Opening Pandora's Box

Well, where do I begin? I guess the first place is with our sincerest thanks to all of you who have emailed, called, sent cards, and just been there for us over the past 12 days. On the 8th when we got the news that our case wouldn't be heard until further notice b/c of questions of corruption, we were devastated. So many of you reached out to us with positive vibes, prayers, and wishes. Honestly, we just can't thank all of you enough for being there for us, even from thousands of miles away. I haven't had the energy or words to respond to all of you, because, quite frankly, I've been totally self-absorbed, depressed and wordless. I'm sorry for that.

I'm also sorry that neither of us has blogged. Again, there's just been nothing to say. I haven't had the energy to type, and I haven't been able to figure out what value it would be to share where we are, emotionally. At the time we started the blog, we were excited to bring people into our "adventure", because we knew it would have a happy ending..and who wouldn't want to be a part of that? But the past 12 days have been less than an adventure. And I've wondered...who would want to read about a cancer growing? Who would want to read about a car crash happening in slow motion? Who would want to be dragged down by our depression? So, we've just been quiet.

The quietness hasn't been good for me, though. And I think I need to write to just let some of it pour out. At first I didn't want to write because I didn't want to drag any of you down. Now I think I need to, because I desperately need to let some things out. I've been trying to "protect" our blog so that Addison can one day inherit it as part of his life story...of how we waited for him, how we felt along the way. And I realize now that all this pain that we are feeling is just as much a part of his life story as the fun of packing up cute little Brooklyn t-shirts into our travel bags. And I'm also realizing that trying to pretend to be strong is pretty self destructive. For every tear that I fight back, it's another hour that I can't fall asleep at night. For every paragraph that I write in my head but am too proud to share with myself or Addison or even Radames, the more I want the morning to turn into night so I never have to get out of bed.

Honestly, things just haven't been good around here. Saturday the 9th was probably one of the longest days of my life. I can barely remember how I spent the day, but I know it was a combination of staring at the clock and wanting to slam it against the wall because the second hand wasn't moving fast enough to make it turn into Sunday. I remember just staring at Radames a lot and, without words, just knowing that I knew what he felt and that he knew what I felt. I remember being in the shower and wanting to just sit down and let the water wash the sadness off of my skin. But I couldn't, because I didn't want Ella to come in...and I didn't want Radames to think I was weak or impatient.

And then Sunday rolled around, and it was Mother's Day. Ella and Radames woke me up with flowers and...honestly, it's just a blur. I know that I was chipper in front of Ella and so thankful that she is in our lives. I didn't want her to know I was sad and mad and confused and resentful and a wreck. She kept saying, "It's a beautiful day outside, Mommy," and it was. When I finally walked outside and felt the sun beating down, I picked her up and held her and said, "Addison's going to come home right, honey?"...so weak that I needed the comforting of a 4-year-old...and she said, "Yes, he is, mommy, he'll be here soon" as she patted her little hand against my back like a mother would her child. I wept in her ear like a baby as she looked at me bewildered and said, "Can we go to Daniel's (her cousin) now?" She had no idea what was going on, and she still doesn't, but her 10 seconds of reassurance meant the world to me.

I felt like I needed to be alone so I told Radames and Ella I'd meet them at Daniel's. I went for a ride on my scooter and waited for the 50-mile-an-hour winds to blow the sadness off of me. I drove around to I-don't-know-where, just watching the minutes tick by on the little clock on my Vespa, with tears dripping down my face as I could barely see the road. It felt good, though, because no one could see me...and after an hour or so, I went and celebrated Mother's Day with my mom and Terrance's family and mine. We had fun for a while, and I thought it would be fine, but as all the hooplah of the evening wound down, I found myself alone with my mind...haunting me as I lay there listening to Radames' breathe, searching for answers, wishing so badly that i could turn my mind off and go to sleep.

I decided on Monday that work would be the perfect solution. If I'd just stay busy the days would pass faster, and if i'd run from my emotions well enough, they wouldn't find me. So Monday I decided that I would not think about the unknown, and that i would just throw myself into work. It did help. Monday was busy and I did pretty well. But then the night came again. Damnit. The fucking night. When no phones are ringing, when no emails are coming in, when everyone is asleep but me...as I sit and ask myself 1,000 different ways...what does it mean when Toni (our counselor at CHI) says "hang tight"? what if he isn't abandoned? what if he was sold? what if he was stolen? how must his mom feel? is his case under investigation? why are we being punished for things that have nothing to do with his case? when will someone call us? when will we know something? when will the courts address the issue? why can't they issue a timeframe? why won't they tell us what's next? how long should we wait? is he really meant to be our son? maybe it's not meant to be? maybe it is meant to be? maybe we should fly there and show the courts how nice we are and how much we want him? why can't we have babies the old fashion way? why aren't i thankful that we have ella? why am i wasting energy trying to solve the unsolvable? why am i stealing any minute that i could be enjoying life with ella and radames thinking about a child that we really don't even know yet? why can't i fall asleep? why is my mind playing tricks on me? why aren't those breathing exercises working? maybe if radames would just put his hand on my back i'd be able to fall asleep...and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Until i wonder what separates me from the psychos in the nut house... until i wonder how edgar allen poe and i must be related because the goddamn heartbeat under the floor won't stop fucking haunting me.

Pandora's Box Part 2

...I spent Tuesday and Wednesday with Joanna and Sara Beth here, and it really helped. Joanna and I got to talk about work and I got to flex the intellectual side of my brain again. Sara Beth was here to help me plan Ella's 5th birthday gala that I insisted on having before all of this happened, b/c I didn't want that event to not happen because we were busy prepping for our departure. The company was great, and having women around was just the perfect touch. Radames and I are about as connected as two human beings can be, but his brain just works differently than mine, and men just feel things differently than women. Just having the gentle voices around and being able to "dump" without having to edit or worry if i was stressing him out even more was really helpful. I got to be distracted, and those three days went by pretty quickly.

By the time Thursday rolled around, Radames and I went to see a therapist. We originally had it on the books so I could get some "let go and not try to control things" advice as we got ready to ship off to the other side of the planet, not knowing the language, not being able to influence the courts, and being stuck on a plane for 15 hours at a time (my claustrophic nightmare). It turned out that we needed her for a very different reason. We walked in and started to make chit chat about details...and i got more and more fired up as i talked...and shit came pouring out. She interrupted me and said, "Wynne, i'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that you just have a good old fashion cry and give yourself permission to do that while you let radames hold you." My retort was, of course, "no...that's stupid...i'm not a baby...crying isn't going to get us anywhere... i'm not a victim...tears aren't going to solve anything...i don't even want to be touched." and then i just started ranting and raving about how mad i am and how unfair this whole thing is and how fucked up it is that a kid with no parents in a nation with little food can't come be loved by us...after everything we've done...after everything we've created...after all the dues we've paid...after 9 years of trying to get pregnant...after a miscarriage...and 2+ years of waiting on this adoption to come through...after plane tickets are booked, nursery is ready, bags are packed...and goddamnit...what did we do to deserve this!!?? And i just ranted about how much i can't stand Radames right now because he's made peace with God about this...and how i resent his coolness under pressure and how i resent our agency for not emailing us more often to tell us what the hell is going on...and how everyone on this planet can kiss my fat ass, because this f-ing sucks! and it's unfair. and addison doesn't deserve it...and we don't deserve it...and the planet shouldn't work like this...an innocent child and the perfect parents should be able to be together without 15 agencies and invisible procedures getting in the way of someone living out their life in a crib and us feeling unrequited love towards a kid we don't even know. She patiently listened and then told me that my brain was never going to fix something that was really an emotional problem. That what i really needed to do was to let myself feel what i was feeling and to stop trying to make my brain fix it. She validated that the situation is messed up and that there are no answers, and potentially no solution...which meant a lot, but encouraged me to let Radames be there for me and to remember why we are married (b/c we are so perfectly different) and to give myself permission to mourn, to cry, and to stop fighting the inevitable. I hated her by the time we left. But she was right. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can say. There's no proposal or petition I can write. There's no logic that will solve the puzzle. It's a torturous waiting game, and i can either let it consume me or can i keep on living my life and treasure what i've got and be grateful for when that expands, if it does. That's where i'm trying to go. But i'm not there.

Pandora's Box Part 3

...last night my nightamares woke me up again. The details are too graphic, but suffice it to say I was too scared to go back to sleep. I dont' know if it's because Ella's bday bash is over and I don't know what the next milestone I can throw myself into is (hence i'm starting to stew on the adoption again), or that our bags are packed and I just had to call and cancel our flights today, or if it was the frustration at our agency for not updating us on a call they had on Monday about the issue (after they told us they would and we are waiting for any morsel of news)...or if it's the sugar from the left-over birthday cake that i keep trying to drown my sorrows in that kept me up all night. But last night I lay there all night until the birds started to chirp, the sun started to come up, and the clocked rolled around to 7. It was the worst night i'd had so far. where I sat and comtemplated all night: how long do we wait? what if he's never going to be adoptable? should we wait another week? month? year? when do we ask for another referral? will people judge us for that? aren't we supposed to hold out for him? but how long do we? and what if the hold-out just ends up with us never getting him and then we have to ask for another referral anyway? do we end up just waiting longer? and that's what I stewed on for hours and hours and hours. And, to a certain degree, I'm still stewing on it.

Radames told me last week that we'd wait for 45 days. He decided that was the number, and that if the courts hadn't moved, hadn't made any announcement, hadn't given us any timeframes or prospects of when we'd know anything, that we'd ask for another Addison, as f-ed up as that is to say and think about. Well, I deferred to him and said yes, let's wait the 45 days. But, I'm having trouble doing it. I just keep wondering: are we stupid? is the writing on the wall? are we just delaying the inevitable? will we just be 45 more days behind? and will we miss getting a kid in '09 if we wait b/c the courts close for the rainy season in a few months? OMG will we have to redo our fingerprints and deal with NVC and the drama of the missing paperwork again if we drag this out past oct when it expires again? Compound that with: how emotionally connected are we to who we think is Addison? why are we so connected? he's not really ours, is he? is the next addison not a legitimate orphan too? does he deserve a home any less than who we've matched with? what will happen with Addison if we give up on him and get a different kid instead? wouldn't he be adopted by another loving family if he becomes adoptable? And there, my friends, you have a recipe for mental torture like no guerilla terrorist can impose. And you have a recipe for wanting to beat the shit out of the 17-year-old trailor trash that you see in the Toys R Us chatting about her pregnancy with friends over a cigarette.

The answer is that there are no answers. No scenario is good. No scenario is the "magic solution." So then we just weigh the options, like switching lanes in traffic, hoping the other lane moves faster, but then realizing you're an ass for not just staying in the lane you were in to start with. That's how i feel. Like one road may be slower, but it will result in a son...while the other road could move fast, or it could move slow, or it could just entirely dead end and you realize you have to go back and drive down the other road anyway. The latter is starting to feel less and less appealing as I miss sleep, start give up hope (on the courts, not Addison), and consult with Radames and friends.

Today, we got to the point, out of personal desparation, that I called our agency and asked about the ramifications of getting a new referral. Toni acted surprised that we'd be at this point and said she has every hope that Addison will be ours soon, and that "the courts are just proving a point" (that they won't tolerate "irregularities"). She and the program's director seem to think this will be over soon and that they will go to court to petition for the 10 families' cases to be heard. But they can't petition yet, b/c the courts won't allow them to...and that it's only been 11 days...and that if we "give up" our referral and request another one, Addison would be assigned to someone else and then be adopted by them when his case is heard, she suspects. She said she really didn't know, because nothing like this has ever happened before, and that she had to talk to her boss about it. And then I got an email inviting us to a group conf call for the 10 families tomorrow so they can talk to us about what's next. I'm really glad they are doing that, b/c we all really need it. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more level-headed, but we'll probably be right back where we've been. In indefinite pergatory, rotting, stewing, second guessing.

So, there you have it. Meat and potatoes: several non-abandoned kids being put before the courts as abandoned kids, the courts saying hold up we've gotta get to the bottom of this, our agency assuring us that those issues have nothing to do with our kids who are all legit, us having no idea when the courts will finish their investigation and re-schedule our cases, no idea of any timeframes or milestones, and us...well, me...being a basket case along the way. I wish I had more to say. I wish I had more upbeat news.

I will just say, though, that i know i have the best friends and husband and most amazing daughter on the planet. And that we are dealing with a top-rate agency that has a great relationship with the courts and is doing what they realistically can to be our advocates in a less-than-ideal situation. And I know that my over-analyzing things is not productive in any way. Every day I'm working on reminding myself of all of those things. And today I realized (thanks, MF) that I really need to focus on my own emotional and physical well-being and not what others may think or say. I probably need to avoid the co-miserating with the other 9 families on line, per Radames' request 10 days ago! :) And i need to stop wondering about the external ramifications about doing what is best for our family. And i need to not be so paranoid about sharing. By the way, if you are a Smarty Pants client friend, have no fear. You have no idea how great of a job I'll be doing on your business. Intellectual challenges are my best friends these days. :) Ha! See.

Thanks again, everyone, for all of the support and wishes. We love you and can't wait to pass along some better news.