Heart of Adoption

I made an offhand comment a few posts back that prior to being an adoptive mom myself, I assumed all adoptive families were the same.

What did I mean by this? I was asked that question.

I'm not sure. That's the simple answer. I can't put my finger on exactly what I meant. I wasn't talking about anyone specifically.

Adoption - that word encompasses so much. Maybe what I meant is that I was discouraged by how simplistic an answer it is to the giant question of how can we help orphans and vulnerable children. It's almost like the question and the answer just don't fit.

Maybe I meant that I had seen one too many conference speaker insinuate that American Christians are somehow better equipped to care for Africa's children than Africans themselves. (Racism? Cultural superiority?)

Maybe I am simply tired of the slogans around adoption. "One less orphan." "If every Christian adopted one child..." That type of thinking does nothing for children in need. For every child adopted there are millions more who are vulnerable. Millions more on the verge of being an orphan statistic. We need different slogans.

Maybe I had seen one too many family wash away all vestiges of their adopted child's language, culture, name and heritage only to replace those losses with nothing. With trendy meaningless names and empty materialistic pursuits.

Maybe I was referring to the time I visited a community that had built a small school and was implementing a great community-based program that provided support to local families raising orphaned children. After an awe inspiring presentation from the local pastor and children I unfortunately heard an adoption advocacy representative ask the local pastor to "identify the kids in need of international adoption" in that village. Sigh.

I've been gathering up some stories and statements that have really impressed me and educated me. These are stories from adoptive parents! I've learned a lot from this group that I sorted, and labelled and categorized before joining them. I've learned that often the ugly voices and stories get the most attention, but the heart of adoption can be found if you look for it and share it.

From Irene who is on my online forum:

What I want for Daragh is that he will grow up confident and secure in all aspects of who he is and never feel pressured to choose one aspect of his identity over another.

I want him to feel equally at home in himself as an Ethiopian, an American and an Irish lad. All of those cultures will influence and inform who he is and who he becomes, and all have something to offer him.

But I don't want any of them to limit him.
His full name is Daragh Yosef Zelalem. Yosef was his pre-adoption name; I chose Daragh and Zelalem. I chose Zelalem because it means 'forever' and I want him to know that he is Ethiopian forever and a H(surname) forever. One doesn't end the other. Daragh is an Irish name from the word for oak. I was born in Oakland, California, so that is part of why I chose it. But I also chose it because oak is associated with St. Bridget, Ireland's other patron saint. Part of St. Bridget's story is that she was born while her mother was standing in a doorway with a foot inside and a foot outside, so Bridget was born in two places at once. This is really probably a way of explaining how a pre-Christian goddess was also a Christian saint, butnonetheless, to me it also expresses duality, which I feel will be part ofDaragh's identity, as it is of mine as a dual national with one American parent and one Irish parent.

What I don't want is for him to feel pressured or limited, that he can't do something because one of his cultural identities doesn't allow it. I don't want him to feel he has to check any part of himself at the door anywhere he goes. I want him to feel as Ethiopian on the hurling pitch or the baseball diamond as he does having some shiro or listening to Bole2Harlem. The way I see it, and being a single mom of one may bring this into sharper focus, my family is now half Ethiopian.

Yes my son's identity is changed by having been adopted internationally. But it also changes my identity. It's not fair for him to be the only one who's identity is affected and it's not accurate either. I'm now the mother of an Ethiopian child. That shifts how I view the world and how I participate in it. I still have a lot to learn about Ethiopia, but I couldn't adopt from the country if I wasn't willing to embrace not just my child but the broader culture. I don't mean to uncritically take on everything. I don't do that with my own cultures. ButI couldn't adopt from a country if I couldn't find a significant amount to love about it.

~A

Elephant in the Room

Last Friday I was part of a radio interview for a call in show.

The topic was supposed to be haiti and child trafficking.

I was being interviewed because of my professional work - not anything to do with our personal adoption.

The producer sent us advance questions before the interview.
I spent hours cramming my head full of talking points pertaining to those exact questions.

I have never been on a radio interview before. I definitely have never been on a call-in show before. In fact, I rarely listen to the radio and my experience with call in shows is limited to J's fascination with turning on C.ar T.alk to annoy me.

All of this lack of radio experience means that there was no way I could predict the twists and turns my interview would take. (J was all "I warned you about call in shows" when it was over like he is the call in show expert!)

Awkward Exhibit A:

Caller: Ummmm....yes....I am from xyz small town and I once took a first aid class a long time ago....will the Haitian government employ me to help?

My Ideal Host in Ideal Radio Land (obviously created just inside my head but not existing in reality): "well caller, that's a good question but not on the topic of ___________! So let's move on shall we? And remember...stay on topic!"

Actual Host: Grrreat question! Guest (insert my name) how do you respond??

Me: Aaahh. Yes. Um. (Now grasping for interview tactics I had gleaned from my tiny amount of prep time that day.) That IS an excellent question. But maybe a better question would be....(insert my own new theme for the conversation.)

Sigh. It went on for an hour. I got into the groove right around minute 59.

Now this is why I am posting about it on my adoption blog:

The Very First Caller asked This Question: (I did not hear it directly as I was accidentally dropped from the call at this time. The host called me back and summarized.) Something along the lines of...."Isn't it paternalistic and suspicious that so many white people want to adopt black babies from Haiti and Africa?"

Not prepared folks. Not in the preparatory questions!!
In my opinion not even on theme. And not really a question.

I had some adoption answers (specific to Haiti) prepared but not one answer flew to mind. I instantly reeled with the personal impact of the question/comment.

My answer was not all that profound. And I moved on quickly.

But what I wanted to do was rant at this person about how little he understands of love, about fighting for children to be in families and not in orphanages, and how trans-racial adoption has nothing to do with colonization or the assumption that African families can't be good parents.

My heart hurt after the program was over and I returned to this question. I feel like I may have sacrificed my personal opinions to the god of keeping radio land happy and not inviting more calls on the same topic. My colleague later told me privately that she feels this is the elephant in the room when talking about adoption.

Has anyone experienced a similar comment/question? If so, how did you deal with it?

Is it a big elephant in the room or is it just a baby elephant in a herd of adoption opinions?




~A

Coming Out

I feel like I'm coming out of the closet....I am not an "adoption advocate."

There. It's been said. I'm hoping my followers don't all drop and run en masse.

How I realized this?

Yesterday I set up a coffee date with a woman from my church who is also adopting from Ethiopia. We were connected by email but haven't met in person yet.

Almost immediately after setting up our date I began having anxiety about what kind of path our conversation will take.

I realized I am not an adoption advocate because as I had mixed feelings it dawned on me that I am not the go-to girl for all things adoption related. I don't encourage others to adopt. I get nervous around people who I sense are part of the movement to get every Christian to adopt an orphan in need. I don't advertise about our adoption. I don't get excited when I hear that there is an adoption movement or a church starting an adoption ministry.

Why?

I am cynical I suppose.
I have read a lot of blogs and websites that present false images about adoption. I detest the adoption agency ads with photos of smiling healthy babies with taglines like "I am waiting for you to come and find me." Schmarmy. And really totally untrue in my experience.

Haven't we all learned from our adoption experiences that these days there are very few reputable programs that actually have healthy infants "waiting" for families. In fact, I can't think of one. There may be healthy babies waiting out there but they are not immediately available. China - 4/5 year wait now?
Ethiopia - most large agencies are 1-2 year wait.
Russia - majority of kids have special needs or at high risk.
Korea - phasing out healthy infant referrals for mostly special needs infant referrals.
Haiti- 2 years (although I have heard reports of 3+ years.)

So I have a hard time with the happy, warm, fuzzy belief that there are beautiful orphanages tragically filled with healthy infants who all happen to be double orphans waiting for us adoptive families.

Reality is that many kids who are adopted have one living parent. Reality is that most agencies have 90% of adoptive families registering for healthy infants while 90% of their immediately available children are older or have special needs.

That is a huge reality gap pertaining to adoption. So I can't be an adoption advocate unless I can be real with people and unless people get real.

Here is my personal reality check -those of us who want infants or toddlers (with or without special needs) are adopting to expand our families. That is the reality. I don't know anyone who is adopting an infant or toddler to "save an orphan" and quite honestly that would not be an appropriate reason to adopt anyway.

Here is the world's reality check - the vast majority of kids in critical need of and available for immediate adoption are older kids. Kids with special needs and long-term disabilities. I could be an advocate for adoption if both of these realities were part of the adoption discussion. If these were things that every adoptive parent understood or wanted to understand.

But I'm not sure that is the case right now. Many do understand. And many do not. And holding adoption pep rallies where realities are not presented are not my cup of tea.

You can see why I am nervous about coffee with my new aquaintance. I hate being a downer. But I hate unrealistic adoption small talk....

While I am on my soap box here I am going to say one more thing that may cause the last few of you reading to officially drop me.

I don't like the word orphan. There. I have said it.
I don't know a single child who would want to be called an orphan or who would consider it anything other than a discriminating and negative label.

And when we talk about "143 million orphans" in the world we are talking about children who have lost one or both parents. Vast majority living with a surviving parent. I just think it does injustice to the reality of the situation and diminishes the importance of that surviving parent.

I hope you don't all leave me or hate me. I have learned a LOT by reading adoption advocates' blogs. I have had my heart softened and prepared by adoption advocates. I have had deep and sustaining conversations with other mothers who have or are coming to these same conclusions. And I have been encouraged and loved and supported by people who would not agree with me and whom I would hate to alienate.

But I just can't find it in myself to be an adoption advocate. And I think that's ok. I am not anti-adoption. If I were, I would not be adopting! I have mulled it all over quite a lot and decided that I fall in the middle somewhere. Pro-adoption for kids that have been relinquished and are in need. Whose surviving parent made an educated choice or who do not have a willing surviving relative. But anti-adoption when it is provided or promoted as the only, or even the "best" answer. The be all, end all.

~A

Choices

Last night I lay in bed thinking about the photo I posted of baby N from Thailand.

N was the youngest of three sisters that I fell in love with during the course of our family tracing and reunification project. One of the very last projects post-tsunami.

N and her sisters were Burmese. So they were illegal. undocumented. marginalized. invisible. They did not receive the services they should have as the Thai families were assessed and offered government help immediately after the tsunami.

Three years ago, N's mom was just 22 years old. Her oldest daughter was 7.

Her husband an alcoholic.

N's mom was wasting away.

She did not have the option to give her child up. I don't think it would have even crossed her mind. She held N constantly-I never saw the two apart.

Baby N slipped through the cracks and died without any fanfare just a week after our project wrapped and I went home to the States. I was told that mom took her two girls and returned to her family in Burma which was the plan we had helped her to make prior to leaving.

I spent many hours over the course of many weeks in really crappy public hospital waiting rooms with that little family of women. Mom never spoke one word aloud. She whispered yes or no to the translator. She just sat and stared straight ahead. Her eyes were completely empty. I remember that she carried baby N to the squat toilet with her - she never would put her down or hand her over for a break. She was clearly exhausted.

There were a few times when we thought mom and baby had rallied but in the end, when I last saw them in another hospital waiting room (no hospital would actually admit them since they are undocumented migrants), N had wasted away to just 3 pounds at 6 months old. She slipped. She was gone. Is it odd to say that she was at her most beautiful just before the end? She was breathtaking and perfect.

Is this what women of the world are reduced to? Child marriage. Abusive husbands. Zero power. Zero ability to ask for help. Voiceless. Disease ridden. Ashamed. Carrying their dying babies until their last minutes on earth?

We talk about these stories from Africa but I promise you this is a world-wide epidemic. The female burden. I wonder if it is ethical to share these pictures on a public blog? But then I think about how this mother's story would have never been told if I weren't writing it today. I probably own the only photos of baby N ever taken. She represents millions upon millions of others.

I have no answer other than this: we need to recognize the women of the world. We need to stand in solidarity. We who have power and resources need to offer women options that work in many areas of their lives. We have to offer more than adoption.

I say this with all the transparency of a future adoptive parent. I want a child. But I do not want to take a child from her mother's arms. I just don't. N was beloved. N died. I cannot find a way to bridge that gap and make everything right if only I could have just taken her for my own.

Is it courageous that some women choose to give up their children? Yes. Can I stand to hear stories of women begging foreigners to take their babies because they can't fathom that anyone will help them keep the children alive? No. We talk a lot about choice in adoption but the tragedy is that there are not nearly enough choices offered to most mothers in this world.

So. What now? I feel convicted by my own story. Baby N reminded me of a piece of humanity I have let slip a little in this endless wait.

I don't want baby less. But I so want every mother to have the right to keep, nourish, sustain, and love her own child. That should just be a basic human right.

~A

I really wish I had a brownie right now - but this post is not about brownies

I'm laying around my sister's apartment waiting for her to finish her shift so I can pounce on the phone and ask her to bring back some brownie mix. In the meantime thought I'd pay some attention to my blog.

I am pretty sure I left you all hanging since I never did report back on the big doctor's visit. Have you felt like that was a real cliffhanger?

It was surprisingly fun. As fun as those things can be. Got the ultrasound and had those weird little vibrating shocks (like tiny pulses) in the ovary area for the rest of the day. Is that normal? Nothing extreme just zippy.

And the good news was that things weren't looking weird. No polyps or fibroids or chains of cysts dancing Greek wedding dances around in there. Little well behaving follicles just hanging around in early cycle mode.

Saw a new doctor. Like her. Operating word here being HER. I just don't get the male ob/gyn thing. I have tried now. Twice. Ew. I really question what kind of man chooses that specialty. yick. I can never look a male ob/gyn in the eye.

I told her that evil man doctor who called on my birthday week and told us not to come back and to go to a specialist had hurt my feelings and I didn't like him. She was properly sympathetic and kind and willing to let me set forth my new treatment plan which will involve her treating my side of the infertility issues while coding my insurance forms as amenhorea (sp?) or whatever words she wants to use to denote anything other than fertility treatment since that could not possibly be covered.

No. I mean of course not. It is totally ELECTIVE to have children. Our society depends on each person basically being able to produce a human replacement in order to continue moving forward (ok, a little extreme but you get my point) but God forbid we need a bit of help doing so and suddenly it's like we are asking the insurance company to give us a brazilian butt tuck or something.

Hrmph.

Anyway, she and I were all "FSH levels" this and "hysteroscopy" that and it was really nice to finally be speaking the right language. Why do they lock you out of this club for so long with stupid platitudes about trying for a year first. Yeah, meanwhile I am trying myself right into advanced maternal age! Honestly if we had gotten to the bottom of all of this before we even started "trying" I would have never gone to the crazy edge of crazyville with all of my ugly crying and confusion.

Our current plan for anyone still interested in this side of the discussion is that we have a consultation with a nice fertility center located off the shores of the United States where prices are much more reasonable and a good friend has had great success. And the beach is involved. And I like the beach. Going to talk to them by phone (actually the consulting fertility specialist (RE) is named Juliet Skinner. AND the clinic is located on an island. LOST anyone?)

So "Juliet" will tell us what she recommends. For free she will tell us this! The local RE here wants to charge us $250 to tell us what she recommends. I really think good things come from those who go to islands for their answers.

Then we will follow instructions on this end of things. And THEN hopefully we will get baby from Ethiopia. And THEN at some point we will hopefully be able to afford to visit Juliet in person.

I realize it is a lot. In one year. It is ambitious. And I don't know that it will happen so don't hold me to it. But it gives me something to do with myself as I wait for our referral. A goal - to understand my fertility options inside and out and have a plan mapped out for later if it is needed.

I guess I want to end this post like this. No matter when and where and how I talk about fertility it is not more important to me than our adoption. I dreamt of my small Ethiopian for a long time. (Well, sometimes she was small and Asian before we chose a country... and sometimes she was a he...but that is besides the point.)

We want to adopt. We can't wait to adopt. We are honored to adopt.

AND we want to experience conception. And delivery. And a teeny weeny newborn who carries a crazy bag of our potentially bizarre gene combinations.

I don't think it is wrong and I don't feel concerned about talking about fertility on an adoption blog. So you'll continue to get some ovary talk here along with the "where the H is our referral???" discussion.

It is what it is. All I know is that since I started blogging about it all and reading books and taking charge of our options and refusing to consider 33 or 34 as "old" and started getting proactive about trying to raise some money I have felt a million times better.

I have not had an ugly cry since the event-which-shall-remain-nameless. And that was almost 3 weeks ago!

~A