Woven

Open, open, open.  Anyone remember these commercials?  They went virile before there was virile and were quoted and spoofed for years after they aired.  And although I could not even tell you where to find a Mervyns now (I think they may have gone bankrupt, how is that for failure of a marketing campaign?!) I can still hear that little voice in my head "Open, open, open." Except now it's a big voice and screaming incessantly, getting louder with the rising of my blood pressure!

Let's backtrack, shall we?  Our home study is done, everything turned in, report sent to the agency for corrections and then coming back to us for any final input before it is rushed. . .off to sit on a shelf and gather dust.  Why? Because Kazakhstan is still not open to adoptions from the US.  After being expected to open at the beginning of the new year (ours, not theirs), we are still waiting to hear that they are open.  Open.  Open.  Oddly enough (and most of you will not believe me) but I haven't been too stressed about the delays.  I'm not sure why, probably a combination of faith, trust, hope, and distractions   I've been distracted because although we finished 98% of our home study over a month ago, we have been waiting on two final documents.  One from me, and one from Bard.  Mine was a total blooper, something that I should have done ages ago.  Listen up folks, never put off til tomorrow what you can do today because it might come back later and bite you in the adoption butt.  Bard's was very frustrating though. And as much as I would like to go into the details and completely slander someone who so royally got on my bad side that I am surprised the universe didn't implode from the pure pressure that was exuding from every pore in my body, I will restrain myself.  Let's just all be thankful that my husband is for more mature than I am and that every once in a while I listen to his voice of reason. However, I will give you a little cookie in that I may or may not have uttered the phrase, "I can't even imagine why you are doing this to us, are you against international adoptions?  Because there is an orphan on the other side of the world waiting for us to bring him home and we are waiting on you." You groan, but the next day we had our paper-after two months.  Silly people, if you would stop giving into my tyrannical displays, maybe I wouldn't behave so tyrannically :)

Either way, those two obstacles took way longer than should be legal for someone trying to meet her child, and so it didn't really matter that Kazakhstan was still closed to the US.  The day those forms were completed the full force of my attention turned toward the current problem.  Remember in Jurassic Park when the dinosaur spots the kids, turns and bears down on them like a freight train with snappy teeth? That's me (I am full of 90's cultural references today!) except I have no where to run because I can't see where I'm going and I'm not the one in control of end goal anyway.    That is so irritating.    And before you jump to conclusions, it's not Kaz I am waiting on, it's our own government, agencies, and people here in the US taking their sweet time.  I don't know why, but somehow that is oddly relieving, yet also incredibly annoying. And in the meantime, Russia is apparently considering lifting their ban on US adoptions, to which my response would be the same as when they first made the ban legal.  Oh wait, Bard wouldn't let me blog that either, you all need to talk to him, this blog would be SO much more colorful if I said what was in my fun little head!

So, where are we now?  Waiting.  We had originally hoped to turn in our dossier sometime in June.  And while if Kaz opened immediately and we put our dossier together super fast, that might still be a possibility, it is looking less and less likely.  So we wait.  That's the adoption process:  hurry, hurry, hurry, wait, wait, wait.  Pieces from all over the world have to come together in a complicated and pre determined order.  One piece can't be in place without the other and if a different piece comes undone, it can bring many more crumbling down with it.  And most frustrating, I don't even know what all the pieces are and which order to put them together in.  Or even the final product!

A Kazakh shanyrak at the top of a yurt.

Years ago, a decade now, when I was going through a challenging time in my life, someone told me the analogy of a tapestry.    Sometimes all you can see is your little threads being woven together.  From your limited perspective, the tapestry just looks like a colorful jumbled mess. You might not even be able to see the front of it, but are likely just looking at its back-torn off threads unraveling with no apparent purpose!  But time gives you a bigger picture. As you move further and further away from your own little spot, you can see patterns emerge.  Threads and colors blending together creating shapes, something new.  You look at it from the other side, designs and symmetry are visible.  Each small, seemingly chaotic piece has somehow been woven into a beautiful story.  How?  Someone had a plan, a purpose, and set out to turn knotted threads and snipped off ends into a piece of art.

Thank you Kelly, for our shanyrak.

Tapestries are quite prevalent in Kazakh culture,  from rugs to wall hangings.  But easily the most recognizable, and culturally important item woven together, is the shanyrak. Made from intersecting wooden beams it is used to center the yurt. As a nomadic people, Kazakhs resided in yurts, dome like structures, on the steppe for countless generations.  The final piece of the yurt was the shanyrak, allowing light and ventilation, but also providing a deeper element.  The shanyrak became a family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation. Just as the woven wood centered the yurt, the shanyrak also symbolically reflected peace and calmness as the center of family life. As we watch our own story being woven together, we have been given a shanyrak, created from love to remind us of our center: peace, of threads of life being woven together, wandering and being found in family.  Peace only comes from trust.  From faith.  From hope. This shanyrak, given by a dear friend, lets Light into our home.  And that is what I most want to be open.  And that is the reason for this whole journey.

Maternity Session

The Kazakhstant pendant Bard gave me.

 I never did a maternity photo session.  I  have seen many gorgeous
 photo shoots of women-stunning, alive, about to become mothers.
 And I think it's a beautiful idea, just not one that I have been drawn to,
 until now.  But these photos do not capture the baby growing inside
 me, they capture the love, growing inside all of us.  And they were not designed to show a timeline, an expectation of how much longer we had to wait.  Just that we are waiting. Expectant.  Hoping.

Holding our horse, brought back from Kazakhstan.

I read another adoption blog not too long ago, that talked about how it takes a village to go through an adoption, just like a regular pregnancy. But perhaps even more so.  With a biological pregnancy, every time you see the expectant mother, you are reminded of what she is going through and a pregnancy comment or question is on the tip of your tongue.  With an adoption, every time I see someone, the adoption is on the tip of my tongue.  Honestly, it's all I want to talk about with anyone, from grocery store clerk to close friend.  This. Is. My. Life. And I am fortunate to be surrounded by a village of people who get me. When Chelle first took these photos, she posted one right away, saying that people going through the adoption process shouldn't have to wait for one more thing!  She is an amazingly talented friend, (check out her work here) one who has been taking our family photos for years. But never before has she captured our hearts, our prayers, our lives, so powerfully. So beautifully.

Evelyn wearing her Kazakh vest and hat.

You can see all the photos she took by clicking the link on the right, and check out her blog for the write up she did for our shoot.  In fact, you should stop reading this blog and read her write up of our pictures!  She wrote what I needed to read and those thoughts have never been outside my head.  That's the village.  Friends who send me links to ideas for photo shoots, interviews about adoptions, webinars for adoption support.  Friends who ask me how the process is going, what they can pray for, and that are crying, and waiting, with me.  That's the village. And just as a waistline grows with a biological pregnancy, so my support grows with this adoptive pregnancy.  Just knowing that people are thinking of me, of my family, of our growing family, is incredibly meaningful.

There is an old saying, "It's the thought that counts."  I don't know how it was originally intended, but let's be honest, often times that saying is used as a cop out!  Which is too bad, because the thought does count, and it counts a lot. I've never really thought about why some women do a maternity photo session and why I wasn't interested in one.  But I thought about this photo shoot.  At first it just seemed like a really fun idea.  Then I thought about it some more.  And I realized that it would be a moving expression of where I'm at right now; where our family is at, captured in art.  Then I thought about it some more. And I realized that this photo shoot wasn't for me.  Because what it ultimately captures is the thought behind our adoption.  You see, some day, a lifetime from now, but relatively soon, I will bring home a little boy.  And he will be young, innocent, completely unaware of the life he should have experienced. But he will learn.  And as he grows, he will grow to understand that someone gave him up.  And no matter the reason behind her decision, the fact remains the same, his mother left him.  And I, as his mother, will watch this dawning realization with terror and grief.  I will want to fix him, to stem the sorrow, to make all the hurts go away.  But I can't, won't, be able to.  Because at each stage in his life, he will grieve in a new way.  And so as he faces each new stage, I

Praying for baby brother.

must be ready to face it with him.  To let him grieve.  To let him feel. To cry and to pray and to do anything possible to show him love.  And so I thought about these pictures.  Even now, half way across the world, somewhere, with someone, is my son.  Maybe he has already felt hurt and confusion at who loves him.  But I love him.  And in any way I can, I will show him that he is wanted, loved, longed for.  Before he was born, I wanted him. Before he opened his eyes, I dreamed of what color they would be.  I celebrated his first Christmas, his first Easter, his first photo shoot.  Some day, he will see these pictures.  An undeniable visual message of love. Photographs to show we are planning for him. We are excited to meet him. We are praying for him.  And he is part of our family.  Maybe a maternity photo shoot is designed to capture the beauty of a new life.  To me, and my family, this photo shoot captures all our new lives.  The beauty in a new hope.  A new love.