Life since June 8th or Referral Week Rundown

WARNING: the following entry was written purely for myself. Since seeing our children's faces for the first time last week, my whole life has gone twisty. You see, since The Call, I have become extremely forgetful. And disoriented. And my sleeping habits have done a 180. And I've lost my ability to concentrate on anything for more than 3mins . On the plus side I have become more acutely aware of twin strollers, twin mattresses, The Minnesota Twins, Twin Peaks and of course, twins. So this entry is an effort to hold onto all that has happened in the past week before I get distracted by something else.

WARNING #2: our internet is down so I am posting this entry--which I wrote earlier this week--from my phone. I apologize in advance for any typos, editing mishaps, or dead-end
sentences you may find...proofreading from the phone is hard!


Monday June 8, 2009
This arrived in the mail


These arrived in our in box.

Despite the blanket cues: Cute girly feet on the left, manly boy feet on the right.

Tuesday June 9, 2009
We both wake up at 6am (after having only slept 2 hours tops). The day before I was hesitant to start calling lots of people until we heard back from the doctor we sent the medical records too. But apparently after 2 hours sleep I felt differently and so I immediately started calling our friends... I start on the east coast and make my way west with the timezones. When it is finally a decent time to call people in LA I call Julie first. I am happy to say that her reaction (simultaneous hysterical laughing and crying) made me think perhaps MY reaction to her referral two weeks earlier wasn't over the top. We sit on the phone and cry for awhile. I then send a text message to a few more friends and finally an email to this amazing group of people in LA that we've become friends with through the adoption process. During all of this The Esquire keeps calling me--when are you going to post it on the blog!? But I can't, not until I've told my cousin in NC. It takes awhile but finally I catch her. It was totally worth the wait to tell her myself.

Finally that afternoon I have a chance to run to CVS to print out the first pictures of our twins. When I announce this fact on Facebook, my godsister informs me that she beat me to it and printed out their photos yesterday! Here is the first picture of her kids and my kids all together!

The twins faces are blurred on purpose. We aren't allowed to post pictures or details until they are legally ours.

That night our amazing group of friends come over to help us celebrate. We were just so happy to have people to show the pictures too and drink champagne with...that's all we needed. But these amazing people brought gifts!

Hip little clothes

Teeny tiny shoes ready to run with amazing pull toys

Also gorgeous flowers, and diapers, and champagne, and books and a BRISKET!

I don't know about anyone else but that gathering was a fabulous blur to me :-)



Weds Jun 10, 2009
Once again I am wide awake at 6am. Which is fine because Texas is two hours ahead of us so I can go ahead and call Gladney to officially accept the referral!

I spend the day driving to the Valley with my friend Dana. She has bought a super cool dining room table at LA Modern Auction and needed to pay for it. We spent an hour or so wondering around the warehouse looking at the most amazing vintage, mid-century furniture that 1) is no longer practical now that we have twins on the way and 2) is no longer affordable now that we have twins on the way! Dana's youngest daughterNaima hasn't really been all that into me lately, she's going through that 9-month-old-mommy-attachment phase. But on this day, she was my friend again. I think she could tell I was part of the Mommy club now and could be trusted.



Thurs June 11, 2009
6am...wide awake. The Esquire is not totally happy to have me sharing his "morning time" every day. For him, 6-8am (pre-referral) was a time for him to read all the newspapers and make his crazy oatmeal concoctions-it was leisurely and quiet. Now that I'm up every day at 6am his mornings are full of "Should we get stand alone high chairs or the hook-to-the-table versions?" "Do you think our kids will be lactose intolerant?" "How long can I get away with dressing them alike?" "What if our kids don't likeCheerwine?' you know...the important stuff.

That afternoon I meet our friend Maureen and her adorable daughter Tessa for a onesie shopping spree.
I am trying to get a package together to send to Ethiopia with our neighbors next weekend. Turns out finding long sleeve, long legged onesies in Los Angeles in June proved to be one of the hardest aspects of this adoption process. It was great to shop with Maureen though--she was totally excited and bubbling over for us and at the same time, as a mom of two, she was full of advice on what to buy or not to buy for the twins. Theseluvies are Maureen approved.

The Esquire was a bit shocked by all the shopping bags I brought home. He actually asked if I was going to be "one of those moms" who goes crazy buying clothes. I responded with, "so I shouldn't buy things to clothe our children but you can continue to buy vinyl read-along records even though we don't OWN A RECORD PLAYER!?" Yeah. He got lawyered.



Friday June 12, 2009
Up at 6am. Of course.

My brain is becoming more and more loosey-goosey. When Popi's mom calls me from the Emergency Room in Connecticut and needs me to call her husband who is in Greece...I actually have to keep reminding myself to concentrate on what she's saying so I can be helpful. This from a former Stage Manager! It's kinda of disgraceful! (fyi-Popi's mom is fine and her daddy caught an earlier flight home.)

I try to cook dinner for us....comfort food: grilled salmon, sauteed spinach and instant mashed potatoes (hey-I said it was comfort food!). In my new easily distracted frame of mind I have to make the potatoes twice (yes, I ruined instant potatoes), I over cayenne the spinach, and I almost ruin the salmon by trying to do a quick defrost (because, of course, I forgot to set it out earlier in the day.)

But to be fair...I was distracted for good reason. Someone sent us new photos of the twins. A friend of a friend knew someone in Ethiopia RIGHT NOW so she asked them to visit our kids. It was amazing to look at these photos and think "this is what our kids looked like TODAY!"

That night we watch a movie in the living room. Half-way through it The Esquire goes to get the picture of the twins I have taped to the fridge. When I ask what he's doing he says, "I wanted the twins in here with us."



Saturday June 13, 2009
Still waking up at 6am. And while I love having an extra 2 hours a day to think about my kids, I miss my morning sleep! People keep saying this will help me get used to waking up with kids but really? I mean, they aren't going to be here for at least another 3 months...can't I sleep late until then?

I still can not concentrate on anything that is not twin related for more than 3 minutes. Here is a typical hour for me post-referral-call: I'm in my bedroom getting dressed but my shirt has a tag that bothers me so I go to the office for scissors to cut it. As I reach for the scissors I notice a magazine folded to an article I've been meaning to read. So I take it into the living room where I notice the clean laundry still sitting on the sofa waiting to be folded. I manage to fold two shirts before I see a dirty glass on the coffee table. I take the glass into the kitchen where I see the watering can. As I make my way around the house watering the plants I see the two folded shirts. I take them into the bedroom and think, "I might as well get dressed" I pick a shirt, only its tag bothers me so I head into the office to get scissors.... At the end of the hour I have folded 2 shirts, watered 2 plants, read 3 paragraphs and am wearing jeans and my pajama top. Again, I know my days will be even more crazy and scattered when there are two little ones here...but does the craziness have to start so soon!

We spend the weekend printing more copies of the twin's photos and fielding congratulations emails, phone calls and FB messages. It really does seem like the whole world was waiting for us to get the call.



Sunday June 14, 2009
We go to hear our friend Dominic's band play at this cute little street fair being held to raise money for MS. Turns out our whole little LA Ethiopian Adoption gang shows up. We are nothing if not supportive of each other. (sidenote: we need to come up with a name like The Habesha Huggers...or maybe something cooler)

This was the first time we had heard Dom's band, The Quarter After, play and it turns out he is quite the rock star. All the girls were entranced with him.



At one point I was sitting there - surrounded by cute babies and new good friends, listening to amazing music, while overhearing my sweet husband tell someone "my son has the best smile" - and I actually got all teary eyed. I was SOfreakin' happy at that moment. All I could do was sit there grinning like an idiot.

Afterwards we all went back to LT's house for lovely cool beverages and some play time. Once again I was just struck by sheer happiness. I looked around at this little community we have been blessed enough to find and it is so easy to picture our twins here too. They will be the babies of the group but I can already tell they are scrappy so I'm not too worried. They will grow up surrounded by playmates who also have funny looking parents. Joy is flowing through my veins. John Denver could walk up singing "The Eagle and The Hawk" and I still could not be any happier than I am watching these kids play.

It's now been nine days since we learned who our children were. Every hour of the day I think "9 days ago I had no idea" or "9 days ago I was just about to get the call" or "7 days ago we accepted the referral" ... suddenly life is measured against June 8th. Seriously, does life get any better then this?

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Epilogue: We have now been staring at the twin's faces for thirteen whole days and while my crazy baby brain hasn't gotten any better (Trying to drive to the Federal Building in downtown yesterday, I somehow ended up in Alhambra!) I have started to sleep in until 7am...progress! The main thing that has changed is that every day we fall more and more in love with these little buttercup faces. I can't wait to show them to you... come on court date!!

xoxo-Kat