Continued...

I did my best to compose myself and when we got to the home for the older children, I was grateful for the distraction. Josh quickly had all of the kids, including Ben, involved in a rowdy game of soccer and watching Josh with all of those children was one of my highlights of the entire trip. Dan and I got to talking with the director, and we got a tour of the compound and met some of the children.

The interview went great, and I was asking her questions that would be suitable for the fundraising video, but in the back of my mind I was also curious about HIV, the treatments, the prognosis, etc. for personal reasons.

I realized there was a lot I did not know. I learned that with the new medications, that the children were living well into adult hood. I learned that HIV was no longer considered a terminal disease, but was considered chronic, yet manageable. I learned that the AHOPE children were now considered adoptable. My head was swimming…each “what if” thought was counteracted with a “there’s no way” thought, but my heart was still full of that sweet little girl.

I casually mentioned that I had been very touched by a little girl at the younger children’s compound and after I described her, she told me her name was Belane, and that just that day, the director of the Adoption Advocates International adoption agency had done the “adoption intake” for several of AHOPE’s children, and that Belane was one of them. I believe that this was the exact moment that the battle really started in side of me.

On one side, there was the practical side of me that was saying, “YOU ARE NUTS. THERE IS NO WAY.” The practical side reminded me that we weren’t even home yet with child number nine, and it was ludicrous to be considering a child number 10. The practical side was reminding me that we had barely been able to scrape the money together for this adoption, and that there was no extra money to start another. The practical side was shouting that this little girl has HIV, which is a big and horrible and scary disease and that my plate is already full and that was way more than we could handle. The practical side was saying that Josh would never go for it, that our family and friends would have a fit and that I needed to get over this and let go of any thoughts of adopting Belen immediately.

But then there was the other side. The other side was saying that we could adopt her. It was saying that she was all alone in this world, and needed a mom. The other side was reminding me how intensely I felt when I saw her, telling me that I had never felt that way with any other human being in my whole life, and that that had to mean something. The other side was picturing her playing with the rest of our kids, and cuddling in my lap again. The other side already loved her as my daughter.

As we headed back to the safety of our hotel, I started to think that maybe I was just feeling the ill effects of a long and emotional day. Dan and Josh both commented that it had been an amazing, and yet very emotionally draining day and I certainly agreed. And it wasn’t done.

After visiting AHOPE we went to Ben's orphanage to meet with his doctor, and we got there and they said, "his grandmother is here and would like to see him." Talk about SURPRISED! He was shy with her, but happy to see her and she was very friendly with us. An aunt was also there. We had been planning on going to Assala, the town Ben is from, the next day and meeting them (and we were not planning on taking Ben), so this was a big surprise. They asked us to take the grandmother back to Assala with us the next day when we went, which we said was fine (although was really, really overwhelming).

We hadn’t wanted to take Ben to Assala (we were just going to send Josh and Dan) because it had been a year since he had said goodbye to his family and we were told he was very sad when he first came to the center. Since he was doing so well with us, we didn’t want to confuse him by taking him back to Assala, especially since our communication was rudimentary at best.

But since his grandmother was there and expecting him to come along on the trip the next day, we felt like our hands were tied. We asked Ben if he wanted to go to Assala and he said, “NO”. We asked him if he wanted to go if we went with him and then he would come back to the hotel with us, and he thought about it and then said “Yes.” I was really worried about it though.

So between waking up homesick, having the experience with the orphan boy in the park, having lunch at the Sheridan, experiencing AHOPE and meeting Belane and then being surprised with Benjamin’s grandmother, it was one heck of an emotional day. The next day would be too.