So Let It Out & Let It In:

This is our son, Aila's brother,

Jude Donald Joseph Robinson*

*Jude: Christ's apostle, espoused piety and fierce devotion;

patron saint of hope in hopeless times
Donald: Marshall's father who was loved, admired, and who lives on
Joseph: Jennifer's great-grandfather, patriarch of the Behr clan in America

- M & J

We're Almost There

We have returned to the East Coast, and are spending the remainder of the waiting period on the Cape. Marshall's mom has been kind enough to allow all 4 of us to move in with her until we are legally allowed to return home to Rhode Island. This is no small gesture, as our family is quite animated (with a lively toddler and a growing infant, not to mention me, the fierce and stressed out mommy lion). We are very thankful that she is being so gracious. It looks like we'll be here for at least a week or two.

I have said that domestic adoption is not for the faint of heart. This process is stressful beyond belief. But the rewards are magnificent. We hope to end up - on Friday night - as a forever family of 4. And we know we have a community of friends to lean on in good times and in hard times. This is a beautiful thing. And we are so grateful.

Hope to share name/photos, etc. on Friday!

- J

The Countdown Begins

On Friday, July 17, 2009 at 3:00pm, the "waiting period" will end, and if all goes well between now and then (and we are praying very hard that it does), BBR2B will be the newest permanent addition to our family.

All signatures have been secured and all official processes are finally underway! Now we are waiting for permission to leave Minnesota. This part of the process can take anywhere from 5 days to 3 weeks (gulp). We sure hope we can leave sooner rather than later. We know one little girl who has been really patient and who'd like nothing more than to climb into her own big girl bed and play with her own toys and see her own friends.

Here we go.

- J

PS: 3:00 pm CST, for all the cork poppers, metaphorical and otherwise. The green countdown clock to the right, though, is set to Eastern (GMT - 4)

It's Hard To Know What To Write

BBR2B has been home with us - well, living with us in a rental house - for 4 days. He is now 6 days old.

What to write? How to express in words the range of emotions we are experiencing? Are there words that can adequately convey what it feels like to hold a 3 day old baby boy in your arms, to hold him all night long while you lie there deliriously tired but completely awake? How to share what it feels like to hear him breathing right in your ear as he leans his head on your shoulder, to see him in the arms of his dad-to-be and to realize that this tiny little vulnerable being is resting safely and contentedly in the loving arms of your husband? What to say when his diaper is being changed and his new big-sister-to-be runs over saying "are you ok, baby?" and wants her daddy to stop him from crying because she is so worried for him? How is it that even though this baby is not legally mine (yet?), I feel captivated and completely taken in by him and wonder how on earth I'll ever live without him again?

For me, there was life Before BBR2B and After. Just like there was life Before Aila and After. Just like there was life Before Marshall and after. Before Marshall, frankly, wasn't much of a life and I couldn't have known that until I experienced the magnificent richness of living through everything while your best friend is right there with you. I guess that before BBR2B, I couldn't have known that my heart could explode again and flood all of my systems with such intoxicating love and tenderness that it takes my breath away. I am in love for the 3rd time. I was SURE I would not allow myself to feel ANYTHING for this baby until the "waiting period" was over. I was soooooo wrong. I have been swept up in this experience of being mommy to two spectacular human beings, and I never, ever want this feeling to end. Ever.

The waiting period hasn't even officially begun yet. I cannot even think of bio mom changing her mind. It is making me so sick to my stomach that I cannot even eat. It is hard to hold things down. This is my child now. He is my son. Please, God, let us all go home together and live as a family forever.

- J

Minnesota Has a New Senator

...but you don't really care so much about that now, do you? I would love, LOVE to share with you BBR2B's name, and an avalanche of pictures. In fact, I would like to smother you all in a cascade of babyosity and infanterrificness, but as you all so clearly understand, our wait (and yours, alas) stretches out for a bit. No exact dates, but it will be weeks. Seriously. Not funny.

Instead, here are some photos of Minneapolis in the summer (stay until the end):














Oh, and this. ;)




- M

The Long and Winding Road (Pt. II)

...that leads to the door of a hospital in suburban Minneapolis, will be traveled presently - momentarily, even. And what lies beyond this stalwart transom? This sliding portal of motion-activated glass? The simple answer is: a two-day-old boy. The complex answer will take a lifetime to compose.

Though our immediate journey to steward HRH BBR2B, with all of its many twists and turns, ups and downs, lefts and rights, and shorts and longs, began only four weeks ago, our plan for children has lasted as long as our marriage and courtship.

And in the moment he is put into our arms, the wait begins. Keep clear heads, look straight ahead. Make it through the waiting period. But while all may seem certain, or at least strongly probable in the rational appraisal, or to the those who have never faced a waiting period, logic and distance crumble under the permeating intoxication of a child's skin and smells, a child nearly one's own.

Okay, let's pack up the car, double check the supply of postage-sized nappies, and fire up the GPS: we're off to get the Prince.

- M

The Stork Has Landed

...And it's a boy. He lives. He breathes. He's taking the whole thing in. We hope to meet him first thing in the morning.

Maybe we will sleep. Then again, maybe not.

- M

Not Feeling The Magic Today

Today has been a really sobering day. I cannot tell a lie: I am really scared and upset. We woke up expecting labor to be induced in the morning - and it still has not happened. Evidently, there have been a lot of births today and there are delays. Ok, easy to live with (?).

So we ventured out to get some fresh air and took a walk around a gorgeous Minneapolis lake. While walking, we received a phone call (yes, on a Sunday morning) from our lawyer. Let's just say that on the day BBR2B is scheduled to be born, that call was a profound reminder that nothing about this process can be taken for granted - or celebrated, just yet. I've had people saying lovely things and encouraging me to embrace this day, and I so appreciate the love and support and excitement. But it hit me harder than ever, this morning, that if and when we are invited to the hospital, will be meeting a precious baby boy who might - MIGHT - become our son. I knew this all before, but after this morning's phone call when legal matters were reiterated and emphasized over emotional ones, the pendulum swung back from fear to abject terror. For the last three weeks, we have been living off our hopes for a son, and the fumes of our checking account. When the attorneys remind us of the fine print, however, the risks we've accepted but neatly tucked away to make it through each day, vault over us. It is hard to express how it feels to know something is so close, and yet so far away. It is unique to this kind of adoption.

All prayers continue to be appreciated.

- J

Tomorrow Never Knows

In one moment: no breath. In the next: a new person breaches into this world, a person who may well become an intimate, a love, cherished, championed, bolstered, and provocative. How am I to prepare? I cannot, obviously, because there is no gleam of imagination, no insinuation of assumed, collective experience that can guide my way. And why should it? Like every other father-to-be before me, in whatever circumstances of geography, of evolutionary place, of perception, of epoch, it is a sudden lurch between the worlds of what was and what is. It is a rush of new blood into the world, and into the family: a son. And it is a challenge to be a man to a son. No less essential than to be a father to a daughter, but different in its dimensions, different in its scope and kaleidoscopic in the reflections of the person that I see myself to be, and the person that I am.

Tonight is a goodbye, just as tomorrow is a hello. Tonight I say goodbye to the trio that constitutes my core family, my family of choice. Tonight I acknowledge to the two beautiful females in my family that we have made a choice to expand the experiential definition of our family, and forever alter the course of our time together on earth. Portentous, yes, but as natural as a first breath. This is a time for setting aside the rigid, the tamed, and opening up to the wild, the chaotic and the expansive. Tonight is a goodbye to the home I know, and an invitation to the home that will be ours, together.

And so, tomorrow, as the physicians set about gently guiding the emergence of BBR2B, I hover with my wife and child over this chasm of change - a stretch of two weeks as we are invested and divested, open and closed, and I am poised as only an adoptive-father-to-be can be, suspended on hope.

We will, dear reader, update you as we are able (once we regain our sense of equilibrium, and find time in-between the inevitable diaper changes and ointment applications). Alas - and I can hear the sighs through cyberspace - we will not be sharing photos or specifics (including the prince’s name), until all “i”s have been dotted, all “t”s crossed, all parties are satisfied, and we are a solid, irrefutable family of four. Apologies in advance. Please stick with us nonetheless. :)

- M

Backwards

Well, today I realized a bit more about why this particular adoption process has been so stressful.

Ok, what I mean is...OTHER than the fact that we only learned about the adoption a few weeks ago, and OTHER than the fact that we were on the phone with the bio family less than 3 hours after we heard about this opportunity, and OTHER than the fact that we flew to Minneapolis one week after the first call came in to meet bio mom and her family and spent only 2 days here and then flew back (all with a sweet, vulnerable toddler in tow). OTHER than all of that, here is what I realized: This entire process has been backwards from the start. No wonder I feel turned upside down and inside out.

Today, we met with our Minnesota-based adoption agency representative and their lawyer. For the first time. And it dawned on me as we were learning details that we should have known from moment #1 (like about how the agency we hired works with adoptive parents and bio moms in different ways, how the lawyer represents them and not us even though we pay for her services, etc.) that everything has been backwards - since moment #1.

Don't get me wrong: I am THRILLED that we have this chance to become parents again and to bring home a little brother for Aila. No doubts. But I was remembering how our first adoption process unfolded...First we decided to adopt a child, then we researched and selected an agency to work with, then we learned everything we needed to learn from that agency and signed agreements, and off we went. When it came close to the time when we might travel to Kazakhstan, we participated in an extensive conference call and our agency prepared us, in extreme detail, for what to expect: How to handle security at the airport in Almaty, who to look for when we arrived, where we'd go, how long we'd be there, etc. We had NO surprises - and STILL, we were scared, nervous and stressed (in addition to being excited and out of our minds). This time, because the bio family found us before anything else happened, and because the baby was about to be born at any moment, there was no time to ask tons of questions. We trusted our instincts, did quick research and secured lawyers and agencies and updated our homestudy in record time. Somehow, and thankfully, we landed in trustworthy hands - but it was only today when we actually learned about the ins and outs of this process. It was like lights were turned on today. We now know what to expect, who will handle what, why it is all being done a certain way, etc.

On the one hand, I feel relieved. I now have met everyone and I now feel certain that we made sound choices even in our swirl of emotions. Thank goodness.

On the other hand, I found some of what I learned today to be unsettling:

We learned about additional costs that we will incur soon - and down the road. (oy vey) We learned that we'll be allowed to leave Minnesota, but it could take up to 3 weeks before that is legal (on top of the week we've already spent here)...and then we may need to wait until paperwork is processed in order to enter Rhode Island with our baby. We realized, much more clearly today, that the 4th of July is coming up and since the "waiting period" during which bio mother can change her mind is 10 WORKING days, the 3rd of July is a holiday and therefore doesn't count. The "waiting period" starts only after bio family members sign consent-to-adopt forms and that cannot legally happen until AT LEAST 72 hours after birth. Good gracious. And the month of July unfolded in front of me.

So. I wish I wish I wish we could have understood and known all of this and more before we jumped in. Certainly, we would have done this all anyways -we would have gone for it and rushed through everything so we could bring home this baby boy. But my eyes would have been open the entire time. I would have not felt so shocked by what we found when we arrived here in Minnesota. There is a great deal of value in knowing what lies ahead. We have very little control, but the information would have given me comfort. I could have planned differently in my head. We went to Kazakhstan with our hearts open and since we knew we'd be gone for so long, we prepared well. I have felt unprepared. I feel overwhelmed by what still lies ahead.

I know this discomfort and frustration will probably recede into the background eventually. I know once that little baby boy is mine forever, that will be all that matters. I know. But right now, as I sit here in a hotel room that is either too cold or too hot, I wish I had started this process differently. I know, wishing doesn't get me anywhere. And this is the very process that is getting me to my son. I know, I know. But man oh man, information is power. And in such a powerless situation, I am glad I now have some information.

I just have to get used to what I know now.

- J