Growing Family

To Do List

Right now adoption is on a back burner, or maybe a side burner to what is mostly on my mind. I know that's why most of you come here to read, so I'm a little bit sorry. In actuality, I don't have a whole lot of time to feel sorry because my brain is so crowded. I'm not reading blogs. I am lying awake at night thinking about these things:

Divide our belongings into discard-sell/carry with/ and ship in container categories
Find and arrange the container
Discard and sell the stuff
Pack the stuff
Find temporary housing for when we arrive
Find real estate agent to help us find a rental property for the next year or so
Learn all I can about the neighborhoods and the real estate market
Get our house ready to sell
Find a real estate agent here
Refinance this house
Sell this house
Sell our car
Find a new car
Buy tickets
Turn my current responsibilities over to other people
Give the playschool program 30 days notice
Give the church nursury notice
Decide what we're going to do about adoption
Do a home study?
Open Australian Bank Account and transfer some money into it
See if I can find a special ticket rate for The Sprout
Explore reduced ticket rates and increased baggage allotments for migrants
Etc, etc, etc

To help me feel better let's look at some things I've done:
Visa
International Driver's License
Emailed 5 real estate agents
Searched Craigslist
Read books
Researched real estate

So much depends on us getting a move date and that's still up in the air. Comments, encouragement, ideas? I'm up for it all!

**********

Updated 12-29-07

I found great tickets! They are reasonable priced and travel Our City-Fiji-Sydney. The longest flight is only 10.5 hours. I thought it was going to be 17 and I was completely freaked out about doing that with the kids. 10 hours I can totally do.

I also found 10 great options for temporary rental properties. Convenient, stylish, affordable places right in the city and convenient to everything.

After a few more conversations with key individuals, we will start making reservations for April 1st. What could be better than starting a new life on April Fools? Well I'm glad you asked. Starting a new life on April 3rd, which is when we will arrive in Sydney if we leave on the 1st!

Talking Out of Both Sides of Our Mouths

There's a lot of conversation going on in the adoption blog world right now. Right now I'm doing a lot of listening, and not a lot of commenting. Perhaps you've noted a slight stepping down off of my soap box? As far as my questions go, on the issues of adoption ethics and the need for reform, I am going to turn my ear to adoptees for the next season. So far I've payed the most mind to adoptive parents and first parents. They write a lot and are easy to find. Now I'm going to shift my focus to seek out the people whose voices I most want to hear on these topics. That might mean I write less, or that I write more, depending on how I process what I hear.

The current discussion has a question buzzing around in my head that I should let out, before I refocus. Dawn and Nicole have been shaking things up lately, as usual. Recently I've read about how adoption is really viewed as a good thing here in the U.S. That a lot of people view it as maybe the best choice for a woman in difficult circumstances. That we live in a very pro-adoption culture. A pro-relinquishment culture, and a culture that views adopting a child as a loving, altruistic act.

I hear that a lot from the people passionate about adoption reform. I hear that agencies are pressuring women to relinquish their children. That society pressures women to relinquish. That the message is "your child will be better with two married parents, parents with more education, money, age, and resources." Basically that the child in question would be better off being placed for adoption. That placing a child for adoption is the most altruistic act, the most unselfish and generous and LOVING thing a mother can do for her child. I especially hear that in Christian circles.

I hear that adoption agencies are marketing adoption as the best choice, and that our culture as a whole supports that idea.

Then, at the same time, a very different experience is shared. Paula posted about choosing to adopt when having biological children is also possible. She shares the sentiments she heard growing up as an adoptee, and as an adult adopting a child. The sentiments that adoption is not as good as having "children of our own", that adoption must always be the second choice when forming a family.

What do you make of these two different perspectives? Are they contradictory? Can the culture surrounding us be both pro-adoption, and pitying of adoptive families?

Before we produced the Sprout, and she cleared up any misconceptions of our fertility, we were often asked if we adopted because we couldn't get pregnant. I am always frank about our miscarriage and difficulty getting pregnant before Small Sun. I am equally frank that when we decided to try to conceive the second time it happened right away. I have also had people express the feeling that Small Sun is "so blessed" to be adopted by us and to grow up in our family. However, I don't know that I would find the microcosm that we live in to be overly pro-adoption, or seeing it as second best.

What do you think? Can these two sentiments coexist? Does this have to do with power? That the adoptive parent, typically as the person with the most power in the situation, is praised, while the people with less power (the woman pregnant in less than ideal circumstances, the child that is "put up" for adoption, as most people unfortunately still say) are pitied? Do different members of the triad experience our culture as having different opinions on adoption? After I've spent some time listening to adult adoptees I might know.

Ethical Adoption Checklist

I know I have read ethical adoption checklists on a couple different blogs. If you have created something like that, would you help me out by commenting and posting the link to your post?

It is one thing to have developed an idea of what an ethical adoption should look like. Then, if you're going the typical agency route you just kind of get shuttled through their established program and there's not so much room for negotiating.

In looking into possible adoption programs, both domestic and international, I am trying to find an ethical roadmap to follow. First for choosing a program, and then for navigating it. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

This is what can happen

If you listen for a long time before you speak.

Absolutely brilliant. Go read it.

Adoption Ramble

Me, Me, Me

As a mother I experience fatigue that is deeper than any other fatigue I've ever had before. There are those days where my children tug on me, hang on my clothes, pull my hair, yank my glasses, and wrap themselves around my knees. They want to eat my snack. They want to taste my drink, and contribute all the contents of their mouths to its previously single ingredient contents.

If I lay down and close my eyes, they climb on my legs and beg for "horsey ride" or "airplane".

If I use the toilet they hold on to my knees and ask what exactly is taking place. If I close the door, they stand beating on it, howling like I've shut them out forever.

Don't misunderstand me. My children are delightful. I love being their mother. But there are days where I feel bone dry, drained of all energy and resource.

It's times like that where I start to feel like "me, me, me"! I fantasize about a friend coming over to bring me presents, suggesting we watch girly movies in fuzzy pjs: or maybe they would ask all about every minute detail of my thoughts and feelings on every possible subject. I dream of the Captain drawing me a bath, giving me a massage, and tucking me into bed to talk extensively about our future adventures and exactly how we're going to get the kids through that 25 hours of flying.

I dream of a world where someone prepares delicious, healthy, balanced foor for me. Where someone cleans up all my messes. Where someone insists I sleep, not only hours and hours at night, but in the daytime as well! Snuggled in with blankets and pillows and comfort items. And if I'm having kind of a rough day and need something extra, that person will read my favorite books out loud, snuggle, or discract me with fun activities...all day...as long as I need it.

What a world.

Some days when I'm so tired, I can't imagine having the energy to hold my toothbrush, I just sit and think about what it would be like to have the world revolve around me. Just for a couple hours!

I am so tired. I need someone to tuck me in.

Our Adoption Game Plan

Sometimes I am afraid that in midlife The Captain and I will have a marriage crisis and he'll say "this whole adoption thing was always your deal!" and I'll realize it was my steam running the train. Here we are, committed for life, with very separate passions and dreams. We honor and value each other, but I'd be lying if I said I lay awake at night dreaming about writing beautiful code. And while he will talk about adoption ethics with me as long as I want, it's not what keeps HIM up at night.

That said, we are in agreement that adoption is the primary way we want to build our family. We decided that before "I Do", before we started penciling "baby" into our highly organized life plan.

This weekend we got a chance to talk about what we're going to do about hypothetical child #3 and true to our natures, we have a plan, and here it is:

I'm following up on some leads on an agency that works with ex-pats. It's not the first one that I was disappointed with. If that agency looks like one we'd be satisfied with, we will work on getting a new homestudy completed before we move.

Taking one thing at a time, (Ik hoord dat jij een beetje gestressed  was, voor onze, Mam!)  we will acclimate to Sydney, and consider starting the adoption process before the year it out.

Sydney has a very large Asian migrant population, and I think Chinese might be the second language. There are large populations from many Asian countries, and India. I hope that living there will help us clarify a connection to a country. I've just recently found out more about internationally OPEN adoption programs in Taiwan and the Marshall Islands. Really interesting stuff. And another domestic U.S. adoption is not out of the picture.

So it's the best of both worlds: we're making steady progress towards adopting (which I appreciate) and we're putting our main energy and focus on the move (which The Captain appreciates). We're a good team, and I think this is a good plan.

Adoption Hangman

Sometimes I feel like searching for the situation in which we'll adopt again is like playing Hangman. Through the process of elimination you get closer to the answer...all the while trying to avoid unethical practices that can hang the whole thing.

I've been thinking of the options and they spin around in my mind. Sometimes I wish there was a point's system to rate your compatibility with a certain adoption program "you have guaranteed success in...Guatemala!" You all know me well enough to know that I don't mean guaranteed success in the "you will get a baby in record time" kind of way, right?

Okay, let's just ramble through a few country programs, just based on country compatibility. For the fun of it, let's leave ethics, reasons children are being abandoned/orphaned/adoptable aside and focus on our family's connection to different countries.

Russia - I lived there and used to speak some of the language. I can at least read the Cyrillic alphabet. So you could lump in the Ukraine, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Oh, and my cousin lives in Kazakhstan.

South Korea - I have Korean family members so the culture and language is accessible to me.

Kenya (when the program opens) - my mom lived there and my grandparents spend a lot of time there.

Albania and Kosovo - my father-in-law lives in Kosovo and works with war widows and their children.

I find it interesting that though there are four inter-country adoption programs in places that I have legitimate connections to, none of these are ones I am interested in (with the exception of Kenya). If we pursued an international adoption I would feel drawn to India (I've dreamed of India my whole life and I can't believe my dear friend is going there without me!), or Africa (especially because of the AIDS epidemic...but I digress). Maybe an Asian country, but I'm not sure.

I believe that you really have to have a connection to a child's country of origin that is separate than the child. Of course people develop an interest or passion for their child's country when they adopt, but I'm saying that for me, it is important that I can maintain that interest separate from having a child. Does the history, the culture(s), the food, the language, the literature, the faith, the politics interest me? It is my interest that will help me build a bridge of connection for my child.

I really wonder where our next child will come from?

I have only found one agency that facilitates expat adoptions. So far I'm unimpressed. I know there have to be other options!

I inquired at the agency we used the first time and we would have to have a NEW homestudy, starting from scratch. And we would need to go through several months of training after attending orientation. That seems odd to me, that you would need to do all of that the second time around...but whatever. It seems highly unlikely that we could do it before we left. Well, maybe we could do our homestudy and then have it tweaked after we move...

I just don't know. Moving to Sydney makes adoption really complicated. I'd really appreciate any input people have on the whole expat adoption thing. Knowing that the next adoption could take awhile to complete, we're ready to get the ball rolling.

Is this post totally boring? I've just been musing on the fact that the countries that would the most "sense" for us to adopt from, aren't necessarily the ones I feel drawn to.

Why Sydney?

Now that there's a visa on the table and it looks like we might actually be going, the questions are coming fast and furious. It's been so long in the offing, I don't think people actually believed we'd go.

So why Sydney? Why now?

1. Sydney has greater ethnic and cultural diversity than London or Paris.
2. The BEACH and a killer climate
3. A metropolitan city is where we want to be
4. The lure of adventure
5. English language
6. 31% of the population is migrants
7. Two companies doing development work that The Captain has been lusting at for years
8. A wide open job market for The Captain, full of challenges
9. Access to the Pacific Rim
10. The potential to live/work/move to Asia

1. The relative ease of getting up and going now verses when our children are in school
2. We've been trying to move for years and things are finally lining up

The Captain is Dutch and spent his early childhood in Germany living on a compound with families from several different countries. He could speak about 4 languages with his friends there. Even though he loved going to school in Amsterdam, Holland was too small for him.

My family moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, when I was 14. We lived there for a year. I've been all over the CIS, lived in Holland, and traveled to about 20 countries at last count.

We were born for adventure. We have the means to make this happen right now. We want our children to grow up exposed to other languages, cultures, and religions. While we've loved it here, and it's been a good season in our lives, it is time for us to unbuckle the Bible Belt.

Don't get me wrong - we love you all and we'll miss you terribly, but there's a great big world out there and we've just got to go explore it for awhile.

GUESS WHAT?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!WE GOT OUR VISA!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting in the Mood

Yesterday we went to our adoption agency's annual Christmas brunch before heading to get our Christmas tree from the big box store. Last year the Sprout was newborn and snuggled close in the Bjorn on a cold and cloudy day. This year she was feeling the trees and climbing on the carts.

Small Sun was playing hide and seek in the bags of soil. Someone came to ask from the other side of the fence "does anyone know where this little boy's parents are?" That would be me...standing here watching him play and asking him questions. But she couldn't see me from the other side of the fence, and he had gotten a little too far away.

We set the tree up and decorated the house while the kids were napping. Upon finding the tree Sprout made it her life's mission to pull the branches and touch the ornaments at every opportunity. Good thing I hung the glass ones all the way at the top.

This morning we slept in, and when I woke up I realized that Small Son's little noises were not coming from his room. I tiptoed out to see him lying with his head on the tree skirt, holding his "softie", and staring up into the lights. That's what I need to do. Just sit and gaze at the tree in silence. It always helps to put me right.