06/22/11

Please Help Bring Home the Bac Lieu 16

Typically my blog posts are well about my family but today I have some very special families and their amazing children to share with you and I hope that you take the initiative to help, which does not mean money necessarily but prayers or a phone call or a letter!

If you go back to the beginning of this blog you will see that we started out hoping to adopt from Vietnam. I had many reasons that is what I wanted to do. Well as you all know we did not end up being able to do that, Little Man and Little Princess are from Korea, because the United States and Vietnam were well for lack of a better term at this point in a war of sorts over the children. For most of 2008 and into 2009, many of the families who had referrals prior to the shut down and people not being able to receive referrals fought hard to be able to bring these children they now considered theirs (and so did I) home. A very good friend of mine was one of the last people out of Vietnam with her beautiful little girl in early 2009. That is where this situation takes a tragic turn, there were 16 children (17 at the time) that were matched with their families here in the United States that US State Department started setting different standards for these children.

Getting these children home was beginning to look bleak and the families banned together to make sure their children were loved on, checked on and had plenty of food! They took turns going to see them and spending time there. About six months ago they were told if they visited, sent food or money for food or care their adoptions would be in grave danger. Now they have not seen their children in six months and counting and really just want their children home where they belong.

The families are working with their senators and representatives to bring attention to the their cases. One, Senator Marco Rubio even placed a hold on President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Vietnam in hope bringing this situation to light.

I would love to share each families personal story here but many news outlets have done so well ~ The Washington Times, The Kansas City Star, NPR, The Palm Beach Post, Dayton Daily News, and The Washington Times again (a different article in that link). I am sure more are coming and I will try to update this list as I see more!

Makes you want to help right? I know it does me!

If you would like to contribute to their welfare: Shop here to help Mothers in Action for Viet Nam all proceeds go for the welfare of the Bac Lieu 16 (want to donate something to be sold contact me and I will get you in touch with the correct people!)

Want to help bring attention to this matter then start by joining the group Bring Home the Bac Lieu 16 on Facebook (you can click on those words to join but you must be logged into facebook to join) That will keep you up on the most recent developments, new articles and thoughts from the actual families, who are AMAZING by the way!

You can use this letter, to e-mail or snail mail your members of congress! When you do please cc Kelly Ensslin (their attorney) at: kelly.ensslin(at)smithmoorelaw.com (trying to not get her spammed here so please change the (at) to @) And if you cannot access the letter please let me know and I will get you a copy to send! You can e-mail this letter and to get the e-mail you need please try this website: Congressional Email Directory

You can also sign the petition to Bring Home the Bac Lieu Orphans (if you sign this petition it will ask if you want to e-mail letters to the appropriate people as well which is great two birds with one stone and you don’t have to look anything up but still please let Ms. Ensslin know you sent the e-mails and to whom. Thank you!

THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for doing all of this!

Here is the deal though, when these children get home there are very similar situations happening in other countries this is not just limited to Vietnam, I am aware of at least two other countries where this is happening as well so always be ready to help! If you love me or my children please do this for us as you never know this could have been us and really still could be if we are not done building our family!

03/4/11

A Line In The Sand

If you are/were a regular reader here you know that I am not one to back down from anything, heck give me something that I have an opinion on and I will HAPPILY tell you what my opinion is – I mean one of my most read posts (but least commented on) Not So Perfect After All about an odd adoption disruption that I read about. And I stand by what I said in that post…

Recently I heard a story about another family, this time the parents had made a decision to adopt from a specific country and started looking at waiting children lists. They believed that they had found the perfect addition to their family there on the waiting child list, a sibling set but the information indicated that there was an issue they needed to discuss with the agency. The siblings were adorable and in reality still pretty young, so the family wondered what the issue was as there was no indication of any problems from the pictures.

They contacted the agency via e-mail and filled out some forms. All of the paper work looked perfect until that last paper, that last paper told the whole story of why the children were still waiting; one of the siblings was HIV positive. Everything was clear to the family but they were not immediately turned off, some research was in order. They needed to know what challenges adopting an HIV positive child would bring them.

The family started their research; reading blogs, researching medications, life expectancy, and most importantly how to deal with an HIV positive child in the home. The family would hate to put them or anyone else in intentional danger of contracting this auto immune disorder if it could be prevented.

One mother of two HIV positive children, Carolyn Twietmeyer who is also the founder of Project HOPEFUL says, correctly I might add:

HIV cannot be transmitted in a normal family, school, or church environment, she explains. The virus can only be transmitted in a few ways: intravenous drug use, sexual contact, through birth and breast feeding. Although she did not mention it, HIV can also be transmitted through blood transfusion. It is not transmitted, she emphasizes, through hugs and kisses, sharing drinks, or even if siblings share baths.

…

But perhaps the hardest thing for many parents of HIV-positive children to deal with is not the adoption process or the financial expenses but the stigma associated with the disease. Twietmeyer says most of the calls to her organization have been from parents of HIV-positive children who ask for help dealing with discrimination against their child in church.

From Mother of 13 Urges Adoption of HIV-Positive Children

I read another blog during my research for this article that said that caring for an HIV+ child can be easier than caring for a child with juvenile diabetes. [From FAQ: Adopting Children who are HIV Positive (HIV+) which includes quotes from Dr. Jane Aronson]

The family started to tell a few people of their plans. At first no one batted an eye at the HIV diagnosis, but before long the family started to receive resistance from people very close to them. The family backed away from the sibling group sadly, they could not handle the stigma even though this sibling group had their hearts.

I read this story as part of an e-mail, and started crying. How many people have turned away a child because of the stigma of a special need (the HIV+ status was the perfect example but there are many more Hep C, Hep B, family history of mental illness)? Do we as a society have a desire to help change some of these stigmas or does it benefit us to continue to allow them to flourish?

Where do we draw the line in the sand? What diseases carry the stigma, sometimes even in the medical community, and what ones don’t? Apparently at least with HIV+ children, the line is moving in the right direction in Russia at least as one article from April of 2010 indicates that adoption of HIV+ children is on the rise.

I am not asking you to adopt an HIV+ child, heck as always I am not asking you to adopt any special needs child but please help me advocate for these children who have no voice of their own right now! And help me spread the news about all of these disorders that carry drastic stigmas that are typically wrong, like I said in my last post ~ Children cannot have too much love as long as the person offering the love is genuine.

03/1/11

More Love

Aaron and I have been discussing our options lately to open our currently closed adoption. We have told a few people and constantly get the same questions ~ Why would you open an adoption with someone who cannot speak your language, has a different culture and of whom you are blissfully unaware? We have yet to come up with a perfect answer for the first two but the last one we will outright say is untrue, we are so aware of someone we have never met she is a topic of conversation here at least once a day, usually when one of the kids says or does something cute or shows a specific personality trait and we wonder.

Recently in one of my yahoo groups for those who have adopted from South Korea another parent asked about contact with the birth mother for his/her 4 year old child who has been asking and she wanted to provide some answers to that child. I followed the discourse closely because well I was thinking of doing the same thing for my 3 year olds. I wanted to see what this parent was told.

I am not sure why I was surprised by the discourse but some of it surprised me, until I read a post by an adult adoptee whose posts I sometimes hunt down as she can be very insightful. I am known to lurk on many adult adoptee blogs as I feel I have nothing I can say to them. But she was able to say what I have been wanting to say about opening our adoption so well that I actually e-mailed her to ask if i could quote her (since the yahoo group is private and you have to have permission to join). She agreed with a few conditions which I am happy to comply with!

So here is our new response in Kim Yun Mi’s words (and I hope my children grow up to have some of her amazing qualities):

This just confirms the idea that love is in limited supply. That one can have the capacity to only love two parents is sad. I love all my parents DESPITE the problems I have with them. We as adoptees are often told how to love, how much to love, and to what quality we can love. Society tells us this idea because society doesn’t see itself and its own complexities.

For example, I was talking to a guy that was trying to ask me who I love more and I pointed out there are step parents in this world. He said he loved his step father too. So I point-blank asked him the question that he was trying to ask me, “Do you not love him because he’s not of your blood?”

And he fell silent into thought and mulled it for a long long time, trying to answer, but probably finding the same answer that I did. Love is expansive. We don’t love people in the *same* way, but you can love someone the same amount.

Do you quit loving another sibling as the eldest if you have 1 more sibling added? How about 2? 11? If the ideal family is a mother, father, a dog and a cat, with one sibling of the opposite sex (and we all realize how awkward and unrealistic this all is), does that love quit because you decided to get a Guinea Pig instead of a dog? A lizard instead or in addition to a cat?

Love is infinite and the error is in society to believe that it can be so limited and restricting that it will teach stupid things like you can only love two parents. What about my friends that had their parents remarry when they were young and stay married for their childhood into adulthood? Should they have to pick and choose, or could they love each parent in turn in a different way for the same amount?

Love is a mysterious thing. I don’t think it’s something you choose. It just is. And it is never in limited supply.

And that sums up how we can say “Our children cannot have too much love in their lives, it does not matter who the person is as long as the love is genuine; so yes we want to open our closed adoption.” (And before you worry we would leave our children with just anyone who loves them we either have to know the people well OR have a background check, yes I am THAT parent…my kids have enough issues already they don’t need more.)

02/28/11

Are you the adoptive mother?

(before the break)

Some days I just want to be a parent…just mama or mommy and not the lady someone in the corner is whispering about or someone else with more guts or less good sense, I am not sure which, is asking questions that are well just not in good taste in front of my children.

Last week, I was asked more than once “So you are the adoptive mother?” The first two times I was tired, hungry and VERY thirsty and had only just arrived at our final destination, I didn’t have it in me to be funny or say something I might later regret and just answered simply “Yes” but after I had some water, a little bit of food and an hour or so of sleep I wondered what the word in front of mother meant and why it was important for her care. I gave them what I could of her history, including that she was adopted (insert that we are mostly clueless about her family history) prior to the question being asked.

I have been having so many issues in my head with that ONE word, adoptive. I just want to be her mother and still acknowledge all the other mothers in her life, without labeling any of us. We all love her (as well as her brother) and the label in front of the word should not matter right? Does it really matter what type of mother we were to her – birth, foster or adoptive? Why is this one word getting to me?

Maybe it is because of that one word that people often feel like they can ask intensely personal questions of you they would not ask of any other mother, such as “How much did they cost?” and “Are they really brother and sister?” I have yet to hear a stranger in the mall ask my best friend “So, how much did her birth cost you?” or ask a fellow mother of twins “Are they really brother and sister?” Don’t get me wrong I could write a completely different post about the things only mothers of twins, triplets etc…hear but that is not one that most of them hear.

Or maybe it is because that one word just eats at me personally. I am not perfect, no where near it and I will admit I have my days when I wish I had given birth to these two amazing children and they had been with us since day one. I hate not having some information on their first 14 months, not knowing the day they crawled for the first time or when they got their first tooth. There are days being adoptive anything just eats at me. I think similar to my children having days when they don’t want to be adopted (as they get older) I have days I don’t want to be an adoptive mother. Hopefully this will help me understand some what they will feel then, even though I am older and can work through it better on my own.

Or maybe it is because to me adoption means loss and therefore adoptive means loss. Look at everything the adoptee has lost as well as her other mothers, so much so that when I think about it I am paralyzed with sadness. I know that in some cases the mother believes she is doing what is best for not only the baby but her as well, but still there is a loss on both parts and the next time these people meet life will have changed drastically for both and each will handle it differently, I am pretty sure each of my children will handle it differently and at this time I have two children who have all the same levels of loss at all the same times.

Or maybe it is all of these at once but maybe one day people will realize that even though the question may seem innocent enough, really it is intensely personal and better left unsaid, unless absolutely necessary.

06/13/10

Missing In Action

Sorry I have been MIA here for awhile, heck everywhere. I have not written a real post for GIMH for months and I have about 7 started and none finished. I have an equal number of posts started for this blog and they as well are going no where. My post for GIMH is now two weeks late for this month, my kids are now a month bigger on this site. I am not sure I have what some would call writer’s block as I have a lot of things I want to write about, but writing about those things will get me yelled at by someone or ignored by someone or could be just plain controversial and lately I am just not in the mood. I usually leave the controversial stuff to GIMH, matter of fact I have a post I wrote some time ago on this site I have been editing to put on GIMH for 3 months, but I am afraid to hurt one of the other writers there feelings.

The problem with being MIA is that I am not writing through my feelings anymore, I am holding them in. I am not even privately writing through my feelings. I gave up on Project 365 because I felt like I stopped writing as I wanted to and started writing just for the sake of writing. I have a few things I was asked to review that I wanted to put up here as well as GIMH (one is a pretty cool book written almost entirely of tweets leading up to adoption…a great read prior to adopting or while you are adopting). I have been putting a few things on the review site lately. I put the etsy shop on vacation and let a few custom orders go.

I seem to have lost something. I am not sure what but something. It seems to be gone. I am tired of trying to talk about things with my friends and getting dismissed or told that I am wrong. I am sick of advice about things that I didn’t ask for advice about. For those offering me advice, I rarely jump into anything eyes closed. Not only have I done my research I have looked at both sides of the issue. Don’t tell me not to worry about things that I have expressed concern to you over, there are reasons I am concerned or should be concerned. I am not stupid and have spent a good portion of my life trying to prove that, I am tired of trying to prove this. Also, know that I know my kids very well and when I say x, y or z will happen, trust me it will happen that way.

Oh yeah and while I am on the topic of unwanted advice, Aaron and I will decide the size of our family. If we want to adopt again and tell you we will start the process again in January a completely inappropriate responses are “you already have a boy and a girl why would you want anymore?” or “isn’t two enough?” or “you know how crazy kids are at 3, why would you want to start another adoption now?” or “how are you going to afford that” — appropriate responses are “congratulations” and “I am so glad that you have decided to grow your family” and “We are praying for your family” and “I am so happy for you.” Don’t be surprised if you gave us one of the first responses and you learn of our third child through friends and not from us directly.

Ok I am leaving you with these before my current mood gets the best of this post (tomorrow we will talk about Tinkerbell):

04/28/10

{118/365} Adoption Finalization Day

Today was adoption finalization day ~ until today we were just Little Man and Little Princess’ foster parents, today we became their actual parents and I cried in court as the Judge read into the court record their new names because believe it or not I thought this day would never come and as much as I knew it would be eventful I didn’t realize how much or what a large role my children would play in the day!

I have been planning today for over a month! Time to take Aaron to one of my favorite restaurants in a town where I used to work and loved, finalization hearing, and visiting a museum Aaron and I had yet to make it to (since we were being bad host parents and letting the exchange student come to the finalization ~ she wanted to ~ and skip school today).

Paula, one of my best friends, met us for lunch at a restaurant Little Man, Little Princess and I have been to many times and NEVER had an issue. So today the whole family drove there, met Paula and all was well until I went to set Little Princess in her chair. She started screaming and I mean screaming like the chair would bite her. I kept holding her but nothing would work, I was starting to get some stares and so I took her outside and she calmed down. I went back in and no joke it got worse. She is not a quiet screamer and no one could hear or order with her screaming. One table of men got up and moved to another table to get away from us I am sure. The waitress had to stop taking our order as she could not hear anyone. I took her outside again ~ she would not stop screaming. No matter what I did, nothing would work and by this point I am crying. I am convinced she will be like this in an hour when the adoption hearing starts, the judge will see it and we will never be allowed to parent Little Man and Little Princess again (you should know I had this irrational fear that someone, anyone would show up at our door and take them away any day for no reason until the adoption was finalized so this new development with Little Princess was playing into that fear). I am literally melting down in the parking lot, my friend has come out to try to help me and calm me down and I am just getting more worked up! (I tested that friendship today!) A car driving by us stops as I am crying inconsolably, and an older lady who is obviously a mother leans out the window and tells me not to worry EVERY mother has been where I was right at that moment and that no one would take my kids away from me. I started crying harder and my poor friend was trying to stop me and my daughter. I eventually got it under control and so did Little Princess so we went back inside and ate and laughed and ended up having a good time!

After changing everyone’s clothes (I am a retired attorney people we will be dressed appropriately in every courtroom we enter) we head to court. We met with our GAL and for once Little Man and Little Princess didn’t shy away, it was nice! They gave her five, acted like happy little kids and made a great impression! Our attorney, another very good friend of mine, was not there yet but I was not concerned yet. Then she came up and she could tell by the odd look on my face I could not figure out why she was not in one of her amazing suits. She then said she was convinced that the hearing was tomorrow (thank God I was not the only one!) and this is what she could throw together! Makes for a great/funny story! Aaron’s parent’s came and we were all ready!

We went into the courtroom, and the judge came right in! he swore Aaron and I in, I answered all of the questions I was asked. We were given no slack and 20 minutes later we were officially Little Man and Little Princess’ parents, their names were changed (I will be talking about how this conflicted me on Grown In My Heart this month), we took a few pictures and were out the door for ice cream! Our attorney was teasing me about almost answering questions posed to her a few times (old habits die hard) and about being so nervous I was breathing hard (she said that was her job) as we ate ice cream and joke about her (the attorney’s) love of Duke basketball and well my not so love of it! The kids loved their time with Gram and Pop and their ice cream! But Little Princess melted down again after we had to leave and she could not look at the “pretty pretty pretty” book anymore (it was a book of ice cream cakes with the princess’ on them…)

After stopping at the museum which I will be returning to again without 2.5 year olds, and a quick stop at the local Sonic for Happy Hour (why can we not have one of those in our town) we were on our way home! I made Korean for supper (another thing our town lacks a Korean restaurant or even a good grocery store) and now I am trying to get rid of my sinus infection!

If anyone can help me and tell me how to stop the uncontrollable public meltdowns I would love you forever! Thanks!

03/14/10

{73/365} Walk down memory lane…

I read a lot of blogs, I don’t always comment on a lot of blogs but I do read a lot of blogs. Many of the blogs are adoption blogs and more often than not they can send me to some more really great adoption blogs. That has happened as I am attempting to catch up on reading in my google reader this week. I love reading the blog Habesha Child ~ even though I have not commented for probably a year or more I love reading! I feel a little connection because she is a lawyer but the connection ends there as she is a single mom (and a good one from what I can see) ~ she is an amazing woman! She also reads the BEST blogs and occasionally she shares them with the rest of us!

That is what she did way back when, but I just read about it. She shared in this post about two fellow adoptive moms who could write with honest about what those first months home were like…about how hard they are, about what happens to use. She calls them required reading and I would agree. I tried to be honest when we got home and there was a lot of support for me on this blog…please continue to be those people ~ the supportive ones and share if you know someone else who needs to know it is not always roses and rainbows…I know at least.

So go and read the posts and show some support PLEASE…

And a picture of what I have been up to lately:

03/8/10

{67/365} Our Story

I get asked all the time ~ what is your story? or better yet how did you come to adopt twins? and I keep promising myself I would write our story one day I would put it all down on the blog to remember forever…every time I start it I end up crying and it never makes it past the first sentence. It has not been a good winter ~ it has not been an easy winter and I need to remember our story ~ I need to cry tears of happiness because of the immense miracle God pulled off to get us where we are today…so here goes (and this may take a while so grab a drink or two, get comfortable and read):

In February 2007 we contacted the only agency that we even considered using for our adoption and were given an immediate appointment with the women who I would later call the super social worker but let’s just say it took some time because well our first meeting was not so good. She asked us what we would like out of the adoption and this is what I said “We want to adopt boy/girl twins with the boy older and almost all special needs are ok, please.” And added it would be nice if they were from Vietnam but that part was negotiable. She said “this is not McDonald’s we cannot place orders” and went on to say that since this was our first child we should adopt a healthy (or seemingly healthy) infant as young as possible and just enjoy. Before the meeting was over this social worker had told us of the million to one odds of our receiving twins and convinced us that most likely we would get a young healthy (or apparently healthy) male from Vietnam. Somewhere in my head I knew that there was a reason I wanted what I wanted and I never gave up BUT we kept up or end of the bargain as we completed so many of the steps in the process and she hers. Our home study was for two children, possible special needs. Because we were hoping to adopt from Vietnam there were so many things that had to be done before we could be dossier to Vietnam…. And as you can tell from the time line we hit more than one road bump…

One day in November (maybe it was late October) I googled twins and adoption – I found a beautiful set of identical boy twins from Asia on a site called Rainbow Kids. One of the boys had a seizure disorder or possibility of one. I fell in love immediately and e-mailed about them. I learned pretty quickly that their social worker was with Children’s Home Society and Family services (CHSFS); they were from Korea; their file was out with another family and that since my husband and I had not been married for 3 years (only 2 and a few months at that point) we would be unable to adopt these boys. None of these facts stopped me…not one. Their poor social worker – by the time the family who had their file said YES I had bugged her so many times I was sure that she had me on some list that marked me as completely crazy and please do not let any children go to that home.

Meanwhile, Vietnam was not accepting dossiers anymore and we had to move on to a different country. We choose Korea though we would not be married for 3 years until that June. We waited and mourned the loss of Vietnam. The super social worker (our social worker) was great. So we waited and made changes that would be necessary come June when we would be married for 3 years.

Now fast forward to April (the April before the June we will be married for 3 years) and I get a VERY surprise e-mail from the CHSFS social worker asking if we have found our child yet and if not to contact her. I remember I called before I even talked to my husband. I had to leave a voice mail and the woman (Peg) called me back to tell me that she had TWO sets of twins that were not on their special needs list yet but that if I was still interested she would be happy to let me review the files. She told me about one set from Korea and one from Ethiopia…because we were already preparing for Korea we accepted that set of twins for review. Over the phone Peg could tell me that the twins had been born at 25 weeks 5 days and that the little girl suffered from a little known disorder called Tuberous Sclerosis Complex or TSC. She knew little else but the next day could get us the medical records when she received the go ahead from the super social worker.

My mom works for our pediatrician who review the file himself as well as 6 other doctors including one who spoke and read Korean (which the medical records were in and then translated into English in some areas). We were told just from the review that it looks that the TSC was a VERY mild case (TSC is a disorder that causes non-cancerous tumors to grow on vital organs and can include seizures and a higher likelyhood of autism) and that if we felt like following our hearts we should.

We saw these pictures first:

After a lot of talking (at least 16 hours worth of talking) we knew what we were going to do. We said our yes May 1^st and May 2^nd learned had we not said yes they would have been separated. We were their last hope to stay together as they considered our daughter unadoptable. I cried and swore on as many bibles as I could find no matter how good or bad she was they were our children and NO ONE would ever separate them until they were ready. The wait really began now…

We had to wait until July for our official acceptance but they held them for us and updated us with pictures and so much more! Once July hit everything seemed to go so quickly.

Until one day in September when it appeared our whole world would come crashing down. They called to tell us our daughter had a seizure…she would have some tests but this may add 6 weeks to our travel time. But they could send us this picture:

TWO days after the tests we received an e-mail that said if we wanted they were ready. I was in tears and one week later, in early October, we (and my mom) were in Korea to pick them up.

The rest has been a whirlwind ~ from the plane ride home to first family pictures to the terrible twos And in case you don’t know ~ BOTH of them are doing great and currently we have no issues from the TSC! While we do not feel that God would put ANYONE through the pain a birth mother has to go through when she relinquishes her children JUST so that we can have children, we believe that once she made that choice He made sure they were paired up with us as they are the perfect fit in our family!

Feel free to ask any questions if you have any!

03/3/10

{62/365} The “safe” option

When talking about how they choose international adoption, I have heard more than one person say “I picked international adoption because it is the safe option.” What do they mean by that statement?

Well some mean that there is typically no birth mother to worry about coming back to “claim” her child. With domestic adoption there is a period of time after the birth that the birth mother has the right to change her mind and choose to parent the child herself. There are statistics that say a family adoption domestically in the United States have at least one failed adoption prior to a successful one. Some families feel they could not handle that and turn to international adoption as the next option but you need to research the country you choose carefully. In Korea, until the child boards the plane to leave for the US, the birth mother has the right to choose to parent her child and terminate the adoption process. While I have not heard of many people experiencing this I have seen it happen recently, it is heart breaking for the family who then has to start the whole process over again. I believe this is the case in other countries as well.

Some may think that since the child is already born they will have better access to medical information or the information will be more accurate than they may receive here in the US. Except for Korea, the countries where these children live do not have the same standard of medical care that we have in the United States. In most countries medical testing cannot be 100% trusted. I know of more than one family that believed they were adopting a child that had tested negative for Hep B only to get home and learn their child has Hep B. Some things that we test for in the United States cannot be tested for in some countries where the medical field does not have the same equipment. While a potential adoptive family receives all of the medical information available (or they should at least) there is still a lot of information missing. There is the potential for over diagnosis and under diagnosis of issues. Many times issues are not discovered until the child is home with their new family and proper medical tests can be performed.

As for the child’s family medical history which in the United States can be unknown, false or completely there. The same holds true with international adoption. In countries like China, where willingly giving a child up for adoption is a crime, those children have absolutely no family medical history unless they are very lucky. This can mean that the child may have to endure more medical tests if a problem does arise to rule out possibilities that could have been tentatively ruled out with a family history. In Korea, typically some family history is available but just like the US it cannot always be trusted. Some birth mothers are simply unaware of issues that may be important later in life, some are afraid that if the whole history is given then their child will not be adopted, and some just want to protect themselves and their family or may just be to embarrassed to admit that some thing is in their family history. Remember this history is being asked for when they are highly emotional and trying to do what they believe is best for their child at the time. They want their child to be loved and not judged. I would say this is the hardest decision they have made in their whole life and in some cases they are being forced to make by family, culture, boyfriends, their own beliefs or something else to give the child they really want to keep, can you imagine being in their shoes and trying to remember everything at that moment? I can’t.

Others may believe that they will then never have to worry about a birth family showing up on their doorstep someday. While this tends to be true in international adoption, think about this situation ~ a child, your child, looks into your face and says “do I look like my mom?” or “what does my dad look like?” and so many more questions you cannot answer because you choose “the safe option.’ Yeah you may not be able to answer these questions if your child is adopted domestically and the tough questions are part of adoption no matter where your child is from but consider if you want the option to try to find and contact a birth parent or family if your child needs that to be secure and you feel it is what needs to be done.

There is no “safe’ option ~ there are children in need of families period. They may need a family temporarily and they may need a family forever but they NEED a family, one with love and hope, one that shows them what family really means. Someone to call when they achieve something big, or fail terribly ~ a place to spend Christmas, and Thanksgiving and all the other holidays ~ someone to call and send gifts on their birthdays…EVERY CHILD deserves love.

The loves of my life:

03/2/10

{61/365} Not So Perfect After All

I was reading today, catching up on adoption news and blogs. I made it to one that I have read for a long time, from their application drop-off to their first fundraiser, from their referral through their agonizing wait to bring home their child from the foreign country they chose. I am being intentionally vague because their story is private and this could be any family with a child from any country; that is part of my point of this post: this could be any adoptive family.

Somehow, within days of meeting the child and bringing the child home, the family learned some of the child’s family history. This family history issue was new to the adoptive family. They had never been told this issue existed or could exist. Within days of arriving back on US soil, the family had relinquished their newly adopted child to the agency handling the adoption.

Ok, at first I wondered how the family was doing. Then I read the posts again and had to call Aaron to help me calm down. One thing she said just pushed me over the edge. When I thought about the whole situation, I was no longer concerned about the family. I became concerned about the child.

What about this baby who had been abandoned over and over again, either intentionally or unintentionally, for good or bad reasons? First by the birthmother, then by foster parents/orphanage workers, then by this family and possibly by another temporary family here in the US before this child finds his/her forever family. I know so many adoptive families who worry about abandonment/attachment issues and more than a few who deal with RAD (reactive attachment disorder) on a 24/7 basis. I know families whose children (both biological and adopted) have various issues they never expected. The parents may have said beforehand that they were not prepared to parent children with these special circumstances, but they did. And they do it quite well, I might add.

What did the family say that upset me? They said that the blessing the whole situation is that the child is in the US and will have an amazing life.

No matter where this child is from or from what type of circumstances this child came, the US is not always the best place for this child or any child for that matter. The best place for a child is in a loving home in her country of origin, preferably with her birth parent(s). Unfortunately, as we all know, that is not always possible. Therefore, after efforts to that effect have exhausted, the best option is a loving family anywhere in the world. Don’t we all deserve love?

But this child is in a new country, doesn’t understand the language, etc., and was brought here by a family who ultimately chose not to parent that child for whatever reason. There are many international adoptees who are now adults who do not have this child’s history who feel as if part of what makes them who they are was stolen due to the loss of their culture. We as adoptive parents of foreign-born children are encouraged to find ways to bring the culture of our child to the him for his whole life. For this specific child, if even for a short period of time without a loving forever family, the best place for the child is in a country and culture the child knows and understands that culture and is loving and supportive; there are orphanage situations that are neither of those. So I do not believe that this child was ripped from EVERYTHING he/she knew to be his/her whole life to be brought to a country where obviously some of us consider ourselves superior to be a blessing. Perhaps it will turn out to be one because God has the ability to do that, but I do not consider it an outright blessing.

The bigger issue I have is that this family obvious expected a perfect child. I want to know perfect is defined? Because if family history is part of what makes a child perfect, then I was never perfect. You could read my family’s medical history like War and Peace – they are about the same length when you combine my mom and dad’s sides. I hate filling out forms at the Dr’s office; everything from heart disease to cancer and back again are in my family history. Even a few mental illnesses. Yet for the most part, I am good!

Nobody knows what the future hold. I have a friend whose brother has severe autism. There is some evidence that autism is hereditary, yet she and her husband chose to have children. Neither of them have autism. Another friend’s husband has high functioning autism. They have two children – one has the same high functioning autism as the father. Don’t forget the unpredictable – childhood cancer, other forms of autism, gene mutations, etc… There are no guarantees in life, period. No one is guaranteed a child (biologically or through adoption), no one is guaranteed a healthy child, and even when the odds are against you, there is no guarantee that your family’s health history will come back to get you. Take my children, for example. One has a genetically inherited disorder and the other does not even carry the gene. Without a DNA test we would have never known this, but we do. They shared parents, they shared a womb, they share everything, yet each drew a different straw when it came to their medical history. We will educate them both in the same manner about their family history, but family history is just that: family history. We all have one.

What would happen to a child born to these parents as “imperfect?” There is no place to readily hand off that child, to say “Sorry, not what I asked for.” Chances are, even though the child is not what the family was expecting, they would find the strength to deal with the issues and move forward, experiencing the love that child would give them every day.

So because this child was not born to them, it is ok to hand that child over to someone else to parent? While I am sure that it was not their absolute first thought, it apparently came quickly. Within days of arriving back in the US, the child was relinquished.

I am not trying to hurt this family. They made their decision and most likely it is too late to change their minds now. However, I want to educate others before the process is even started. There are no perfect children. The best you can hope for is 10 fingers, 10 toes, everything in the right place, happy and healthy. But we should not love a child less who doesn’t have ten fingers or toes, extra or missing parts, or who is not “healthy.” Children need love and deserve a family. And maybe you will learn a thing or two along the way as well. I know I have.

Why this issue is so important to me:

02/25/10

{56/365} How do you decide?

TWO good things happened today! First, I started preparing for the Mothers of Multiples Sale. Yes, this is something I should start LONG before now as I already know when the two sales next year will be but it is a daunting task with all of their clothing and toys and everything. Plus, I have been trying to decide what to keep and what to let go. We do not feel we are done with children, though we are not sure how the remaining children will join our family or at what age. So it makes it hard to make those decisions. I finally today decided I had to have a special attachment to the clothing or it had to be worn for a special occasion. I then touched EVERYTHING in their closet, storage, dresser etc…and made some tough decisions about what they needed and what they didn’t, what should stay and what should go, and so much more. I didn’t keep much for future babies as these two were so small that I am pretty sure even if I found a way to store it all the next child would not fit into these clothes at the right season, plus I am pretty good at the deals on children’s clothing so I am not concerned about that. But I kept a lot of clothing that had some special meaning to me or Aaron or maybe them as they grow older. This little project took forever but it is done now and I could not be happier ~ now I just have to price all the clothes that need to be sold, that may take a little longer.

Second, I heard from our adoption attorney and our date to finalize the twins adoption should be set soon. Yep we still have not finalized for a host of reasons I will not get into right now. But as soon as we get the date I promise to shout it from the rooftops!

Now for the pictures:

02/18/10

{49/365} It is not August…

Ok I am NOT allowed to read any more adoption blogs today. Just a sprinkle of what is going on ~ one family just ended a years long battle and will be bringing their now 7 year old daughter home VERY soon, one family just answered the call to adopt a beautiful baby girl, another just got their travel call to meet/bring home their daughter and I am itching for us to be next.

See it was not that long ago that I told Aaron who is ready to start the next adoption, that it would not be happening until at least August 10, 2010 so don’t bring it up again until then PERIOD. I do not know if I could add another child to this mix right now, there are still a few issues we are dealing with as far as the twins are concerned. The biggest being that they are not full on talking yet. I am not concerned about it for a couple of reasons (1) all they heard until they were 14 months old was Korean (2) they talk to each other in their own language ~ all the right sounds so it will come when they are ready and (3) we still keep the Korean language in their lives so they hear both languages. So no real concern there. The second biggest being that they can still get jealous of each other if the other is experiencing one on one time with Mommy (or Daddy). Just yesterday Little Princess was mad that I was cuddling with Little Man and so she climbed up on the couch, over my legs and ended up sitting on my head (Little Man and I were sort of laying down) to try to get her time. Can you imagine what she would do to a new child?

So I am not sure I am ready for the next adoption with these two running around but emotionally I am ready, heck I am a blubbering mess! So if you know me at all and get a crazy e-mail from me then humor me and respond! Thanks in advance!

Little Princess and her facial features

My Everyday Miracles

Where the miracles never cease and always come in pairs!!!

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