Visiting the Gladney Campus

The trip we just got back from included too many wonderful moments for one post. So I'll start with this one, near the end of our trip. We were in Dallas for a few days visiting one of Ted's brothers and his family, so we drove out one afternoon to Fort Worth to visit the Gladney campus. We'd been wanting to do this for a while, and I am so glad we did.

The moment I saw the sign with the address I'd written down so many times, I got teary. Then we walked in with Abe and after a few minutes Mary and Scott came down the stairs, and I was trying not to lose it. Mary was our caseworker, the one who made all those difficult calls with bad news...and then the one whose voice told me on March 3rd last year, "Lori, it's done!" signaling the news that we were Abe's parents officially. To meet sweet Mary in person was so beyond wonderful.

Abe meets Mary and does his teased "ooh, that's a pretty girl" routine.

I encourage any parents who travel anywhere near the Gladney campus to stop in for a visit. We had a wonderful time there, and I think it does the team a lot of good to meet the children they've heard so much about and worked so hard, long long long hours, to bring home to their families. They were so laid-back and wonderful, not even once threatening to take Abe away from us when he wandered off to find the fun toy-room down a long hall-way (seriously though--how ironic that we lose our child and send our former caseworker scrambling along with us calling out for lost Abe...in the agency building through which he became our son? Not my proudest mom-moment).

The incomparable Mary, with Scott Brown, head of the Ethiopia program

Finally, we found out while at Gladney that there is a movie out there about Edna Gladney called Blossoms in the Dust, made in 1941, which won an Oscar for Best Art Direction and was nominated for Best Picture. Wow. It's now on our Netflix queue.

I'll leave you with some purposefully blurry photos of the next fun thing that happened on our trip to the South, which I'll write about next:

Another little Oliver...

In this blogging world, we have favorites. It's impossible not to. Craig and Cindy have been some of my favorites for a while now. I've been out of the loop for the last couple of weeks with blogs. I put Abe down a little early for a nap today so I can catch up. Then I found myself fighting back tears at this post.

Please. Go read it. This is why people start blogs, for moments like this. What an inspiration for those just starting out.

Back from The South

Our son was dressed by my deer-hunting relatives in camo last week:
And he also learned three new words: gumbo, ash-tray, and Oba-Mama. We are so proud. But we're finally back in Oregon tonight. Here's the view of Mount Hood from the airplane:

More to come. It was a great, Obama-tastic trip.

Walking on Sunshine. Woah-Oh.

I was finding it hard to take January in Portland much longer, so when our friend Susan (who has a book coming out in March, which you can pre-order here) suggested we come down to Los Angeles for a stopover for a few days before the big trip to visit my family in Mississippi, this light went off in my head and we were on an airplane that afternoon.

It sounds like a cliche, but truly: I think I was forgetting what clear blue skies look like. Some images from our last few days:

A day so clear we could see Catalina Island from Mount Wilson. Unbelievably beautiful.

Who's a cheeseball? We are cheeseballs! Can anyone tell that Abe has had a haircut? (by me, while in the bath, unable to comb out the dreads).

This is why people live in Southern California: a morning in January.

It's Los Angeles. We spend a lot of time in the car. Abe naps here often.

Sweetness. Abe calls these "Oh-nos" (oranges) and eats at least 5 or 6 daily.

The other day in Target in rainy, snowy, wintry Portland, Abe started saying "happy." I've called Target my "happy place" for a while now, so what kismet this boy has. Here, he demonstrates his new word:


And now off to Mississippi for hushpuppies and fried catfish with my deer-hunting relatives. Yum.

An Important Agency Question

This topic may seem like it's coming out of nowhere considering that it was this time two years ago that we were researching agencies, but since coming home with Abe, we've been asked a lot of questions by people interested in adoption about the process and how to choose an agency. Choosing an agency is a huge decision, one that took us four months of research to make. The decision is partly made by your gut feeling, but one black-and-white issue I always recommend people really look at closely is the issue of finances.

Agencies should have a crystal-clear breakdown of the expenses you will be expected to pay, with time-lines of when things are due, along with specifics about what each expense covers. I caution people strongly if they encounter an agency that asks their clients to pay everything up front. This should be a red flag.

Along these lines, be sure to ask the question, "What happens if our adoption is postponed for any reason?" There are couples out there who don't ask this question, get deep into the adoption process, and suddenly find themselves pregnant. This is life. Ted and I believe strongly that any agency should have a reasonable policy about this occurrence. It feels fair that the agency should keep what the client has already paid to use for whatever costs have been incurred up until that point.

Of course, it's also not fair for an agency to lose money when an adoption is postponed. But it also doesn't feel fair for them to charge "reactivation fees" (sometimes in the thousands of dollars) or to cancel your adoption completely with no refunds of any of the thousands of dollars already paid, as some agencies do. Agencies who choose to implement these policies are certainly entitled to do so. However, they should also be crystal-clear about these policies with prospective clients from the very beginning. Not all of them are, though, which is the reason why I'm writing this post.

So. While it's not the most heart-warming topic to think about when exploring adoption, it is certainly an important thing to consider. Any agency who hands you an expense report that leaves you scratching your head may not be the best agency to go with. Do your research. Compare the expenses of many agencies and ask specific questions about what each expense goes towards. Ask for a list of the agency's clients who would be willing to serve as references for the agency. If you are not given references or excluded from the agency's events, you might want to consider going with an agency that is more transparent with their policies.

It's often hard to see beyond the glossy brochures and heart-wrenching DVDs provided in agency literature. But it will be well worth your time to buckle down and do it.

...and in the end, after four months of research and almost signing on with another agency, we are so very thankful we found Gladney. They truly are the "gold standard."

The Ting Tings and Amelie Jr.

We're putting a bathroom in upstairs in our bedroom, so there's a constant flow of electricians and plumbers in the house early in the morning. I'm also trying to put the house back together after the holidays, in the midst of construction upstairs and a toddler who is hell-bent on gleefully destroying any progress I make. I have thoughts running around in my head that I'd love to write about. But I'm having difficulties finding time. So in the meantime, here is a video of the song that Abe most likes to rock out to. And by "rock out" I mean: simultaneous air-guitar and stomping his right foot repeatedly. We find it pretty wonderful.

Embedding has been disabled on this video, but I encourage you to click this link to hear the song that Abe loves most right now. He loves to sing the "Ah, ah, ah, ah, Ah, ah, ah, ah" part over and over. What I like about the song is that I can pretty easily mimic these dance moves.

Finally, we're entranced by Amelie Jr.:

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Recharged...edited

My son takes my electric toothbrush and brushes his few teeth until the charge runs out.

My husband notices this. I find my toothbrush sitting on the bathroom counter, fully charged.

This fact fills me with warmth. I am blessed.

Happy New Year.

It was a year ago today that this happened. As awful as it was, it's still a benchmark in our journey to Abe, so I can't help remembering.