A dossier is the ginormous packet of official papers that are notarized, stamped by the county, state and nation, and details just about every aspect of our life. It’s intended to prove that we would make great adoptive parents.  It has taken us about 6 months to get to this point. But on Tuesday our dossier shipped to Ethiopia. Which means in a couple of days we will begin to be considered for a referral from one of our agency’s partner ophanages! We are so excited. Please pray for a swift and providential process.

Look how much Elise changed in a year! These are from her preschool egg hunt - she insisted on wearing the princess crown, with pink fur, to school.

The day before Easter we attended the Kimberly-Clark Family Egg Hunt again (the 24th annual).

That night we hosted a “neighborhood egg hunt” in our backyard for some of our terrific neighbors and friends - we LOVE our neighborhood. The girls dresses were from Macy’s, the day after Christmas ($60 marked down to $12) and Angela bought the same one for Kelsey. Amanda has been one of Elena’s best friends this year in Kindergarten.

Then the Easter bunny came on Easter morning, but we didn’t get a chance to color eggs until that day.

Let me just say, for you readers out there, that I am sorry it has taken me so long to post since the last one about resettling into America. I will just say that it took a lot of time and effort for me to get settled with two kids, as well as begin the adoption process. I’ll hopefully be posting again soon with more information about that. Stay tuned.

Well, it’s been a year and three quarters since I last blogged, so I fully realize that there may not be anyone out there who still reads my blog, and therefore will read this new post. But that’s okay…this is as much for my records as it is for the world at large. Two years ago when I began this blog I posted a lot of pics of Easter 2006 and the girls, then 1 & 3 (really more like ‘almost 2′ and ‘almost 4′). I wasn’t very settled into a good computer routine in any of 2007 so I didn’t do much with e-mail or blogging. But when I sat down to post again and was about to upload Easter 2008, I realized I needed to include Easter 2007 for a full understanding of life around Easter-time for Elena & Elise. So I hope any readers who exist out there will enjoy the progression through ages 2 &4, AND 3 & 5 (now that they are ‘almost 4′ & ‘almost 6′ ).

Easter 2007 - Coloring eggs…

We attended a couple of egg hunts. Elise had an egg hunt at preschool.

Then we attended the Kimberly-Clark sponsored Family Egg Hunt, which was awesome!

Our neighborhood hosted a get-together with a mobile petting zoo, with baby farm animals. The girls loved holding baby bunnies and chicks, and stroking the baby lamb. (The painted bunny on Elise’s cheek is airbrushed from the K-C Egg Hunt party).

And this picture is from Easter morning. The girls got Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls from the Easter Bunny.

Too many photos to include Easter 2008. Please see the next post.

We’ve been here 3 weeks and 3 days. I’ve been moving SSSLLLOOOOWWWW.

We were at my mom’s house for the first 10 days or so. What a daze I was in. So much emotion. So much to process. And my jet lag was prolonged (up at 2 or 3 am, unable to go back to sleep, for the first 6 nights). But what a relief to have my mom cook meals, help with the girls, even do my laundry. And the lush green yard was therapy. The girls LOVE the swings that Mom put up in the backyard and have had fun blowing bubbles and just running around. I sensed myself pulling back from life, shutting down like a newborn that sleeps when there is too much noise and stimulation. Floating in limbo, comfortably numb.

Then we came to Atlanta to work on our house, getting it ready to sell. The first full day I was so emotional. I wasn’t ready to change environments again! Elena suffered too. She had a breakdown over not being able to find her sunglasses. I asked her if she was having a rough day? Yes, sob, sob. Has there been a little too much change for her lately? Yeah. Perhaps I put words in her mouth, but my mother’s sense told me she was feeling it. But now, almost two weeks later, the girls are thriving at Jim & Margo’s house.

And healing has begun for Scott & me too. It started the night of Elise’s 06-06-06 party. Four of our dearest friends in the world stayed up late with us, while we poured out our pain, frustration and doubt. And they listened and prayed for us. What a picture of the paralytic’s friend carrying him to Jesus so he could be healed. The next day we met with a counseling pastor at the church, who also listened, prayed, and reassured us. And the next day we got together with Ray & Teri Sommer. They were missionaries in Budapest before we got there. And they left a year ago with heartache of their own. It was unbelievably refreshing to discuss our experiences with those who walked the same road ahead of us. There have been other, equally encouraging conversations that I haven’t mentioned. Being here in familiar old Alpharetta, with these relationships, has been like living in a cocoon of nurturing.

I miss Budapest. (The other night I thought I saw a shopping bag with “KIKA” written on it and started to shed tears of longing for “home”). But I am glad that we are here right now. The Friday before we left (the day before I miscarried our baby), when the packers put all of our belongings into boxes, I walked from room to room sobbing. I was remembering so many wonderful memories attached with that living space. If I were there now would I not also feel the pain of the loss of this pregnancy more acutely? God’s mercy.

So the Alpharetta house lists for sale this weekend. There was an amazing work team of volunteers from the church who helped clear out the overgrown landscape the first weekend of June. Then my parents stayed in the empty house, sleeping on air mattresses, for a full week, painting, cleaning, repairing. They were awesome. We have also been given contacts through church friends, for getting good deals on painting, carpet, garage doors. All in all the repairs cost half of what we feared. Now we need prayer that the house sells, quickly and for a good price.

Hopefully, I’ll have more to write soon.

Four days ago I joined the ranks of the millions of women who have suffered the loss of a miscarriage. I was thirteen weeks pregnant on Saturday. That night we were out to dinner as a family because the day before all of our belongings had been packed into boxes and there was nothing left to cook with. While I was sitting there I started bleeding. Fortunately my doctor was able to see me an hour later. There was no heartbeat when he searched on the ultrasound. There was no baby to see at all because the baby had died, tissue broken down, perhaps a few weeks earlier. It’s called a “missed miscarriage” I think, because my body didn’t recognize that the baby had died until a couple of weeks later. On Sunday I revisited Telki (the hospital where Elise was born) for a D and C to prevent excessive bleeding or incomplete passing.

Before this personal experience I believe I thought that the fact that miscarriages were common (I’ve heard 1 in 3 pregnancies) would make it less painful. I was wrong. It is still the loss of our baby. And the loss of a dream. And there are still all the awful questions…Why did the baby die? What was wrong that it didn’t continue to grow? Was there anything I did wrong? When did this baby die? Was it a boy or a girl? Will we be able to get pregnant again? Will we ever be able to carry an infant to completion again or will we suffer this kind of loss in the future?

For now I’m really too numb to decide anything about the future. My heart is not yet ready to hope again.

As a post script: Thank you to all of our wonderful friends in Budapest (especially the Cannon family, Coppage family, Nagy Gabi, Julie, Stirlings, Becky, Rebecca, Lippolds, and Tunde) for the love, words of sorrow and comfort, visits, gifts, and assistance to help us get through our last 2 1/2 days before moving. We love you!

….we fly to America! It is surreal at this point. Good days & bad days as the move approaches.  Very encouraging things are happening with our home church in Atlanta - a great friend has taken over organizing volunteers to help us repair our house when we get there (first 2 weeks of June). It is so healing to know that the body of Christ is rallying to our aid.

 But we also have struggled with discouragement in so many other areas. (See scott.friderich.net for more details). Now we really need prayer for faith and provision for all of the other unknowns when we return.

 In the end, I am so glad we came and lived here in Budapest.  Though it can be a wearisome place to exist cross-culturally, it has been exhilirating to live this adventure and grow our family here.

 By the way, we are expecting baby #3 at the end of November!

We had a busy 2 days last weekend, celebrating the holiday and developing our family traditions. Here are some photos to show you about it. On Saturday we went to a local shopping center where they had an Easter bunny walking around and free face painting.

Then later that night we did our egg dying/painting (of the beautiful brown eggs here in Europe). And Elena helped me decorate bunny cupcakes.

Here are the little dolls in their Easter dresses (very hard to get Elise to stand still!).

After church we went to lunch at our friends’ house where the girls got to hunt for the eggs we dyed. What fun!

Then today we conducted our own little egg hunt in the backyard garden of our building with plastic eggs my mom sent from America (filled with candy). The girls were thrilled to stuff their faces with m&m’s afterwards.

Today Scott caught Elena picking, and when he asked her if she needed him to “help” her she said…

“I learned to get boogers out myself. I learned it from the Bible.” 

Scott said, “Oh really. What does the Bible tell you to do?”
 

” It says to get a napkin, stick it right inside the nose and then try to pull it out. That’s what is says and I can do it myself.”

Kids are so entertaining.

Okay, so I have not demonstrated much success in regular blogging since Scott initiated the family blog 2 years ago. And now he wants me to have my own site!! I am gonna try to be more regular (should eat more fiber?).  But at the moment Elise is screaming “Mommy, mommy” at my leg because she has had acid poopies and a diaper rash and simultaneously wants and doesn’t want her diaper to be changed (sorry if that is tmi).  Elena has been saying all morning that she doesn’t feel well and has puffy red eyes and pink cheeks. Besides these customary demands, I’ve got a household to begin packing, a broken dishwasher, a landlord to inform of our upcoming evacuation, moving companies to contact for shipment quotes (these will all have to take place in second language), and tons of praying to do about our future. I’m not complaining. The truth is the Friderich family has quite a bit of experience with major change and I think I enjoy a little bit of chaos.  Just anticipating that blogging very often may be a challenge.

Saw Walk the Line last night.  Excellent movie.  You all probably already know that, since I think it may already be available on DVD in the US.  But it is just now playing in theatres here.  I was inspired by the portrayal of June Carter’s character to be the kind of partner/wife who is exceedingly supportive and loving even in the midst of trial. And Reese Witherspoon was fantastic.  Also a fan of Joaquin Phoenix.  Made me want to learn more about Cash’s real life.