Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Amazing Adoption Community

Pat and I started on this adoption journey hoping to add a child to our family. Along the way, something unexpected and remarkable happened...we were adopted, too.

The Ethiopian adoption community is an amazing group of people. Before we started our adoption, we didn't even know it existed. Now, we have been welcomed into the family with open and loving arms.

On-line we belong to the Yahoo Ethiopia adopt board, the Yahoo Holt board, and the Google Colorado board. I stalk the Holt board daily. I'm addicted as Wesley (my twelve-year-old) is to X-Box. Has anyone gotten a court date? A referral? Travel dates? I spend way too much time reading the blogs of these new friends. I'm caught up in their journeys. When one of them doesn't pass court, my heart aches.

And they are so supportive. I've never met any of these people, but they know how to comfort me. Their children are (or were) halfway across the world just like ours. They feel the same need to get to their little ones as we do.

From this on-line community we've met a wonderful local group of Ethiopian adoptive families. We meet at least once a month. If you're in Colorado you can find our group at meetup.com. We're always happy to welcome new members.

Some of these families have their children home, some don't. When we get together we talk about adoption agencies, Ethiopia travel, and lactose intolerance. We ask, "How long has she been home," instead of, "When was she born?" We talk about court dates instead of due dates and we pass around referral pictures.

We are so grateful to this new family of ours. We can't wait to introduce little e to them. We know they'll welcome her with open arms, too!

1 comment:

  1. I completely agree, the "community" is so important to us too. I spend probably as much time on those boards and blogs and wouldn't know how to cope some days without the support of all those who I havne't even met (like you). There is so much comfort in all their words.

    We have a local community (a big one) here too, but we havne't yet become very involved in it...we attended one recent Christmas Luncheon, but that's it so far. We plan to do more and network more after the New Year. I wish we were in Colorado now ;-)

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