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While I was pregnant with Bear, each month presented me with a growing reminder of my child. Granted, I can’t claim I gave birth to a seventy-five pound baby (yes, I gained a whopping seventy-five pounds—and let me tell you, they were delicious!), but I had that physical reminder of his presence with me always; in addition to my constantly and consistently expanding belly, I also savored the numerous but still always amazing flutters, kicks, jabs and so forth. While we were in the process of adopting Beauty, I obviously didn’t have the constant physical reminders. The love was exactly the same, but I have to admit this much is true: I missed those everyday suggestions that I was one step closer to meeting my child–my child whom I had been waiting for what seemed like my whole life.
Once we received our referral for Beauty, though, it all changed. First and foremost, the process just seemed so much more concrete. Additionally, Kev bought me a beautiful necklace that held one picture; while I’d hold Bear in my arms each day, I wore Beauty’s photograph constantly around my neck. Aside from taking showers, I never went without my necklace. It was something so precious to me—something that, for me, served as a physical reminder of whom I was missing, waiting for, and loving with every part of my being across the miles that divided us.
While I am elbows deep in paperwork for our current Ethiopian adoption, I took a few hours last week to try to find a keepsake necklace to celebrate our pending adoption and more importantly, our son. And let me tell you, there is no shortage of amazing keepsake items—which from here on out shall be referred to as celebration tokens–for mothers of internationally-born children. (Please note: there are plenty of unisex celebration tokens out there for the finding, but my focus was strictly on those for expectant adoptive moms.)
I will first and foremost admit that I am thoroughly addicted to Etsy. I actually started my search for our son’s celebration token on Google, and found some great sites offering Ethiopian keepsakes and cultural references, but Etsy ultimately came through for me while on my quest. Clearly my focus on this hunt was strictly Ethiopia, but if you if you hunt around the internet just a bit, I have no doubt you will find some amazing treasures specific to your child/children’s birth country/countries. I won’t beat around the bush; I ultimately found (and fell in love with immediately, I might add) this pendant from the mom of a beautiful Ethiopian daughter. (All of the proceeds from her Etsy store go toward humanitarian aid work in her daughters village of Aleta Wondo, by the way.) I also fell in love with another Etsy store, although I haven’t bought anything…yet. (Trust me, it’s only a matter of time!) All profits from this store go toward supporting the Kolfe Orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. And this is just the tip of the iceberg…
The moral of the story? There are tons of celebration tokens for expectant parents to be found on the web, and many of the proceeds serve a greater good. I am so excited for my necklace to arrive; I know that each time I catch a glance of myself in the mirror, even on days where the paperwork seems endless and the wait even longer, I will smile, knowing that I have a tangible reminder that the very best is yet to be.
