I hope to have a coherent post for you today, but my mind is jumping around all over everywhere, so I apologize in advance if it's not.
We've been busy working to get things ready to move HG to A's house. I can't really stop and think about it. I can only keep moving, doing what needs to be done. If I stop and think about it, I can't move. I am paralyzed. I am tearful. I am weak.
Here are some of the things that we have done to help prepare:
1. It was suggested that we have a little gift for HG to open each day from us. So, we've wrapped up 48 little gifts--snacks that we've shared together that we brought from the US. Each one is in colored tissue paper and then we wrote little love notes that we put inside each one.
2. It was suggested that we leave photos of us together for her too. Today, we got the pictures developed and will put them in a little album tomorrow. The one hour wait for the development, of course, was a good excuse to go to McDonald's for lunch and play on the playground. HG, by the way, navigated the play equipment by herself today, even with her good eye patched! :) 3. Several of you have asked about us leaving something behind that smells like us. If you know HG, she smells EVERYTHING, even the bottom of her shoes each day before she puts them on! I have gathered up all of the dryer sheets that I could find (remember that post) and put them in a ziplock for her. I will wash all of her clothes with that detergent before she leaves us and her toys/lovies too. She still loves to smell those dryer sheets and so I think that will be good for her.
4. I also plan to call her every day and so hopefully all of those things will help us to stay connected with her.
Please continue to pray for swift processing of the paperwork and for angels to surround and protect her mind. I KNOW that I should not fear because God will take care of things, but the human side of me is fearful that HG will shutdown the contact with me/us because we are leaving her.
In order to help out my friend, A, we have decided to put HG in a preschool here in Guatemala. We visited it today and I think it will be very good for her. It will allow her to interact with kids and learn some things too. Going from an orphanage with 35 kids to our apartment with 2 in here and others to play with outside to A's house of almost all adults (grandchildren are over often), it will be a bit different for her without kids around. It's just a 1/2 day program and everyone seemed very nice and attentive with the children. It's small too, only about 15 kids with 3 teachers. I think, however, it did confuse her today too. I think she thought it was another orphanage and so I hope that she does well when she goes, not getting too confused about it all. She was rather testy with me for the rest of the day today. While at the preschool, she did play some and color, but she kept looking to make sure I was still there. I know that it's good that she is checking back for me, but it also makes me sad to think that our relationship formation is going to be suspended and how strong it could be if we did not have this interruption.
Leaving HG here has also brought up some feelings in HV and HM. Yesterday during Home Church, I prayed for us as we prepare this week for us to leave and HG to stay. I remained strong, Chick-A-Dee, and I didn't cry during the prayer. After saying "amen," HM and HG hopped off the bed and went on their way. HV looked at me with tears in her eyes, saying "Mommy, it's not right. It's just not right that we are leaving her here. We really need to take her home now." She crawled up into my lap and we both cried. While snuggled on my neck, I asked HV if it made her fearful that I could/would leave her too. A quiet "yes" was her response. I pulled her back, having her look into my eyes, and told her that my relationship on paper with her is different than it is with HG. I don't have papers that say HG is my child yet like I do with her. I explained to her that I will ALWAYS have someone to take care of her--whether it's me, J, or someone we appoint. We talked about times when both J and myself went somewhere and how we made a care plan for her, etc. She understood. HM has been rather tearful, crying over the silliest little things. She hasn't verbalized much, but I am quite confident it has to do with her insecurities of leaving HG behind. Selfishly, I didn't think about how this would impact them. I understand why and how they could feel like they are feeling, but I didn't think about that in my planning. I've tried to cut them some extra slack in the last few days, knowing that they are processing this all and having a somewhat difficult time with it too. I really figured they would be more excited about going home and not dwell on the "leaving HG behind" fact. Well, I guess it's really not the fact that we are leaving HG behind that bothers them. It's the fact that they think it could happen to them too.
We did get the DNA appointment information today. Once all parties have confirmed the date/time, I will share. BUT, it is this week! Yeah! So, that's one thing I really wanted to be done before we left and it looks like it will happen. Yeah!
Enough rambling for now. Again, I apologize for my scatteredness. I should probably go to bed now and try for a more cohesive day tomorrow? No, probably won't happen.
Monday, August 24, 2009
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