Update to: Missing teeth?

Do you every have one of those "Duh!" moments? I have them with increasing frequency these days.

When we mentioned to the pediatrician at Children's Hospital that Macy and Felix were missing these teeth, he said he'd do some research and see what he could find. We were later told that he had no idea what or why this was.

So in my head I think, "Okay, I guess it will just be a mystery then."

Until someone today said how they looked it up online and found X, Y and Z about it.

DUH! I never thought of using this here interwebby to look for answers. Um, hello, I spend 23 hours a day online and never thought to Google this. As I said...frazzled mommy brain.

So....for anyone wondering, or anyone who also has children with missing teeth, here's the 411. I found quite a bit of information on this. This article, Dental Injuries Due to African Traditional Therapies for Diarrhea, in the Western Journal of Medicine pretty much says it all. Read the whole thing if you have time. If not, here are some of the major points:

• Many of the healers in Africa know little about healing practices involving the mouth.
• Said healers believe that removing the cuspids (either before or after they erupt) will cure or prevent diarrhea.
• They do this using unsterilized tools, in an assembly line fashion, without cleaning them between patients.
• "Tools" used include a metal nail, hot needle, metal blades made from spoon handles or bike tire spokes, or sharp fingernails.
• "Reports of traditional healing practices of many African countries in which the cuspids and incisors were removed or mutilated have been numerous: ... 59% among Ethiopian Jews... 70% in some populations in Ethiopia." (Not sure I understand these stats - are they saying 70% of the population?? I certainly didn't observe that when there.)

So, as Paul Harvey used to say... Now you know the rest of the story. Good day!

Posting to Blogger from your email while in Ethiopia

I've been told that, for many, Blogger is blocked in Ethiopia. Some of the girls on the BCS forum helped me to figure this out, so I thought I'd post it here for anyone interested.

• Go to your blog (this is for Blogger/Blogspot only).
• Sign in
• Go to Customize
• Settings
• Email
• Under "email posting address" enter your secret word
• This generates an email address for you

Then you will be able to compose a blog in your email and send it to that address. That will automatically post it on your blog. Ta-dah!

New details on the kiddies

We got a small update from our agency this morning. The updates were written by the nannies who speak Amharic as their first language, so some of the comments were a little unclear.

Here's what we know though...

Both kids wake at 6:30 am, nap at 3:30 pm, then go to sleep at 9pm. I assume that the whole house runs on the same schedule. Neither kids seem to have any sleep issues. They each share bedrooms with 4 other children of the same sex.

Miss M - she's almost exactly the same weight and height as Fletcher, even though she's more than a year older than him. But she is healthy according to her doctor's appt on 12/1/08. She's also:

• potty trained w/ no accidents
• gets along well with her peers
• is in Kindergarten, loves going to school and performs above average in school!
• loves playing with dolls
• favorite food is enjera spaghetti

They also said that she is a very active little girl, she follows the house rules, is really friendly to her friends, and is "just a normal kid". They said that she does not talk about her feelings or her birth parents though.

Mr. F - Is in the process of potty training. Can I just say WAAAAHHOOOOOOOOOO! (We'll see how true that is though, lol.)

• Loves attention and doesn't like being alone.
• Favorite food is also enjera spaghetti
• He "follows the house rules" (as much as a 2 year old can I suppose!)
• He is close to all of his nannies and loves his sister
• "normal two year old child"

They did say he was malnourished at one point but that he is "absolutely great now".

It was so nice to get some information about them. Hopefully we'll get pictures soon too.

Another loss

It's heartbreaking to say that another one of the baby boys referred in September passed away late last week. He had been in and out of the hospital for an illness...I'm still not quite clear on what it was. Some sort of a bug or flu. These children are taken to the hospital by the orphanage when they are sick. Can you imagine how many Ethiopian parents lose their babies because they can't take them to the hospital?

---

We've gotten some questions about timing...

Our agency doesn't really share with us what "the list" looks like. They have a message board specifically for Bethany families adopting from Ethiopia. Going by that list, there are about 12 families ahead of us. However, I've heard that there could be as many as 30 ahead of us, because not all of them are active on the web forum.

Of the people ahead of us on the web forum list, there are only three who are open to a sibling set. These people have specified "one child under X years old...or twins...or siblings". We're the only ones who have specified that we definitely want siblings.

I don't know what that really means for us. For the other families, it could mean that they're just given a referral for one child. I guess all I'm saying is that, if a sibling group comes up, we could quickly jump up higher on the list since most people are just looking for one child.

So where does that leave us?

I have no idea! If I had to guess at this point, I would say that we may get a referral around the March/April/May time frame. That seems like so far away. But in reality, that would be best since Marc would be done with the teaching year and have summer break off to be with the new kids.

We'll see...

If you're the praying kind...

Last month our agency gave referrals for four infant boys. Late last week one of those sweet boys passed away. Two others are ill and in the hospital in Ethiopia. Because the 4th family doesn't use the agency's web forum, I don't really know the status of their son. But all of them - and their children - could use some prayers and good thoughts.

My big booty

I stopped in Target the other day to see if they still had any school supplies on clearance. I ended up walking out with a LOT more than I ever thought I would. Here's what I found:

• 8 pencil cases - $0.33 each
• 8 pairs of scissors - $0.22 each
• (2) 10 packs of pencils - $0.45 each
• (2) 5 packs of pens - $0.45 each
• (4) 8 packs of erasers - $0.13 each
• tank tops & shorts for infant girls - $0.98 - $1.48 each
• tank tops for toddler girls - $1.48
• tshirts for toddler boys - $1.48
• tank tops for bigger girls - $1.28
• tshirts for bigger boys - $1.98
• toddler girl dress - $1.98
• baby boy "fancy" outfit - $1.98

And great minds think alike because my Mother-in-Law came home that day with a big ol' booty from Sears. She retired from there, so she still gets a discount on top of their H-U-G-E clearance sale. Everything she got was also $0.99 - $2.00 and included TONS of cute little scooters (looks like a skirt, but has shorts underneath) for toddler girls, tank tops for baby girls, and shorts and tshirts for boys.

Know of any good sales? Be sure to let us know if you come across one! The kids can use clothing of all sizes (up to teenagers!). They also need undergarments, bathing suits, socks, shoes, and hair do-dads. The older girls like nail polish and normal girly stuff. Little toys (that don't need batteries) are great for the smaller kids.

Things to be happy about.

1. Our agency gave out referrals for 4 sweet little boys on Friday. They are still in negotiations to sign on with 2 more orphanages in Ethiopia. (I thought this was already a done deal, but it isn't...but they're very close...which could mean more referrals soon.)

2. Charity: Water hit water at their first drill at the Abenea school in Northern Ethiopia yesterday. They've raised $420,000 in the past few weeks, but need to raise $1.5M. Go HERE to donate and watch to watch video of their progress.

Bring Clean Water to Ethiopia

My friend Lori just sent this to me. Spread the word. Donate.

www.borninseptember.org

Eden Reforestation Project - Ethiopia

A must-watch video about the past deforestation and much-needed reforestation of Ethiopia:


Tesfaye from Chronicle Project on Vimeo

The Eden Project is working to plant trees in Ethiopia. Read more.

Ho-hum...

We had a super crazy busy weekend beginning with a really neat opportunity to meet some folks from Bethany's Ethiopia team. BCS flew out Milkiyas, their representative in Ethiopia. He has power of attorney to sign our names on court documents, so it was good to meet the person who'd be us when we weren't there. With him was Nesibu, who is the director of the orphanage that Bethany has teamed with on one of their projects.


One of the things I really like about Bethany is that they don't see kids as an opportunity. They have a wonderful program that helps keep children with their parents (or other family) whenever possible. All of the kids in this program and in school and they also provide skills training for the parents. The woman who was traveling with Milkiyas and Nesibu as a guide and translator was an American woman who (I hope I'm remembering this correctly) works along with Nesibu and has spent years and years off an on in Ethiopia doing aid work (not just adoption-related). In her time there, she said, she's seen many agencies that see an opportunity and snatch a baby up as quickly as they can. With Bethany, they first try to help the family and, if it's just not possible, then they'll place the baby. She said there's a lot of stuff that goes on "under the table" which suprised me because I thought that Ethiopia was supposed to be one of the best countries in regards to the adoption process...but I guess no process is perfect. (But please don't think I'm accusing any agency - I'm just regurgitating something she said that surprised me.)


One thing that has really made me feel sick in this whole process is the fact that I'm taking these kids away from Ethiopia - their culture, their country, their language, their family (I guess that's more than one thing) and I wondered how the people of Ethiopia felt about this. Milkiyas and Nesibu said that hands-down, no questions asked, the people there are happy about it. They said that the rich people in Ethiopia find a way to send their children here for the opportunity that awaits them in the US. They're happy that we will be giving them this prestigious opportunity. (hmmm...maybe they hadn't been here long enough to see the greedy, consumeristic side of us) So, although I still do feel saddened that we're taking them away from their culture, I at least feel like the people there won't hate us for it. Not sure how much better that makes me feel though...

Despite the cool opportunity to meet these guys and get our questions answered, I can't help but feel discouraged. You see, the topic of time lines came up. Our social worker has always said 12 - 18 months. But everyone and their brother here in the blogosphere has gotten their referral way sooner than that (maybe I'm exaggerating a little). And our SW always seems to give us the longest wait time, then things happen sooner - like on our background checks. So I guess somewhere in our heads we had convinced ourselves that it wouldn't be 18 months. Or maybe we thought that the 18 months included the 6 months we've already put into this. But when Milkiyas said that it would be "12 - 18 months. Yes, 18 months. Maybe less. Probably 18 months." my tiny little heart - and Marc's too - just crumbled. I suppose you can convince yourself of anything if you want it badly enough. And we somehow convinced ourselves that our kids would be home in the next year. Not looking like the case anymore.


Ho-hum...

Numbers don't lie...

I was visiting one of my most favorite crafty blogs today (How about orange?) and saw these awesome (in a sad way) t-shirts by StatAttak.

The story behind them (in a very small nutshell) is that the folks at StatAttak saw some statistics on life expectancy in various African countries and were shocked. They decided to spread the word via these t-shirts, then use a portion of the proceeds to go and build an orphanage. It almost seems like a shame to spread the word about something so devastating with such a hip tshirt.

It looks like there's not an Ethiopia t-shirt yet, but I think I might possibly know a few people who would buy one :) so my next task will be emailing them some statistics about Ethiopia. Maybe you'd like to encourage them as well? If so, email support@statattak.com

• One in ten children die before their first birthday
• One in six children die before their fifth birthday
• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years
• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
• 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia.
• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
• Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002.
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.

Happy New Year!

I can't wait to see what 2008 brings for us. I'd like to think that our family is going to grow this year! We'll also probably be moving sometime towards the end of the year and, hopefully, Marc will have a new job as well. Lots of exciting changes for certain.

I've been lucky enough (insert eye roll here) to be sick in bed with the flu for the past 2 days, giving me lots of time to read There is no me Without You. This is a must read - for those adopting or not - to get a stunning view of what is happening in Ethiopia. The picture in my head of Ethiopia always was of Sally Struthers in a little remote village with tiny naked boy with big belly. This book tells of the chaos that the whole country is facing because of death and disease and lack of aid. It almost makes me feel...guilty?...for selfishly adopting children who I want to bring home with me and claim as my own. Like I should actually be providing them with a way to stay in their country with their families. Unfortunately most of them have no families due to AIDS and other diseases. I'd be really interested in hearing how others felt after reading this book (I'm only about 1/2 way through right now.).