Time to say Good bye !

I have been thinking about this since a long time. In fact, since the end of September when I decided to take my distance from my blog. When I started, my intention was to share about several topics dear to my heart but finally it end up to be more about our adoption process than anything else. Tomorrow, our son will be with us since four months. What a great progress we have done since last summer. I can honestly say that we are doing good. Like any families, we have our good days and our struggles times but overall we have found the way to become a forever family. Adoption is a very complex process that does not end with the arrival of our son in our life. To be honest, I feel we have started the second book of our family story. A story very intimate that I prefer to not share on a public blog.

Thanks to have take the time to read about our family story. My hope is that no matter what happen to you, you will never give up. Today I am the bless mom of a beautiful little boy and I wish more referral, visa and children coming home for all these families who are waiting since so long. Your time will come.... very soon !

Historica

P.S If we are already in contact via email I will be happy to keep contact with you.
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Tous les changements qui ont accompagnés ma vie dernièrement m'ont fait revoir mes priorités. Demain nous célébrerons avec bonheur le quatrième mois de vie commune avec notre fils. Quelle joie de pouvoir enfin dire que nous allons bien. Comme la majorité des familles nous avons nos bons et nos mauvais jours mais dans l'ensemble nous pouvons dire que nous avons trouvé le chemin qui nous a permis de connecter de finalement pouvoir ressentir que nous sommes une famille. Pourquoi ce départ ? Je ressens le besoin de privilégier les précieux moments que je vit avec notre fils sans nécessairement vouloir les partager sur un blog public.

Merci d'avoir pris le temps de lire notre histoire familiale. Mon espoir est que peut importe ce qui arrive, vous continuiez de garder espoir. Aujourd'hui, je suis bénis d'être la maman de mon merveilleux petit garçon et je souhaite que plus d'enfants puissent venir rejoindre leur famille et ce le plus tôt possible.

Historica

P.S Pour toi ma belle Lady, j'ai pris la décision de quitter la blogosphère mais je ne quitte pas pour autant ta vie ;) On continue de se donner des nouvelles.

5000

5000 entrees have been done on my blog. Thank you to all my faithful readers for your interest to my life's journey. I do not know all of you personally but I want you know that I appreciate the time you take to read my "non perfect" English.

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Mon blog vient d'atteindre 5000 entrées. Même si je ne connais pas personnellement tous mes fidèles lecteurs je vous suis reconnaissante d'être encore là. Ma nouvelle résolution est d'écrire plus souvent en français. Merci à mes lecteurs francophones (et anglophones) qui m'ont permis de me rappeler que je dois cultiver ma langue française même si le milieu dans lequel je suis n'est pas le plus propice.

Kutless - What Faith Can Do

This song had lift me up during the time we were waiting for our referral, then for our court decision and for our visa. During last summer I realize that this song was still appropriate to help me to face all different challenge an international adoption can bring. Today, I would like to offer this song to all my friends. No matter what happen in your life, keep faith that the future is brighter then the present.

Cette chanson m'accompagne depuis le moment où nous étions dans l'attente de recevoir notre proposition, puis la décision de la court et ensuite notre visa. Pendant l'été dernier, j'ai réalisé que cette chanson était encore appropriée pour m'aider à garder courage pendant les moments difficiles que notre famille à vécu après l'adoption de notre fils. Aujourd'hui, je désire partager cette chanson avec mes amis. Peut importe les épreuves de la vie, continuez de croire que le futur sera meilleur que le présent.



Everybody falls sometimes
Gotta find the strength to rise
From the ashes and make a new beginning
Anyone can feel the ache
You think its more than you can take
But you are stronger, stronger than you know
Don't you give up now
The sun will soon be shining
You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining

I've seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn't ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I've seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That's what faith can do

It doesn't matter what you've heard
Impossible is not a word
It's just a reason for someone not to try
Everybody's scared to death
When they decide to take that step
Out on the water
It'll be alright
Life is so much more
Than what your eyes are seeing
You will find your way
If you keep believing

I've seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn't ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I've seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That's what faith can do

Overcome the odds
You don't have a chance
(That's what faith can do)
When the world says you can't
It'll tell you that you can!

I've seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn't ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I've seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That's what faith can do
That's what faith can do!
Even if you fall sometimes
You will have the strength to rise

Late Friday's Confessions

I never wrote about confession but yesterday I had this in my mind so here we are... 24h later.

I confess that I am a terrible blogger. I have so much ideas and I should write more often.

I confess that I should write more often in French. It my first language and I should be not shy to use it even if I know a lot of my friends will not be able to read me.

I confess that the last week was really hard not only for my son but also for me. However, I am glad now that we have found the way to go through our struggles.

I confess that I start my Ph.D this week and it will be more investment then I though it will be. I know it the right things to do for me and my family. I am bless to have a supportive husband but I will have to drop down a lot of free time and enjoy reading methodology literature (just thinking at this topic make me want to go the sleep....lol)

I confess that my son and I miss our family time with Daddy. We were bless to have two full months together as a family and now we have to face the reality that life is also to be back to work for my husband.

I confess that start pre-school was more hard for me then for my son. Since two months I went through all young child stages (infant, No phase) and now my little boy start to become more independent.

I confess that we are still in the "No phase" and I am sick and tired to hear to word NO for everything. I hope it will not last forever.

I confess that I wish I could be the perfect Mommy but as everybody else I am not and I need to understand that doing my best it the most important.

I confess that I choose to see the positive things my son is able to do instead of only the negatives one. For example, I am really impress with his language abilities. After two months he can understand French and English.

I confess that most of the time I do not answer when the phone ring.

I confess that I have meet many wonderful people in my life and I am so glad to have all of you in my life.

Expect the unexpected

I confess that I was a very bad blogger this summer and I hope I still have few faithful readers. Last year when I started my blog, I was so excited to be able to share all the steps of our adoption journey. The road to get our son was so long and difficult and my hope was that our experiences may help other families who were in a similar situation of us. Last November, our referral happen and then we went in Ethiopia for our court date and meet our son for the first time. In the last fews months, my entire life was dedicated to prepare myself to become the mother of my son. I found the last fews weeks before we could left for our second trip so hard. At that moment, we made the rational decision to leave when my school year will be done. Now, knowing what happen after our gotcha day, I am really happy with this decision but last June my brain was more emotional then rational so it was really hard to deal with this wait time.

For many years I have read a lot about adoption, grieving, attachment. Books, blogs, discussion board, meeting with other adoptive families, courses. I knew having our son will be not easy but my homework was done so I was assuming that everything will be ok for us.... after all these waiting years we will be a forever happy family. Well, things did not happen the way I was expected at ALL. Maybe because it was my first child or maybe just because our son is what he is. The true is that the first three weeks were AWFUL. Even thinking about these first weeks still bring tears to my eyes. I love my son, I love him very much. I could not see my life without him. However, my love for him does not forget how hard was the first weeks with him. I was undecided about disclosing this reality or not on my blog. When an adoption process is complete people expect to see a happy family. In our case, we were a destroy family. Our personal boundaries were broke and we were three strangers looking to know how we could learn to live together. After waiting all these years, the true is our son was not waiting for us. Yes, he was prepared that we will become his parents but deeply inside him this idea to have to start his new life again in a whole new world was something very hard for him. Before he could attach to us he has to grieve about his lost and we also had to grieve about this son we had imagine but never be able to know until now. I cannot fully explain how hard were this first weeks but I know that they have deeply changed myself, my ideas, my life philosophy. Today, when I look back I am happy to see the positive we all have get from what we went through. However, I wish we had not need to experienced all this pain but now I understand that it was part of the adoption package deal.

Tomorrow we will celebrate our second month as a family. We have spend the last two months isolated from our regular social life. Our summer goal was to spend time all together (my husband, my son and I) and give us the time to know each other. We went through a lot of "first time" as everything was so new for him. We laugh today when we remember how it was hard to put him in his car seat but at that time it was pretty awful. We choose to protect our son's feelings instead of our relatives or friends excitement toward him. Majority of people have respected and understand our family boundaries by not holding our son or feed him but some have choose to not do and this situation add new conflicts we had to deal with. I understand their happiness to finally be able to meet our son but knowing that my son is constantly dealing with adaptation and attachment issues I could not ask him to do more then I knew he could do. That bring me to tell you some uncomfortable situations we have being trough recently : Staring and weird questions.

I think staring is what bother me the most. Every time we go out people are staring at my son. Yes, he is cute, charming and he has two caucasian parents but he is also like everybody else he have feelings and staring at him make him uncomfortable. Weird questions make me also very upset. Why people are not thinking before asking us weird questions in front of our son. Knowing that my son understand now French and English language I need to be really careful in the way we choose to answer. In the weirdest questions prize list we got recently I think the one about the colour of his inside hands (and asking my son to show his inside hands) is the one upset me the most. What ???? My son is not a little zoo's attraction or a little puppet we look in a living room. We also does not answer questions regarding the cost of our adoption process, his ethiopian relatives, his emotional trauma or personal struggles. It is appropriate to ask a stranger if they have hereditary diseases in their family ? No, it the same for us. Fortunately, majority of our family and friends are not like that so we are bless to have be able to share wonderful time with them during this summer.

So the last two months have been really busy for our family, trying to know each other and handle in the same time people weirdest reaction toward our son. I am so proud to have our two first months done. I know the next few months will bring new challenges but at least I know now I can go thought it.

Home sweet home !

Our son is with us since almost five weeks now. I have heard many time that the first six weeks are the more difficult. Every child react differently but knowing that we will reach the 6th week very soon make me very proud of everything we went trough since we have the custody of our little boy. Since one month, we went through so much changes in our life. We are glad to have our son join our family but the true is you can't make an omelet without breaking few eggs. Along the way, we have broke a lot of eggs but it believe every struggles help us to allow our son to rebuild his emotional feelings and we hope one day he will become a strong and confident men.

I have being debating during the last month if I will post my son picture on my blog. When I started this blog, last year, it was clear that my first intention was to publish my ideas about life and preserve my privacy life. As a teacher, I can't allow my students to enter so easily in my private life but in another way I think it just normal after all this time for you to want see my little boy. Because this blog is public and I can't control who are reading, the other option I have will be to go private. However, by being private I will not be able to share anymore my ideas and it will restrict the number of my readers to have access to my blog which I don't want to. Therefore, I have choose to keep my blog public but will only share my son's picture with close friends or people I have already being in contact through adoption board or email. If you are one of them and you would like to see my little boy please send me an email and I will be happy to let you see him.

historica@live.ca

A New World....

Well, I have so much to say, I do not know where I should start.... Last month we were in our way to Ethiopia to pick up our son. Now, we are home since three weeks, busy, tired, exhausted but very happy to have our family of three. So much things happen since last month and I can say that my life have entirely change since I am a mother. The first week, in Ethiopia, was really hard. The next two at home were too. However, I have to say that since two days we have start to enjoy our family routine. Before, everything seem so bizarre for me, for my hubby and more then ever for my son. Attachment is not magical and it take a lot of time. Today, I went to the park alone with my son and we enjoy spend time together. It was the first time since three weeks that we have feel a special connection together.

I will be happy to tell more about our new life in the next few days....