We have so many options available to us through this whole thing. One option we have is to purchase our home study from Bethany and go to another agency (different programs or prices) or try to do it all on our own with the help of an adoption lawyer. In the evening I was thinking and praying about a couple of other agencies I'd heard about and thought I might do some research, but then never got around to it.
Before bed I was having my devotions. I'm reading Matthew right now, I was on chapter 21. Keep in mind that although I've read this before and I know the overall plot, I don't have it all memorized, so I usually don't know what verse is coming next. I read a verse about children which made me pause and think about the adoption again (just from the topic, it wasn't a directional kind of verse). I prayed that, even though this chapter didn't seem to directly apply, God would use it to show us direction. I thought of the agency option momentarily, ("Hey, God, what do You think about this idea?") and then re-focused to read this:
"Then [Jesus] left them and went out of the city to Bethany*, and He lodged there." (v. 17)
Oh, okay then, I'll quit looking elsewhere. Thanks, God!
*for those of you just tuning in, although Bethany is a town in Bible times, it's also the name of our agency.
Showing posts with label introspection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label introspection. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Ideas from Father Mike and two quotes
1. It's rarely coincidence when two people prayerfully making one decision come to the same conclusions independently.
2. Not only does God not want us to commit our lives to misery (even if we're equipped to physically handle it), He promises to give us the desires of our hearts. Being specific in the child we want is okay. If He wants to change something about that, He can do it.
3. We need to gather more information. We've already been talking to folks about the adoption process and how it worked for them, but I don't recall conversing on the specifics of how they reached their decisions. Also, since we have the option to choose different paths, information regarding those paths may be helpful.
4. Regarding my hearing God say "She's not ready yet", Mike's first inclination was to agree that it most likely meant a child based on the situation I was in when I prayed about it. He also pointed out (without me saying so first) that it didn't say "Stop", and that in his experience God is often clear about something as specific as "Stop".
5. If our prayer does not seem to be answered, it may be that God is waiting for us to pray the right prayer. It may not be about the answer, it may be about how we are relating to Him. My experience has proven that to be the case quite a lot, and it's a perspective I hadn't considered.
I feel like he said a lot more than that, but I'm processing slowly... as we continue to pray and talk, I'll try to add what I've forgotten to this list.
Lanse's Aunt Liz pointed the family towards a blog by church folks who went to Rwanda. Though Mr. (Dr.? Rev.?) Greener said the following while en route to Africa, it really felt appropriate for the topic of adoption as well:
Elsewhere in the blog he quoted an African proverb, which I've added to my sidebar. In the whole mess of worry and searching, of seeking God's will for the future and piling on anxiety over interpretations, we can get so caught up that we miss the excitement and the joy found in the present. So in the words of the wisdom of Africa,
2. Not only does God not want us to commit our lives to misery (even if we're equipped to physically handle it), He promises to give us the desires of our hearts. Being specific in the child we want is okay. If He wants to change something about that, He can do it.
3. We need to gather more information. We've already been talking to folks about the adoption process and how it worked for them, but I don't recall conversing on the specifics of how they reached their decisions. Also, since we have the option to choose different paths, information regarding those paths may be helpful.
4. Regarding my hearing God say "She's not ready yet", Mike's first inclination was to agree that it most likely meant a child based on the situation I was in when I prayed about it. He also pointed out (without me saying so first) that it didn't say "Stop", and that in his experience God is often clear about something as specific as "Stop".
5. If our prayer does not seem to be answered, it may be that God is waiting for us to pray the right prayer. It may not be about the answer, it may be about how we are relating to Him. My experience has proven that to be the case quite a lot, and it's a perspective I hadn't considered.
I feel like he said a lot more than that, but I'm processing slowly... as we continue to pray and talk, I'll try to add what I've forgotten to this list.
Lanse's Aunt Liz pointed the family towards a blog by church folks who went to Rwanda. Though Mr. (Dr.? Rev.?) Greener said the following while en route to Africa, it really felt appropriate for the topic of adoption as well:
- Anticipation is actually a part of all journeys worth making. It’s not wasted time (unless we waste it) but is part of the discipline of orienteering—of getting our bearings before we launch. It’s a season of collecting our strength and focus and desire, while learning that we are ultimately not in control. So we wait for love to blossom, for the child to come, for the job offer, for healing and wholeness to be known, for ends and beginnings—the best things can’t be rushed or demanded, but they can be anticipated. ~Jay Greener, Redeemer Church
Elsewhere in the blog he quoted an African proverb, which I've added to my sidebar. In the whole mess of worry and searching, of seeking God's will for the future and piling on anxiety over interpretations, we can get so caught up that we miss the excitement and the joy found in the present. So in the words of the wisdom of Africa,
"Waiting should not keep you from dancing."
I urge those of you who are waiting for any reason to please join me in remembering to dance, at least a little bit.
I urge those of you who are waiting for any reason to please join me in remembering to dance, at least a little bit.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
June already...
I recently realized that I hadn't written an update here since the homestudy was finalized. While part of that is because life simply got busy, or that we needed to have experienced something to write about, another part is due to a renewed sense of discomfort about the direction we're heading in. These kinds of feelings ebb and flow for me depending on the day, and I have been told repeatedly that the process of adoption is simply uncomfortable and intrusive and anxiety-filled, so we'd been trying not to put too much stock in it. Unfortunately, it still makes it difficult to hop online and blog things out for everyone.
Since we're new to this whole process, it seems wise to hire an agency (and social worker) to help us through the legalities and understanding what steps need to be taken so that we aren't taken advantage of or make any innocent mis-steps that get us into trouble legally or financially; thus our having signed with Bethany. We're following the directions of our social worker. But we're also, of course, trying to be aware of the subtle nudgings of God for our direction - we specifically chose a Christian agency in hopes that those elements will work together. Told that we needed to get the word out, we made the flyers that I posted about before. After that first initial "campaign" (only about a week) of sharing those with everyone, I felt strangely as though I needed to forget about it... became extremely self-conscious, and still am. A few weeks later it occurred to me that a full-sheet flyer is very difficult to share physically with people, so I sat down and designed business cards at one of those free sites, with all our adoption info on it so I could carry them in my purse. I got as far as the "submit order" button and realized I was NOT supposed to be doing this.... the best I can describe it is that the uncomfortable feeling turned to a disgust feeling and an inexplicable desire to run away from my computer. God seems to be telling me not to be yelling from the rooftops quite yet, and we have no idea why.
In the meantime, we began our search for children. Children in the care of the state are usually listed in an online database that, in most cases, includes photos; the databases are called Photolistings. There are a couple of national level photolistings - adoptuskids.org and photolistings.adoption.com - that I check a few times a week. There are some regional listings and adoption exchanges that cover a small handful of states, like nwae.org that covers some states in the North-West. Each state's Department of Child Services (or family services, or whatever that state calls it) has a photolisting, and some states have a photolisting available per county instead of one for the whole state. Then there are private organizations such as the Heart Gallery, which travels around to do advertising of hard-to-place kids in a physical location like an art gallery would show art, and Wednesday's Child, which features hard-to-place kids on TV during the news in different cities. This amounts to potentially 70+ websites that we could spend time searching through; though some children are repeated (some kids on the IL site could also be on the Heart Gallery or a national photolisting, for example). The purpose of looking through photolistings is to find a child who fits your criteria; unfortunately, some states are not allowed to post much of any useful information online, or only show the kids that have been in the system the longest, while other states list every single child in the state's custody, even if they're not adoptable for some reason. So in most cases we click a button, if we see a child we want more information about, and we wait to see how their social worker responds. Sometimes the social worker may not even hear from us... some agencies and departments sub-contract to another company to handle and forward the initial inquiries.
Which brings us to part of our despondency. We have set our criteria as broadly as is realistic for our family so that, if God decides a particular child is best for us, there would be fewer human road blocks. Kind of silly, thinking that tightened boundaries would limit God... I certainly don't think I have the power to do that... and yet, it seemed right at the time. We've begun to review our criteria, and I'm struggling with guilt of 'closing doors' just to fit the kind of family that I want. As it stands, our criteria are set to cover realistically what we could handle and are trained to handle, even if we don't really want to handle it. We're trying to be realistic; we wouldn't even get any kind of choice if we were going about this a bit more traditionally. Lanse also points out that God favors the willing, so in tightening our boundaries are we childishly saying no to God? We're talking, praying, reading, seeking His will. We're seeking wise counsel... meeting with our priest on Thursday to see how he might help us interpret what we're feeling and hearing.
In the meantime, we are maintaining our present course until we hear definitively otherwise. A couple of weeks ago, I once again sat down to look through photolistings, and a sense of hopelessness and despair just washed over me; I felt that the only possible way to welcome a peaceful and fun-loving child into our home would be to seriously stress our abilities in other areas... the kind of child that we want is simply not present in the photolistings. There's a big sense that we're making due to fit a philosophy we held when we began years ago that, frankly, I'm not sure I'm as convinced of anymore. But that Sunday I had spent in meditation, praying for guidance, questioning over and over why God very clearly brought us to this moment and nothing was happening. We were stalled for no apparent reason. I sat in front of my computer with children's faces on the screen, none of them mine, feeling chained to it... I couldn't close the window or let go of this desperate need to just DO something...and suddenly the answer just dropped quietly into my head: "She's not ready yet." And suddenly I was calm again and could move on to other things.
We're meant to wait; whoever "she" is, God is doing a work in her. It could be our child (we've both night-dreamed about a girl), it could be a birth mother or a foster mother, it could be a social worker... He could even mean me, and I'm trying to carefully assess myself just in case. But we know that the entire process is one of waiting, and that message didn't tell us to stop inquiring on children or looking at photos. We were not told to stop following our social worker's direction. So we've continued to look, and at one point I even felt drawn to the computer, compelled to look... and inquired on a child who did not fit the stated criteria but it just felt right to inquire. An infant, she was listed and removed from listing in three hours and was no longer available when I spoke to her social worker. I'm not sure what the purpose of the insistant feeling was in this case, but perhaps we'll find out.
I'm keeping a database of all the children for whom we've submitted inquiries. It's important to keep track so that we don't inquire multiple times on different sites, so we know when we sent a release of information form for each child, the date we hear from their worker, the date Bert sends our homestudy, and the child's adoptability status. Today there's 32 line items in the database, with 13 sibling groups, for a total of 45 children. Of those 45, only about 5 of them are current in the last two weeks, and we've heard back on 16 of them, all not available or a poor match. The rest of them... no idea. And most of them were inquiries made in the first two weeks of May. So far, things are proceeding as we were promised... no news is simply no news.
Our social worker has also been having some difficulties which support God's plan for us to be waiting a bit. A friend of hers died out of town, when she got back from that trip the agency had installed a new email server system thing (she couldn't describe it to me very well) that made all the email bounce, and the week after that something happened at her house with electric or plumbing that meant she had to be home for someone to dig up her entire front yard. One thing after another is keeping her from working on our process.. or really that of all her clients. So we call and wait and wait and call and inquire and see what may happen next. After her email snafu, it's likely that some of the replies to our inquiries are sitting in her computer somewhere.
And that's what's happened in the last nearly-two months. This week has put an interesting spin on my thoughts, as I'm working every morning with the preschoolers (ages 3-5, our target adoption ages) at Kids' Kamp, our church's Vacation Bible School program. One of my favorite adopted kids from church (international adoption) is finally old enough to attend, and it's been a joy to have him. We'll be heading to New York for the July 4 weekend and week after, but I'll hopefully have it in me to post an update before we leave.
Please pray that we will be given peace and a firm confidence in what God wants us to do. I'm looking for an action direction, clear and precise. If He wants to initiate the Large Neon Arrow approach, that'd be fantastic. But whatever works, so long as Lanse and I are clear and of one mind.
We very much appreciate your prayers and support.
Since we're new to this whole process, it seems wise to hire an agency (and social worker) to help us through the legalities and understanding what steps need to be taken so that we aren't taken advantage of or make any innocent mis-steps that get us into trouble legally or financially; thus our having signed with Bethany. We're following the directions of our social worker. But we're also, of course, trying to be aware of the subtle nudgings of God for our direction - we specifically chose a Christian agency in hopes that those elements will work together. Told that we needed to get the word out, we made the flyers that I posted about before. After that first initial "campaign" (only about a week) of sharing those with everyone, I felt strangely as though I needed to forget about it... became extremely self-conscious, and still am. A few weeks later it occurred to me that a full-sheet flyer is very difficult to share physically with people, so I sat down and designed business cards at one of those free sites, with all our adoption info on it so I could carry them in my purse. I got as far as the "submit order" button and realized I was NOT supposed to be doing this.... the best I can describe it is that the uncomfortable feeling turned to a disgust feeling and an inexplicable desire to run away from my computer. God seems to be telling me not to be yelling from the rooftops quite yet, and we have no idea why.
In the meantime, we began our search for children. Children in the care of the state are usually listed in an online database that, in most cases, includes photos; the databases are called Photolistings. There are a couple of national level photolistings - adoptuskids.org and photolistings.adoption.com - that I check a few times a week. There are some regional listings and adoption exchanges that cover a small handful of states, like nwae.org that covers some states in the North-West. Each state's Department of Child Services (or family services, or whatever that state calls it) has a photolisting, and some states have a photolisting available per county instead of one for the whole state. Then there are private organizations such as the Heart Gallery, which travels around to do advertising of hard-to-place kids in a physical location like an art gallery would show art, and Wednesday's Child, which features hard-to-place kids on TV during the news in different cities. This amounts to potentially 70+ websites that we could spend time searching through; though some children are repeated (some kids on the IL site could also be on the Heart Gallery or a national photolisting, for example). The purpose of looking through photolistings is to find a child who fits your criteria; unfortunately, some states are not allowed to post much of any useful information online, or only show the kids that have been in the system the longest, while other states list every single child in the state's custody, even if they're not adoptable for some reason. So in most cases we click a button, if we see a child we want more information about, and we wait to see how their social worker responds. Sometimes the social worker may not even hear from us... some agencies and departments sub-contract to another company to handle and forward the initial inquiries.
Which brings us to part of our despondency. We have set our criteria as broadly as is realistic for our family so that, if God decides a particular child is best for us, there would be fewer human road blocks. Kind of silly, thinking that tightened boundaries would limit God... I certainly don't think I have the power to do that... and yet, it seemed right at the time. We've begun to review our criteria, and I'm struggling with guilt of 'closing doors' just to fit the kind of family that I want. As it stands, our criteria are set to cover realistically what we could handle and are trained to handle, even if we don't really want to handle it. We're trying to be realistic; we wouldn't even get any kind of choice if we were going about this a bit more traditionally. Lanse also points out that God favors the willing, so in tightening our boundaries are we childishly saying no to God? We're talking, praying, reading, seeking His will. We're seeking wise counsel... meeting with our priest on Thursday to see how he might help us interpret what we're feeling and hearing.
In the meantime, we are maintaining our present course until we hear definitively otherwise. A couple of weeks ago, I once again sat down to look through photolistings, and a sense of hopelessness and despair just washed over me; I felt that the only possible way to welcome a peaceful and fun-loving child into our home would be to seriously stress our abilities in other areas... the kind of child that we want is simply not present in the photolistings. There's a big sense that we're making due to fit a philosophy we held when we began years ago that, frankly, I'm not sure I'm as convinced of anymore. But that Sunday I had spent in meditation, praying for guidance, questioning over and over why God very clearly brought us to this moment and nothing was happening. We were stalled for no apparent reason. I sat in front of my computer with children's faces on the screen, none of them mine, feeling chained to it... I couldn't close the window or let go of this desperate need to just DO something...and suddenly the answer just dropped quietly into my head: "She's not ready yet." And suddenly I was calm again and could move on to other things.
We're meant to wait; whoever "she" is, God is doing a work in her. It could be our child (we've both night-dreamed about a girl), it could be a birth mother or a foster mother, it could be a social worker... He could even mean me, and I'm trying to carefully assess myself just in case. But we know that the entire process is one of waiting, and that message didn't tell us to stop inquiring on children or looking at photos. We were not told to stop following our social worker's direction. So we've continued to look, and at one point I even felt drawn to the computer, compelled to look... and inquired on a child who did not fit the stated criteria but it just felt right to inquire. An infant, she was listed and removed from listing in three hours and was no longer available when I spoke to her social worker. I'm not sure what the purpose of the insistant feeling was in this case, but perhaps we'll find out.
I'm keeping a database of all the children for whom we've submitted inquiries. It's important to keep track so that we don't inquire multiple times on different sites, so we know when we sent a release of information form for each child, the date we hear from their worker, the date Bert sends our homestudy, and the child's adoptability status. Today there's 32 line items in the database, with 13 sibling groups, for a total of 45 children. Of those 45, only about 5 of them are current in the last two weeks, and we've heard back on 16 of them, all not available or a poor match. The rest of them... no idea. And most of them were inquiries made in the first two weeks of May. So far, things are proceeding as we were promised... no news is simply no news.
Our social worker has also been having some difficulties which support God's plan for us to be waiting a bit. A friend of hers died out of town, when she got back from that trip the agency had installed a new email server system thing (she couldn't describe it to me very well) that made all the email bounce, and the week after that something happened at her house with electric or plumbing that meant she had to be home for someone to dig up her entire front yard. One thing after another is keeping her from working on our process.. or really that of all her clients. So we call and wait and wait and call and inquire and see what may happen next. After her email snafu, it's likely that some of the replies to our inquiries are sitting in her computer somewhere.
And that's what's happened in the last nearly-two months. This week has put an interesting spin on my thoughts, as I'm working every morning with the preschoolers (ages 3-5, our target adoption ages) at Kids' Kamp, our church's Vacation Bible School program. One of my favorite adopted kids from church (international adoption) is finally old enough to attend, and it's been a joy to have him. We'll be heading to New York for the July 4 weekend and week after, but I'll hopefully have it in me to post an update before we leave.
Please pray that we will be given peace and a firm confidence in what God wants us to do. I'm looking for an action direction, clear and precise. If He wants to initiate the Large Neon Arrow approach, that'd be fantastic. But whatever works, so long as Lanse and I are clear and of one mind.
We very much appreciate your prayers and support.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Homestudy Approval Meeting Tomorrow
We're driving up to Bethany tomorrow to meet with Bert at 2:30. The homestudy's been signed off by the Director, and we have to read through it carefully to make sure it's all accurate and things cast in the particular lights that we feel are appropriate. We'll be bringing her a few more photos to add in, and we'll also be discussing our time line for the next part of the plan. As soon as I know it, I'll share it.
I love my friends, and how they're all so amazingly supportive through all of this craziness. I've been spending time here and there looking through photolistings and getting discouraged because of how few children are listed as available who we feel could fit our family. I've been discouraged enough that we've already started discussing our alternatives. I mentioned this to one of my best friends last night and she said, "Well, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it until Friday, right? So they wouldn't be there yet." Her point was basically, when we're ready, God'll put our children's info right where it needs to be. She was so totally right. I'm so grateful that God's given us friends to help us keep perspective.
More news tomorrow!
I love my friends, and how they're all so amazingly supportive through all of this craziness. I've been spending time here and there looking through photolistings and getting discouraged because of how few children are listed as available who we feel could fit our family. I've been discouraged enough that we've already started discussing our alternatives. I mentioned this to one of my best friends last night and she said, "Well, you wouldn't be able to do anything about it until Friday, right? So they wouldn't be there yet." Her point was basically, when we're ready, God'll put our children's info right where it needs to be. She was so totally right. I'm so grateful that God's given us friends to help us keep perspective.
More news tomorrow!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
This morning
As anticipated, I'm much better after having had a night's sleep. Lanse was also very wonderful in letting me cry and vent, speaking some rationality into whatever brain I had left at the time, and praying with me. While we're always taking our feelings and thoughts under advisement, no changes are being made right now, which is good. And we're done with training for a small bit, which is also good... and I'm focusing on teenagers this week for school, which we're not adopting, so that's also good. I have to find a small mental vacation somehow. But overall, it's all good. For the moment.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Overwhelmed!
It's been a very hard week here at home with things unrelated to the adoption, so I'll preface this with saying that I know I'm both sleepy tired and life exhausted right now, so I may not be thinking - and am definitely not feeling - clearly.
We just finished up the last of our home study required training sessions. The last two were on Child Maltreatment and Sexual Abuse. I am so sick to my stomach, angry, and overwhelmed. I'm also in college to get my degree in Child Development, so I've spent the last four weeks studying everything that can go wrong in proper development at all ages due to stress and abuse in an unsafe home environment.
I'm trying to find the right word for my feeling... desperation, hopelessness... whiny?? I just want to be a mom! I can't be pregnant, and we feel like we are personally called to do what we can for our own folk before focusing on the rest of the world, thus older child adoption. Does that seriously mean that my children must be irreparably damaged? Does that mean that because I can't bear a child I have to mother children who had their innocence torn from them? That I'm going to be punished by fetal alcohol syndrome and oppositional defiance disorder and a child who falsely accuses my husband of things because she was molested when she was 2?
Maybe this isn't the way we're supposed to go.... but it's either adopt or don't have children, and we really can't face the latter yet...
We just finished up the last of our home study required training sessions. The last two were on Child Maltreatment and Sexual Abuse. I am so sick to my stomach, angry, and overwhelmed. I'm also in college to get my degree in Child Development, so I've spent the last four weeks studying everything that can go wrong in proper development at all ages due to stress and abuse in an unsafe home environment.
I'm trying to find the right word for my feeling... desperation, hopelessness... whiny?? I just want to be a mom! I can't be pregnant, and we feel like we are personally called to do what we can for our own folk before focusing on the rest of the world, thus older child adoption. Does that seriously mean that my children must be irreparably damaged? Does that mean that because I can't bear a child I have to mother children who had their innocence torn from them? That I'm going to be punished by fetal alcohol syndrome and oppositional defiance disorder and a child who falsely accuses my husband of things because she was molested when she was 2?
Maybe this isn't the way we're supposed to go.... but it's either adopt or don't have children, and we really can't face the latter yet...
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Gnawing
Anyone who's lived in an area where it snows a lot during the winter understands that feeling that comes around February. The one where it feels like there's something in that space between your stomach and your throat kind of gnawing away and if you don't get to go play in the grassy yard RIGHT NOW you'll explode. It's the house-bound ache that can start to drive you out of your mind if you live somewhere that snows you in for six months of the year. I grew up in Minnesota so I'm familiar with that desperate crazy gnawing.
I never expected to feel that down here in "sunny" SC, half an hour from the beach. This time the ache's not caused by snow or cold or not being able to leave the house. It's still the same gnawing, in the same place... but it's caused by not yet having my children. I've wanted to be a mom... expected to become a mom... a couple of years after getting married. I started looking into adoption via Google at least two years before Lanse was ready to start discussing it. It took us another couple of years to get to the emotional place where we could make the first contact with an agency. And, according to the posts in this blog archive, we placed that call over two years ago. We will hopefully be done with the home study by the end of next month, and that's when the 'waiting' in adoption traditionally begins.
Everyone whose adopting stories I've read has expressed the huge amount of waiting that goes on through this process, but I had always interpreted the feelings as impatience or exasperation, or just a general intellectual annoyance at elapsing time. I really had no idea it would feel like this. Of course, having no recourse against it all I can do is analyze and try to figure out why I feel so weighed down and suffocated with this desire of motherhood; I know I don't need to have my own children to survive, or anything desperate like that. We've done rather well as a couple with cats making it into our mid 30s. I'm studying to be a teacher, and I know that fulfills me. So why this horrible ache for my own?
My child, should you ever read this, know that you are wanted. I want you so desperately that sometimes it hurts in my heart that I have to wait for you to come. I love you so much already, and I don't even know who you are. But some day soon, we will be a family...
I never expected to feel that down here in "sunny" SC, half an hour from the beach. This time the ache's not caused by snow or cold or not being able to leave the house. It's still the same gnawing, in the same place... but it's caused by not yet having my children. I've wanted to be a mom... expected to become a mom... a couple of years after getting married. I started looking into adoption via Google at least two years before Lanse was ready to start discussing it. It took us another couple of years to get to the emotional place where we could make the first contact with an agency. And, according to the posts in this blog archive, we placed that call over two years ago. We will hopefully be done with the home study by the end of next month, and that's when the 'waiting' in adoption traditionally begins.
Everyone whose adopting stories I've read has expressed the huge amount of waiting that goes on through this process, but I had always interpreted the feelings as impatience or exasperation, or just a general intellectual annoyance at elapsing time. I really had no idea it would feel like this. Of course, having no recourse against it all I can do is analyze and try to figure out why I feel so weighed down and suffocated with this desire of motherhood; I know I don't need to have my own children to survive, or anything desperate like that. We've done rather well as a couple with cats making it into our mid 30s. I'm studying to be a teacher, and I know that fulfills me. So why this horrible ache for my own?
My child, should you ever read this, know that you are wanted. I want you so desperately that sometimes it hurts in my heart that I have to wait for you to come. I love you so much already, and I don't even know who you are. But some day soon, we will be a family...
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Reaction observations
One of the huge emotional struggles that adopting parents have to push past when beginning the process is the fact that there are so many people out there having kids they don't want, or shouldn't have, and they're free to do so as they wish... when we have to be interviewed, tested, and approved by the government before we're "allowed" to be parents. Anger is a natural part of the process, but it's vital to have done as much dealing with it as possible before you begin interacting with your potential child, because they can sense moods and may read your anger as disapproval, or think you're angry with them. It's just not something the kids should have to deal with. Obviously, I do understand that our children will at some point deal with us being angry, but I'd like to keep my anger unrelated to the adoption process, since that's going to be the first and foremost Big Deal to the kids right now and won't help anyone if dealt with inappropriately.
Yesterday I was at church when I received the call from the county to schedule our health inspection. I'm trying to put all kinds of emotions into words here, and it's not working very well. Everything was... and still is... pretty overwhelming.
Overall, while I am very nervous, I'm mostly excited. Finally the process is moving forward. This is a wonderful thing! After calling Lanse and then calling my mom, I went down to tell the people who happened to be at church who are in my Bible study and always asks for updates. They were very excited for us! They are praying! This is good!
And then I went to find another friend who was working in the office, and someone else had just come in. Now, we're not keeping this a secret (obviously) so I didn't hesitate to share the news anyway. This other person asked what this inspection entails, and I explained what we have to do in general, what we got done for Bert's inspection, and what specifics we had left. Thinking back, my tone was a bit apologetic for some reason, like I was trying to convey 'yeah, this is kinda silly, but it's what we're doing.' So from that perspective, I guess I can understand her reaction. She looked at me with pity and a smile and, dripping with sarcasm, said, "I completely understand. Because, you know, my garage was completely childproof when I had my baby, and I padded my walls, too, just in case." Then she lost her sarcasm and in a very caring voice said how sorry she was that we had to deal with such incredible nonsense, etc.
So now I'm really angry again. Oddly, though, I'm angry with her and not the government, because her response made me angry. (That's rather circular...) I honestly thought I'd gotten over that part, and I'd moved on. I was excited about moving forward, glad that we had everything under control for next week's inspection... this is just What Must Be Done. But her response was like... someone with six kids who never suffered a drop of morning sickness watch her friend heaving into the toilet pregnant with her first and saying, "Isn't morning sickness awful? I'm so sorry." No one would even think of being that cruel.
Anyway, I'm angry and upset. I also realize that I shouldn't be; her reaction is exactly the same as our reactions to hearing we had to go through this. It's exactly what I should expect but for some reason I didn't, and it was like this huge heavy wet blanket over my excitement.
Yes, we're sorting and organizing, installing weird plastic devices, locking cabinets, cleaning the house to ridiculous extent. I am being observed, interviewed, and graded. I am not, however, throwing up for nine months, on oxygen or bed rest, eating pickle ice cream sandwiches, or looking forward to a tentative high-risk surgical birth. In the end, I'm pretty sure it'll be worth it.
Yesterday I was at church when I received the call from the county to schedule our health inspection. I'm trying to put all kinds of emotions into words here, and it's not working very well. Everything was... and still is... pretty overwhelming.
Overall, while I am very nervous, I'm mostly excited. Finally the process is moving forward. This is a wonderful thing! After calling Lanse and then calling my mom, I went down to tell the people who happened to be at church who are in my Bible study and always asks for updates. They were very excited for us! They are praying! This is good!
And then I went to find another friend who was working in the office, and someone else had just come in. Now, we're not keeping this a secret (obviously) so I didn't hesitate to share the news anyway. This other person asked what this inspection entails, and I explained what we have to do in general, what we got done for Bert's inspection, and what specifics we had left. Thinking back, my tone was a bit apologetic for some reason, like I was trying to convey 'yeah, this is kinda silly, but it's what we're doing.' So from that perspective, I guess I can understand her reaction. She looked at me with pity and a smile and, dripping with sarcasm, said, "I completely understand. Because, you know, my garage was completely childproof when I had my baby, and I padded my walls, too, just in case." Then she lost her sarcasm and in a very caring voice said how sorry she was that we had to deal with such incredible nonsense, etc.
So now I'm really angry again. Oddly, though, I'm angry with her and not the government, because her response made me angry. (That's rather circular...) I honestly thought I'd gotten over that part, and I'd moved on. I was excited about moving forward, glad that we had everything under control for next week's inspection... this is just What Must Be Done. But her response was like... someone with six kids who never suffered a drop of morning sickness watch her friend heaving into the toilet pregnant with her first and saying, "Isn't morning sickness awful? I'm so sorry." No one would even think of being that cruel.
Anyway, I'm angry and upset. I also realize that I shouldn't be; her reaction is exactly the same as our reactions to hearing we had to go through this. It's exactly what I should expect but for some reason I didn't, and it was like this huge heavy wet blanket over my excitement.
Yes, we're sorting and organizing, installing weird plastic devices, locking cabinets, cleaning the house to ridiculous extent. I am being observed, interviewed, and graded. I am not, however, throwing up for nine months, on oxygen or bed rest, eating pickle ice cream sandwiches, or looking forward to a tentative high-risk surgical birth. In the end, I'm pretty sure it'll be worth it.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Mild frustration... again...
Okay, so I realize that it's been the holidays and things got busy. I can accept that. But when I talked to Bert yesterday, I thought we were golden. Yesterday was the mix up in inspector requisitions. Today she called a number of times... first she hadn't written down when our house was built, which we have discussed a number of times. Then she called back to verify where Lanse works, and I asked her if the reference letters had gone out, since I hadn't heard about it yet. So she goes digging, and the address we'd given her in December while she was standing in our living room (done then to save time, y'know) was still tucked into the file and never made it to the secretary who had the form. Then she called me back again because apparently they sent the employment reference form to work and never got it back. There was something else as well that she called back about, and I can't remember.
So on the frustrated side, things haven't been getting done when I thought they were.
On the positive side though, I happen to know that Bert's been sitting in the office all afternoon with our file open, and that's a good thing.
After losing most of the day to a migraine headache, I have managed to scan in and email our vet records to her, as well as print out the floor plan fire escape routes that we need to have posted in prominent places. We have to run out and get some frames for them. I printed two black and white for the living room and kitchen, and one colorful with cute clip art for the kid's room. I think next I'll print up an emergency numbers list to post with it.
I also need to make that shopping list so that when we go we can get everything at once. It'll be a big bill. Sigh.
So on the frustrated side, things haven't been getting done when I thought they were.
On the positive side though, I happen to know that Bert's been sitting in the office all afternoon with our file open, and that's a good thing.
After losing most of the day to a migraine headache, I have managed to scan in and email our vet records to her, as well as print out the floor plan fire escape routes that we need to have posted in prominent places. We have to run out and get some frames for them. I printed two black and white for the living room and kitchen, and one colorful with cute clip art for the kid's room. I think next I'll print up an emergency numbers list to post with it.
I also need to make that shopping list so that when we go we can get everything at once. It'll be a big bill. Sigh.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Biblical Adoption
Brian Luwis's Biblical perspective on adoption, found on America World Adoption Agency's website, is awe-inspiring to me every time I read it. I highly recommend that you read the entire text. Here's a couple of parts that really stand out to me:
The Spirit of Adoption
Does God Place an Emphasis upon Genetic Relations?
I want to dispel a myth that is entrenched in many of our thoughts about God's chosen people. It is my belief that this will help you view adoption as a natural process designed by God. In the book of Genesis, God calls Abraham out from among his kinsmen to a new land. Abraham was to be the father of a nation from which his physical descendants (the "chosen seed") were to be the "keepers of the covenant." From this, we assume it was God's plan to redeem man through Abraham and his biological descendants. This is not the case. When God chose Abraham He also chose his entire household and not just Abraham's physical seed.
Genesis 17:12—“And he that is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of your seed.” (NKJV)
Through this verse we can better understand what God meant when He spoke of a "chosen seed." Abraham's household was truly a blended community, integrating relatives, servants and strangers from a variety of ethnic groups. When God chose Abraham and his descendents, it had nothing to do with genetics. Abraham was chosen because of his faith, as was his "seed." God was not trying to create a special ethnicity of people based upon genetics, blood type or DNA. Instead, God wanted to cultivate a people who would be universally known as His children by their spiritual heritage, not by their skin color or genetic makeup.
Galatians gives further insight into this truth. Galatians 3:7 says, “Know therefore, that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham,” (NKJV)
Galatians 3:29 says, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (NKJV)
When we consider these verses in light of Ephesians 1:5 (NIV), "…He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will," we begin to see adoption for what it really is…God's relationship builder and His chosen means of bringing His fallen creatures into a permanent relationship with Himself and a perfectly natural means for God to place a child in your family.
“Is Adoption God’s Plan B?”
What did the Scriptures have to say about the subject?
Have you ever considered the fact that Jesus was adopted? Yes, Jesus' earthly father Joseph adopted him. In fact, the Gospel of Matthew traces the bloodline of Jesus not through his biological mother, Mary, but through his adoptive father, Joseph. Even though one might easily pass over this fact as insignificant, this detail reveals something amazing about God's nature. God does not make mistakes, and He certainly doesn't need a back-up plan. Through this footnote in history we see that for Jesus, adoption was not Plan B.
God's plan of redemption for an imperfect world was set in motion through the very concept of adoption. Not only did He ordain his son Jesus to be adopted, but He made adoption the only way we could become a part of His eternal family. It was His good pleasure to adopt us. In fact, it is His ideal mechanism to establish relationships."
“Is a Child by Adoption my Own?”
Renée and I faced this question as newly adoptive parents. When Renée gave birth to Sophia we likewise questioned if God considered her to be more "ours" than Fei or Gwenn were "ours."
We read in 1 Corinthians 6:19—“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (NKJV)
If we are not our own and God owns us, then He must own our children too, for it is by His grace that we move, live, and have our being. We have children by His grace, adopted or by birth. God entrusts them to us. He is their true Father in heaven. We are their earthly parents....
God’s Word goes further to show we are not our own by calling us His children. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12 (NIV)
God calls us "His children." If we are His children, then so are our sons and daughters. We can take comfort in knowing that the ownership of our children(by adoption or birth) belongs to the Creator of the Universe, our Eternal Father.
The Spirit of Adoption
Does God Place an Emphasis upon Genetic Relations?
I want to dispel a myth that is entrenched in many of our thoughts about God's chosen people. It is my belief that this will help you view adoption as a natural process designed by God. In the book of Genesis, God calls Abraham out from among his kinsmen to a new land. Abraham was to be the father of a nation from which his physical descendants (the "chosen seed") were to be the "keepers of the covenant." From this, we assume it was God's plan to redeem man through Abraham and his biological descendants. This is not the case. When God chose Abraham He also chose his entire household and not just Abraham's physical seed.
Genesis 17:12—“And he that is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of your seed.” (NKJV)
Through this verse we can better understand what God meant when He spoke of a "chosen seed." Abraham's household was truly a blended community, integrating relatives, servants and strangers from a variety of ethnic groups. When God chose Abraham and his descendents, it had nothing to do with genetics. Abraham was chosen because of his faith, as was his "seed." God was not trying to create a special ethnicity of people based upon genetics, blood type or DNA. Instead, God wanted to cultivate a people who would be universally known as His children by their spiritual heritage, not by their skin color or genetic makeup.
Galatians gives further insight into this truth. Galatians 3:7 says, “Know therefore, that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham,” (NKJV)
Galatians 3:29 says, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (NKJV)
When we consider these verses in light of Ephesians 1:5 (NIV), "…He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will," we begin to see adoption for what it really is…God's relationship builder and His chosen means of bringing His fallen creatures into a permanent relationship with Himself and a perfectly natural means for God to place a child in your family.
“Is Adoption God’s Plan B?”
What did the Scriptures have to say about the subject?
Have you ever considered the fact that Jesus was adopted? Yes, Jesus' earthly father Joseph adopted him. In fact, the Gospel of Matthew traces the bloodline of Jesus not through his biological mother, Mary, but through his adoptive father, Joseph. Even though one might easily pass over this fact as insignificant, this detail reveals something amazing about God's nature. God does not make mistakes, and He certainly doesn't need a back-up plan. Through this footnote in history we see that for Jesus, adoption was not Plan B.
God's plan of redemption for an imperfect world was set in motion through the very concept of adoption. Not only did He ordain his son Jesus to be adopted, but He made adoption the only way we could become a part of His eternal family. It was His good pleasure to adopt us. In fact, it is His ideal mechanism to establish relationships."
“Is a Child by Adoption my Own?”
Renée and I faced this question as newly adoptive parents. When Renée gave birth to Sophia we likewise questioned if God considered her to be more "ours" than Fei or Gwenn were "ours."
We read in 1 Corinthians 6:19—“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (NKJV)
If we are not our own and God owns us, then He must own our children too, for it is by His grace that we move, live, and have our being. We have children by His grace, adopted or by birth. God entrusts them to us. He is their true Father in heaven. We are their earthly parents....
God’s Word goes further to show we are not our own by calling us His children. “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12 (NIV)
God calls us "His children." If we are His children, then so are our sons and daughters. We can take comfort in knowing that the ownership of our children(by adoption or birth) belongs to the Creator of the Universe, our Eternal Father.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Home Visit
It's been two days since Bert was here for the home visit, and I think I'm still processing everything. I have had some sort of resistance to posting about it; I hope it's just because I'm still thinking it over.
The fact that we are going to be parents sometime soon is starting to feel much more real, and kind of suddenly... something will come to mind and just bowl me over emotionally. I'm feeling very stressed out, but not because of any specific event or job that needs doing, but more at the fact that it's Soon. On Wednesday night we were cleaning out and straightening the back room. That room originally had all our child related stuff (I have a lot of toys and books and things from the school I taught at), and it was neat and organized, and we used it as a guest room with the air mattress. Then I needed a place to move my sewing stuff, so we put the toys in the attic and then we needed a better bookcase in the office, so all the furniture moved around again, and it was my sewing room/guest room. (I'd called it my Playroom). Wednesday night we went in to move things around again, and realized this is it. We brought the toys back down to be used and figured out where the bed might go. A friend of ours calls this kind of thing, "Weird head space", like momentous stuff is going on and we just can't wrap our brains around it.
So then, on to the official report. Bert arrived Thursday morning a little before 10:00, and we all got some coffee and sat down to talk. Colin gave us a lovely show, playing with the jingly toy mouse, throwing it in the air by its tail and doing flips to grab it again. That was fun. :) Anyway, first she addressed our concerns and questions, most of which revolved around the inspection. So we got up and did the tour of the house, explained the areas we were concerned about, talked about the furniture and so forth, she gave us some suggestions on things we may want to take care of before the state inspection. There's not many of them, and most of them we were already aware of, which is good.
Then we sat and talked for about an hour, maybe a little more. She'd received our referrals (Thank you, References!) and there was an area on the form for weaknesses as well as strengths,
so we discussed those (don't worry, she didn't tell us who said what). We talked a lot about things that had been covered with our case worker in NY; not for the paperwork, since she had it all written down already, but so that she could get to know us better. We discussed LPA and the pregnancy rates and mixed marriages and how I deal with kids in difficulty areas. We talked about our history, where certain tendencies came from, our marriage and struggles early on and how we dealt with them. Basic important life things.
We've officially had recorded that we're also open to siblings, just two... but one or more than one. We think we've figured out a reasonable way to arrange the house, and we're asking that if we are blessed with two little ones, they'll be close in developmental age so they can share toys and things. Within reason, obviously. We will accept either gender if we feel that we've found The Ones, in any combination really... though we both keep having dreams (at night) that we're having a girl, so we're hoping God will lead us to that. If not now, maybe later. For siblings, Lanse prefers a boy/girl or girl/girl, whereas I prefer a boy/girl or boy/boy, even though I don't know that I can handle two boys. For some reason I just can not picture two girls in this house, I don't know why. But I know that both of us are excited and thrilled to have ANY kids, gender doesn't matter.
As soon as we've finished the things with the house, we'll call Bert and let her know and she'll file for the fire inspection. She's already filed for the Health and Safety, and was surprised they hadn't called us yet. So we'll see how that ends up. Unfortunately, she has to go back into surgery and will be recovering for another six weeks or so. Her previous surgery ruptured, or something nasty like that. Prayers for Bert are appreciated; partly because we don't want her to be in pain, but also because selfishly we want her to be able to get stuff done quickly for us, and we know that she's vital in the lives of a lot of kids right now.
So that's where we are at the moment. Her visit went well, she personally approves of the house and seemed to be very agreeable to our viewpoints in discussion. We get on the ball with the final safety items, call her, she calls them, we wait. They inspect, we get the papers filed, get the vet stuff in, and wait. Once the red tape's all cut and burned, we start the search for our kid(s). And wait. She said it could be anywhere from 6 months to a year or more, it just depends on how on the ball everyone is, and where the child lives right now. I know people who have really on-top-of-it people who get things done sooner than 6 months, but that's not very common. So that's what we're looking at.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers; we can feel them working!
The fact that we are going to be parents sometime soon is starting to feel much more real, and kind of suddenly... something will come to mind and just bowl me over emotionally. I'm feeling very stressed out, but not because of any specific event or job that needs doing, but more at the fact that it's Soon. On Wednesday night we were cleaning out and straightening the back room. That room originally had all our child related stuff (I have a lot of toys and books and things from the school I taught at), and it was neat and organized, and we used it as a guest room with the air mattress. Then I needed a place to move my sewing stuff, so we put the toys in the attic and then we needed a better bookcase in the office, so all the furniture moved around again, and it was my sewing room/guest room. (I'd called it my Playroom). Wednesday night we went in to move things around again, and realized this is it. We brought the toys back down to be used and figured out where the bed might go. A friend of ours calls this kind of thing, "Weird head space", like momentous stuff is going on and we just can't wrap our brains around it.
So then, on to the official report. Bert arrived Thursday morning a little before 10:00, and we all got some coffee and sat down to talk. Colin gave us a lovely show, playing with the jingly toy mouse, throwing it in the air by its tail and doing flips to grab it again. That was fun. :) Anyway, first she addressed our concerns and questions, most of which revolved around the inspection. So we got up and did the tour of the house, explained the areas we were concerned about, talked about the furniture and so forth, she gave us some suggestions on things we may want to take care of before the state inspection. There's not many of them, and most of them we were already aware of, which is good.
Then we sat and talked for about an hour, maybe a little more. She'd received our referrals (Thank you, References!) and there was an area on the form for weaknesses as well as strengths,
so we discussed those (don't worry, she didn't tell us who said what). We talked a lot about things that had been covered with our case worker in NY; not for the paperwork, since she had it all written down already, but so that she could get to know us better. We discussed LPA and the pregnancy rates and mixed marriages and how I deal with kids in difficulty areas. We talked about our history, where certain tendencies came from, our marriage and struggles early on and how we dealt with them. Basic important life things.
We've officially had recorded that we're also open to siblings, just two... but one or more than one. We think we've figured out a reasonable way to arrange the house, and we're asking that if we are blessed with two little ones, they'll be close in developmental age so they can share toys and things. Within reason, obviously. We will accept either gender if we feel that we've found The Ones, in any combination really... though we both keep having dreams (at night) that we're having a girl, so we're hoping God will lead us to that. If not now, maybe later. For siblings, Lanse prefers a boy/girl or girl/girl, whereas I prefer a boy/girl or boy/boy, even though I don't know that I can handle two boys. For some reason I just can not picture two girls in this house, I don't know why. But I know that both of us are excited and thrilled to have ANY kids, gender doesn't matter.
As soon as we've finished the things with the house, we'll call Bert and let her know and she'll file for the fire inspection. She's already filed for the Health and Safety, and was surprised they hadn't called us yet. So we'll see how that ends up. Unfortunately, she has to go back into surgery and will be recovering for another six weeks or so. Her previous surgery ruptured, or something nasty like that. Prayers for Bert are appreciated; partly because we don't want her to be in pain, but also because selfishly we want her to be able to get stuff done quickly for us, and we know that she's vital in the lives of a lot of kids right now.
So that's where we are at the moment. Her visit went well, she personally approves of the house and seemed to be very agreeable to our viewpoints in discussion. We get on the ball with the final safety items, call her, she calls them, we wait. They inspect, we get the papers filed, get the vet stuff in, and wait. Once the red tape's all cut and burned, we start the search for our kid(s). And wait. She said it could be anywhere from 6 months to a year or more, it just depends on how on the ball everyone is, and where the child lives right now. I know people who have really on-top-of-it people who get things done sooner than 6 months, but that's not very common. So that's what we're looking at.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers; we can feel them working!
Monday, November 3, 2008
About Us
Jessica had a rocky start in a Western suburb of Chicago, but managed to pull through just fine. In Second Grade, the family (Mom, Dad, she and her little brother) moved to Minnesota, where they stayed until after she had gone to college, met Lanse, got married, and moved away to New York. She enjoys reading books and blogs, hanging out at church, painting metal toy soldiers, quilting and knitting, playing the piano, and playing with kids. She has a degree in Child Development, with a concentration in Preschool, and is enjoying applying her knowledge to help her kids.
This family would not be complete without the "furbabies" they love. Colin is the oldest, but also the smallest; white, with orange spots and orange rings on his tail. He is very independent, but likes to curl up under the covers at bedtime and purr very loudly. He also has started to play more by throwing toys in the air and doing flips trying to catch them. He also plays soccer with Spook. [Colin passed away in December, 2010. We miss him dreadfully.] Spook is the middle cat, but he's the largest, grey and lightly striped. He's sort of like a clueless gentle giant; he loves being snuggled and loved, but tends to squish smaller things by accident while loving them. He's also the hunter, and likes to catch small animals if he has the chance. He enjoys being in the room with his people and eating. Spook will eat almost anything. Finally, Kira is the youngest. She's all black except for a white patch on her tummy, and a few white individual hairs around her neck. She's shy and likes to spend most of her time on the screened porch watching the birds, mostly because the old folks (boy cats) tend to smack her when she tries to play with them. She's delicate and prim, but does have times when she likes to interact with her people. She also likes to talk a lot. All of our cats are very gentle with the children, and grateful for having two such dedicated humans to be such wonderful servants, though sometimes they can be a little snooty about it.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
October 14, 2008
Indecision
The more I browse and think and learn via email groups, the more I'm realizing I really want a girl. I know that I can love little boys too, and the wait for a girl is incredibly long, (more so the younger you want), plus if we were just to get pregnant, we wouldn't have a choice. So I don't know that it's worth saying anything about it. But I feel like I understand girls better, and while I know there are sports-oriented girls, I oddly feel like I can handle that better than sports-oriented boys. I haven't had a whole lot of experience with little boys, but all the ones that I have known have been very physical without a whole lot of reasoning skills. That makes me nervous, I don't know quite how to relate to it. Granted, the younger they are the more we can influence that sort of thing to some extent. And it's not just a sports thing, that's just an area in which the kind of thing I'm talking about often appears. I just tend to 'get' a higher percentage of girls than I do boys.
I also find myself still very drawn towards sibling groups (just 2), partly because we know we eventually want two anyway and I really don't want to go through this crazy government process again, and also because I feel like if there's two kids who are good at relying on each other it'd be some sort of comfort for the transition. Plus, ya know, I like kids. Since we're also looking at out-of-state adoption, I worry about the impact of removing an already-wounded child from everyone that's familiar to them. When I moved to NY it was by choice to an extended (married in) family that loved me, but no one really understood me at all; the only evidence of my past was my stuff (which many adopted kids come without), and even though I was an adult who had control over the situation it took a long hard time for me to get through it. I can only imagine what it would be like for a 5 year old kid feeling that kind of thing. I think having a brother or sister along for the ride would be a major benefit for them in an out-of-state, too-far-to-visit-often situation.
Oddly, I'm also finding myself drawn to pre-teen girls. Yes, I know, pre-teen girls are traditionally crazy even when they're not adopted kids. What in the world am I thinking?? Yes, older kids have gone through a lot, and there's a lot of physical risk when older kids decide to throw some kind of fit or something. Yes, there's hormones and other random stuff that comes with that. But we have five pre-teen/teenager friends (kids of friends, and other kids who show up to play games at the game store, some from crazy broken up home lives) who we get along with really well. We seem to really understand issues facing them (these specific ones, anyway) which even a lot of traditional style parents don't. We obviously wouldn't take just anyone, but according to what I've been reading, there are some older kids out there who are aware of their situations, able to reason and (within age-appropriate limits) make reasonable choices, want to work with the therapists and take their meds, who really just want to succeed, but nobody wants them because of their age. Yes, of course it'll be hard, but they're kids... all kids are hard, just in different ways at different stages. I feel like, chosen carefully, we have something to offer.
So all of this is to say that I'm very unsettled! None of what I've written here actually fits the paperwork we filled out. And obviously we don't want to get in over our heads; we must be able to provide for all the needs of whatever children we have in our home. But I feel like 'one toddler boy' could maybe not be the direction we're meant to be gearing up for.
When we pray for guidance, make choices based on the options available and then pray for peace, and peace is not forthcoming, doesn't that mean that perhaps we should reevaluate the choices?
The more I browse and think and learn via email groups, the more I'm realizing I really want a girl. I know that I can love little boys too, and the wait for a girl is incredibly long, (more so the younger you want), plus if we were just to get pregnant, we wouldn't have a choice. So I don't know that it's worth saying anything about it. But I feel like I understand girls better, and while I know there are sports-oriented girls, I oddly feel like I can handle that better than sports-oriented boys. I haven't had a whole lot of experience with little boys, but all the ones that I have known have been very physical without a whole lot of reasoning skills. That makes me nervous, I don't know quite how to relate to it. Granted, the younger they are the more we can influence that sort of thing to some extent. And it's not just a sports thing, that's just an area in which the kind of thing I'm talking about often appears. I just tend to 'get' a higher percentage of girls than I do boys.
I also find myself still very drawn towards sibling groups (just 2), partly because we know we eventually want two anyway and I really don't want to go through this crazy government process again, and also because I feel like if there's two kids who are good at relying on each other it'd be some sort of comfort for the transition. Plus, ya know, I like kids. Since we're also looking at out-of-state adoption, I worry about the impact of removing an already-wounded child from everyone that's familiar to them. When I moved to NY it was by choice to an extended (married in) family that loved me, but no one really understood me at all; the only evidence of my past was my stuff (which many adopted kids come without), and even though I was an adult who had control over the situation it took a long hard time for me to get through it. I can only imagine what it would be like for a 5 year old kid feeling that kind of thing. I think having a brother or sister along for the ride would be a major benefit for them in an out-of-state, too-far-to-visit-often situation.
Oddly, I'm also finding myself drawn to pre-teen girls. Yes, I know, pre-teen girls are traditionally crazy even when they're not adopted kids. What in the world am I thinking?? Yes, older kids have gone through a lot, and there's a lot of physical risk when older kids decide to throw some kind of fit or something. Yes, there's hormones and other random stuff that comes with that. But we have five pre-teen/teenager friends (kids of friends, and other kids who show up to play games at the game store, some from crazy broken up home lives) who we get along with really well. We seem to really understand issues facing them (these specific ones, anyway) which even a lot of traditional style parents don't. We obviously wouldn't take just anyone, but according to what I've been reading, there are some older kids out there who are aware of their situations, able to reason and (within age-appropriate limits) make reasonable choices, want to work with the therapists and take their meds, who really just want to succeed, but nobody wants them because of their age. Yes, of course it'll be hard, but they're kids... all kids are hard, just in different ways at different stages. I feel like, chosen carefully, we have something to offer.
So all of this is to say that I'm very unsettled! None of what I've written here actually fits the paperwork we filled out. And obviously we don't want to get in over our heads; we must be able to provide for all the needs of whatever children we have in our home. But I feel like 'one toddler boy' could maybe not be the direction we're meant to be gearing up for.
When we pray for guidance, make choices based on the options available and then pray for peace, and peace is not forthcoming, doesn't that mean that perhaps we should reevaluate the choices?
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
October 8, 2008
Conversation with Bert
Bert is our Social Worker. I sent her an email last week with some questions, and she called last night to discuss them. This is part of the whole process of her getting a feel for who we are as individuals and what we want as a family, so it's a pretty important thing! I thought it was pretty cool that she called instead of emailing, except for the fact that I now have nothing in writing. So I'm going to put it here so that I have it written down, also because I think they're good questions and may clarify some things for friends and family about how this system works. These are in no particular order, except that I tried to put first the ones that I'd already mentioned elsewhere in the blog.
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Question: Can we have a checklist from you of what kinds of child proofing we'll need to do for the inspection? I tried a google search and found everything from just outlet covers and keeping a close eye, to chaining down the toilet and padlocking the refrigerator and installing nearly every bit of furniture four feet up. There's just so wide a range, I'm not sure what detail they'll be looking for.
Answer: All we need to do for the inspection is to get locks on the cabinets and drawers and any closets that might have chemicals or medications in it. We have to put covers on the outlets, and move anything that's obviously a danger, like scissors or knives in the bill desk, that kind of thing. We will also need to get those hook things that you spool curtain strings around so the kids can't hang themselves. We also have to get the smoke detectors to have the installation date written on the outside, be sure the fire extinguisher is current, and put the step stool away when they come. Oh, we also have to make sure our hot water doesn't come out above 120 degrees and our fridge is cold enough to actually keep food safe to eat. Pretty basic stuff.
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Question: Inspections: Will we have warning or are these surprise inspections in order to capture regular living conditions?
Answer: They are done by an outside company, who will call and make an appointment.
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Question: When can we safely start looking at photolistings? Will you provide additional photos and information aside from what we can find online?
Answer: We can look any time we want, but we won't be able to do anything about it until the home study is completed, and there will be no guarantee that the same children will be available at that point. She recommends we wait.
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Question: You explained about how SC agencies aren't... licensed...? to do stuff past a certain point because the state saves money by doing it themselves. At what point do we stop working with you and start working directly with them? Will you go alongside us or will our "case" be turned over to someone else?
Answer: I actually had the terminology wrong here; Bethany is licensed, it's just that the SC office does not fulfill the same kinds of services in SC when adopting a child from SC. Basically, when a family is found for a SC child within SC, SC government does all the finalization themselves instead of paying an agency to do it. Make sense? SC state will work with Bethany Virginia, or Bethany NY, but wouldn't finalize with Bethany SC because it's cheaper for them to do it themselves within state.
If we decide we want to adopt a child from SC, here's what will happen: Bert will put together all of our records in a presentable book form, and go with us to a meeting with state people, including the Social Worker for the child, and present us as an interested family. We will all talk, we will have a book about us and our lives prepared that will go to the child, and we'll set up further appointments. We will also receive a binder with every possible thing there is to know about the child, from med records to school records to a history to notes from foster care. At that stage, Bert will no longer work with us, but she is available as a resource for questions or advice. Once we leave that meeting with our binder, we have a week to look over it and decide if we want to proceed. Next we'll meet the child in the foster home, somewhere on their own turf, just chat, get to know each other. Then we'll spend a day visit, a little later have a week-long visit, then they will be able to move in if everyone's cool with it.
If we decide to adopt a child from another state, Bert will be with us to the very end, as Bethany will be the organization doing the finalization instead of the state.
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Question: We have found in the past when making large decisions that ask us to delineate guidelines (such as house-hunting search criteria) that we have a tendency to get frustrated, and then wander out to search on our own, and what God points to (so far) has always been outside of the bounds set by the stated criteria. In other words, I'm afraid that the child He has for us may be outside of the terms set on our paperwork, simply because that kind of thing seems to often be the case for us. My concern is whether or not that will affect your opinions and review of us, if we have to stick to what's on the paper... or not. If we must stay within the bounds on the paper, we may think about broadening them slightly, but if we have flexibility I won't worry about it.
Background: Unfortunately, there's a great deal of the home study process that feels very similar to the process of buying a house. When we bought our house on Edgemont in NY, our realtor had taken us to see a lot of houses in the suburbs, as we were afraid of living in the city and had excluded it from our search criteria. However, while out on our own on a Sunday, we saw the Edgemont house and fell in love with it. We honestly didn't realize it was within city limits at the time, since it was in the cute little University area bordering a suburb. Our realtor was very indignant that she wasn't given the opportunity to find it for us because "We weren't looking there!" The last thing I want to do is torque off our Social Worker, which is ultimately why I asked this question.
Answer: The entire process of the home study helps her clarify what we meant when we marked things on the paperwork, and what areas we would be flexible on. The paperwork is always able to be altered, addenda added, as we learn and process and think through things. We are required to take 14 hours of classes, and she says that sometimes people will learn something that will really alter their ideas and they'll call and write up a change to their search criteria. No big deal. We'll be doing this kind of thing anyway every six months; just a check in on the paperwork to see if anything's changed in our family needs or desires. We are not locked in to what's on that paper.
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Question: Being new at this whole adoption thing, I had been encouraged to seek out other people who have adopted as a kind of support group. I've been chatting online through two different adoption Yahoogroups, one of which I joined last week specifically regarding adopting older children. Unfortunately, what I'm hearing is overwhelmingly depressing! While a few have had good experiences, the loudest people are the ones who have been hurt, which makes sense. But the overall opinion even with happily finalized families is that social workers hide things about the needs of the children because their main purpose is to get children into a home and off the state support system, and that the purpose of agencies are to make money. What are your thoughts to this kind of a response? (Bert took this really well, actually, so that's good.)
Background: This question was based on the area of behavior and development issues. Many older children will apparently be placed with a foster-adopt family who appears not to actually meet any of the requirements set forth by that family.
Answer: There are many reasons why situations like this occur, and unfortunately there's sometimes not much to be done about it. There's only so far that delineating paperwork can take you. One problem is that many times Social Workers don't have all of the information. This happens sometimes because of the high turnover rate of Social Workers (some kids can have a new one every six months), sometimes because of poor documentation, sometimes because Foster Families are not of good quality or don't feel some behaviors are unusual enough to write down, and sometimes simply because in cases of abandonment there's just no one to tell them anything about the child. Another reason is one that comes up in child development with any child who's been through a tough situation, fostered or not. Every situation is new, and comes with new struggles. Many of these children will suddenly find themselves not knowing how to behave and fall back on unhealthy survival techniques. Sometimes behavior may escalate due to emotional triggers like smells or sounds that may have been present during abuse and never existed during foster care. And sometimes, there's just the bottom line fact that when a child doesn't trust anyone, they often just don't tell anyone what's happened to them. There have been many instances where a child will be adopted, and after a year or two of growing trust in the parents and finally starting to feel safe, will open up and talk about some horrendous abuses that no one had any idea had happened to them.
The bottom line is that there's no guarantee. We will be focusing on knowing as much as humanly possible about a child's history, collecting it from as many sources as possible, praying as hard as we can and being open to His leading, and going with our gut upon meeting the child.
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Question: I have an elderly friend from church whose grown children agreed to foster-to-adopt through the state. They have been "waiting" for many years now with a string of kids going through, because they are continually given children who end up going back to family or have needs beyond what they can handle. They were told that they would only be given children they would adopt in the end, but it seems as though the state is using them as a regular fostering family. I'm very concerned about that possibility; I understand the role of foster-to-adopt for states that don't legally release their children until a family is found, but what prevents our being taken advantage of because we checked 'yes' on the foster option? We don't feel we have the emotional ability at this stage to serve as regular full-time foster parents.
Background & Answer: There are three choices of how to participate with waiting children: foster care, foster-adopt, and adoption. When you are a foster family, children don't stay, they just come and go, but while they're with you, you have to be their 'parent' without becoming too attached. We've decided we don't have the emotional capacity for that right now. Adoption is just that; you go through the process, find a child, adopt them. Seems simple enough, but the problem is that many states never list their waiting children as legally available to adopt until a family has been identified for them. I have no idea why they do it that way. However, these children must remain with foster care until they are legally free... which could take a long time (years) depending on the situation. So we could feasibly find our child in one of these states, but not get to have them even visit until the legal stuff was complete. The middle option is kind of a go-between option: being foster parents long enough to find your child and adopt them.
What happened with this family from church is that they decided to foster-adopt through the state, without an agency. So the state is doing this, "Oh, here's a kid you might want to adopt..." and sending them a high-legal-risk foster kid, and then removing them right away to go back to the family, basically using them as traditional foster care. They've been foster-adopting for three+ years now, and have had about 8 kids go through their home. We do not want that to happen.
Right now, here's what we're doing: We have checked off willingness to foster-adopt if we locate the child we want to adopt and they come from a state wherein they will not be legally freed until after a family is found. Because of this, the child could come here immediately with us as their foster family until the paperwork for legal freedom is complete and the adoption paperwork goes through, without waiting. We don't intend to have multiple children come and go, and can dictate that by stating our willing level of legal risk (high-moderate-none) and under what circumstances. Again, like the behavior issues, we're dealing with people who are unpredictable, and the state really does want the families reunited if the birth parents prove willing to put out the required amount of effort, (not so common); there are no guarantees.
However, we've been assured that if we choose carefully, look at every scrap of possible information on the child and the situation, and remain clear on what we want to have happen, we can have a pretty high expectations on the process. We are also protected by Bert and Bethany, as we're not dealing directly with the state ourselves unless we decide on a child from SC. But the bottom line is that we set the rules.
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OK! Is that enough information for you? Don't worry... if you're itching for more, I'm sure there'll be some soon enough! For me though, I know my brain is full and my typin' fingers are sore. Tune in again later.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
September 28, 2008
We meet with Bethany Christian Services tomorrow at 1:30 for our first SC informational meeting on adoption. We'll probably leave around 11:30 to give us time to get there and other unexpected things, and be a little early. Finished up some paperwork today.
We started this process three years ago in NY, and had to put it on hold when Lanse lost his job and we moved. Now we're settled and officially picking it back up. We're hoping to adopt a child between walking and age 5. I prefer closer to preschool, Lanse prefers closer to infant, so we're open to agency input. Prefer racial characteristics as close to ours as possible, but also open to agency input.
Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, we can bring someone home tomorrow; I'm tired of waiting. But our homestudy's not approved, so I highly doubt that's legally possible.More information will probably follow after the meeting.
We started this process three years ago in NY, and had to put it on hold when Lanse lost his job and we moved. Now we're settled and officially picking it back up. We're hoping to adopt a child between walking and age 5. I prefer closer to preschool, Lanse prefers closer to infant, so we're open to agency input. Prefer racial characteristics as close to ours as possible, but also open to agency input.
Honestly, as far as I'm concerned, we can bring someone home tomorrow; I'm tired of waiting. But our homestudy's not approved, so I highly doubt that's legally possible.More information will probably follow after the meeting.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
July 15, 2008
We had originally planned to adopt from social services, toddler-preschool age. But since Bethany doesn't have the waiting children's program in SC, we're discussing what we want to do. Here's the latest influences on our discussion:
Baby we know: Month born
Lily: last fall
Daisy: last fall
Kaylee: Feb
Amaya: June
Dorothy: July
Gresham: July
Grace: TBD (due Aug)
Pierce family (one every 16 mo. or so... due Aug with #5)
baby Fanning: TBD (due Nov)
I think I'm forgetting someone. There's also a new baby across the street from us, but I haven't seen him yet. I am having some serious baby cravings. *heh*
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
The Official Beginning: August 29, 2006
We've been journeying along the adoption path emotionally and mentally over the last five years or so, each at a different point along the path. I'm generally the 'jump in and go' type, whereas Lanse needs time to really soak in the ideas that I keep throwing at him.
Generally people think about adoption as firstly a trip to Russia or China or Guatemala, secondly as finding a birthmother to provide an infant for us, and finally, as 'oh, those poor crazy people, God bless them, adopting messed-up kids from the state!'
We started out on the birthmother route. For me, the emphasis was about me -becoming- a mother, as opposed to -being- a mother. If I couldn't birth a child myself, I wanted to get as close as I could to the experience: planning the nursery, seeing the ultrasounds, feeling the kicks, being in delivery, cutting the cord. These are all things that would fulfill my need in becoming a mother. I think there's enough evidence of almost a spirit-bond in utero that makes that response natural to anyone who realizes they can't have that choice. But seriously, count the 'I's and 'Me's in this paragraph. Plus, having a birthmother situation wherein the birthfather is known provides the best situation for replacing the type of birth I couldn't have. Everyone wants the ideal.
I started thinking of international adoption as I realized how self focused I was. Slowly I began to realize that adoption isn't about me, it's about family and children. My focus changed to the children and their needs, but somehow still focused on myself. We can go to Europe and adopt sad little abandoned orphan kids who need us, so long as they're our color, and aren't too old so that I can take care of them properly... and can't have any faults, since we really can't afford it. Somehow the sad little malnourished orphans in other countries need us more. Jesus taught us to love and care for widows and orphans.
Somehow, mulling and praying over that last sentance brought me to this weekend. I stumbled randomly onto the New York Child Services website, into the Available Children Photolisting, and I was struck suddenly by the realization that we have orphans -right here-. There are 633 children in New York State that are photolisted on the website. There are more who don't get photolisted. People are afraid of these children because many of them are older, and the assumption is that most of them have gone through trauma of some kind.
Yes, there are definitely children of that type, many with moderate to severe physical needs, and any orphaned child will struggle with abandonment issues. But there are children there with no problems except that they have a brother or sister, or that they aren't cute with chubby baby cheeks. What about the (theoretical) two kids whose parents died in a car accident or a fire? Sure there's trauma, but no more than my womb-born child could experience being in a car accident or having one of the family die.
Christ taught the early church to care for the widows and orphans, and a lot of emphasis is put on going out into the square with change, or bringing in wandering street children. Not many people realize that they went out into the square because they already cared for their own people. Early Christians had few possessions, lived either together or in close proximity, provided for and shared with one another. It was the true ideal concept of, perhaps, a commune... a true community. They took care of their own, and -then- moved to the world around them.
So suddenly we find ourselves here through prayer, with a new conviction to begin differently. I've had a number of years working in an educational setting and now feel that we have the skills and connections to provide for a child with more needs than when we began. We put in an email to Child Services here, hoping at the very least to begin the homestudy. We're talking about children age 7 or younger, possibly siblings (no more than two, due to bedroom space). We have time to make those decisions, but less time than we used to. It's terrifying and terribly exciting all at once.Please keep our journey in prayer.
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