All too often people who adopt are referred to as rescuers, or someone might say, "It was so amazing how your family rescued her." It happens a lot. And I get it. You see someone doing something good, or hard, or someone you admire and you want to compliment them, encourage them, let them know that you recognize the work that they are doing. But let me be clear, I will not accept the title of "rescuer." I will forever fight the appellation for two reasons.
Firstly, if you talk to adult adoptees, you'll hear this over and over again. Hearing that their parents rescued them or saved them does not encourage an adopted child to feel loved, safe, secure, accepted, self-confident...it's just not a positive word association for most adoptees. It is imperative to me, as an adoptive mother to two boys, that I listen well to the words and stories of adult adoptees and that we value their words and stories. The words of an adoptee trump those of adoptive parents. Admittedly, when I'm feeling swallowed up by behaviors that can be associated with trauma, I want the encouragement and experience of other adoptive parents, but for the most part, we work hard to seek out the voices of those who experienced the same things that our boys have...those are the voices who should have the microphone. When they say that they don't like feeling like they are the "good works" of their parents, it's our job to listen up. When they say that they feel bad about themselves when they overhear comments about "rescuing" or "being saved," it's our job to stop and turn the volume up. Their voices, stories, opinions, and feelings matter.
It's hard to know what words to use. It's hard to see the need and ask for people to step into the need and address it without adding glowing monikers or flowery words. I feel that weight and burden myself. I want to express the depth of the need and shine a light on these children. I want people to understand the circumstances that these children are in. I want to motivate people to act. All too often there is a part of me that wants to shout, "Run, save him! Save him from a life without a family. From a life with little to no medical care after the age of 14 or 16. From a life of solitude. From a life on the streets. From a childhood in an institutional home for adults." The statistics are real and startling and I do believe that we should act. But if we're running to save someone, we're just one small step away from becoming saviors and I don't know a single adoptive parent who wears a cape. I certainly didn't. I showed up at that hospital in Jacksonville completely inadequate for the journey I was so eager to take. We definitely didn't disembark from that plane in China with super powers. We did not swoop in to save or rescue our sons. We stepped into their lives. We did not storm in with magical forces or weapons. We walked into their stories. And yes, that choice changed their circumstances, hopefully for the better, but it matters how we define the act of adoption and all that proceeds it and all that comes after it. Words have power, and it matters how we tell these stories and how we shine a light on the need.
The second reason I'll never accept the title of rescuer is this: we're the ones who are being rescued. For sure. 100%. Without a doubt. Of this, I am certain. It is our sons who are rescuing Sam and I. Friends, it is so easy to settle into our American lives (and even easier to settle into our white American lives) and become completely numb to the world around us. Sam and I like comfort like everyone else, believe me. Despite infertility and the setbacks that caused to growing our family (and our finances), I can see now how we were pursuing the easiest life we could find in those early years of our marriage. Nothing too risky (because I don't like the unknown). Nothing too difficult (because no one likes hard things). Nothing too wild (because predicable is comforting). We were on track to live "wisely" and make decisions based on our own well being. Decisions that made sense financially. Decisions that made sense for our timeline. Decisions that made sense for our future goals.
But there's a danger in that, friends. It's a rip tide you'll never see coming. In this comfortable, easy life we can operate almost entirely without faith. That's next to impossible when you step out on the journey of adoption. When adopting, you find that you need God in ways you could never have imagined. J. R. R. Tolkein wrote, “It's a dangerous business...going out your door. You step onto the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” True. There is risk in stepping out of our pursuit of easy and comfortable lives and stepping in to the lives of those who are marginalfized, ignored, abondoned, or forgotten. You truly have no idea where you might be swept off to. The adoption journey is a journey into the unknown, even if you've done it before. But there is also the sweet, sweet journey into deeper faith when we choose to enter into the hard. But to experience it, we've got to open the door and decide to step out of our own comfortable lives.
For us, adoption was that invitation. Adoption was the thing that propelled us into the hard and it keeps us there. It keeps us dependent on the Lord because it wasn't a one time act. In the same way that a wedding is an act and a marriage is a lifetime of choices, the finalization of an adoption is an act, but this life, oh how it is filled with choices. I love these words from Heather Avis, a fellow infertility sister and adoptive mama in her book The Lucky Few, "What I did not know then is that ease and normalcy and niceness are not as important to Jesus as obedience, perseverance, and sacrifice. I didn't know that easy and normal and nice would do little to build my character or make me a better and more complete human being. Somewhere off the rose-petal path where easy and normal and nice bloom, true beauty lives in the muck. But only the lucky few of us who step off the path will find it. My luck began when God picked me up off the comfortable path I had paved for myself and drop-kicked me into the mud."
Slowly, ever so infinitesimally, God is refining me through and in the midst of the hard. It is I who am being rescued. Rescued from myself. So no, I'm no savior, no rescuer. I'm an average, middle-class white American whose life circumstances led me to a place where I could choose to open my eyes and see that there is so much more to the world than what my eyes would have me to believe. I am the one being rescued from a life of normal and nice and given a life of dependency...and boy is that scary. But that's where our faith grows, my friends.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Friday, May 11, 2018
A New Normal
Today marks nine weeks home. I don’t really know what to say about these weeks. They have been incredibly hard, hard in ways I was prepared for, and I’m thankful for that. So, so thankful. But still so, so hard.
My greatest regret from my first adoption of Garrison three years ago was my lack of preparation. No one talked to us about attachment, or lack there of. No one said anything about caring for a premie. No one spoke a word about any of the things I was facing. Everyone spoke as if unicorns and rainbows had taken up residence in my home and heart. Oh God, how I wanted that to bet true, but the truth is that those first 6ish weeks with Garrison were indescribably hard. Add on to that the layers of guilt and self doubt from my years of infertility and I was spiraling down a dark hole fast. I didn’t know how to explain it to anyone and all everyone could see was that I finally had my baby, and everyone (myself included) assumed I’d be blissfully happy without a complaint in the world.
When we decided to adopt again, and internationally this time, I knew I needed preparation. I had an agency in mind that several close friends had used, but I decided to dig deeper and hunt for the best fit. I asked lots of people and called lots of agencies. We eventually landed with Lifeline in part because I was desperate for education and post-adoption support (I also believe in their ministry, they have a good reputation in the adoption community, and I love how willing the China Program Director is to answer all of my calls). I assumed at the very least that this adoption would be very different, but likely harder and I wanted to be ready.
We did buckets and buckets and hours and hours of training. Read books on adoption, attachment, Trust Based Relational Intervention, and China. We took courses on Communication, Attachment Styles, and a four-part TBRI workshop. Lifeline requires a two day training for all families adopting internationally called Crossings, which we attended in November. If it was offered, I signed up. If it was recommended, I read it. I so deeply wanted to be ready, both for our son and my family, but also for myself.
Ready. I don’t know if you’re ever truly ready. Maybe the mamas who are true veterans, there and back again half a dozen times. For me, this was all still so very new.
I arrived home DESPERATELY thankful to be in the USA, and to feel the comforts of home. Many people long to explore the world...I am not one of those people. I wish I was. I wish I had a pinky toe worth of adventure in me, but vacation sounds like the beach in Florida or the mountains of Colorado. An adventure sounds like Hawaii or Europe. China was next level for me and my heart hungered for home.
But suddenly home didn’t really feel like home. There was an extra person and despite spending the last two weeks with him in country, i think we all suddenly became very aware just how much we were still strangers to one another. His cry was foreign to me. My voice was not soothing to him. We all arrived home to obvious jet lag (13 hour time difference, flying east to west is a b$:%# in ways I can’t explain) but also illness. Sam had a double ear infection. Joel had a cold and infections in both eyes. I had caught the cold that Sam had for a week in China the day before we left. The first four days home were unreal. I still can’t believe we survived. I assume the details will eventually fade and we will have some form of amnesia about the whole event...otherwise, no one would ever return to China a second, third, fourth time.
We saw glimpses of grief from Joel in China. Lack of appetite. Tantrums. Arriving home opened the flood gates. Our solid sleeper suddenly couldn’t sleep longer than 90 minutes without waking and transferring him out of our arms was akin to placing live bombs in a crib. He grieved so deeply at night, and it manifested in fits of crying so loud I thought he’d wake the neighbors. He was simultaneously desperate for us to hold him and furious that we were touching him. Nights were long and yet never, ever long enough. He seemed ravenous for food, but refused to eat all of the things he had eaten in China. He attacked crackers like it was the last food on earth, shoving them in his mouth while crying, yet completely without the ability to chew them. If I tried to slow him down, he interpreted it as me denying him food, which sent him even further over the edge.
We’ve been cocooning since we came home. Cocooning is a term used in the adoption community to describe a season of intensive care, in which the parents meet all of their new child’s needs. Interactions with people outside of the immediate family and the environments to which the child is exposed are very limited. When a family cocoons, they keep their new son or daughter’s world small, simple, and predictable. For us, that has looked like staying home 99% of the time. Joel has gone with me each day to drop Garrison off at daycare, but then the two of us return home. We’ve slowly started to open up his environment just a bit by eating out at some quick restaurants, visiting the park at low attendance times, and running errands to the grocery store. In the beginning, I wore him in an ergo anytime we ventured out. Now, he can ride in a cart or sit in a high chair, but he occasionally still needs a hug or kiss to settle down, other times, he just wants me to hold him. While it’s easy to look at him and think he’s almost two, he should be better capable to handle these situations, research says that it is far better to allow him to revert as far back to infancy as he wants. If he wants me to hold him in Target rather than ride in the cart, then that’s what we do.
Slowly, the tantrums have dwindled. The nights have held more sleeping than screaming. He’s trusting (sometimes) that there will be more food next time. He and Garrison are starting to play a bit more than they fight. When I think rationally about how much has changed in these nine weeks, I’m amazed. I couldn’t change the same amount about myself in nine weeks (just ask my therapist). But most of the time, my rational brain is foggy and I’m tired of the hard. While I know that the Lord calls us into the hard, and that the hard things in life are the ones that refine us, when I’m in the fire, I’m quick to think I have been refined enough.
I return to work after one more week, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful. Add that to the column of things I feel guilty about. I am simply not good at being a stay at home mom. You know the phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder?” Well that absence is critical for me, for my mental health, for my ability to parent the way I want to. Feeling guilty about it doesn’t change it...these nine weeks have been a marathon battle of keeping my head in the game and my mind free from the tangled web of thoughts that can spin out of control. I’m praying that Joel can and will transition to daycare smoothly, and that the changes won’t set us back in terms of attachment.
I have to remind myself a half dozen times a day that our old normal is gone but that the present is not our new normal. This is a transition period, a hard one, but not a forever one. Six months from now, life will look and feel so very, very different. And while I long for our lives to feel normal again, I’m trying to remind myself just how quickly things change. Someday these photos and videos of Joel in these early days will be precious memories as time will have softened the details and we will have forgotten so much.
The days are long, but the years are short. Garrison is closer to kindergarten than he is to his birth, so while I may hunger for a bit for the comfort of normal, I know that these days are golden in their own way.
My greatest regret from my first adoption of Garrison three years ago was my lack of preparation. No one talked to us about attachment, or lack there of. No one said anything about caring for a premie. No one spoke a word about any of the things I was facing. Everyone spoke as if unicorns and rainbows had taken up residence in my home and heart. Oh God, how I wanted that to bet true, but the truth is that those first 6ish weeks with Garrison were indescribably hard. Add on to that the layers of guilt and self doubt from my years of infertility and I was spiraling down a dark hole fast. I didn’t know how to explain it to anyone and all everyone could see was that I finally had my baby, and everyone (myself included) assumed I’d be blissfully happy without a complaint in the world.
When we decided to adopt again, and internationally this time, I knew I needed preparation. I had an agency in mind that several close friends had used, but I decided to dig deeper and hunt for the best fit. I asked lots of people and called lots of agencies. We eventually landed with Lifeline in part because I was desperate for education and post-adoption support (I also believe in their ministry, they have a good reputation in the adoption community, and I love how willing the China Program Director is to answer all of my calls). I assumed at the very least that this adoption would be very different, but likely harder and I wanted to be ready.
We did buckets and buckets and hours and hours of training. Read books on adoption, attachment, Trust Based Relational Intervention, and China. We took courses on Communication, Attachment Styles, and a four-part TBRI workshop. Lifeline requires a two day training for all families adopting internationally called Crossings, which we attended in November. If it was offered, I signed up. If it was recommended, I read it. I so deeply wanted to be ready, both for our son and my family, but also for myself.
Ready. I don’t know if you’re ever truly ready. Maybe the mamas who are true veterans, there and back again half a dozen times. For me, this was all still so very new.
I arrived home DESPERATELY thankful to be in the USA, and to feel the comforts of home. Many people long to explore the world...I am not one of those people. I wish I was. I wish I had a pinky toe worth of adventure in me, but vacation sounds like the beach in Florida or the mountains of Colorado. An adventure sounds like Hawaii or Europe. China was next level for me and my heart hungered for home.
But suddenly home didn’t really feel like home. There was an extra person and despite spending the last two weeks with him in country, i think we all suddenly became very aware just how much we were still strangers to one another. His cry was foreign to me. My voice was not soothing to him. We all arrived home to obvious jet lag (13 hour time difference, flying east to west is a b$:%# in ways I can’t explain) but also illness. Sam had a double ear infection. Joel had a cold and infections in both eyes. I had caught the cold that Sam had for a week in China the day before we left. The first four days home were unreal. I still can’t believe we survived. I assume the details will eventually fade and we will have some form of amnesia about the whole event...otherwise, no one would ever return to China a second, third, fourth time.
We saw glimpses of grief from Joel in China. Lack of appetite. Tantrums. Arriving home opened the flood gates. Our solid sleeper suddenly couldn’t sleep longer than 90 minutes without waking and transferring him out of our arms was akin to placing live bombs in a crib. He grieved so deeply at night, and it manifested in fits of crying so loud I thought he’d wake the neighbors. He was simultaneously desperate for us to hold him and furious that we were touching him. Nights were long and yet never, ever long enough. He seemed ravenous for food, but refused to eat all of the things he had eaten in China. He attacked crackers like it was the last food on earth, shoving them in his mouth while crying, yet completely without the ability to chew them. If I tried to slow him down, he interpreted it as me denying him food, which sent him even further over the edge.
We’ve been cocooning since we came home. Cocooning is a term used in the adoption community to describe a season of intensive care, in which the parents meet all of their new child’s needs. Interactions with people outside of the immediate family and the environments to which the child is exposed are very limited. When a family cocoons, they keep their new son or daughter’s world small, simple, and predictable. For us, that has looked like staying home 99% of the time. Joel has gone with me each day to drop Garrison off at daycare, but then the two of us return home. We’ve slowly started to open up his environment just a bit by eating out at some quick restaurants, visiting the park at low attendance times, and running errands to the grocery store. In the beginning, I wore him in an ergo anytime we ventured out. Now, he can ride in a cart or sit in a high chair, but he occasionally still needs a hug or kiss to settle down, other times, he just wants me to hold him. While it’s easy to look at him and think he’s almost two, he should be better capable to handle these situations, research says that it is far better to allow him to revert as far back to infancy as he wants. If he wants me to hold him in Target rather than ride in the cart, then that’s what we do.
Slowly, the tantrums have dwindled. The nights have held more sleeping than screaming. He’s trusting (sometimes) that there will be more food next time. He and Garrison are starting to play a bit more than they fight. When I think rationally about how much has changed in these nine weeks, I’m amazed. I couldn’t change the same amount about myself in nine weeks (just ask my therapist). But most of the time, my rational brain is foggy and I’m tired of the hard. While I know that the Lord calls us into the hard, and that the hard things in life are the ones that refine us, when I’m in the fire, I’m quick to think I have been refined enough.
I return to work after one more week, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful. Add that to the column of things I feel guilty about. I am simply not good at being a stay at home mom. You know the phrase “absence makes the heart grow fonder?” Well that absence is critical for me, for my mental health, for my ability to parent the way I want to. Feeling guilty about it doesn’t change it...these nine weeks have been a marathon battle of keeping my head in the game and my mind free from the tangled web of thoughts that can spin out of control. I’m praying that Joel can and will transition to daycare smoothly, and that the changes won’t set us back in terms of attachment.
I have to remind myself a half dozen times a day that our old normal is gone but that the present is not our new normal. This is a transition period, a hard one, but not a forever one. Six months from now, life will look and feel so very, very different. And while I long for our lives to feel normal again, I’m trying to remind myself just how quickly things change. Someday these photos and videos of Joel in these early days will be precious memories as time will have softened the details and we will have forgotten so much.
The days are long, but the years are short. Garrison is closer to kindergarten than he is to his birth, so while I may hunger for a bit for the comfort of normal, I know that these days are golden in their own way.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Fight Like Hell, Then Stand in the Gap
I remember years ago praying that a birth mom would terminate her parental rights. It seemed normal then. It was what was best, and so obviously within God's will. What a weird, complicated prayer. And so difficult to unpack years later after so much time spent within the adoption world.
In some ways, it feels like you can either be for adoption or for orphan prevention, but not both. If you’re for adoption, then you must want kids to be available to be adopted, right? And if you’re for orphan prevention, then you must not like adoption, right? I’ll admit that there can be some murky, gray areas in all of this, but ultimately no, nothing is further from the truth. Adoption and orphan prevention are two different sides of the same coin. We must fight like hell to hell to preserve first families, and when that is no longer an option, we must be ready to stand in the gap.
Orphan prevention is a huge, complex topic because there are so many different reasons children become orphans. War. Famine. Disease. Natural disasters like the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010. There are certainly other issues. Things like poverty. High medical costs. Social stigmas. National laws. And then there’s the really, really gross underbelly that no one wants to talk about: financial gain. Those are just a few of the reasons, there are dozens of others, and every story is unique and different. So how on earth do you prevent children from becoming orphans?
The truth of the matter is that we never will. This world is broken. There will always be war like the one we see playing out in Syria, creating new orphans each and every day as parents and grandparents and sisters and brothers are killed simply because of geographical location. There will always be natural disasters, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, and hurricanes that will rip families apart and leave children without a family. And there will always be evil in this world that seeks to destroy families. But, and that’s a big but, we must still fight with everything we’ve got to preserve first families when we can. While we will never end the creation of more orphans, for that one child it will make all the difference.
The first battle in orphan prevention is one that must take place in our hearts. It’s the lie that we’ve been telling ourselves for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. It’s the one that says whiter, richer, more educated, etc. is better. I know, you’re probably thinking “what on earth does that have to do with orphan prevention?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told how lucky my boys are to have Sam and I. Do you want to know where that thought pattern begins? It begins by thinking that Garrison is better off with us because we can provide more for him than his first family could. That we can give him a better future. That he will have more (more toys, more clothes, more vacations, more opportunities) because he lives with us. It begins by thinking that Joel is better off in America than in China. That he will have more wealth, education, etc. because he lives here. Those things may be true. The boys likely will have more because of the home they live in, but that is a HIGH price to pay for the loss of their first family, and for Joel the loss of his first culture and country. We must lay down the idea that the children of Uganda are better off in America because we can give them more. We must set to flame any thought that says the children of Costa Rica need Americans to save them. Is a forever family better than an orphanage or a life in the foster care system? Yes. But when we have the opportunity to have children safely adopted in their own country, we should celebrate that...even if that means they will be raised by people who are poorer, less educated (and certainly less white) that the options available in the US.
What these vulnerable children need is forever homes that can provide for their needs, and the hope is that the forever is with their first family. Supporting orphan prevention looks different in every country, culture, and region. It looks like systems in place to help families provide the medical care their children need, because the truth is that every day families are faced with the choice to abandon their child in hopes that they will be found and given the medical care they so desperately need or to bring them home and watch their child die. It looks like opportunities for jobs and childcare for women because statistically we know that women will use far more of each dollar they earn on their family than men. It looks like rehabilitation options because around the world, but certainly in our own back yard, alcohol and drug addiction is a very real reason that children are abandoned each and every day. The needs are so great. There is no one band aid for this problem. And we know it’s a fight we will lose. Orphans will always exist in this world. So what do we do?
We may not all be capable or called to adopt, but we can all do something. We can all believe in and fight for orphan prevention while simultaneously supporting and believing in adoption. I encourage us all to look around our own communities and find the families, organizations, and ministries in need of a hand or a piece of our hearts. Without a doubt there is a family that you could come alongside, and organization that you could support, or a ministry you could join in their efforts to care for vulnerable children through orphan prevention and adoption.
In some ways, it feels like you can either be for adoption or for orphan prevention, but not both. If you’re for adoption, then you must want kids to be available to be adopted, right? And if you’re for orphan prevention, then you must not like adoption, right? I’ll admit that there can be some murky, gray areas in all of this, but ultimately no, nothing is further from the truth. Adoption and orphan prevention are two different sides of the same coin. We must fight like hell to hell to preserve first families, and when that is no longer an option, we must be ready to stand in the gap.
Orphan prevention is a huge, complex topic because there are so many different reasons children become orphans. War. Famine. Disease. Natural disasters like the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010. There are certainly other issues. Things like poverty. High medical costs. Social stigmas. National laws. And then there’s the really, really gross underbelly that no one wants to talk about: financial gain. Those are just a few of the reasons, there are dozens of others, and every story is unique and different. So how on earth do you prevent children from becoming orphans?
The truth of the matter is that we never will. This world is broken. There will always be war like the one we see playing out in Syria, creating new orphans each and every day as parents and grandparents and sisters and brothers are killed simply because of geographical location. There will always be natural disasters, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornados, and hurricanes that will rip families apart and leave children without a family. And there will always be evil in this world that seeks to destroy families. But, and that’s a big but, we must still fight with everything we’ve got to preserve first families when we can. While we will never end the creation of more orphans, for that one child it will make all the difference.
The first battle in orphan prevention is one that must take place in our hearts. It’s the lie that we’ve been telling ourselves for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. It’s the one that says whiter, richer, more educated, etc. is better. I know, you’re probably thinking “what on earth does that have to do with orphan prevention?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told how lucky my boys are to have Sam and I. Do you want to know where that thought pattern begins? It begins by thinking that Garrison is better off with us because we can provide more for him than his first family could. That we can give him a better future. That he will have more (more toys, more clothes, more vacations, more opportunities) because he lives with us. It begins by thinking that Joel is better off in America than in China. That he will have more wealth, education, etc. because he lives here. Those things may be true. The boys likely will have more because of the home they live in, but that is a HIGH price to pay for the loss of their first family, and for Joel the loss of his first culture and country. We must lay down the idea that the children of Uganda are better off in America because we can give them more. We must set to flame any thought that says the children of Costa Rica need Americans to save them. Is a forever family better than an orphanage or a life in the foster care system? Yes. But when we have the opportunity to have children safely adopted in their own country, we should celebrate that...even if that means they will be raised by people who are poorer, less educated (and certainly less white) that the options available in the US.
What these vulnerable children need is forever homes that can provide for their needs, and the hope is that the forever is with their first family. Supporting orphan prevention looks different in every country, culture, and region. It looks like systems in place to help families provide the medical care their children need, because the truth is that every day families are faced with the choice to abandon their child in hopes that they will be found and given the medical care they so desperately need or to bring them home and watch their child die. It looks like opportunities for jobs and childcare for women because statistically we know that women will use far more of each dollar they earn on their family than men. It looks like rehabilitation options because around the world, but certainly in our own back yard, alcohol and drug addiction is a very real reason that children are abandoned each and every day. The needs are so great. There is no one band aid for this problem. And we know it’s a fight we will lose. Orphans will always exist in this world. So what do we do?
We open up our hearts and our wallets to look around and see who is on the front lines providing care in the areas needed in the ways that first families need it. Who is providing food, medical care, education, jobs, rehabilitation options, to the families in need in order to help keep families together? It's using our standing within our communities, our state, and our country to draw attention to the needs of vulnerable children in our own back yards and across the world. It' shining a light on the plight of the orphan and saying that we will no longer slap a band-aid on this problem. We will no longer pretend that adoption is the answer to the orphan crisis.
When we’ve done everything we can to preserve the first family, we stand in the gap, arms wide open to support adoption. I truly believe more people are capable of adopting than do, but I also totally understand that not everyone desires to adopt or feels called to do so. And that’s okay. Yes, we need more adoptive families, we absolutely do. Current numbers indicate that 153 million children worldwide have lost either one parent (single orphan) or both parents (double orphan), but "one of the greatest weaknesses in these global orphan estimates is that they include only orphans that are currently living in homes. They do not count the estimated 2 to 8+ million children living in institutions. Nor do current estimates include the vast number of children who are living on the streets, exploited for labor, victims of trafficking, or participating in armed groups. Thus, global orphan statistics significantly underestimate the number of orphans worldwide and fail to account for many children that are among the most vulnerable and most in need of a family" (cafo.org). With numbers like that, it's unarguable the we need adoptive parents, but we also need more people to financially support adoption. We also need more counselors and teachers who are versed and educated in trauma to support these children and families once they come home. We need lawmakers and politicians who care deeply about the plight of the orphan. We need advocates for the thousands of children worldwide who are currently living without a forever family.
When we’ve done everything we can to preserve the first family, we stand in the gap, arms wide open to support adoption. I truly believe more people are capable of adopting than do, but I also totally understand that not everyone desires to adopt or feels called to do so. And that’s okay. Yes, we need more adoptive families, we absolutely do. Current numbers indicate that 153 million children worldwide have lost either one parent (single orphan) or both parents (double orphan), but "one of the greatest weaknesses in these global orphan estimates is that they include only orphans that are currently living in homes. They do not count the estimated 2 to 8+ million children living in institutions. Nor do current estimates include the vast number of children who are living on the streets, exploited for labor, victims of trafficking, or participating in armed groups. Thus, global orphan statistics significantly underestimate the number of orphans worldwide and fail to account for many children that are among the most vulnerable and most in need of a family" (cafo.org). With numbers like that, it's unarguable the we need adoptive parents, but we also need more people to financially support adoption. We also need more counselors and teachers who are versed and educated in trauma to support these children and families once they come home. We need lawmakers and politicians who care deeply about the plight of the orphan. We need advocates for the thousands of children worldwide who are currently living without a forever family.
We may not all be capable or called to adopt, but we can all do something. We can all believe in and fight for orphan prevention while simultaneously supporting and believing in adoption. I encourage us all to look around our own communities and find the families, organizations, and ministries in need of a hand or a piece of our hearts. Without a doubt there is a family that you could come alongside, and organization that you could support, or a ministry you could join in their efforts to care for vulnerable children through orphan prevention and adoption.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
China: Part II
Well, he’s here! It’s been several long, hard days for all of us, but we are officially a family of four.
Meet Joel Guang Hua Greavu.
He is the sweetest little love and we can already tell he’s going to fit right into our family. We haven’t seen a ton of his personality yet, but the ayis (caretakers) at his children’s welfare institute described him as mischievous and playful. I imagine several months from now he and Garrison will be adding gray hairs to my head each day.
We arrived in Kunming, the provincial city of Yunnan on Sunday, February 25. In China, you typically meet your child in the provincial city (capital) of the province that the child is from. For us, those were the same thing as Joel was found in Kunming and taken to the local orphanage. It was absolutely surreal flying into the city knowing that this was the same city our boy was in, to know we were just miles away from him.
On Monday, we were expecting to travel to the Civil Affairs office with another family that is here to meet their daughter, but instead we learned that they would bring the babies to our hotel rooms. Such an incredibly long wait that afternoon, but then he was here and in our arms!
The first day was all about trying to help him stay calm and avoid too much fear. We held him, attempted to play with him, fed him. Understandably, he was pretty overwhelmed. We weren’t getting a ton of emotion from him. That evening we got some of our first smiles as Garrison brought a panda he had made at Build-a-Bear for him. They enjoyed tossing it around for a bit before bedtime and it was a great way to end the day.
The following 24 hours after you meet your child are known as the harmonious period in China. During this time, families can go through a procedure to disrupt the adoption before finalizing. After that period, the family completes paperwork to finalize the adoption in China. On Tuesday, we rode to the Civil Affairs office and completed our adoption of Joel and filed for his passport.
It takes several days to get the passport in Yunnan, so we have had several days to spend here. On Wednesday, we visited the Yunnan Nationalities Village. It’s basically a large outdoor space with separate areas for various ethnic minorities in China. It was so interesting! If I hadn’t had two tired, cranky boys in tow, I could have spent the entire day there. The space was gorgeous and it was so neat to see the various styles of architecture and cultural dress for the various ethnic minority groups of China.
Thursday was the hardest day by far. We returned with Joel to the orphanage and drove with our guide to see and document Joel’s finding spot. It was such a comfort to see how well cared for Joel was at the orphanage, but also soooooo hard to see how much he loved his ayis and how much they loved him. Everyone was a puddle of tears. It was a very difficult morning for me to see and know that this was likely the last time he’d ever see the people who cared for him for nineteen months of his life. I can’t really fathom how hard and confusing it was for him to see these two worlds merge. He struggled a lot more on Thursday. Lots and lots of crying. Lots of fear and grief manifesting in different ways. It was an incredibly exhausting day for all of us. I’m so thankful we got the opportunity to go, visit, and document the orphanage, but it was not an easy trip.
Today, we leave Kunming for Guangzhou. This is the city where the US Consulate is and all adopting families end up here to complete the paperwork to leave China with their adopted son/daughter. The child leaves a citizen of China, but when the plane touches down on US soil he/she becomes a citizen of the United States.
Guangzhou is the final leg of this journey. We arrive on Friday and leave the following Friday, so there is still quite a bit of this journey ahead of us. I’ll be honest and say I’m ready to be home. I’m not a great traveler even in the US, but China is next level. I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be here and to soak in as much culture and make as many memories as possible, but I’m also simultaneously really ready to be home. I’m praying that the coming week will be full of opportunities to bond as a family and for Joel to begin to attach with us. Also praying Garrison will make it home without losing his ever-loving mind. : ) Let’s be real; gaining a little brother who can walk and talk and steal your mama over night is HARD!
Sunday, February 25, 2018
China: Part I
On the eve of Family Day, the day we meet our son, I am feeling about one million different things. Inadequate. Hopeful. Afraid. Excited. Anxious. Overwhelmed. Humbled. Oh, and tired. Tired, but not exhausted, so that’s an improvement.
We left Atlanta on Wednesday, February 21, to begin our (incredibly long) journey to China. My prayer going in was that I could walk away saying the travel wasn’t that bad, so that maybe I could work up the nerve to do it all again one day. Like most things, I think the anticipation is the worst part. It’s the fear that nearly swallows me whole sometimes, and I was certainly afraid. Travel was frustrating for sure. We flew a new (to us) airline in a different terminal. We learned mid-flight to Chicago that our seat arrangement had been changed without notifying us, so Sam no longer had extra leg room (he’s 6’9). I cried from fear and frustration and exhaustion that day, but my prayers were answered. It wasn’t that bad. Sure, I’d rather travel by floo powder, portkey, and certainly transporter, but until our technology catches up with our imaginations, international flights half way around the world are doable (I’d recommend a bottle of your favorite benzodiazepine).
We arrived in Beijing on Thursday, February 22, in the evening. As China is 13 hours ahead of home, our travel had taken approximately 18 hours all together, but it admittedly felt far closer to the 32 hours time led us to believe had elapsed. We were all exhausted. The first night I crashed, but then woke up about 3 a.m. My body could be tricked no longer. Despite how tired I was, my brain knew that it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. This has maintained itself as a pretty regular pattern each night. I wake up sometime between 1-3 a.m. to just sit and process the day and I eventually fall asleep a few hours later for a final nap before myself or Garrison gives up and we start our day.
The Summer Palace was by far my favorite, probably for lots of reasons not the least of which is that it was more remote, has beautiful trees and lakes, and gave off a more peaceful feeling in comparison to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The Summer Palace is also lavishly painted with murals along the Long Corridor. I could have spent days there learning about the paintings and the architecture and the various buildings.
On our second and last day in Beijing, we traveled outside of Beijing (well at least it felt like it) to visit the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Modern conveniences such as a bus half way up the mountain and a cable car up to the wall made this a totally doable day adventure, but even then, the wall was quite the workout. Also interesting to note that very little has been done in terms of safety features to prevent trips/falls etc. I likely noticed this in part as I was carrying Garrison in the ergo and feeling how insecure I felt on many of the staircases with no handrails. I kept thinking how something like this in the US would have been modified so much for the number of tourists that visit (because hello, lawsuit).
Today we were up bright and early to board a plane to Kunming. If you’re keeping track, that is plane ride number three. I’m half way through the six and that feels REALLY good. In no way am I going to be a fan of flying by the end of this, but maybe I’ll be just a teensy bit better.
Today is Garrison’s birthday. Birthdays are a big deal in our family. Sam and I usually both take off and do something fun for his birthday. Obviously, that couldn’t happen this year and it made me SO SAD. I felt so much guilt about today and the lack of focus on Garrison. Once we got to Kunming, we went to a park that is really close to our hotel. Garrison attracted people to him like birds to scraps of food. They were practically circling. Thankfully, so far he has been a champ about all of the attention. We let him explore the park a bit and bought him an ice cream cone, which of course didn’t really taste like ice cream. Bless him. I’m glad he’s not old enough to tell me what he thought of this birthday.
Tomorrow is the day. We leave at 2:30 to get to the civil affairs building where we will begin the paperwork process to finalize our adoption and meet our son. Thankfully, I’m too tired right now to stay up worrying. To be determined if the same proves true at 3:00 a.m
We left Atlanta on Wednesday, February 21, to begin our (incredibly long) journey to China. My prayer going in was that I could walk away saying the travel wasn’t that bad, so that maybe I could work up the nerve to do it all again one day. Like most things, I think the anticipation is the worst part. It’s the fear that nearly swallows me whole sometimes, and I was certainly afraid. Travel was frustrating for sure. We flew a new (to us) airline in a different terminal. We learned mid-flight to Chicago that our seat arrangement had been changed without notifying us, so Sam no longer had extra leg room (he’s 6’9). I cried from fear and frustration and exhaustion that day, but my prayers were answered. It wasn’t that bad. Sure, I’d rather travel by floo powder, portkey, and certainly transporter, but until our technology catches up with our imaginations, international flights half way around the world are doable (I’d recommend a bottle of your favorite benzodiazepine).
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| American Airlines-not my fave, but it was okay Also, note that flying up and over Canada is a much more enjoyable flight than across the Pacific Ocean. |
We arrived in Beijing on Thursday, February 22, in the evening. As China is 13 hours ahead of home, our travel had taken approximately 18 hours all together, but it admittedly felt far closer to the 32 hours time led us to believe had elapsed. We were all exhausted. The first night I crashed, but then woke up about 3 a.m. My body could be tricked no longer. Despite how tired I was, my brain knew that it was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. This has maintained itself as a pretty regular pattern each night. I wake up sometime between 1-3 a.m. to just sit and process the day and I eventually fall asleep a few hours later for a final nap before myself or Garrison gives up and we start our day.
On our first day here, we visited Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace. My two biggest surprises were how many Chinese people were visiting. We were truly the only white people I saw for hours. I guess I expected more international travelers to such popular tourist locations. My second surprise was how deeply the Chinese people feel for Chairman Mao. He served as the the Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. The President of the United States in 1976 was Gerald Ford. I know that because I looked it up. And without reading the Wikipedia article, I couldn’t tell you one thing about the man, but the people of China seemed to genuinely love the man. On many occasions people were shouting things aloud that our guide translated as praise for Mao. It was so interesting to see even small children excited over this man. As a child, President Bush (the first one) came to my hometown. I was so very close in proximity the the President of the United States,and yet 20+ years later, I barely remember it and know next to nothing about him, but these children who were born some 30+ years after Mao died seemed to truly care deeply for him. So interesting.
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| Add caption |
The Summer Palace was by far my favorite, probably for lots of reasons not the least of which is that it was more remote, has beautiful trees and lakes, and gave off a more peaceful feeling in comparison to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The Summer Palace is also lavishly painted with murals along the Long Corridor. I could have spent days there learning about the paintings and the architecture and the various buildings.
On our second and last day in Beijing, we traveled outside of Beijing (well at least it felt like it) to visit the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Modern conveniences such as a bus half way up the mountain and a cable car up to the wall made this a totally doable day adventure, but even then, the wall was quite the workout. Also interesting to note that very little has been done in terms of safety features to prevent trips/falls etc. I likely noticed this in part as I was carrying Garrison in the ergo and feeling how insecure I felt on many of the staircases with no handrails. I kept thinking how something like this in the US would have been modified so much for the number of tourists that visit (because hello, lawsuit).
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| Beijing is still cold, and therefore it's a pretty dreary landscape, plus the smog has a way of eating all the colors in the photos, but still, pretty amazing to see...and to imaging that this was just one tiny piece of the wall. |
Today we were up bright and early to board a plane to Kunming. If you’re keeping track, that is plane ride number three. I’m half way through the six and that feels REALLY good. In no way am I going to be a fan of flying by the end of this, but maybe I’ll be just a teensy bit better.
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| The view from the (very back row of) plane as we flew over Yunnan and came into Kunming. |
Today is Garrison’s birthday. Birthdays are a big deal in our family. Sam and I usually both take off and do something fun for his birthday. Obviously, that couldn’t happen this year and it made me SO SAD. I felt so much guilt about today and the lack of focus on Garrison. Once we got to Kunming, we went to a park that is really close to our hotel. Garrison attracted people to him like birds to scraps of food. They were practically circling. Thankfully, so far he has been a champ about all of the attention. We let him explore the park a bit and bought him an ice cream cone, which of course didn’t really taste like ice cream. Bless him. I’m glad he’s not old enough to tell me what he thought of this birthday.
Tomorrow is the day. We leave at 2:30 to get to the civil affairs building where we will begin the paperwork process to finalize our adoption and meet our son. Thankfully, I’m too tired right now to stay up worrying. To be determined if the same proves true at 3:00 a.m
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Why Don't You Just Adopt
Several days ago, someone asked if my opinion on adoption had changed over the years. Did I wish that we had adopted earlier instead of pursuing fertility treatments? Do I think more of my dear infertility sisters should adopt? Basically, am I in camp "Why Don't You just Adopt (Already)?"
Loaded questions right? I garbled out an answer about respecting everyone's journey and always being pro-adoption and pro-fertility treatments, but truthfully, my real feelings are much, much deeper and more complex. Far, far more complex than anyone wants to hear likely, but that's why blogs were invented, right? So it seemed fitting as I mulled over these questions and my answers for the last few days that I post this today. Why? Because four years ago today was my egg retrieval in Jacksonville, Florida. It honestly seems like an entire lifetime ago. I've learned so much, experienced so much since then.
When you are outspoken about your struggles with infertility, you will inevitably find kindhearted, well-meaning people who want to share their advice. Truthfully, I got just as much "Have you tried this herbal supplement/tea/product?" as I did the adoption question. All of the questions, though from a place of good intentions, eventually start to wear on you, but the adoption one, well, nothing seems to get an infertile girls hackles up quite like that one.
I'll be honest. I do wish more of my infertility sisters would be open to adoption, but not because that's the solution to infertility or because it's their responsibility to end the orphan crisis. Nope, nope, double nope. It is neither. I simply wish more people who struggle with infertility would be open to adoption because I truly believe that they can find happiness down that road. True, not second best, but blissful happiness through adoption. But I also wish more people with the ability to procreate like rabbits would also consider adoption.
For so many who struggle with infertility, I think the fear of giving up the genetic connection or the process of carrying the child just seems insurmountable. How could you possibly be happy without that? I don't know. I can tell you I was the first one to say that my desire to carry a child would NEVER go away. I just knew I could adopt ten kids and I'd still want to give birth with every fiber of being. And then I adopted one kid and the desire evaporated into thin air. It doesn't for everyone. I know quite a few adoptive moms who struggled with infertility who will be the first to tell you that the desire remained to feel their son or daughter kick, to experience child birth. But those same women would also say that even without that, they are unequivocally happy with their lives, their children, with their family.
Others may simply be afraid of adoption. Afraid of failed adoptions. Afraid of the process. Afraid of the costs. (Here, I'll pause to say that yes, both infertility treatments and adoption can cost A LOT of money. But for many, infertility treatments are, at least in part, covered by insurance. So yes, adoption can be quite a bit more costly then even multiple rounds of IVF, depending on what state you live in.) Still others may not be able to adopt. Typically, there's not a whole lot of say in who does and doesn't get to try infertility treatments. BMI and age are typically really the only questionable factors there, and truly, that's because the clinics want successes just as much as the patients. Successes mean more patients which means more money. But believe me, there is a whole panel of people who will access your ability to adopt a child, and some may simply know that they don't qualify.
So yes, I'm more than happy to encourage a seeking infertility sister (and really ANYONE) down the road of adoption, but, and it's a BIG but, I truly, truly, truly, with every fiber of my being believe it's not the answer to infertility. Adoption is simply not the one size fits all answer to infertility. It's just not. Adoption is the most complex and complicated world I have ever stepped foot in. While I would encourage anyone thinking about adoption to move forward even in the midst of their fears and concerns and all of the unknowns, I would halt anyone (infertile or otherwise) in their tracks if they aren't ready, willing, and able to dive into the deep end of adoption.
What does the deep end look like? It looks like trauma. It looks like parenting a child of another race in the middle of your little white suburbia. It looks like loss. It looks like sacrificing your own desires to show love and accept the desires of the birth/first family. It looks like anger. It looks like dealing with choices that you didn't make for your child, but that were made long before you were ever in the picture. It looks like confusion. It looks like understanding that time may not heal all wounds.
Is the deep end the place every adoptive parent ends up? No! Absolutely not! There are undoubtedly adoption experiences in which the child is healthy with absolutely no health issues from prenatal or pre-adoption experiences. There are certainly families that have happy, simple, peaceful relationships with the birth family. There are definitely children who grow up at peace with their adoption experience and their family. But these are not guaranteed experiences. NO MATTER WHAT. Not if you adopt at infant. Not if you adopt a girl. Not if you adopt a child that was never exposed to drugs/alcohol. Not if you adopt a boy. Not if you adopt a child of the same race. Not if you adopt a child from a different country. Not if you adopt an older child. There is no magic secret to "success." And if you are unwilling or unable to walk into the world of adoption knowing that you may plunge head first into the deep end, then you should walk away. And if you are unwilling or unable to walk into the adoption world knowing that the first few years may be only ankle deep, but that years from now you could be treading water in the deep, you should walk away.
Adoption is absolutely, without a doubt the single greatest thing about my life. I pray that the rest of my days on this earth are spent shouting the worth of orphans and vulnerable children around the world. It is my life's greatest honor to be an adoptive mama and I am THRILLED when others choose to join me, but that in no way means that I'm tossing out "Why don't you just adopt?" when someone is struggling with infertility. No. Uh-uh.
So that answers the last two questions, but what about the first one? Do I wish we'd chosen adoption earlier over infertility treatments? Do I regret our decision to pursue artificial reproductive technology? Honestly, in almost every way I do. Infertility treatments broke me. I look back on that season of life, and while I'm crazy thankful for the relationships I made and the things I learned, I do not like the person I was then. I was angry. I was bitter. I was sad. And that's not to blame treatments. My attitude is on me, but man the month after month of brokenheartedness, the roller coaster of emotions, always believing that the next thing/cycle/med/doctor might be the one...it was too much. At least for me. Other friends handled it like champions, so I don't say that to discourage anyone from trying, but I am not proud of the person I was back then. My faith was tested in ways that I couldn't imagine; I can't honestly say that I came out all that refined from the fire. I came out burnt crispy and confused. So yes, in many ways I wish I had gone counter to what most of my infertility sisters were doing and walked straight towards adoption.
However, that's really easy to say with hindsight. But with distance we begin to forget that it just wasn't that simple. Sam and I hadn't been married long enough, weren't old enough, didn't have enough income, etc. to adopt in almost every scenario when we started infertility treatments in January 2012. And on January 9, 2014 when they harvested eggs from my body with the hope of a child in the future, it seemed like it was absolutely the right choice for us. It didn't work, and so it's easy to say we were wrong, but I kind of wonder if in some ways I needed to walk all the way through infertility treatments to the very end. Maybe I was being more refined than I remember. I can tell you there was something earth-shattering, heartbreaking, and life-altering about receiving the phone call two days later in which we learned that our embryos were fragile, that they were dying. I realized with immense gravity just how little control I had. So yes, I regret the thousands upon thousands of dollars we spent on infertility treatments that failed. And I even regret losing so many of my years on fighting the battle of infertility treatments. But ultimately, if you believe in some sort of X had to happen so that Y was possible and that allowed for Z, well then I'm right where I am meant to be and I'm thankful that they wheeled me back to surgery four years ago today. On the cusp of being the mom of two stunningly beautiful children with heart-achingly beautiful stories, well I'd be afraid to rewrite even one word of the story, because this is as good as it gets.
Loaded questions right? I garbled out an answer about respecting everyone's journey and always being pro-adoption and pro-fertility treatments, but truthfully, my real feelings are much, much deeper and more complex. Far, far more complex than anyone wants to hear likely, but that's why blogs were invented, right? So it seemed fitting as I mulled over these questions and my answers for the last few days that I post this today. Why? Because four years ago today was my egg retrieval in Jacksonville, Florida. It honestly seems like an entire lifetime ago. I've learned so much, experienced so much since then.
When you are outspoken about your struggles with infertility, you will inevitably find kindhearted, well-meaning people who want to share their advice. Truthfully, I got just as much "Have you tried this herbal supplement/tea/product?" as I did the adoption question. All of the questions, though from a place of good intentions, eventually start to wear on you, but the adoption one, well, nothing seems to get an infertile girls hackles up quite like that one.
I'll be honest. I do wish more of my infertility sisters would be open to adoption, but not because that's the solution to infertility or because it's their responsibility to end the orphan crisis. Nope, nope, double nope. It is neither. I simply wish more people who struggle with infertility would be open to adoption because I truly believe that they can find happiness down that road. True, not second best, but blissful happiness through adoption. But I also wish more people with the ability to procreate like rabbits would also consider adoption.
For so many who struggle with infertility, I think the fear of giving up the genetic connection or the process of carrying the child just seems insurmountable. How could you possibly be happy without that? I don't know. I can tell you I was the first one to say that my desire to carry a child would NEVER go away. I just knew I could adopt ten kids and I'd still want to give birth with every fiber of being. And then I adopted one kid and the desire evaporated into thin air. It doesn't for everyone. I know quite a few adoptive moms who struggled with infertility who will be the first to tell you that the desire remained to feel their son or daughter kick, to experience child birth. But those same women would also say that even without that, they are unequivocally happy with their lives, their children, with their family.
Others may simply be afraid of adoption. Afraid of failed adoptions. Afraid of the process. Afraid of the costs. (Here, I'll pause to say that yes, both infertility treatments and adoption can cost A LOT of money. But for many, infertility treatments are, at least in part, covered by insurance. So yes, adoption can be quite a bit more costly then even multiple rounds of IVF, depending on what state you live in.) Still others may not be able to adopt. Typically, there's not a whole lot of say in who does and doesn't get to try infertility treatments. BMI and age are typically really the only questionable factors there, and truly, that's because the clinics want successes just as much as the patients. Successes mean more patients which means more money. But believe me, there is a whole panel of people who will access your ability to adopt a child, and some may simply know that they don't qualify.
So yes, I'm more than happy to encourage a seeking infertility sister (and really ANYONE) down the road of adoption, but, and it's a BIG but, I truly, truly, truly, with every fiber of my being believe it's not the answer to infertility. Adoption is simply not the one size fits all answer to infertility. It's just not. Adoption is the most complex and complicated world I have ever stepped foot in. While I would encourage anyone thinking about adoption to move forward even in the midst of their fears and concerns and all of the unknowns, I would halt anyone (infertile or otherwise) in their tracks if they aren't ready, willing, and able to dive into the deep end of adoption.
What does the deep end look like? It looks like trauma. It looks like parenting a child of another race in the middle of your little white suburbia. It looks like loss. It looks like sacrificing your own desires to show love and accept the desires of the birth/first family. It looks like anger. It looks like dealing with choices that you didn't make for your child, but that were made long before you were ever in the picture. It looks like confusion. It looks like understanding that time may not heal all wounds.
Is the deep end the place every adoptive parent ends up? No! Absolutely not! There are undoubtedly adoption experiences in which the child is healthy with absolutely no health issues from prenatal or pre-adoption experiences. There are certainly families that have happy, simple, peaceful relationships with the birth family. There are definitely children who grow up at peace with their adoption experience and their family. But these are not guaranteed experiences. NO MATTER WHAT. Not if you adopt at infant. Not if you adopt a girl. Not if you adopt a child that was never exposed to drugs/alcohol. Not if you adopt a boy. Not if you adopt a child of the same race. Not if you adopt a child from a different country. Not if you adopt an older child. There is no magic secret to "success." And if you are unwilling or unable to walk into the world of adoption knowing that you may plunge head first into the deep end, then you should walk away. And if you are unwilling or unable to walk into the adoption world knowing that the first few years may be only ankle deep, but that years from now you could be treading water in the deep, you should walk away.
Adoption is absolutely, without a doubt the single greatest thing about my life. I pray that the rest of my days on this earth are spent shouting the worth of orphans and vulnerable children around the world. It is my life's greatest honor to be an adoptive mama and I am THRILLED when others choose to join me, but that in no way means that I'm tossing out "Why don't you just adopt?" when someone is struggling with infertility. No. Uh-uh.
So that answers the last two questions, but what about the first one? Do I wish we'd chosen adoption earlier over infertility treatments? Do I regret our decision to pursue artificial reproductive technology? Honestly, in almost every way I do. Infertility treatments broke me. I look back on that season of life, and while I'm crazy thankful for the relationships I made and the things I learned, I do not like the person I was then. I was angry. I was bitter. I was sad. And that's not to blame treatments. My attitude is on me, but man the month after month of brokenheartedness, the roller coaster of emotions, always believing that the next thing/cycle/med/doctor might be the one...it was too much. At least for me. Other friends handled it like champions, so I don't say that to discourage anyone from trying, but I am not proud of the person I was back then. My faith was tested in ways that I couldn't imagine; I can't honestly say that I came out all that refined from the fire. I came out burnt crispy and confused. So yes, in many ways I wish I had gone counter to what most of my infertility sisters were doing and walked straight towards adoption.
However, that's really easy to say with hindsight. But with distance we begin to forget that it just wasn't that simple. Sam and I hadn't been married long enough, weren't old enough, didn't have enough income, etc. to adopt in almost every scenario when we started infertility treatments in January 2012. And on January 9, 2014 when they harvested eggs from my body with the hope of a child in the future, it seemed like it was absolutely the right choice for us. It didn't work, and so it's easy to say we were wrong, but I kind of wonder if in some ways I needed to walk all the way through infertility treatments to the very end. Maybe I was being more refined than I remember. I can tell you there was something earth-shattering, heartbreaking, and life-altering about receiving the phone call two days later in which we learned that our embryos were fragile, that they were dying. I realized with immense gravity just how little control I had. So yes, I regret the thousands upon thousands of dollars we spent on infertility treatments that failed. And I even regret losing so many of my years on fighting the battle of infertility treatments. But ultimately, if you believe in some sort of X had to happen so that Y was possible and that allowed for Z, well then I'm right where I am meant to be and I'm thankful that they wheeled me back to surgery four years ago today. On the cusp of being the mom of two stunningly beautiful children with heart-achingly beautiful stories, well I'd be afraid to rewrite even one word of the story, because this is as good as it gets.
Friday, December 29, 2017
Hurry Up and Wait
Whoa. Like serious whoa. I'd like for life to slow down just a bit, but I have a feeling it's not going to in the least. The last several weeks have been filled to the absolute brim. I'm pretty sure I could sleep for 24 hours straight right about now. I just completed the busiest season of the year at work, which is always a huge relief, but with maternity leave looming, I'm already preparing for time away. No rest for the weary.
In November, we took a few days off of work and traveled to Colorado. The purpose of the trip was to spread my father's ashes. He passed away last October and this trip had been in the works since then. Colorado is special to me, quite possibly the most special place on earth, and it was to my dad too. We were both born in Fort Collins, Colorado...it's one thing we had in common during seasons of life when I would have sworn that that was the only thing we shared. My relationship with my father was tenuous at best and volatile at worst during the last twenty years. He was a complicated man. We had not spoken in years and our last conversation was not one that I remember fondly. To find a happy memory, I must go further back to a conversation that, believe it or not, centered around Colorado. He wanted to take me skiing again. While I was far, far wiser as an adult and wary of getting my hopes up, I'll admit that the spark of childhood memories blossomed in me. The memories of skiing with my dad are undoubtedly some of the very best of my childhood. We never made that trip.
Taking my dad back to Colorado was important to me...hard, but in some way healing. It's a place that we uniquely shared. The longing for the mountains, well, I think it's something we will both keep for all the days of our lives. It was his and still is my wish to eventually move back to Colorado. This was my way of taking him home.
The trip was hard. My emotions ran hot and cold, but my anxiety was also high. It had been over seven and a half years since I had last flown, and wow. Let's just was my anxiety has not gotten better over the years. So yeah, I was an anxious, emotional mess trying to honor my dad and spend some quality time with my family while also analyzing how I'm seriously unprepared for 15 hour flights to and from China. It was a complicated week. The highlight was certainly getting Garrison out on the slopes. I don't know when or if my little family will make it back out to Colorado...life's about to get a whole heck of a lot messier and more chaotic, so it was really special that I got to see my little nugget doing what I so desperately loved as a child. I know he's likely too young that these memories will remain, but they will always be there for me, and for that I'm thankful. My mom and I made a few runs as well. It was cathartic really. For so many years it was mom and I against the world. It felt good to end the trip with a memory that we both shared from so long ago.
We returned from our trip and quickly got spun into the adoption journey again. On December 7, we were notified that our dossier was out of review. Basically, at that point, China had said yes to us as a family; we simply had to wait for them to say yes to our match with our son. We received our Letter of Acceptance on December 11, and since then it's been full steam ahead. But now, we wait. Soon we will be jumping through some more hoops. And then we'll wait. Rinse and repeat.
We are currently waiting on approval from US Citizenship and Immigration Services. If you remember hearing that before, it's because we've been here before. Basically, you apply the first time to adopt a child from a specific country, but the child in question is vague...just a general outline (boy/girl, age range, etc). Then you apply again for your specific child. We should have approval any day now. From here, there's a whole slew of acronyms and numbers that no one outside of the international adoption community would understand, but basically each is a step in the process to receiving approval from China to travel. We must have approval before we can truly schedule our trip.
Estimates on travel right now are March, with an early estimate that we could meet our son on February 26...well except that I work for a church. It's a long story, but visas are becoming more and more complicated to procure and due to my place of employment, our travel could be delayed by two-ish weeks. Believe me, that's a tough place to sit. To know that your child is spending additional nights in an orphanage, even if it's a great one with loving ayis and exceptional care, is really, really hard. And so we wait. And then we sprint to jump over the next hurdle. And then we wait. Slowly but surely, we're inching closer to our boy.
Christmas this year was a little hard. I felt a lot of guilt about celebrating while our son sleeps in an orphanage each night. I didn't know the right way to honor him and still celebrate with the family that we have here. I didn't want to diminish Garrison's Christmas or sit around pouting and bemoaning what we don't have in the midst of a season of great joy and hope. Thursday, December 21, was the winter solstice and as such it was the longest night. It was a poignant moment for me as I reflected that for both my son and I, the days are getting longer, the nights are getting shorter, and with each turn of the earth, we are one day closer to one another. We ended up ordering his stocking and hanging it with ours. He received a few small gifts in his stocking just like Garrison. To help Garrison understand that his brother is a real, live person and not just an imaginary friend, we packed up all of his gifts and mailed them to him. Hopefully he receives his package in the coming weeks and on some lever knows that he is loved and his family is coming for him, racing the sun to hold him.
We're still about $7,000 away from our total for adoption expenses, and we have about eight weeks to get there. I'd tell you that this seems insurmountable, but truthfully, we've been here before. I've seen everything fall into place in ways I couldn't possibly have dreamed up. I'm trusting that though this is out of my hands, it is not out of His control. In the coming days, we will make preparations to add another son to our home, both with the addition of a new carseat and the purging of closets, but also space in our hearts for this new gift. The journey to him has already been long, complex, and difficult, but I have a feeling we're just getting started. The real journey is just beginning.
In November, we took a few days off of work and traveled to Colorado. The purpose of the trip was to spread my father's ashes. He passed away last October and this trip had been in the works since then. Colorado is special to me, quite possibly the most special place on earth, and it was to my dad too. We were both born in Fort Collins, Colorado...it's one thing we had in common during seasons of life when I would have sworn that that was the only thing we shared. My relationship with my father was tenuous at best and volatile at worst during the last twenty years. He was a complicated man. We had not spoken in years and our last conversation was not one that I remember fondly. To find a happy memory, I must go further back to a conversation that, believe it or not, centered around Colorado. He wanted to take me skiing again. While I was far, far wiser as an adult and wary of getting my hopes up, I'll admit that the spark of childhood memories blossomed in me. The memories of skiing with my dad are undoubtedly some of the very best of my childhood. We never made that trip.
Taking my dad back to Colorado was important to me...hard, but in some way healing. It's a place that we uniquely shared. The longing for the mountains, well, I think it's something we will both keep for all the days of our lives. It was his and still is my wish to eventually move back to Colorado. This was my way of taking him home.
The trip was hard. My emotions ran hot and cold, but my anxiety was also high. It had been over seven and a half years since I had last flown, and wow. Let's just was my anxiety has not gotten better over the years. So yeah, I was an anxious, emotional mess trying to honor my dad and spend some quality time with my family while also analyzing how I'm seriously unprepared for 15 hour flights to and from China. It was a complicated week. The highlight was certainly getting Garrison out on the slopes. I don't know when or if my little family will make it back out to Colorado...life's about to get a whole heck of a lot messier and more chaotic, so it was really special that I got to see my little nugget doing what I so desperately loved as a child. I know he's likely too young that these memories will remain, but they will always be there for me, and for that I'm thankful. My mom and I made a few runs as well. It was cathartic really. For so many years it was mom and I against the world. It felt good to end the trip with a memory that we both shared from so long ago.
We returned from our trip and quickly got spun into the adoption journey again. On December 7, we were notified that our dossier was out of review. Basically, at that point, China had said yes to us as a family; we simply had to wait for them to say yes to our match with our son. We received our Letter of Acceptance on December 11, and since then it's been full steam ahead. But now, we wait. Soon we will be jumping through some more hoops. And then we'll wait. Rinse and repeat.
We are currently waiting on approval from US Citizenship and Immigration Services. If you remember hearing that before, it's because we've been here before. Basically, you apply the first time to adopt a child from a specific country, but the child in question is vague...just a general outline (boy/girl, age range, etc). Then you apply again for your specific child. We should have approval any day now. From here, there's a whole slew of acronyms and numbers that no one outside of the international adoption community would understand, but basically each is a step in the process to receiving approval from China to travel. We must have approval before we can truly schedule our trip.
Estimates on travel right now are March, with an early estimate that we could meet our son on February 26...well except that I work for a church. It's a long story, but visas are becoming more and more complicated to procure and due to my place of employment, our travel could be delayed by two-ish weeks. Believe me, that's a tough place to sit. To know that your child is spending additional nights in an orphanage, even if it's a great one with loving ayis and exceptional care, is really, really hard. And so we wait. And then we sprint to jump over the next hurdle. And then we wait. Slowly but surely, we're inching closer to our boy.
Christmas this year was a little hard. I felt a lot of guilt about celebrating while our son sleeps in an orphanage each night. I didn't know the right way to honor him and still celebrate with the family that we have here. I didn't want to diminish Garrison's Christmas or sit around pouting and bemoaning what we don't have in the midst of a season of great joy and hope. Thursday, December 21, was the winter solstice and as such it was the longest night. It was a poignant moment for me as I reflected that for both my son and I, the days are getting longer, the nights are getting shorter, and with each turn of the earth, we are one day closer to one another. We ended up ordering his stocking and hanging it with ours. He received a few small gifts in his stocking just like Garrison. To help Garrison understand that his brother is a real, live person and not just an imaginary friend, we packed up all of his gifts and mailed them to him. Hopefully he receives his package in the coming weeks and on some lever knows that he is loved and his family is coming for him, racing the sun to hold him.
We're still about $7,000 away from our total for adoption expenses, and we have about eight weeks to get there. I'd tell you that this seems insurmountable, but truthfully, we've been here before. I've seen everything fall into place in ways I couldn't possibly have dreamed up. I'm trusting that though this is out of my hands, it is not out of His control. In the coming days, we will make preparations to add another son to our home, both with the addition of a new carseat and the purging of closets, but also space in our hearts for this new gift. The journey to him has already been long, complex, and difficult, but I have a feeling we're just getting started. The real journey is just beginning.
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