Growing Family

February Photo Challenge 23

23. My shoes

No, I did not stage this, my life is just this serendipitous.

Fantastic Adoption Resource

I came upon a fantastic resource this week and I couldn't wait to share it with you.

Empowered to Connect has a website with resources, training opportunities, study guides, and amazing  video resources. I have already watched several of these videos and am so thankful to have found them.

The information they are sharing is so vitally important. If you are considering adoption, please go watch What Every Adoptive Parent Should Know and Counting the Cost. 

Over the years I've gone from being a vocal adoption advocate to always being the one to raise the challenges in adoption in every conversation. I think I probably come across as anti-adoption to many people.

These resources really help articulate what I want people to know. The videos are powerful.

I SO believe in adoption! I love our son (through adoption) with every fiber of my being. I want to encourage other people to adopt if that is what they feel strongly they should do.

I also love truth. I really, really think it does potential damage to a child to let people go into adoption without knowing that parenting a child through adoption is different than parenting a child you have given birth to, and that difference has to be embraced, not ignored.

I am so excited to find a resource like this that lays out the challenges with absolute clarity, AND with absolute hope and confidence that every child can be helped to heal from early challenges, and lead the best life possible. Please go check it out, and watch the videos!

 

February Photo Challenge 21-22

21. In our first hours as a family after adopting Small Sun. In one of four hotels we stayed in while waiting for permission to travel across state lines to bring him home. Those fancy pants are pajamas.

 

22. The start of a small studio space for me to create. The desk drawer holds notions and the built in cupboard has fabrics. On the bookcase are design magazines and books, garden books, patterns, my collected collage books, and sketch books. Finally I don't have to pack and unpack as much when I sew. I have some big ideas for this little corner...one step at a time.

 

February Photo Challenge 17-20

17. Time

My friends' reactions to my newsprint nails "did you just have tons of free time today?" Do you know anyone who has tons of free time?

18. Drink

I was busy prepping dinner for guests Saturday night when my energy just flat-lined. A good cuppa put me right again.

19. Something I hate to do

 

I don't really hate it, but after dinner when it is clean-up time, bedtime, and lunch making time, I'm just ready to put my feet up already. Oftentimes The Captain does it all. I know I'm the luckiest woman alive.

20. Handwriting

I used to really like my handwriting. The older I get the messier and rounder it becomes (I have to be careful not to follow the same pattern!). This is a card from my darling sister. Her handwriting looks like mine did before it began to sag.

Thinking about Adopting?

Recently I've been receiving a lot of emails and messages asking me about adoption. Since I have not been talking about adoption so much lately, I thought I would do an Adoption101 type of post to address some of those questions I've been receiving.

My views on adoption have changed and developed and changed again over time, and I suspect that is pretty much what the journey will look like! Each time I think I know my "position" on things, and have my opinions all outlined, I learn something new and different. What I believe today is different than what I believed two years ago, is vastly different than what I believed before we adopted. Forgive me now for contradictions and complexity - adoption is full of them. 

These are some questions I would have over coffee, if we could sit down and hang out.

Why do you think you want to adopt?

Recently I read some guidelines for ethical adoption (and now I can't find them!), and one really stood out to me. The author recommended "find out what type of children need to be adopted, and pursue adopting one of those children."

That is really challenging, isn't it. The children who are waiting to be adopted are often older, they have special needs, they are siblings groups, and in most cases, they don't fit into the lives we are living, or our daydreams about a happy family unit. 

I'm not saying babies don't need to be adopted, and I'm not saying what you should do. I'm just saying that I am challenged by that statement.

I think it is really good to look at adoption from the angle of meeting a child's needs, and spending a lifetime serving them with humility and faith. Adoption is like a life-long ministry. You get so much out of it, and you give so much as well.

Have you thought about the impact that being placed for adoption, or abandoned, or removed by social workers has on a child?

Being adopted is a one-time thing that happens before a judge, but being an adoptee is a life-long journey that can be complex and difficult. Adoptees are the best people to teach you about their experiences.

What do you think happens to a woman after she surrenders or loses a child to adoption?

Again, blogs, books, stories by women who have lived this experience are so impacting. I think hearing these stories is a powerful way to tear down the line between "us" and "them". Lisa at One Thankful Mom has been writing an amazing series about her own experience as a woman whose son was adopted. It is not easy to read. Redemption comes, but there is a lot of pain before it does.

What do you think it is like to grow up in a family that looks different than you?

In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories is a book that I have found to be profoundly insightful. 

If you have a relationship with God, what is God telling you?

What does your support system look like?

What if the child you adopt doesn't fit your expectations?

Adoption is much more complex than I perceived it to be before we adopted. I completed 300 hours of volunteering at an agency. I read every book in their library. I led waiting adoptive parent support groups. I was present at placement ceremonies, and at court to support women relinquishing their rights. I studied a hundred family dossiers and profiles. I met numerous expectant mothers considering adoption. I spend many hours on adoption web boards and chat rooms. I read blogs.

I had NO IDEA. 

All that experience wasn't my child. It wasn't his other family. Until it got real, it just wasn't. 

Even so, I'd say read all you can and talk to as many different people in the adoption traid (adoptees, biological parents, and adoptive parents) as you can. Read as many different kinds of stories as you can (good, bad, and ugly). If you have a relationship with God, pray, pray, and pray some more, and ask for guidance as to what you should do.

Here are some blogs that I wish I had known about when we were in the beginning of our journey. I also read alot of beautiful pro-adoption blogs but I want to highlight these because they bring some real substance to the discussion when it comes to attachment, ethics, mixed race families, openess, older child adoption, and more. 

One Thankful Mom 

Jen Hatmaker

Harlow's Monkey - closed now, but the archives are still available

The Livesay [Haiti] Weblog

Love Isn't Enough

Our Little Tongginator

American Family

Never a Dull Moment

Production No Reproduction

Rage Against the Minivan

That We Might be Adopted

Dreaming Big Dreams

There are so many fantastic resources surrounding adoption, and we have experienced adoption to be an amazing thing in our family. I am happy to keep talking about it and answering questions as they come!

February Photo Challenge 15,16

I am wavering in my photo enthusiasm. The Captain thinks I should have photographed my phone in the refrigerator. He's probably right. 

15. Phone

Did you know htc was co-founded by Cher Wang, a female taiwanese entrepreneur? I've also heard that she is a Christian, but I don't know that for sure. I do like her phones. 

16. Something New

The Launch of Sisterhood 2012

I have a lot of blurry pictures, so let me explain. The Sisterhood is the women's ministry at Hillsong Church. "Women's Ministry" doesn't really encapsulate all that Sisterhood is. The women at our weekly Thursday morning Sisterhood gatherings are fun and friendly and lovely and intensely dedicated to seeing freedom and justice for people around the globe. We are the platform for Colour Conference, Australia's largest women's conference. I am so proud to be part of this group of women, thousands strong, that eat cupcakes and fund shelters for women fleeing the sex trade in Europe. The list of what we are directly supporting and impacting around the globe is amazing; we are just a bunch of girlfriends having a laugh along the way! Today we all got together again after time off for the summer holidays.

Happy Valentines

14. I heart my family.

A couple years ago when we moved to Sydney, we couldn't find a babysitter to watch our kids on Valentines Day so at the last minute we decided to go, as a family, to our favorite local Indian restaurant. They made the restaurant extra special at Valentines with flowers, candles, and decorations. Our children loved it so much we went back the following year and would have continued the tradition, had they not closed down.

We actually had an offer to babysit this year, but when I thought about it, I realized that I love celebrating as a family. It was a busy day (isn't it always?) and I just had to make do with what I had in the fridge, and multi-tasked making dinner and talking to our caseworker who asked to come by for a visit. 

I spread the table with my Grandmother's cloth, and put out some special pieces, with red dahlias in red glasses. We enjoyed our little celebration of love, and maybe it was the wine, or maybe it wasn't, but my eyes turned into puddles.

Never trust a caseworker who comes over just to "check in".

We don't have our names down on the foster care list right now because we have a trip to Holland planned in just a few months and aren't sure we are comfortable moving a child to respite care again, while we are gone. We did say we were open to being respite carers for other foster families in the interim.

Our caseworker asks, as casually as she can, while I roll out pie crust, and read over a recipe, "well, there is something I wanted to ask you about while I'm here..."

The long and short is there are two sisters, 2 years old and 9 months old, that need respite care for 2.5 weeks, and could we take them? My brain started spinning calculating car seats and sleeping arrangements and, and, and...

At suppertime we told the kids what our caseworker had mentioned, and asked them what they thought. They immediately began working on us to convince us that we should take these girls. I explained that they were very little and that along with Finch, I would be very, very busy and it might be kind of hard for the big kids. 

Small Sun and Sprout proceeded to explain their detailed plans of how they would help me so much! They could hold the babies until they got tired! They could carry them to the car and put them in their car seats! They could take care of all their school things on their own! Please, please, please, can we take care of the baby girls?

Our family is still young, with our oldest only being six, and we are still new to the world of foster care, but already our children's hearts are completely sold out to helping little kids who need some extra loving care. I wasn't sure if I felt that I could manage five kids, with three of them being two and under, even for a short period, but my kids really, really want to say yes. That just melted my heart.

I love my family.

Happy Valentines Day. Whether you are alone or surrounded, coupled or separate, with children or without, you are loved.

February Photo Challenge 12,13

12. Inside your closet

13. Blue

February Photo Challenge 11

11. Makes me Happy

I'd say today was probably about 40/60 happy/sad. We went to visit the baby today. He is doing well. Afterwards the idea of going home was suffocating. Somehow we need the wind and the waves and the sky to clear out all the intense emotions surrounding this transition. 

We started driving and stopped at a nature reserve and took a walk. We saw a wallaby (like a small kangaroo)! Then Sprout got stuck with a leech. I felt faint. I'm so glad The Captain kept his cool and picked it off of her while I got Sprout to look away.

We got back in the car and kept driving until we met the sea, and took a long walk on the beach. Finally we went to a pizza restaurant and ate our fill, then added gelato on top. All three kids fell asleep during the drive home in the darkening sky. I'm not far behind them. 

February Photo Challenge 10

10. Self Portrait