I Hate Christmas as an Adoptive Family

Here's why:

One child has doting grandparents on both sides who spoil the child rotten with toys and with clothing beyond what one child can possibly wear in a year.  (Three brand-new coats within two months.)

The other child has... no one.

So I end up taking back the presents I bought for one child in order to buy more for the other to balance things out.  And I spend the week after Christmas taking things away from the first child who has turned into a raging brat.

Then, with myriads of extended families (my own, as well as theirs) I cannot keep everyone connected and happy during the holidays.  My school break ends up getting so carved up that I never get to spend time with my own small children building our own traditions.  I love all the extended families.  And I love all the half-siblings my children have.  But I can't please any of them.  I'm seriously considering going abroad for the holidays next year -- and not telling anyone!

Plus also (as Junie B. Jones would say), Christmas is all about family, and babies, and perfection.  And my little family is cobbled together from odds and ends.  Some very odd bits.  And loose, ragged ends.  And the complete inequality between the two children only emphasizes again that these children -- in spite of paperwork -- are not really mine.  And I am not really their real mom.

Merry Christmas.

There is no backing out now!



Happy 4 year old at her birthday breakfast

 I had a dream last night that I was in labor -- for weeks and weeks -- with no sign of any progress.  Hmmm... was that a reflection of how this adoption is going?

I met with B's case worker today.  (I'll confess that I forgot her name -- it's only our third worker in less than six months!)  Apparently, even though I see no signs of progress, my case worker and Brooklynn's case worker have both been checking off their lists.  Yay! I'm now designated as B's adoptive placement, which means birthmom can't change her mind about the relinquishment, and no other distant relatives can show up to claim the child.

Not that this post has anything to do with frogs (or more accurately: toads), but I think my little guy is so cute, and I needed a reason to smile about him.

Today I finally lost my patience with being compared to the "real mom", the mom he wants to go live with again, the mom he wants to see every day, the mom I "stole" him from... and so on.  And I told him the whole story:  about the baby left alone in a bathtub, about the toddler who clung to me rather than go to his "real mom", about the child who turned gray from lack of oxygen because the "real mom" forgot his medicine when she left him with random people, about the night I tried to peel his little arms from around my neck to return him to the "real mom", about the months -- years -- that he didn't want me out of his sight because he'd already lost me once...  And you know what?  None of it meant a thing to him.  Until I mentioned that if he went back to the "real mom", he'd have no more Papa and no more cousins!

Finally over dinner he commented that his birth mom made one good decision about him: she gave him to me.  (Truthfully, she made many good decisions about him, which I have told him.)

Now he's in bed asleep, looking angelic, and I'm wrung out from having a discussion (punctuated by screams from the other child who had to [gasp] clean up her dollies) that I had hoped to put off until he was at least 12.

Women (and one man) Who Shaped My Life

I don't remember a time I didn't know my calling was to care for orphans.  I grew up on stories of women (and one man) who did the same:
a missionary in the fictional book Star of Light
Gladys Aylward (missionary to China; Inn of the Sixth Happiness)
Amy Carmichael (missionary to India)
George Muller (started an orphanage in England)
Mary Slessor (missionary to Africa)
I also saw countless street children, beggars, and refugees overseas.  One little girl stands out in my mind.  She lived in a Nuristani village near where we spent our summer.  She had a cleft lip.  No one would play with her; they threw rocks at her.  I wanted to take her home with us.  She stood in the street and stared at us, her mouth gaping, snot dripping, blood trickling down her face from where a rock had struck her.  I've always wondered what happened to her.

Way up... and back down...

Back on the roller coaster ride:  Yesterday Brooklynn's case worker got a call from some distant relatives who just discovered she was going to be adoptable.  So they want to adopt her.  The laws have changed since I adopted Derrick; foster parents who have cared for a child over a year are no longer considered at the same level as relatives who want to adopt.  In other words, the relatives will likely be preferred over me in this adoption, unless they are considered too far distant.  Feels like a punch in the gut.

We're on our way... I think

Parenting has its normal ups and downs, but adoption is bipolar.  The ups are way up, and the downs are devastating.  It's an Up today:  Brookie-B could be ours before Christmas!  I almost don't dare hope.  Please pray for all involved during the next month, that this will go through smoothly.

THE PROCESS BEGINS!

I have officially started the paperwork for Brooklynn's adoption!  It's kind of like the first labor pains, even though you know you have several hours ahead of you.  In this case it's several months ahead of me, but the process has begun!

It's never really finished...

The thing with adoption is it's never really completed.  If you give birth to a baby, you go to all your doctor appointments, you eat right, take your prenatal vitamins, go into labor, deliver the baby, name him/her, take the child home, and fall into a sleep-deprived routine for the next 18 to 20 years.  And that child is yours, only yours, always-has-been yours, always-will-be yours.

Adoption is not like that, whether "closed" (very rare now) or "open" or somewhere in between.  My children, much as they are mine, will never be only mine, never be always-have-been mine, never even be always-will-be mine.  Yes, I am "Mom".  But they have first moms out there.  Those young women will never stop being my children's moms.  They were mom first.  They carried my children, felt them move, gave up overpowering addictions for a time to protect them, gave birth to them, parented the best they could, and then relinquished them.  I don't know what kind of pain, guilt, grief goes into saying, "Just take him with you."

I will never be my children's only mom.  There will come a day when they say, "You aren't my real mom!"  I've already heard, "I want to go live with my tummy mom!"  There will come a day when they want to meet their first moms again.  I don't dread it, any more than I dread them growing up, but I know it will be emotional and painful and messy.  I pray I will be kind and confident and loving and open -- and then back off and give everyone some space!

I am not my children's only mom now.  Their moms show up, now and then.  Sometimes sober, sometimes not so much so.  Sometimes in the news.  Sometimes on the inmate list.  Sometimes clean and happy with plans for a future.  And I never know what to do.  Do I "protect" my children by refusing contact that comes only sporadically?  Do I "selfishly" keep my children from building a relationship with their real moms?  Damned if I do, damned if I don't.  There's no easy answer.

Adoption is never really finished...

There are so many books to read

My computer was down for over a week.  I read seven books in four days.  Then I took my laptop to our wonderful computer girl at school.  Good news: I have a brand new Windows system.  Bad news: all my old documents and photos are gone.  I can remember most of the important documents (did I really want to hang onto my Master's action research project?), and the kiddos I have in front of me every day.  But I would have liked to keep the photos of them when they were tiny and round and cute.  It always helps to look at old photos when you can't stand your children anymore!

See, he used to be so dang cute!  Then he learned to talk -- I mean, really talk:  "Mom, why do you always...?"  "Always" usually means twice in the past year.  "You only want me to be slave labor!" I'm sure there are lots cheaper/easier ways of getting slave labor than raising an adopted child!  "I'm going to go live with my tummy mom!" Did I scar him for life when I told him they wouldn't let preschoolers live in the jail?

What they DON'T tell you in foster parent training:

1. You'll constantly be checking the inmate list to see whether the bio parents are in jail.
2. You'll be comforting the extended family while they wonder where the bio parents are.
3. You'll preface every plan with "If you're here in the summer..."
4. You'll never know exactly how many children you have. Do you count the ones that stayed six months or more? Or the ones that bounce back? How about the siblings of the ones you've kept?
5. You can't possibly draw your family tree. Unlike Hickville's (which has only one branch), yours has seven trunks.
6. You expect a knock on the door every birthday and Christmas from bio parents who haven't been in contact in over a year.
7. Every time you see "Drug Bust" in the headlines, you hide the newspaper until you can check that it's not your child's parents.
8. You'll need to explain drugs, half-siblings, arrests, depression, overdoses, and suicide attempts to children who can't yet tie their shoes.