Please Teach Your Biological Kids About Adoption.

My friend and fellow adoptive mother, Heidi, recently shared an article about why it is important that your child be taught about adoption. (Teach Your Children About Adoption Before Releasing Them on the Playground by Rachel Quinn Egan)  Not my adopted child.  Your biological child.  The artical tells of an experience where the author's young daughter was bombarded with questions on a playground regarding her adoption:  "Is that your mom? (Pointing at me) Why is she white and you are brown? Are you adopted? Where is your real mom? Why isn't she here? Where is she? Why didn't she want you? You didn't come out of that mom's tummy over there, but your sister did. Right?"  

It made me realize that my six year old is well educated in what adoption is and how he came into our family.  But your child most likely has no understanding of it, and it maybe be much more important for him or her to understand than you or I might have considered.

Surprisingly, as someone who started researching adoption ten years ago and has experienced so many of it's facets, this is something I had never really thought about.  My child has not experienced the same thing (yet) as the girls in this article .  And it often is the case that we don't think to champion a cause until we have been touched by it.  But my eyes have been opened, and I am now championing this cause in hopes of preventing an incident like this from happening to my sweet boys.


So, in honor of November being National Adoption Month and even more so in honor of my boys and other adoptive families and birth parents.  I'm asking all of parents of children of any age, so begin in some way to also include a little adoption education when you are discussing other issues, such as differences in race, beliefs, familial makeup, gender, etc.  Do you ever wonder what to say?  Or perhaps what not to say?  Here are a few of my thoughts of points to consider (many of which are covered in the article mentioned above).  Not all of these will be appropriate to share with a child, so choose wisely and age appropriately and always out of love for all children.

1.  Adoption is normal.  It might not be as common as a biological family, but it is normal.

2. "Real" is not a word we use to describe biological or adoptive parents.  I am my son's mother.  Period.  He also has a birth mother, or his first mommy as we refer to her.  She is also real and she was also a mother to him.

3. Children are not given up for adoption because they are not wanted.  In most cases, there are circumstances preventing a birth parent from being able to keep a child.  It could be anything from mental illness, to financial problems, to drugs, to age and a number of other reasons.  We must educate our children to not think a parent (mother or father) gave a child up because they did not want the baby.  Yes, there may be rare instances where that is the case, although I still say the reason they do not want to keep the baby are based somewhere other than desire.

4.  The reasons for #3 are personal and private and nobody's business.  It has no bearing on the value of my child as a beautiful, loved son or daughter.  If I or my child chooses to share the reasons at some point, then I hope you will listen with an open heart.  Otherwise, we need to educate our children that they may not understand all the reasons, and that's okay.  What matters is that they were able to be matched up with parents of love them.

5.  There is always some degree of loss.  A child adopted at birth still experiences sadness at some point in his or her life.  There is still loss.  Some process and cope with it better than others.  But most likely, every adopted child will experience some degree of loss, and that is perfectly normal.  And they also will always feel a love for their birth family, and that is perfectly normal and it is a very good thing.

6.  Adoption shouldn't be a secret we whisper about behind closed doors.  Secrets imply something is wrong, and there is nothing wrong with it.  If your child asks you a question about adoption in front of my child, please answer truthfully, cheerfully and with love and compassion, just as you would if they asked you "what's wrong with that man?" in front of a man in a wheelchair.  Or "why is his skin so dark?" in front of a woman of color.  Don't whisper as if there is shame.  You can say "yes, D is adopted and isn't that wonderful?  Do you have any questions about what that means?"  Or maybe "D, can you explain what adoption is?" Because my child can, and he's not ashamed of it.  It's all he knows.

7.  Please, oh please do not tell my child, or yours, that my child should be grateful we adopted him.  First of all, he's not grateful yet because he doesn't realize he should be.  And he doesn't realize that life could have been worse for him.  And second of all, I will always need to be more grateful that I was given these sweet boys than they ever need to be for me.  It is not a requirement for him to recognize every minute of his life that he was rescued and should be indebted to us for that.  That may not really be the case.  And I can promise you there were many many people in line for these sweet babies.  I wasn't his last resort.  Please just let him be a kid who can be frustrated with his parents like every other kid out there.  He doesn't need to bow in gratitude for a decision in which he had no choice.

8.  And please, oh please, do not tell me how wonderful I am for taking him in, especially in front of him!  I'm not his saviour.  I am his mother.

9.  Adopted children often have different physical features than their adoptive parents.  We don't face this as much in our family, but remember that those traits did come from someone...from other parents.  And we celebrate them and love them.  And there are many biological families, especially those of mixed race, in which there are differences in skin tones and eye color and sizes.  It's part of what makes us unique.  It's not a flaw or a shameful characteristic.  It's unique.  I have one black haired, brown-eyed son and one blue-eyed blondie.  I always say D's eyes are the color of chocolate and S's eyes or the color of the sky (both things I love).  And when D sadly says I have black hair and none of my friends have black hair I always get excited and say "isn't that amazing??  Your hair is so special and not many people have hair as black as yours."  And truly, it is beautiful hair.

10.  Please, please remember that we don't discuss adoption every day.  We talk about school and funny things that happened and Wild Kratts and the planets and how to make homemade clay.  We don't NOT talk about adoption, but it's not an every day topic, just as you don't discuss your child's birth every day.  How often do you remind your child he or she was conceived by you and your spouse and show them footage of the birth?  It's part of their story for sure, but it just doesn't generally come up at the dinner table.  So while education on the subject is so important for all of us, remember that we are a normal family, just like you.  We aren't always "and adoptive family" or an "adopted son".  We are just a family.  He is just my son.  It's not derogatory to say those things.  It's just not necessary to clarify all the time.  It's just who we are.  It would be like saying "my African-American friend" or "my friend in the wheelchair".  Yes, those may be accurate descriptions, but they aren't necessary because those aren't the reasons you are friends.  They are side notes.  Minor details.  They aren't shameful side notes or details, just not pertinent in most cases.

Remember that adoption is part of this thing we call diversity.  When discussing diversity, please include this large segment of our population. I will be forever grateful if my child is understood and accepted "as is" than made to feel like he was unloved and unwanted and rescued.  Perhaps the questions are just curious, but they still hurt.  And when a child is bombarded with the questions  on a playground or at school or wherever he or she may be, it can be a truly traumatic experience.  And my child should really just be like your child, living his or her normal, but always special, and hopefully still magical childhood.

It Has Only Taken Seven Years

Celebrating the completion of Ninja
Camp with an ice cream cone.

Something happened last week that hasn't happened to me in six years.  July 7th came and went without me realizing it.  it came and went and I forgot to be sad.  7/7/7 was supposed to be a lucky day, and as one that has always read a little to much into signs, I thought that it was an extra big sign that we would be given a child with that birth date.  I don't know what happened.  Maybe it was the craziness of returning from a twelve day vacation with family in Texas.  Maybe it was Summertime or sleep deprivation or loads of work to do.  Maybe it was my recent obsession with Brendan Coyle, leading me to Google/Youtube/Hulu/Netflix everything he has ever acted in so I could watch for hours as I worked in my shop into the wee hours of the morning.  Or maybe the recent finalization of S's adoption....miracle #2....has finally settled my heart.  Whatever it was, it took four days for me to realize Isaac's birthday had come and gone, tearfree and without the longing I often feel for our first son.  It's amazing how someone can be with you for only five months and losing them can cause years and years of grief.

My little guys share a birthday, in a crazy twist of fate.  I have two little left-handed boys born on the same day four years apart.  Maybe I got my sign after all.  They are the best.  They both have their own adoption story full of joys and sorrows.  D is five now and we have already had discussions about his adoption. S is one year old and oblivious to the  miracle of how he came to us.  But, someday we will start talking about it.  Someday soon.  It's a good thing.  Not without it's challenges, but nothing worth anything comes without a challenge.

My first ice cream cone

I tackled a fear this morning.  I did on ocean swim in preparation for a triathlon.  I love the ocean but I'm afraid of sharks, especially swimming out past the breakers.  I did it though, and I felt great for so many reasons.  I'm 43 and I'm running Ragnar and doing an open ocean swim.  I live in a beautiful place with two little boys that I wasn't sure were ever going to be a part of my life.  I will always miss my Isaac, but I am learning to see the joy and to keep moving forward, tackling life's challenges and relishing its opportunities.   I am learning to accept the pain of losing my baby and the fact that it will always be there, but it is a reminder that I have the capacity to feel love, and I don't regret that.  And this year, as his birthday came and went without a thought, I am learning that time really does heal us.  Or maybe its my two beautiful boys that are healing me.  Or my three beautiful boys teaching me, even if one is teaching me from a long way away.  It's only taken seven years.  Another number seven.....maybe it's a sign.   Happy belated birthday, sweet baby Isaac.

The Cost of Adoption

from our most recent invoice

We got an invoice from our adoption lawyer in the mail recently (see picture).  As you can see, we were charged for "receipt of family pictures; save to file".  Now, it does say "$25 no charge" an I'm not sure if that's what it's referring to, as we still incurred a charge on this bill.  But, remind me
not to send them cute pictures of our family any more!  They request them from time to time to stay current on our family, but I didn't realize we were getting charged for them to "save to file".  But, I am not complaining.  This lawyer has been great, and I know it's just the way it works these days.  But, it made me think about what it costs to adopt.  What it costs to give a home to a child who would otherwise not have one.  What it costs to provide a home for a child that would otherwise become a ward of the state and cost us, as a people, in tax money (and in so many other ways) to support.  Foster children have a much, much higher risk of needing social programs throughout their lives.  Did you know that 70% of people in prison in California were foster children at one point?  They are at much higher risk for needing all kinds of public assistance.  And I don't mean just as foster kids.  I mean way beyond into adulthood.  So, it just seems like it would help the whole situation if the whole adoption process was much less costly.  I have friends who became legal guardians to THEIR OWN grandchildren after their daughter passed away from cancer, and they had to do paperwork and pay $900!  I mean, it's a drop in the bucket compared to a regular adoption, but still ridiculous!

When I sat down to write about this, I thought about ALL the costs of adoption.  When all is done, S's adoption will wind up costing us about $10,000.  That includes social workers, a home study through the county (that costs $4500 alone!), lawyers, travel expenses back and forth to the hospital and little things here and there that nobody thinks about.  And $10,000 is getting off easy.  Most adoptions will cost much, much more, especially if you adopt internationally.  And there's the cost of the craziness it brings, the stress between spouses as you try to decide if this baby is for you, or if the situation is too risky and might result in a failed adoption, or the cost of the major life change it brings about, often with hardly any notice.  There is the cost of adding another child to your family and wondering how it's going to affect the child you already have.  There is the cost of having a child with a history and a family that you now need to figure out how to mesh with yours.  There is the cost of knowing that your child will always have a desire to know about his or her past and will most likely want some contact in some form with the birth parents or birth family, if possible.  There is the cost of your young child asking you why his parents didn't want him, or why they don't want to see him, or why was she so sick that she couldn't take care of me (because at four, we have chosen the word "sick" to describe her drug condition....we will tell him the truth later when he is able to understand what drugs are). There is the cost of those teenage years, when most adopted children go through a heightened identity crisis.  And I'm sure there are costs I don't even know about right now.

So, with so many costs, why adopt?  It's just like anything else you save up and pay a lot of money for.  Because it's absolutely worth it.  A new car, a European vacation, a new home....all those things have a cost attached, but what you get from it is so worth it.  Don't think I am comparing a child to a car or a vacation.  It's an analogy.  The experience you get on that vacation will last a lifetime.  You will make memories.  You will take pictures.  You will see and taste and touch things you never could have before.  And it will make the stress of saving that money and pinching pennies a very distant memory.  All you will remember is how amazing it was.  And that's how adopting is.  Every single one of those costs will never be more important than every single amazing moment of having a child, or of being a mom.  And not that every moment of being a mom is amazing....but you will look back and remember the good.  When my son, out of the blue says "Mom, I love you" or "am I your sweet baby?" or "come snuggle with me" or "will you read this to me?" or "will you play monster trucks with me?", the costs we incurred adopting him will just not matter.  In fact, S's adoption isn't even final yet, and it already doesn't matter, because I love these boys more than life itself, and you can't put a price on that.

The Other Mommy, and Why It's Important to Love Her

Oh my gosh, I can't express how much
I love this kid!  Is he the cutest, or what?!

It’s 4 a.m. and I just spent a half an hour helping my sweet son go back to sleep.  These are tiring, yet precious moments.  There is something about 4 a.m. that brings clarity of mind as I sit there with his little hand in mine as he drifts back off to a peaceful, dreamy state.  These last few months have been emotionally draining for me, for reasons I won’t go into except to say I’ve been sorting through a lifetime of struggles that have, for one reason or another, come to the surface lately.  It’s as if I’ve been shooting wiper fluid onto the windshield of my life and clearing all the dirt and bugs and haze away, and am able to see more clearly.  I wish it was that easy, but the good thing is that it is definitely making it easier to drive.  I had a conversation with D (my son) in the car a couple of months ago.  We have always been very open about his adoption, but he is only three years old, and it’s not like it comes up in conversation all the time.  He doesn’t understand the concept at this age, and frankly, we are busy living life and it just isn’t a topic that comes into everyday life, as we go to the park and have dinner and read books.  So months pass, and I started to realize that I didn’t want to have a big sit down discussion with him one day to say “hey, you’re adopted”.  My goal has always been that he just knows.  I want him, when he’s older, to be able to say “I’ve always known I was adopted”.  I don’t want there to be a moment he found out, as if it was a deep dark secret we were keeping from him. Children think secrets mean something is wrong, and more specifically, wrong with them, and I never wanted him to feel that there was anything wrong with the way he came to us.  I am learning that this is easier said than done.

Think about it.  How many times, and at what age, did you sit your child down and discuss conception and their birth with them?  And is it something you worked in to their everyday lives?  Probably not.  Anyway, one morning, a few months ago, I started to think that I needed to make more of an effort to slip it casually into conversations, so it just becomes knowledge.  I have done this before, but that’s easy when they are two.  When they are almost four and able to have conversations and ask tons of questions but not yet fully comprehend concepts, it becomes more difficult because they can hear you and understand your words, but not the meanings.  Which can just lead to confusion, not clarity.  So, this particular morning, we were driving and somehow babies and whatnot came up in the conversation and I said something to him about when he was born and how he was with his other mommy.  I thought it was innocent enough.  But I saw his face fall through the rear view mirror, and I heard the fear and concern in his voice when he said “aaawww.  But I don’t want to be with another mommy!”  And I realized this is going to be harder than I thought.  It was a heartbreaking moment.  It didn’t occur to me that the word “mommy” to D had a wide range of meanings.  It is the person he lives with.  The person he spends all day with, playing and going to the zoo and bathing and tucking him in at night.  In his little mind, he was afraid of having to go do all those things with someone else that he didn’t know.  I quickly reassured him that he wasn’t going anywhere else with anyone else, and that I was his mommy and he would stay with me.  But throughout the day, his concern was vocalized several times.  “But I don’t want to go with another mommy!"  It would just come out randomly.  And I would hug him and say, “honey, you aren’t going anywhere.  You are staying with mommy and daddy.”  

Fast forward to a couple of days ago.  I had decided to leave it at that, and approach the subject later when he was more able to understand the idea.  We were talking about birth and how he was born (or “borned” as he says) in a hospital.  I was sticking to ideas he could understand.  “You were so tiny!  You were just a little, tiny baby and you were in the hospital.  Later, we got to bring you home and you were my tiny little baby.  You were so small and mommy fed you and held you.”  He has been fascinated with babies lately, and he will crawl into my arms and lay down and say “I want to be a baby again”, and we will pretend for a minute or two that he is so tiny and that I’m feeding him with a bottle.  And then I will tell him all the cool things he can do now that he couldn’t do as a baby, and he will laugh and add to the list, and then be happy with being three.  So, this particular day as we were discussing how small he had been and how he was born in the hospital, he said “when I was with my other mommy?”  I was blown away that not only did he remember an extremely short conversation, but that he had put it in its proper context.  And what was even more amazing, was that he wasn’t afraid.  He said it, I said “yes, when you were with your other mommy” and that was it.  He was satisfied, and we moved on with the day.  It was probably a more powerful moment for me than for him. 

The thing is, I want her to be a part of him.  I want him to know that there is room in my heart for her and that I am not afraid for him to love her.  She passed away before D was even a year old, so he will never get to meet her in this life.  But she is forever a part of him.  And she is forever a part of me.  She gave me a gift that I cannot repay, and there is love enough to go around.  One day I hope to meet her and I want to be able to show her an amazing man and reassure her that she made a good choice.  And I want D to have nothing but good feelings towards her.  So we will continue to, age appropriately, talk about his “other mommy” and the contribution she made to his life.  They may not always be easy conversations, but they will always be important.

The Kite. Pull Your Children Closer and They Will Soar.

Aaahhh, discipline.  Discipline, discipline, discipline.  It’s one of the main things I hear people talking about when they talk about what is wrong with “kids these days”.  And frankly, I’ve been one of those people.  I’m a little old school.  I think keeping score during kids games is great.  I think we coddle our kids too much.  I think we negotiate way too much with them and sometimes “I said so” is just the answer they need to hear and deal with.  But, I had an eye-opening experience during a class we are taking for our yearly foster care licensing hours requirement.  It’s an amazing class called “Attachment Parenting”.  It is designed more specifically for kids who have been in the foster care system and for whom traditional discipline and parenting tactics just don’t work, or even perhaps backfire.  For example, a kid who has had thirty placements and is under the assumption that they are not wanted or cared about or not good enough, does not need a time out.  In some ways, they have been in time out for years.  And in fact, being pushed away yet again for not doing the right thing reinforces those feelings and worsens behavior.  It doesn’t serve the purpose that it might with a kid who has grown up in a loving home and hasn’t faced a lifetime of rejection.  So this class teaches different techniques to help, not only discipline and teach these kids, but more importantly and central to the class, help them form attachments to others, especially you, as a new adoptive parents.

I found that the techniques and information, however, was extremely applicable to all families, and shows more creative, positive and successful methods of parenting any child.  One image that really stood out to me was the metaphor of the kite.  I snapped a picture of the diagram out of our workbook, so I apologize for the less than stellar quality.  As you can see, the kite represents the child.  We, or the caregiver, is the kite-flyer.  Our attachment with the child is represented by the string, and the tail represents discipline.  Our goal is to get that kite flying high.  Don’t you think that is an amazing image and an amazing, but daunting goal?  Many people think that training and teaching are the things that will make a child successful.  But I found it really compelling that what they have shown in the research is that it is the attachments make our children soar.  If you think about how a kite works, it is the string that keeps it in the air, not the wind or anything else.  It’s a little ironic, because we think that it’s the wind that makes it fly higher, and in some ways it is.  But the string is what keeps it up there.  The one thing that connects it to the ground, is the one thing that can make it fly the highest it’s ever flown, and do it again and again and again.  The tail of a kite is there for extra stability.  Some need longer tails than others, but it isn’t really the key to flying.  And if you think about it, when a kite starts to falter or wobble or get too close to the ground, there isn’t an experienced kite-flyer that would think that adding a longer or heavier tail, or even cutting it shorter or all the way off, is the solution.  No.  The solution is to tighten the string, or to strengthen the attachment.  Pulling that kite in closer will help to stabilize it and get it back to a point where it can go high again.  Isn’t that the same with our kids?  More and more discipline isn’t usually the answer.  The answer is to draw them closer.  Spend time with them.  Touch them.  Gaze into their eyes and tell them how wonderful they are.  Hug them.  Go out for an ice cream.  Read stories and play catch and race around the yard chasing each other.  It might seem too simplistic, but it is so true.  More often than not, kids struggle and lash out when they are feeling unstable—when something has shifted in their world, no matter how small, and there is anxiety about it.  We are usually the ones that need to shift and see that we are meeting their needs.  And please don’t confuse needs with their every whim and desire.  These are two very different things.  One of the teachers in this class said that one of the homework assignments she gives in her parenting classes is to spend ten minutes a day playing with your child and report about it the next week.  She said she has had classes in which one couple in thirty made the time to do it.  The other twenty-nine couples said they just didn’t have time.  No time to spend ten minutes a day with their child for one week.

Think about it.  When is the last time you were having a tough time, and having someone reem you out for not being focused enough or not doing something correctly, or distancing themselves from you helped make you a better employee or better spouse?  But what about a kind word, a thoughtful gesture, compassionate service or just encouragement?  How often have those things made an impact?  And if it's true for you, how much more true is it for a young child who can't process in his mind what exactly his needs are and how they could be met in a way that would make him happier?  And so he drowns in his grief and sadness.

We must pull our children near and listen to them.  We must love them and help them to love us and others.  We must show them affection, laugh with them, dance, play, wrestle and run with them.  It’s not just play time.  We are forming attachments.  We are forming relationships.  And ultimately, we are forming who our children are.  Don’t tie them down with heavier tails of discipline.  As important as discipline is, it is just a thing to help stablize them.  Instead, try increasing your love and strengthening your bonds with them (while still being firm, of course) and see if the discipline problems don’t take care of themselves.

Pick me, pick me! Like Middle School Sports All Over Again.

I had a little scare with my sweet little boy yesterday.  We had been swimming at a friend’s pool for a couple of hours.  D was tired and wanted to change into his dry clothes.  He was standing with his friend at the end of the pool throwing in beach balls and then fishing them out as they floated back to the edge of the pool.   I turned to talked to one of the moms and he fell in the deep end.  I just remember hearing silence where laughter and chatter had once been.   His friend’s father was standing right beside them and was getting ready to jump in after him fully clothed, having just arrived from work.  Thanks to a summer of swim lessons, D resurfaced after a second or two and though panicked, had not swallowed any water since he knew how to hold his breath.  I was getting ready to jump in when the father was able to grab his arm and fish him out.  D was so upset, but safe.  He didn’t even choke on any water at all.  I hugged him and told him what a good job he had done holding his breath and how he had been able to bring himself back to the surface of the water.  He sobbed for a minute, denying his success—“No, I not!”.  I reassured him that even though the father had pulled him out, that he had had a big hand in saving himself.  He suddenly stopped crying and said in a happy voice “I fine!”.  I thought about that all afternoon, and ran the “what ifs” through my head.  I wasn’t too shaken by it until I woke up around 1 a.m. just sick over the whole event.  D had crawled into bed with us, and instead of taking him back to his bed like normal, I left him there.  I lay beside him and watched him sleep peacefully.  I inspected his facial features and thought about how quickly he was growing into a little boy.  His chubby little cheeks have receded into a more angular face.  He has freckles on his lips his body is strong and more lean than before.  He is handsome and funny and a fun-loving handful of a child.  I love him so much.

I thought about how often we as parents make mistakes and beat ourselves up over what we think are bad decisions.  There are no handbooks for raising children, although I feel like those of us who adopt get more of one than most with all the classes we are required to take.  But, even so, it’s sink or swim for most of us, and every now in then, we have someone bail us out, too.  This experience made me think about this questionnaire we had to fill out to be in the birthparent profile pool.  The county has a waiting list, but they also have a pool of applicants from which birthparents can choose parents for their children if it is a voluntary relinquishment.  It’s a great opportunity, but can be a difficult thing to fill out.  You want to tell the truth, but you also want to be the fun, happy couple that will make someone choose you.  And all the high school popularity issues (or lack thereof as in my case…) coming flooding back!  You are allowed three pages to answer these questions and three pages of pictures you think will show who you are individually and as a couple.  I will spare you our answers, but thought you might like to see the list of questions.  It took awhile for us to fill this out, trying to judge between how much of the truth to share and how much we didn’t want to scare anyone off!  We just tried to look somewhat normal, moderately fun, not too weird, but not too mainstream, maybe a little edgy…..oh, who am I kidding!  It is what it is, right?  Sigh.  Maybe I should just put in the one about parenting, “at least he’s still alive!”  I mean, that’s a success in my book at the end of the day.

Here are the questions we were required to answer in hopes we'd be cool enough to be chosen...how would you answer?  Kind of interesting to take a look at yourself and your relationship a little more closely sometimes. 

Following information for both applicants:

• First Name:
• Year of Birth:
• Race & Ethnicity
• Physical Description: 
• Height:    
• Weight: 
• Hair color:   
• Eye Color
• Skin:
• Why we want to adopt:
• What is each of us like as person?
• Education level and field:
• Employment (prior and current)
• Employment and child care plans when the child comes:
• Religion (how active, how we will raise our children):
• Interests, hobbies, and sports (individually and shared):
• Reading (type):
• TV viewing (type and how much):
• Music (type):
• Describe your home (What makes it distinctively yours?):
• Describe your neighborhood (urban, rural, etc.):
• Do you have pets?  What kind?
• Marriage:
• How do husband and wife share/divide household responsibilities and chores?:
• How do you as a couple/family spend your time together (i.e. how do you spend a typical weekend?):
• Brief description of childhood (number of siblings, where you grew up, relationship with parents, significant memories/experiences/etc.?)  One paragraph:
• Briefly describe a difficult life experience you had and how you learned from it (one paragraph):
• Extended family (relationship between grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousings:  geographical locations of relatives; experiences and attitudes toward adoption:
• Experience with children:
• Children in home:  adopted/biological   description/personality/year of birth:
• How are, or will, child-care responsibilities be handled between husband and wife?:
• Thoughts about relationship with birth parents:  How do you feel about:
•  Meeting the birth parent(s) prior to, or at placement.
• Updating of pictures and letters about the child over the years.
• Receiving pictures and letters from birth parent(s) over the years.
• Supporting a search for birth parents.

Finances...No Stone Left Unturned.

Aaahhh, finances.  Yes, every corner of your life must be examined before you can take home a child.  This blog post will be short and sweet, as I really just wanted to post this Financial Statement that we were required to fill.  It's just an informative tidbit for those hoping to adopt, just so you are prepared for the microscope.  I really have a love/hate relationship with a lot of the things we are required to do and here's why.  I feel like any schmo can go out and get pregnant (...okay, well obviously not ANY schmo...), and yet we have to report our car payments and checking accounts and health insurance, and what we spent on Cheetos last month (okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but only the part about the Cheetos).  On the other hand, I know the county wants to make sure prospective adoptive parents have the means to support their children, and this is all done to protect them.  I do understand that, and I think it's necessary.  Social workers get a bad rap, and we have been blessed to have some really great ones who I know for a fact have these kids' best interest in mind.  SO....even though it may sound like I'm complaining, I'm really not.  I do think this financial statement is interesting, though.  Maybe every couple choosing to have children should fill out a sheet like this....maybe it would make them take things a little more seriously.  That said, I really think that we are never completely prepared to have children in any way, and if we knew the reality of what it was going to cost us (and I ain't just talking money), maybe a lot more people would choose to not have children!  And that would be a shame.  Frankly, it is hard, and it is expensive and it will give you wrinkles and grey hair, but it will give you joy and fulfillment and love you didn't know possible.  It will stretch you and improve you in so many ways, and when you think you just aren't a good enough parent, you will find that you are.  And sometimes, those sacrifices we make, including financially, become some of the most memorable, character-building times of our lives--ones we wouldn't trade for anything, not even for the thrill of not living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Take a perusal and let me know your thoughts.

The Thing About Waiting....

“Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”  This is a favorite quote from the book “A Thousand Splendid Suns” that sums up our entire fertility treatment and adoption process.  My friend, Genie, pointed it out to me one time in reference to our long, tiring quest to have a child.  Not to compare my challenges with those of Miriam’s in the book, but it is such a beautiful, concise statement that is so eternally true. It has been almost nine months since we have been back on the list to adopt again through San Diego County Adoptions.  It has been almost two years since we finalized D’s adoption, and we started pretty soon after jumping through the hoops to get back on the list.  It took six months to get everything finished, and seven more months before we could get our final interviews and home visits.  Two months later, those were finally processed and we were back on the list in January of this year.  I suspect it will be about another year before we get a call.  I hope and pray that it is sooner, but mostly I hope and pray for the right child (or children) for us at the right time.  

(As always, all my poems and artwork are copyrighted!
Please don't use without permission.)

Why is waiting so hard?  I’ve decided that I can handle just about anything if I know there is an end to it.  If someone told me the exact date I would be given a child, then I could have handled the years of waiting more easily.  You would know how much time you had to pursue something else, or to tie up loose ends, or that you could save all that money you spent on pregnancy tests, and you would know exactly when to start getting excited.  It would still be hard to wait, but it would be much, much easier.  The worst thing about not knowing is not knowing.  Five minutes before your trial is over feels just like five years before because you don’t know the difference.  We’ve all waited for something--maybe a job offer, or a wedding proposal, or a raise, or acceptance to graduate school, or a call from the doctor to say you are in remission.  It’s the fear of the unknown that gets us.  We want to know—it is human nature.  We want to know what we are dealing with so we can plan and prepare and have some control.  And we know whenever that thing we are waiting for decides to finally arrive, that we will be so relieved or happy or excited and we will be able to move forward instead of feeling like we are in limbo.  I’ve learned, though, that strangely, the greatest lessons are taught during those times of waiting, much more so than at the moment we are granted that thing we so desire.  And so, we wait.  But, it’s different now.  Instead of crying and stressing over each childless day ticking by, I have decided that this time around, I will enjoy walking the path, and I will pay attention to everything along the way, and I will be grateful that I’m walking this path with the sweet hand of a vibrant, little black-haired tank of a three-year-old boy holding my hand.  I wrote and illustrated this poem about him.  It captures so much the way I see him.  His name actually means “son of the sea”.  It was one of the things that sold me on his name, and I have found that it is very fitting.  He is difficult to tame and a little unruly at times, but magnificent and strong, and I am in awe when I stand with him, as I am with the ocean.  We are enjoying every minute together.  And as much as I want another child, and want him to have a sibling (or two) with whom he can share his life, I know that if that doesn’t happen, we have been blessed beyond measure to at least have him.  That said, we still stand on the shore and wait…

The Five Children We Didn't Take Home

It occurred to me that maybe I should explain the subtitle of this blog, “Inspired by the process, the children and the lessons learned.”  I think it’s mostly self-explanatory, but I wanted to share with you why I used "children" as a plural form, and not just "child", beings we only have one child.  If you read my post about our first adoption that failed, then you might think it’s just referring to these two special children.  But there are more children that have been a part of this process, and that I often think about and wonder how they are doing.

 If you haven’t been through the adoption process (and especially through social services) you may think that the process goes something like this:  You finish your application and then one day, you get a call telling you to come get your baby.  You go get your baby and go home to your new life.  I’m sure that does happen with some adoptions, but through social services, it can be quite different.  You might be surprised to know that we actually turned down five different children before we accepted D.  Often, I think people assume that we are so desperate for a child, that when the call comes in, we jump.  And maybe losing our little Isaac affected that spontaneity a little bit, as he was the first placement call we ever had, and we did jump at the chance to take him home.  But after being burned, the next calls that came in required a lot more thought and reasoning as to what would be right for us.  It is hard to jump in when you know the reality is that you might not get to keep this child.  But to keep a long story a little shorter, I want to tell you about the five sweet children that came before D.  (I have left out their names here for privacy—you never know who might know them!).

 1. Almost a year to the day of losing little Isaac, we got a call about a baby boy who had been removed from his home and was being put into a concurrent planning adoption.  I wanted him so much.  I had really wanted a baby boy to fill the void of losing Isaac.  But, something the social worker said scared us.  His mother had almost lost his older sister to adoption because of her drug use and her unwillingness to comply with what the county was requiring.  And then, at the last possible time, she pulled it together and got her girl back.  And even though that girl was no longer in her mother’s care (her grandmother had guardianship) the county judged each case individually, and she would have the same opportunity with this little boy.  Our social worker said something like “I just want to warn you that we think this adoption will go through, but this mother might be slow out of the gate and then pull it together at the last minute.”  “Slow out of the gate.”  That has stuck with me to this day.  There wasn’t even a question.  John and I said no, knowing we could just not handle another rollercoaster ride like we had before.

 2.  Just a couple of weeks later, we got a call about an 18 month old little girl.  It was the morning of Christmas Eve 2008 when we went in for the telling (the telling is where you meet with the social workers and they tell you everything they know about the child, and then you decide if you want to move forward).  On paper, this looked like a perfect match, and I still can’t tell you why we didn’t take her.  The parents’ rights had been terminated.  It was zero risk.  But, it didn’t feel right.  John and I looked at each other and just both knew it wasn’t the child for us.  It was a shock for me, as I had so desperately wanted a child, and had hoped one would have already come in the year after we lost Isaac.  But, she wasn’t ours.  We knew she belonged in to someone else.

 3.  In March, I was in L.A. working on a project, when right in the middle of it, with the worst timing possible, came the call for a safe surrender baby girl.  She had been dropped off at the hospital and we could pick her up the next day from the hospital.  I wanted her so badly!  I called John and we had several conversations over the course of the next few hours.  We had to make a decision fast, as she was an emergency placement.  Ann gave us until the next morning.  I tried my hardest to talk John into it, but he wouldn’t have it.  In hindsight, I can understand and sympathize, but I was so upset at the time.  And I was a few hours away, so we couldn’t discuss it face to face (which might have been a blessing!).  He just felt it was too risky.  In California, safe surrender moms get a bracelet with their baby’s information on it, and they have a window of time to come back and change their minds.  And even if the paperwork gets filed to terminate the rights, I’ve been told that until it’s all final, that they have a good chance of being able to get that baby back.  And with an unknown father, who might become aware of his baby being born in the near future, there were just too many risks for John.  I made him call Ann and tell her we weren’t taking her.  I was too heartbroken to make the call.  We worked through it, but it was one of the bigger arguments we’d had in a while.

 4. & 5.  The last two kids were a sibling group we were offered the same month D was born, unbeknownst to us.  It was May, and we got the call about a 1 ½ year old little girl and her 2 ½ year old brother.  I was really excited at the opportunity for two!  I mean, let’s just get on with building our family already!  Oddly enough, even with the risks, John and I were both immediately on board and excited.  They had been in the system for a year after being removed from their home because of domestic issues, and their accessibility to drugs.  The father was in prison, and I don’t remember what was going on with the mother.  We did the telling and saw their sweet little pictures.  We were given the weekend to decide, and one of the things you are required to do before deciding to move forward is talk to the child’s (or childrens’) foster mom so you are fully aware of their current state and any difficulties they may be having.  Well, to condense the story, the foster mom told us she didn’t think the children’s grandparents were aware they would be going up for adoption and that there might be a problem there.  So, we addressed this issue with the social worker, who in turn did some research and found out that there was some planning in place by family members to place these kids with a friend, should they ever be placed for adoption.  It was a big mess, so we pulled out until it was all sorted out.  They told us that if they came back up for adoption after everything was sorted out, that we would be the first couple they called, but for now, we were back on the list again.  We were pretty sad about it.  I was really excited to welcome two kids home, even though I knew it would be a challenge, to say the least.  But it wasn’t meant to be.

About six weeks later, at the beginning of July, we got THE call—the one that would ultimately give us our sweet little boy.  Seven children later (including our little Isaac) we finally got to keep one—the one meant for us.  I do believe that everything happens for a reason, and even though we didn’t take these five kids, I know even having the chance to think about them and their circumstances blessed our lives in some way.  I still think about all six of those sweet, innocent children, all caught in some kind of craziness that never was their fault.  I wonder what their lives are like today, and wish the best for them.  I hope we don’t have to wait through six more children before we get the next one, but if we do, I know we’ll learn great lessons from them, too.

****ADDENDUM***  This addition to this post was inspired by Kristina's comment below.  One of the things that comes with being open about adopting is the regular "offers" to take a baby.  Sometimes it's a birthmother's well-meaning friend or family member, or someone that just hears about a situation, but I'm not sure I can even remember how many times someone contacted us about taking a baby and it fell through every time.  I know it's a difficult decision for birthmothers, but it is also difficult being on the other end thinking you are going to get a baby, and then suddenly the rug is ripped out from under you at the last minute.  I learned quickly to be cautiously optimistic.  I always expressed interest, but knowing how many of these never come to fruition, I learned to not even get excited.  I would just say, "let me know when the baby arrives and they are signing the papers."  We had a sister of a coworker, friends of friends, a phone call with a birthmother the day she gave birth swearing we were the ones and less than 24 hours later a family member had taken her and we never heard from anyone again.  We had one that wanted us to come to the doctor's visits and be a part of everything, but we had just lost our first baby and I had reason to suspect she wasn't all that sure about this decision, so a few months after saying we would wait until later in the process, we never heard anything else again (I'm pretty sure she kept that baby).  We had friends with more distant connections to a birthmother....oh, if I had a dollar for every time someone was absolutely sure we were getting that baby....well, I'd have a little extra spending cash.  So, I suppose it's not just the baby we lost and the five we didn't get to take home for different reasons--there are more babies out there who taught us lessons and were a part of this process.  At least a dozen, and if I stopped and really thought about it, probably more.  Patience is a virtue, right?  I still try to be optimistic, but sometimes it's hard to not get annoyed when someone is so sure that a baby is coming to us and just can't understand why we aren't thrilled.  They will continue to insist it will happen and want us to get excited.  Believe me, when it happens, no body will be more excited than I will be, but I can't live on the edge of those emotions 24/7, so I hope you will understand if I temper my excitement until the baby is in my arms and the papers are signed.  And then I can afford to break down and cry with happiness.

Here we go again.

It's been over a year since, in the glorious aftermath of finalization our long-awaited adoption, I set up this blog with the intent to document all those feelings and thoughts through writings and artwork.  But, I suppose motherhood took over, and between working and raising our sweet little boy, this just fell by the wayside.  However, I am recommitted, spurred on partly by receiving a phone call today from our local county adoptions social worker that we are officially back on the list to adopt a second child.  It only took a year from the time we began our paperwork--patience is a virtue, right??  Or so I hear.  Our little D is not so little any more.  He is fast approaching his third birthday in a few months, and I can't believe how fast the time has gone.  I so want to him to have a sibling, and wish he could be experiencing that right now.  But, God has other plans for us, and so we wait.  Like so many days before, we wait.  One of the cool things about adoption, that can also be the most frustrating, is not knowing.  You don't know when that call will come in.  It could be this afternoon, or a year from now.  And though that can be difficult at times, when it comes in, it's very exciting.  There is a whirlwind of emotions and a flurry of activity to get ready for a child that may be in your home within just a couple of days of even knowing they existed.  They say to consider yourself pregnant when your home study is complete, because you could get the call at any time.  But the thing about being pregnant, is you have a pretty good timeline of when that child is coming.  Yes, he or she might come early or late, but it's usually a difference of weeks, and you know you are getting a newborn.  With us, this child could be a newborn, or two or five.  It could be a boy or a girl.  It could be a sibling group of two with multiple possibilities of combinations of ages and sex and race.  How do you prepare for that?  How do you buy clothes or bedding or toys or anything ahead of time when so much is unknown.  And though it's a little crazy to think about that, personally, that is just one of the coolest, most exciting things about adoption.  In many ways, I love the unpredictable, unknown nature of it all.  And so, the waiting begins.  Or continues, really.  But in a more exciting way, knowing that the call could actually come in now that everything is complete.  As Shakespeare wrote in Richard II (albeit about a completely unrelated story!) "Heaven hath a hand in these events."  I truly believe that is the case, and it is that knowledge that allows me to let go, live my life with my precious son that I didn't know I would ever get the chance to raise, and wait for the child that God has chosen for us.  His or her road to our family might be a little less direct, but it is mapped out nonetheless.

"Saving Us"

All artwork and poems are copyrighted and may not be reused without my permission. When I first posted this painting, we had just finalized the adoption of our first child the day before. It had been a crazy ride, from years of failed fertility treatments, the long process to just get on the list to adopt, losing our first son back to his biological father five months into the process, to waiting out the fourteen months it took to finalize D's adoption from the time we took him home at seven weeks old. I began writing down the thoughts that were flooding my mind and they came out in the form of poems and images. I wanted to put together an exhibit centered on adoption, and then that got put on the back burner until D got a little older. He is two and a half now, and I'm ready to get back to putting together that exhibit and a collection of my own illustrated writings on the subject. This particular print was specifically about our adoption, and the images look like us. My little dark, curly headed boy, happily wrapped in the arms of love. People have told us how great we are to give a child a better life, but we have come to see how much he has brought to us and saved us in so many ways. I never considered that we were in it just to give him a better life. I just wanted a child. But having him has really confirmed that. He has saved me in so many ways. And the love I had for him more than a year ago when I painted this, has only grown in leaps and bounds.