Our Journey Has Begun

I think I've started this blog post about 10 times and erased everything I've written. My thoughts and emotions are just a jumble. I can't exactly put a finger on what exactly I'm going through.

At one moment I'm excited beyond words. I'm at the starting line of a long-ass marathon and I can't wait to get to the end. I'm making plans. I'm envisioning the future. I want to run as fast as possible to get to the end.

The next moment I'm totally terrified, wondering what I have gotten myself into. How can I do this? Do I have the strength?

Its all mixed up because both of these emotions are proper. I should be feeling exactly what I am feeling right now. I, we, my family has made the momentous, life changing decision to bring another member into our family. We have offically begun our journey to Turtle.

I've nicknamed him Turtle because he will take his own sweet time to get to us. But now that time actually has a frame work, the process is beginning and it will have an end. And at that end is a baby, a little boy who will join our family forever.

I tear up just thinking about him and what he will look like, what it will feel like to meet him, to hold him. Even though he hasn't been born, and probably won't be for a while, I love him with all of my heart. I've never been pregnant but I suppose that this is what an expectant mother feels like when the find out they are pregnant.

Turtle will be from Ethiopia. We hope that he will join our family sometime in late 2009 or early 2010. Sometime within the next 18 months I will be holding my son. I can't belive that I just typed that but it is true.

But while I am excited, I am also scared. Our journey to Bunny went so smoothly. We were lucky. I wonder how this journey will go.

We are a trans-racial family. Both of our children will experience and have experienced things that we cannot imagine. I want to have the strength and the support in place for them, for our family as we face these challenges.

Bunny has an amazing support group of adopted children from China. She will be starting language classes in the fall with other girls just like her. But what about Turtle? What will he have? I have begun to reach out to find families in our area with children from Ethiopia. I have even found a family near by with children from both Ethiopia and China. I need to find support for him and for us. We need to know that he is not alone, that he will know other boys and girls who have been through the same experiences as he has.

I ache for his birth mother and family who will make the agonizing decision to place him for adoption. Just as I ache for Bunny's mother. I want to meet these women. To give them a hug and let them know that I will love their children forever. But also let them know that I will help their children rembember them in some way.

We have taken the first, small step on our journey to Turtle. I cannot wait to meet you, my son.