity here, guys. Flying adoptive families to meet/visit/pick-up their kids…It’s not cheap by any means, but imagine the pay off? We just need someone in Florida. It’s only a hop, skip and a jump away from Haiti. I know absolutely NOTHING about cost or International flight rules, but hey…it sounds great in my head (and keeps me distracted).

      How are my kids? Are they sad? Do they miss us? I know they are and that they do, even if they don’t know that’s what they’re feeling. Their emotional maturity is still several years behind their age, and yet they have had no choice but to become old souls as well. It’s quite the struggle to not view them through the lens of how they look on the outside. Rather, we're considering the ages that they experienced the trauma of losing a family and perhaps even younger. They may look five and almost-four, but they have a lot of development to catch up on. We’ve made forward strides in the three weeks we’ve spent with them, but then we leave and it all feels in vain. The attachment/abandonment cycle is brutal. So what’s the solution? I have no idea. Do we continue to visit as much as we can to keep building on the trust we’ve established, only to disappoint them yet again when we leave? Or do we stay away and be miserable here without visiting them just to prevent their tears and heartaches of us saying goodbye again? Guys…this is crazy. I just don’t know.

   

      What fundraisers can we do to help with expenses? Particularly the remaining adoption costs and the cost of living there for a month or so. My family has done several yard sales over the years and we really just don’t have anything else to get rid of. I’ve done the online party sales with a percentage going to our adoption. We’re doing another Family Movie Night in August. We’ve gotten a few grants to help with some expenses. But there has to be more…any ideas or suggestions? I thought about selling Papillon bracelets but I think I would need some help. Maybe your kids would want to commit to selling some to their friends? It’s has a two-fold benefit: It’s helps bring our kids home and it also supports orphan prevention in Haiti. The women making these bracelets have been in desperate need of a job and many of them stand outside the walls and beg to be given a chance. Papillon and Apparent Project are creating job opportunities for women and families while providing childcare during work hours. This way they aren’t faced with the same dilemma of not being able to care for their kids, like many other moms face on a daily basis. Thoughts?

Any other ideas, thoughts, encouraging words…whatever gift you can give us today would be welcome. It’s just one of those day where it all feels too heavy and we just can’t do it alone. Not that we ever have because we’ve had you all from the beginning and we know you’ll be there for the long haul. But today feels lonely and uncertain and we just need to be raw and open with the people we know and trust; the people who have helped carry us this far.