Exciting! Crazy?

I thought back when I was 23 that I wanted a baby. (Mostly triggered by nightime hormone induced dreams of being pregnant.) I thought the same at 24 and 25. But really I wanted the idea of a baby. I wanted a distraction, cute baby clothes, a shower, playdates. I wanted to choose a baby name. I wanted all of the things that really mark the difference between being pregnant and wanting to actually parent. I know that is true because the baby desire went into hibernation once we moved to DC, once I was in graduate school, we were traveling the world, and life was fun and flexible. I was really thankful the baby dream had not come true. I think the "baby dream" is similar to wanting a wedding and truly understanding the concept of marriage.

Do you want to know how I know we are ready to be parents now?

I know because last night we (and by we I mean J was fully on board) became a certified emergency foster home.

When you are truly ready to parent and nurture and deal with all of the difficult details of caring for a child and loving them through everything...when you become ok with the idea of your cream colored living room rug being destroyed and puke possibly ending up on your beautiful couch...when you know that dinner will now need to be served at a regular time every evening and that you may be consigned to 2 minute showers...then you are ready.

J noticed the news about Haiti 2 weeks ago and had concern about the orphaned children very early on. We know that children will probably not be brought to the U.S. for foster care. And we know that children need to be processed through tracing and reunification efforts now in Haiti. We support the international community in following well established guidelines on caring for children after complex emergencies.

But I think something about the entire situation struck a nerve with both of us. So many people in our country are so very willing to care for Haitian children if they were to come here. But there has always been a huge need for foster homes. If everyone interested in fostering Haitian children would become certified as foster homes for kids in their areas, well, wow! that would be amazing for the foster care system.

We didn't have to do much to turn our international homestudy into certification for foster care. It was easy! Next week we will sign the final papers, take our first aid class, and then we will be put on a list as foster parents.

We offered to be an emergency home for either gender up to age 3. Our area has a very large Spanish speaking population so my Spanish might come in handy.

I feel a great sense of peace and calm about this. Why struggle and struggle to overcome the desire to nurture and have a child in our lives when we can easily offer ourselves in this way while we wait for our daughter from Ethiopia?

I don't know if we will get a placement. But it could happen at any time day or night. Children come into foster care for all types of reasons. We would be the first home in an emergency and a placement could last 1 week - 1 month, or more if we chose. Ideally the child would be united with extended family or placed in a long-term foster home (with a family willing to adopt if needed after the whole process of reunification or termination of parental rights took place.)

I am eager to see what happens.

I think there are a lot of what ifs and contingencies and possibilities involved but for now we're answering a call we feel strongly about. And for me this is an answer to years of prayer about J's attitude towards fostering. I was a foster care caseworker for the first 2.5 years of our marriage. I know what a difference a good foster home, even a temporary one, can make.

Exciting! Crazy?

~Amanda

Saw this on another blog and enjoyed it

Written in response to P.at R.obertson's comment that God is punishing Haiti for making a deal with the devil in exchange for their freedom a couple hundred years ago.


A letter from Satan
Dear P.at R.obertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out.
And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action.
But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.
Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle.
Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing.
An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan

I saw this on another blog and thought this was funny.

Haiti

I am so saddened by the pictures and stories coming from Haiti.
So close to us, our neighbors really.
The poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Why? Seriously, WHY has this happened to them?

It brings me flashes of Thailand and the tsunami. When I worked there, almost two years after the fact, still people were scared. Still there were homes covered in vines, rotting homes and boats, traumatized children and elderly people who would never look at the water in the same way again.

For all of these years studying and working in development I've been able to distance myself. My mind goes immediately to emergency shelter configurations, sanitation issues, how to track separated children and begin reunification. Practical. Because the world needs practical and emergencies require cool thinking and planning ahead.

But there is nothing I can do in development terms in Haiti right now.

So I watch CNN and read blogs and begin to realize that I KNOW a lot of the people on the ground responding. I also KNOW adoptive families here waiting and watching and praying.

Ugh. Haiti hits too close to home for too many reasons.

First of course it makes me panic with a mother's heart that something could happen in Ethiopia. Anytime. You never have a child until she/he is in your arms on the way home. So I feel for the families who want their children brought to the U.S. NOW. I so feel for them. In a way that I never would have imagined had I not been adopting too. I think that if a disaster came between me and my child in Ethiopia I would walk across glass, climb mountains, and illegally cross borders to get to her. I'm scared by the depth of anxiety and protectiveness this has brought out in me. For a child I don't know with my eyes but know already with my heart.

Second I worry about the proliferation of the use of the word orphan to describe children who have been separated (not always orphaned) from their biological family and what that tends to mean. Orphanages. The never ending push and pull between orphanages and disaster. Unfortunately in crisis and natural disaster families get separated. Kids end up in institutions. Resources and interest dwindles as the disaster gets less attention. Permanency plans are never made. Families don't always get reunited. We've seen it happen time and time again in Africa and I'm sure we'll see it happen in Haiti too. Because the call to care for the orphan is strong. And Biblical. And completely understandable. But our ability to see it through back to permanency and family for every child is feable, under resourced, not talked about enough.

So Haiti is ripping me apart personally and professionally. I just can't stop watching.

~A

Not red carpet ready

On Wednesday I flew here to the pacific NW. Leading up to the flight I realized that I had recently hit "premier" status on my airline and quickly began lording it over J that I would be checking in in the premier line, I could check two bags for free (!!), I would be boarding ahead of the rest of the cattle, etc etc. I knew these things because I was in the gold class with another airline two years prior and I really really enjoyed it! (It's the little things people!)

There aren't many perks to flying these days. And just getting to board 30 seconds ahead of group one and knowning I'll have overhead space for my carryon makes me a happy flier.

So it was a running joke in the house with J asking me to remind him frequently about my new status and what would come with it. He kept encouraging me to believe that I would be boarding on the red carpet. You know, that line next to the normal boarding line with a dirty red mat lying on the floor...

At the airport on Wednesday I hustled up to the gate with my carryons, all ready to get into my seat with extra legroom, to find that there were 6 agents swarming all around our waiting area. It threw my game off a little. I got nervous. I had nothing to be nervous about but they just made me twitch a little. I couldn't tell if they were waiting for the arriving plane or if they were planning to strip search everyone in line for my plane or just what. They kept STARING and trying to make eye contact. Very unnerving.

So in a huge effort to be extra cool and collected (which I am not), I got right up to the front of the pack ready to board with premier. But it was noisy and I didn't listen well. And so after strolling up their little red carpet line to board I was cruelly dismissed back to the pack. Apparently premier people do not board with first, business or whatever other classes were called. So I hung my head a little and stepped to the side.

Wait. It gets worse. I was standing next to an agent and I could just feel that at any moment I was going to be chosen to be "screened" so in my eagerness to get away and on board I didn't fully listen to the second announcement. Come on. I just assumed that I would be boarding at least in the second group. So again, I sauntered up that red carpet line. Only to be told in a very not so quiet whisper that I was still not in the right group. Apparently there are several layers of premier folks infinitely more important than me.

In a final humiliation they called premier, I went up the red carpet line, only to have them slam the little rope off in front of me and open up the economy line next to me. I actually had to back my way down the red carpet and get in line behind group one who was already boarding. And that. That was my first premier experience. No red carpet.

I guess I will have to fly another 25,000 miles this year to be deemed worthy of boarding early. It was sad really. My previous airline had a more classless society. Or at least less levels, which meant that even if you were only on the first rung of the rewards class you felt closer to the top.

I think the agents took pity on me because in the end I didn't get chosen for a special screening. But I was paranoid the entire time because I was sure they would mistake my eagerness to board as overeagerness to get away from them. And god forbid we are ever eager to get away from agents in rubber gloves who look like they are eyeing our personal body cavities from a mile away.

It is humiliation that keeps us humble I suppose.

It was a good flight and in an effort to avoid a repeat of the Christmas week debacle that was my last conference related hotel stay I decided to stay at my sister's apartment and commute up to this next conference.

Sorry. Still no adoption news. I am thinking a lot about Haiti and the fear that must be every adoptive parent's worst nightmare that their child is there and can't be reached or cared for.

~A