Not Sure There is a Good Title for This Post...

My heart aches so deeply and I am so empty that all it does is amplify the pain as it echoes back to me over and over – with no where else to go but dead center in my chest. I have been staring at the walls of this apartment since the news that Stephen’s mother magically came back to claim that her child is being adopted illegally and she did not want this and blah, blah, blah… In the end – does it really matter what she says? Does it really matter what her reasons are for abandoning her son for nearly a year? As far as I am concerned it is the worst form of child abuse there is because it cuts to the very core of the human soul – the desire and constant search for belonging and unconditional love. It is without a doubt the greatest human need – to know you are loved and cherished. She will find it hard to reconcile the emptiness she has given as a legacy to her son; a legacy she no doubt bears herself as I have learned she too grew up in an orphanage.

As I stood looking out the window in the back of the apartment I felt like a dagger was being twisted in my heart as each child walked by holding their mother’s hand. A few hundred yards away there were four or five boys no more than seven years old playing a game of tag. I can’t help but wonder if Stephen will someday play tag with a group of friends amid the backdrop of mud and stray dogs that are as commonplace here as well manicured lawns are back home. He will never know that I am a million miles away thinking of him on some future starry night as his birthday comes and goes one year into the next. He will never know what could have been – what may have come in his life had he been given a chance.

It was easy to see that the game of tag these boys were playing was one with “safe zones;” The kind that when you are standing on it or touching it you are “safe” from being tagged. I can’t help but wish, for once in my life, that there was a “safe zone” where I was untouchable – safe from being “tagged” by devastation and despair. At this point in my life, however, I have experienced enough heartache, loss, and disappointment to know that there is no such thing as a safe zone. I feel as though I were just dropped in the middle of a war zone with no camouflage and nothing to defend myself with. I am out in the open and exposed to anything, anyone and any circumstance that wishes to tear my heart out on a whim.

Almagul came back this evening to explain what happens from here. Although we go to court tomorrow at 5 pm…the judge cannot make a final ruling as this is now out of his jurisdiction (which still makes me wonder why we are even going there in that case). The biological mother and her representative (some guy she gave power of attorney to) will be there, me, the director of the baby house, the representative from the MOE, the social worker assigned to Stephen’s case, my translator/coordinator and the prosecutor. I am not sure what to expect since this is one of those rare events in Kazakhstan that coincidentally happened to us twice now! I swear I feel like it is a twisted psychotic game someone is playing on us. Things like this just don’t happen to anyone…so why us?

Anyway, the case now has to go to a higher court – the regional court – in two weeks. That is the court that will decide. The representative from the MOE told Almagul that this has happened twice in the past. In one case the court ruled in favor of the biological mother and in the other case the court ruled in favor of the adoptive parents. His biological mother is 19 years old, unemployed, unwed and does not own anything of value. I am not sure how on earth the court will decide it is in the child’s best interest to rule in her favor…but I am pretty confident that they will since nothing has gone in our favor thus far. Rather than stay here another two weeks only to most likely get stabbed in the heart again when the court rules in her favor…I am coming home. If by some miracle – we are indeed granted the adoption officially I will have to fly back about 2 weeks after the court ruling.

In a nutshell Joe and I are flat broke as we have spent every penny we have on this adoption; I need to return to work or lose my job; We lost one referral that was a photolisting only to finally get here and begin bonding with our second referral whose mother decided to come back on his birthday (of course after we threw a party and had cake and took tons of pictures feeling on cloud nine); forged forward and selected Stephen, bonded, made it to the 15th day of the waiting period and sat here joyously waiting to pick him up at 3:00 pm only to be dealt the lowest blow of all at noon being told that Stephen’s mother came back too and is now contesting the adoption. With any luck my plane will crash and I will be put out of my misery. Oh…and just to add icing to the cake…my best friend of 28 years has officially decided it was a good time to completely fuck me up the ass and has not called me at all and stopped e-mailing me when she was fed up with my insistent request for a reason as to why she has not been there for me during the most difficult time of my life. And please – don’t send me any messages about how a Christian should not use that language. I do not fear going to hell at this point since I am living in it right now.