Tuesdays Best, Happy Campers, and the Number 3

this tuesday's best was quite the party.  guest appearances included: 

aunty melissa

 her mom, aunty pattycake

uncle jason

aunty geraldine (baby girl's namesake)

we had 4 very happy campers today.  they are loved and they know it.  

we turned the computer around to show them our disaster of a living room that we are in the middle of painting.  the furniture is squished in the middle of the room, tape and plastic sheeting everywhere, and dust bunnies are freely blowing around... but that didn't stop mohamed from proudly declaring "that is my house!  that is mine and gerald's house."  ignoring the fact that he completely left his sisters out of this equation, this struck me as new thought from him.  we have never spoken to the kids about our intent to adopt them.  until it is so real that we are sitting together outside of a courtroom, waiting for our turn to speak to a judge, i will not breathe a word of it around them.  if anything were to happen that ultimately would prevent us from bringing them home i couldn't bear for them to be as heartbroken as i would be.  i'm not sure i could live with letting them down to that extreme.  so no, we haven't uttered a word to them about it.  but things are beginning to change for their friends... and mohamed is figuring out what that might mean for he and his siblings (errrr brother).

uncle jason and his wife, aunty erica, are the founders of the raining season.  they adopted from sierra leone years ago, and decided that the things they saw were not ok with them.  they have fought, tooth and nail, for everything that i am a part of when it comes to sierra leone.  jason and erica are currently on the ground at the covering and will return to their home in nashville next week with fanfare that will surely have me bawling like a baby at the airport.  after 3 years of tenaciously fighting for their family, jason and erica will arrive home with 3 additions in tow.  i am already working on the sign that i will be holding at baggage claim.  i am also already practicing my you've-got-this-pull-it-together-don't-cry-like-that-it's-ugly face.  it's a work in progress.

but until next week's inevitable tears, there are this week's smiles.

aunty melissa

pattycake (melissa's mom, pat)

the top of uncle jason's head.  super great screen shot, megan... way to go!

aunty geraldine

gerald's muscles

aaaaand mamie's muscles.  

happy tuesday's best!

xo

Michael Jordan and Me

wow.

what a weekend.

your prayers for sweet sara were most definitely heard, my friends.  and i can't thank you enough for them.  thursday and friday we at the raining season were flooded with leads to hospital connections, monetary donations to cover her current medical needs, new sponsors to assist in her extended specialized care, phone calls checking in on her status, and lots and lots of prayer.  i have been so overwhelmed at the outpouring of love people have shown.  when it is appropriate to do so i am going to individually name these people and probably open mouth kiss them for what they've done.  ok.  not the last part.  but you get my drift.  i won't do it.  i promise.  but i am going to hug them.  for an awkwardly long amount of time.  because what they have done is good.  and important.  and sara deserves to be loved that way.  so for now, a proper thank you.  i'll save the gushing for later.

quick update:  sara has been on iv fluids to hydrate, and successfully underwent a procedure that dilated her esophagus so that doctors can start getting nutrients into her.  today we will get a report from her surgeon in sierra leone that will tell us the extent of her scaring and recommend further treatment and surgeries to improve her health and quality of life.  bottom line?  we need to get sara to the states on a medical visa.  she requires an amount of care that she simply cannot receive in her current location.  so please keep up the prayers for our sweet girl!

alright, onward and backwards.  to the whole yes conversation we started last week.

have you been thinking about your yes?

- have you found it yet or are you still looking for it? - 

have you been thinking about where you are in this whole yes game?

- have you said it yet or are you standing on the edge sticking one toe in first? - 

since i'm asking the questions i'll go ahead and answer them first.  (giving the gift of letting people go second is one of my favorite gifts to give.  but mostly because i'm an oldest child and therefore loud and sometimes bossy.  not because i'm generous and brave.  but generous and brave sounds better, so let's go with that.)  yes, i've found my 'yes'.  yes, i've said my 'yes'.  but only recently.  this whole yes business is still something that i am sorting through.

let's start at the beginning.  well, the beginning of the beginning.  my yes found me fairly quickly.  an overnight success yes.  or, if you love a good 'bennifer' as much as i do, an overnight sucyes.  the kind of overnight success where years of preparation finally meet opportunity, and... boom.  you're michael jordan averaging 28.2 points per game in the nba.  or, boom... you're adopting 4 kids from africa.  basically the same thing.  (just go with it.)

this preparation stage fascinates me.  how long was i being worked on before i said yes?  just when did this preparation stage start, and how long of a road was it to get me to a place where i was capable of and willing to say yes?  how many different things happened along the way that set me up for this perfect storm type moment?  what got me to this place?  let's work backwards:

take your daughter to work day.  i accompany my mom to the neonatal intensive care unit where she works and rock babies all day.

i babysit and work at a day care in the summers during my high school years because i am hardwired to love kids.  not when they have colds and sneeze on me though.  gross.

i move to boston to attend music school.

i move to nashville and begin my career as a songwriter.  this means i won't make enough money for awhile to donate anywhere, so i choose to donate my time instead.

i begin volunteering at the children's hospital on the hematology/oncology unit.

at some point during this time period my friend mae and i begin to clock hours and hours and, you guessed it, hours of time on her porch talking about our future adoption dreams.  we begin reading katie davis's blog, become fascinated with her story, and first learn about 147 million orphans.

4 years of volunteering later and the loss begins to take a toll on me after losing one of my favorite patients who we'll call "d".

i have a conversation with a friend who tells me that he thinks the boundaries of hospital volunteering are limiting me.

i stay up all night researching orphanages in africa that i can take a trip to in search of something even bigger.

the next day i have lunch with one of my friends (who i have been having a lot more lunches with recently to repair some damage we did to our friendship - important because if we haven't done that damage we wouldn't have spent so much time trying to fix it, and might never have had this life changing lunch... talk about good coming from bad) who mentions that she just met two local women who started and run an orphanage in sierra leone and asks me if i want to take a trip with her there someday.  it is serendipitous timing.

she sets up a lunch with the kelly and erica, the women at trs.  at this lunch they tell me about the adoption ban, the forever family initiative they have created (skype once a week, travel once a year until the child(ren) are 18) to give the kids family in the meantime, and show me the first picture of g&g.

i stay up all night researching everything i can about this orphanage.  blog posts from missionaries, facebook photo albums from previous travelers, video footage of a child dying from malnutrition...  i don't sleep a wink because i am reaching for my phone every 20 minutes to say yes to being a forever family to g&g.  every time i start to dial, i get scared and hang up.

wake up the next morning, begin running errands, keep up the every 20 minutes routine, pull up behind a car with a 147 million orphans bumper sticker, and realize that they are the reason i began thinking of this whole adopting thing in the first place.  decide i'll call kelly to say yes to g&g when i'm done running errands.

2 blocks later i rear end that car directly on their 147 bumper sticker.  they have a dent the size of a golf ball and a $200 repair, my car is crunched up like an accordion and totaled.  subtle hint?

i say yes to g&g.

i meet josh.  he knows about g&g and our forever family from the beginning.

the adoption ban lifts between our first and second date.  i s*#t you not.  i am on board to adopt g&g.

josh and i have a conversation about me losing my favorite patient, "d" and how the last time i saw her one of her nurses kept calling her "e" because that's what her chart said, but she went by her middle name, "d".  josh told me that his sister's name was "e", and that he had recently lost her.  (this is where if i was writing a book i'd talk about josh's entire preparation journey that got him to a point where he'd be open to say yes to something this big, this brave, this bold.  this is where my preparation collides with his.)

josh gets on board with adopting g&g.  i quickly discover that he is my lobster.

i start saving pictures or m&m so g&g have pictures of their siblings.  josh starts to fall in love with them through those pictures.

we find out that m&m's forever family isn't going to adopt and we start praying. hard. 

we find out that m&m's forever family has decided that they can no longer be a forever family.  we decide to add m&m to ours.

i travel to sierra leone for the first time and it quickly becomes apparent that we are supposed to keep this family together.

i return from my trip, josh and i continue to pray about it, and decide that we are now a family of 6.

i can't make this up, people.  look at how far back this goes.  i have been being prepared, built, designed to be ready for this since i was 13.  and probably even before that, but i just bored you with a 20 minutes timeline read, so let's just go with 13 for the sake of your youth.  this was all a part of God's plan for my life.  for families to change so that ours can too.  for friendships to ebb so they can later flow.  for instagram pictures to come up with scriptures that support my blog posts just before i go searching for the prefect verse.  you know.  coincidentally.  

see?

key words: prepared in advance.

for people who are more prone to go with the flow, this preparation might not feel like it.  it might just be.  for people who are a little more, um how shall i say this nicely, headstrong, *cough* yours truly *cough*, this process might be a little harder.  the molding and shaping might be a little more painful when it's resisted.  either way, it will happen.

i want to encourage you to go with the flow.  i want to encourage you to look at these sometimes painful periods as you being shaped out of what you were and in to who you will be.  hang on.  be patient.  stay open.  keep listening.

and come back tomorrow so we can keep talking about this.

xo,

m

I Had Them, I Held Them, and I'm Grateful for Groucho Marx Glasses

i had the sweetest dream last night.  

i was walking home down a city street that felt like it belonged in boston even though i haven't lived there in 8 years.  it was evening so the city was quiet, hushed.  the sky had just stopped pouring and the air carried a crisp, freshness that comes with washing the day away.  the street lights were a soft yellow and the wet pavement reflected back their warmth.  i made it to the top of a hill where new cement met old cobblestone and paused to catch my breath.  that incline was a familiar one to me, in this dream of mine, and wasn't usually guilty of making me winded.  but last night it was a harder climb.  i was holding something.  i was holding my son.  i was holding him tight to my chest, both of my arms wrapped around him, and we were talking.  full sentence how was your day how is your heart how are you kind of talking.  and i was listening with all of my senses and we were just walking.  

then the oddest thing happened.  i don't recall transferring him into the arms of someone else, i don't recall walking back to where i began and beginning again, but all of a sudden there i was walking up the same hill, pausing in the same spot,  turning at the same corner, taking the same journey home... with my daughter.

i made that journey four times in my dream last night.  i held each of my children .  i asked them how they were and really listened to their answers.  i kissed their faces on the soft piece of real estate that is the space where their cheeks meet the outer corners of their eyes.  

i held them.  i had them.

today there is a phantom pain from their absence.  all at the same time i am heartbroken and grateful, mourning the time that i have lost and eagerly awaiting the time that is to come.  i am trying to focus on the gratitude part... so here we go.

today i am thankful for:

an in-country director who knew i would have wanted to see the twins open their birthday presents.
and camera phones.
and groucho marx glasses.

capitol records for continuously playing a video about the raining season to a crowd of 25,000 people at their annual street party in downtown nashville last week.

facebook for allowing me to stalk the photos of people who took trips to sierra leone when the twins were babies and captured moments holding them.  (baby gerald)

(baby deen)

looking through other people's trip pictures from sierra leone and spotting mo's sweet face in the upper left corner

this gorgeous profile (mamie on left)

i am grateful, i am grateful, i am grateful.  this is my new motto.  please don't let me forget it.

Popcorn and Kleenex

1 month, 3 weeks and 4 days.

that's how long it took me to wade through the sea of video footage i have from my first trip to africa.  

and i'm finally done.

a whopping 18 minutes.  

break out the popcorn and kleenex, and enjoy.

Grateful I Will Stay (back from Africa... and day one on the ground)

i'm not as depressed as i thought i'd be.  actually, i'm not really depressed at all.  in what i can only assume is the answer to many prayers i've actually been doing everything but laying in bed and over serving myself with ice cream and wine and crying at all hours of the day as i expected i'd be doing. 

you see, i just got back from meeting the children whose pictures i have been staring at since november of last year.  the children i am in the process of adopting.  my children.

i'm sure i'm still on a bit of an american made high.  i have hot water.  i'm sleeping in my bed.  i can get a hug from my boyfriend and a fountain diet coke whenever i want.  these things are helping.  i miss my kids an unbelievable amount and i'm sure that missing will turn to sadness eventually.  but, right now, i am grateful.  and grateful i will stay.

-------------------------------------

july 7, 2012

8:40pm freetown time

day one

dear babies,

i just tucked you in for bed.

best sentence ever.  in fact i'm not sure i have the words to follow that sentence.  it was a had-to-be-there kind of thing.  the whole day was.  and today... i was finally there.

this morning i woke up like a kid on christmas.  early alarm?  who cares, i get to see my babies to today.  jet lag?  not here, i get to see my babies today!  the rest of the team i traveled with and i rushed through breakfast at the guest house and promptly started down the hill and around the corner to the center where dozens of voices were lining the street singing our welcome.  as we rounded the corner i squeezed auntie melissa's hand.  we started this journey together and 9 months later we were finally getting to the best part.

we arrived in a 2 minute window of the clouds holding back the rain.  the threat of the downpour to come was threat enough to keep all of the babies inside and just gracious enough to allow the older kids a moment to run out.  it took everything i had not to sprint toward the guesthouse in search of you.  i had waited so long that a few more seconds felt inexcusably unbearable.  my eyes started landing on tiny brown faces whose names i had memorized from countless hours of scanning facebook albums belonging to previous teams.  face by face this whole thing was becoming real.  face by face i could feel my heart tying itself tighter to this place.

i had the honor of being present when your auntie melissa and uncle jeremy met their boys for the first time.  i got to deliver a hug and a kiss to junio that his momma, auntie kelly, had asked me to give him.  i saw your sister, mamie, and marveled over her first tooth lost. i held her hand and we walked into the gates of the center where your brother, mohamed, found me and asked my name.  when i told him it was megan he asked, "megan james?" because he had seen it on the skype list.  it was joyful chaos.  and then... you.

i met you in person in the same order i met you over skype.  gerald, you walked out of a doorway and onto a landing at the exact moment i reached it. you were wearing a yellow and navy striped sweater over a grey hoodie sweatshirt in stifling jungle heat and couldn't have looked happier.  your famous smile stretched even wider as i knelt in front of you and you jumped into my arms.  i scooped you up and we merged back into the river of little brown bodies moving us into the room where the welcome ceremony would take place.  you kept your arms around my neck as i scanned the room for your sister.

sweet geraldine, my eyes landed on your long sleeved, long legged, fleece pajamas first.  you toddled in to the room dead last, affirming your position on doing things in your time and on your own terms.  one of your aunties took your brother out of my arms to give them room to hold you.  and hold you i did.  you nuzzled right in.  head on my shoulder, arms around my neck, legs around my waist, heart beating right on top of mine.  i breathed you in, took note of your weight and the way your hands gripped at my shirt, and began to cry.

i spent the morning in your room.  mohamed and mamie stayed with us the whole time.  it was actually very fitting.  just as you do not yet know that josh will be joining our forever family as your dad, your brother and sister do not know that they will be joining our forever family as well.  the 5 of us, without you knowing so, spent our first day together as a family.

i listened in awe as mohamed flawlessly read me a book that was far more challenging than any 6 year old should be able to read, much less a 6 year old in a third world country.  i squeezed mamie's hand as she clung to it in fear that i would let it go for one belonging to another child.  i swooned over the times that i walked into a room and you, gerald, would drop what you were doing, reach out your arms for me to pick you up, then promptly make me put you down so you could get me a chair.  i felt my heart inflate with hope over every giggle that poured out of your mouth, geraldine, because it meant that a baby who nearly lost her life to malnutrition now lived such a joyful one that she couldn't keep it contained within her.

i held my twins in my lap for dinner and fed them every bite of our first meal together.  i kissed 4 foreheads, whispered 4 'i love yous', and tucked 4 sleepy kiddos in for bed.  i teared up as your aunties prayed bedtime prayers that reached inside of me and made every single bone in my body resonate with gratitude.

tonight i know what it feels like to say 'yes' to something scary and reap the rewards that come with obedience.  tonight i know that God's plans are far, far better than any of my own.  tonight i know what it feels like to be your mom.

wow.

love,
me

Africa Bound

i'm in the chicago airport.

with auntie melissa and uncle jeremy.

on my way to you.

i didn't sleep very well last night.

i was too anxious.

i'm overwhelmed with joy at the thought of being able to hold you, to feel your weight in this world.

i'm worried about leaving you in just 10 short days.  

i'm terrified that i will return disappointed in the world.

i've already looked at the photo albums we made you twice.

your smiles fix everything.

i have never been more excited.

ever.

dear babies,

you are loved.  you are safe.  you are wanted.

i cannot wait to see you.

love, mom

Tuesday's Worst

i slept through my skype visit with the babies this morning.  right through it.  entirely.  like, missed it by half an hour right through it. 

most moms are responsible for thousands of percentages of time more with their kids than the 20 minutes i am responsible for mine each week.  most moms probably make their kids delicious and nutritious homemade lunches to take with them to school in eco friendly and adorable lunch boxes from pottery barn kids with their initials perfectly monogrammed on the side so as not to mix it up with the other amazing mom's kids eco friendly and adorable lunchboxes.  most moms probably cut the crusts off of their kids hummus and turkey sandwiches (because their kids scoff at peanut butter and jelly and would trade a little debbie for an apple any day) with heart shaped cookie cutters and leave encouraging go-get-'em-tiger love notes on recycled paper tucked neatly underneath an organic apple juice box from whole foods that cost $7.  most moms probably do all of this while lunging across the kitchen to ward off early stages of a sagging rear end while waking up and dressing their children while kissing their husbands goodbye while washing their hair (which i haven't done in 3 days but that's besides the point and not uncommon) while founding, developing and chairing a non profit organization that helps educate and empower dead weight moms like me.

not that i'm being hard on myself.

glass half empty?  i have only seen my sweet babies once this month due to sierra leone's raining season beginning and interrupting their internet connection... and my sleeping habits.  i miss them terribly.

glass half full?  i'm not the mom who smokes in the car with the windows up while her babies are in the backseat rolling around because no one bothered to buckle them in.

you win some, you sleep through some.

dear babies,

mommy's sorry.  it won't happen again (fingers crossed).

love, me

Gerald and Geraldine

today is the day.  today is the day i can finally talk about these beautiful, perfect little nuggets i've been posting about.  remember when i said it was bigger than country music award show hair?  i bet you're gonna believe me...

one night in october i couldn't sleep so i spent the night online researching different orphanages in africa that i could volunteer at.  the next day i had lunch with my bestie, melissa spillman.  turns out she too had africa on the brain.  the day before she had lunch with 2 women from spring hill, tennessee who founded an organization called the raining season (TRS) that runs an orphanage called 'the covering' in sierra leone, west africa.  melissa asked if i would be interested in taking a trip to the orphanage with her someday.  i cried in my greek salad and said yes.

fast forward a few months and i am now a mother to twin two year olds that were taken in by the covering.  yep.  read that again.  mother.  to.  twin.  two.  year.  olds.  due to the atrocities of human trafficking there has been an adoption ban in sierra leone since 2009.  this means that in the foreseeable future none of the children at the center will be placed in permanent homes.  to counteract this TRS started the forever family initiative.  a forever family is matched with each child/sibling group to provide emotional, spiritual and financial help to these kids for the rest of their lives.  we are, essentially, a family that just doesn't live together.  we skype weekly.  i can visit the center as much as i like but am required to visit at least once a year.  and i have every intention of bringing my sweet babies to live with me the very moment that ugly adoption ban goes away.

i'd like to introduce you to my favorite little nuggets.  meet gerald and geraldine :)

so, i am a mother to twin two year olds.  if that doesn't produce an instant anxiety attack i don't know what will.  but the steady anxiety attacks have given way to heart bursting amounts of excitement that are only occasionally sprinkled with anxiety filled moments.  and the anxiety filled moments have given way to tremendously overwhelming periods of faith.  and the periods of faith have shown me what it feels like to be a follower of God.  and it turns out being a follower is the biggest, bestest, most awesomely powerful thing that i have ever experienced.  turns out... i like what i look like as a follower.  i like what it feels like to say yes with my whole, terrified heart.

i have an entire box of clothes sitting in my office that i will bring with me when i travel to see them in july.  i spend nights scouring blogs of anyone who has ever taken a trip to the center in search of baby pictures of g&g.  i have been known to watch a 7 second video of gerald waving for 45 minutes straight.  my mom put their faces on a coffee mug.  my dad adds every tuesday's "best of" skype photo to his screensaver at work.  they call me mommy.  i call them little man and baby girl.  they are mine.  i am theirs.  we are a family.

we are a family.