Passion

I don’t always express myself the way I want to here… sometimes I forget the things I wish I could have said… or should have said. And I guess there is an edit button for a reason. But I also love how other’s share there opinions here as well.

I can’t even begin to try to tell you that I am a perfect parent.(my teenage daughter happily reminded me of that last night) Or that I have all the answers. I know there is pain involved in so many aspects of adoption. But I also know there is MUCH beauty.

One of the things I love love love about the adoption community is the passion.

There is SO much passion on both sides.

What I have been so encouraged by, this past year, has been the amount of adoption seminars, summits, and educational weekends. The community is growing, the word is spreading.

The word that is also spreading is family preservation...creating ways to help children, especially those over seas, stay in their own families.

There is also a ton of conversation going on surrounding the foster system. I know several families that have adopted from the foster system, or are foster parents and are helping to share the word about the program to raise awareness.

Adoption isn’t the only answer.

However in more cases than can be named, adoption is the best answer.

I was watching Extreme Home Make-over last night. Did you see it? Oh my goodness… if you want to see a beautiful picture of what adoption can do in a family find the rerun online and watch it. There were 8 siblings. All adopted. Six of which had Downs Syndrom. The 2 oldest children, who did not have Downs, took care of the younger 6 because the parents had passed away. There was love, commitment and blessings abound in this family. The 2 siblings that cared for the other 6 both said they did so because they had learned from their parents that you cared for others. It’s the way it should be.

Where would those kids have been if not adopted into a family?

In a perfect world there would not be birth mothers that need to make choices to end pregnancies or give up their child for adoption. In a perfect world mothers would not give birth to children that they can not take care of. In a perfect world mothers would not die during childbirth. In a perfect world there would not be children watching their parents die from a disease that is 100% preventable. In a perfect world all mothers that desperately want to become biological mothers, would conceive and realize their dreams.

We don’t live in a perfect world.

So…we have a responsibility to educate ourselves. Share our experiences. Teach others. Show Grace. Choose Life.

Response...

Interesting… I have gotten my first ‘controversial’ reply. Obviously from someone who hasn’t read much of my blog. :)

Mirah, Thank you for your insight! Thank you for the ‘facts’, they are thought provoking.

The thing is that there aren’t easy answers to the great adoption debate. There just aren’t. We live in a fallen world…. Jesus said himself, to Judas, that there will always be the poor and needy among us.

Is adoption always the answer? Of course NOT! The point is to make “UNorphans” as my friend Carolyn says. Let’s stop the process that makes orphans thus having less orphans and more preserved families. There’s a GREAT conference happening right now in Austin TX, that is speaking to this very subject. The subject of Orphan Care… and ALL that that entails.

You are right, unfortunately there are many children in orphanages that should not be, there has been child trafficking…unfortunately there still is…WAY WAY too much of it, and not all due to adoption. It’s sick and shouldn’t happen…it needs to change and we certainly need to stand up for those children.

You are also right that there are thousands of children in foster care waiting for someone to care for them. It sucks! I wish I had a magic wand to wave over the situation to change it. I don’t…and I can’t.

The one debate that I think makes me the most crazy…and I will speak to it here, cause it’s my blog and you brought it up…is the debate over adopting overseas or from the US foster system.

Our choice, CHOICE, was to pray about what God wanted for our family and Ethiopia was the door he opened twice. And possibly again…. I do not believe for a second that children here in the US are any less deserving or loveable…I don’t believe that they are any more ‘damaged’(and I purposefully didn’t use the word damaged in my original post because I do not think it’s appropriate. My children were hurt, scared and have seen pain…but they are NOT damaged). I believe they are part of the whole that make up the ‘children from hard places’.

We chose, Ethiopia, because that’s where God called us to… no one has a right to say that our or any other adoption wasn’t the right choice for their family.

There does need to be more focus on caring for the child in country…or in home as the case may be.

There are many ways we can help make UNorphans. Is adoption always the answer? Nope. Are there kids out there that wouldn’t be alive today if they had not been adopted? Yep. My youngest child is one of them.

There aren’t easy answers… there are lots of questions that don’t have good answers… We have been told by God that it’s our job to care for them. How we choose to fulfill that command is up to Him and us…. Adoption, Foster, Sponsorship…Family Support. Just do SOMEthing....

Adoption Musings...why?

I was having a conversation with a dear friend the other night and afterwards I was a little disturbed...not with her...cause I love her, but because I know that there are still so many misconceptions out there.

We were on the subject of loving kids from hard places. I want to love some kids that are from a hard place, but it's not to happen. And while I totally understand the reasoning in my head...I just don't in my heart.

In our conversation she shared with me some examples of people that she knows who chose to parent children from hard places and ended up having a terrible time of it.

It's not uncommon. It happens. Unfortunately more often than truly anyone wishes to know about I think....however what about those kids from hard places that overcome?

I would say that all children that are older than a few months come from a hard place... even newborns can have a difficult start. But there is a huge upheaval in any child's life when they are taken from their birth parent's...no matter the cause.

It's just not natural.

MOST of these kids move into their new families with minimal issue...some have more bumps than others...but they become family.

I find it interesting that people don't sit around and talk about the mom's that give birth to children with various health issues and say "I could never give birth to a child because you just don't know what is going to happen!" Things happen inutero, during birth, genetics happen...terrible accidents happen...divorce...loss of income...illness.

It comes with parenting.

There are probably as many parenting nightmare's of kids that never experience adoption as there are adoptive parents with nightmare issues. But there seems to be this double standard of being able to classify 'those kids' the ones being adopted as being harder.

I know parents that have adopted several children and things are awesome, I know parents that have adopted one and can't seem to find the light of day because of issues. I don't speak that in judgment, just to make a point.

Sometimes kids from hard places can’t get past it. Sometimes the excruciating things that happened to them just cannot be gotten over. Does that make them less worthy of love? Does that make them less capable of healing? Certainly harder to heal, but not incapable.

I have had some pretty traumatic things happen to me…and I think I am relatively normal. (that’s another post)

I guess… what I am trying to say is… there aren’t guarantees. Ever. In. Life. If you can be prepared …if you know what you are up against… you can God can make lemonade outta lemons…even if it doesn’t turn out all sunshine and roses in the end…there is a kid out there that just needs to know that someone cared enough to fight for them…and loved them enough to do so.

Adoption does take the extra effort of loving a child that you didn’t get the privilege of birthing…there are factors that you cannot control. There are things that just can’t be fixed…there are things that leave wounds that we cannot often see.

It seems as though I am talking in circles… the short answer is that you don’t know what can happen… in birth or adoption. You cannot predict the future. You cannot say for sure how your life will unfold.

It comes down to faith. Faith in knowing that whatever happens…if God brings you to it, He can and will bring you Through it… perhaps a bit messier and mussed at the end but so much richer!

Bad Mom?

Way back when I started this blog I meant it to be a way to share what was happening with our adoption of N.

Then it was about our adoption of E.... then it was just a way for me to vent and get our all of the feelings that I had about having the 2 boys home and an outlet for the stress.

Then life became the new norm... quiet...ok well not quiet.. but normal. Every. day. life. living.

I have often thought about what in the world I should write about. I mean most of the people that read this...all 30 of you...lol already have a heart for the orphan so mostly I preach to the choir... I have wanted to write more about what it's like to live with a child that has hiv... but you would be bored to tears. :)

You see, I have found I am not a good hiv mom blogger. While I was in Chicago I found that I was probably not even a good hiv+ mom period...lol There were 4 of us there together, discussing our daily lives with hiv+ kids. Amazing women!!! LOVE them!

Twice a day 2 mom alarms would go off to remind them to give their kids their meds.

Um... I don't do an alarm. This is in no way to dismiss the other mom's whom I LOVE... it's me... I just don't do the alarm thing. We give meds in the morning and at night... mostly around the same time each night. But there are times when we are off by an hour or 2. Had me worrying a little bit that perhaps we were screwing something up. But when we came home our PID guy said, morning and night... at roughly the same time... so, that's what we do.

Then we were talking about emergency kits. You know the zip lock bags with the gloves, band aids and other safety things, just in case something happens with E.

Um...again... no safety bag. I wonder if that makes me stupid or a bad mom? But to be honest, I have wipes and tissues, and always have a band aids. I have always felt that if I were going to tell people that my child was not a risk to them, then I needed to act that way. I am not careless, if there is blood I use a tissue or a wipe, and I do carry band aids. But an emergency kit? nope.

Honestly things just are ...normal here.

We do have a g-tube, and it's messy. It's not really ever healed all the way, so we have to keep it covered and cleaned.

We do have meds that we give each day, twice a day...4 in the morning and 3 at night. Plus his allergy meds, and the occasional inhaler...but it's life.

So occasionally I wonder... am I a bad mom for not being stringent with meds and always being prepared?

Then I look at his little healthy face. I feel his strong arms around me as he hugs me in the grocery store chanting quietly "Mommy. Mommmmy. Mommy.Mommmmy."

I may not have it all together...but I am the mommy who loves him with all that I have.

Yard Sale and other stuff....

Holy cow... I can finally breathe. What a CRAZY week/weekend...

D and I have been running around like crazy people this week picking up items for the yard sale and dropping them off at the church...then doing it again. I was fielding calls and going a little nuts while trying to work my day job and tend to the family. We ended up with quite a bit of stuff. Not the large items we had last time, but still some really good items.

Friday dawned early and those of us from the team that could take off work went to the church and started sorting and then pricing. What a job! We tried really hard not to shop in the process, but you know it's inevitable...lol I was really good though, didn't come home with much. :)

We had a TON of baby items and toys.

We even got the mother of all weird items to have been donated to a church yard sale... a 'position' book...complete with *-rated pictures AND tabbed pages...LOL as well as a bag of someones used thong underwear. Not donated together.... I don't think. We had a HUGE laugh over them both...then they both went into the 'round' file. I seriously think someone just didn't check the stuff they were giving before giving it... won't someone be embarrassed when they realize what they donated? lol... can you imagine the conversation? "Hey honey...where's that book?" ....... tee hee hee

We worked until about 430pm then called it a day and went home to bake cookies for the bake sale the next morning.

Saturday dawned at 5am so we could get to the church at 6am to start moving things into position in the parking lot.

The day was long and mostly steady, but because of the the huge festival going on down on the oceanfront, we didn't get as much traffic as we would have thought. We didn't do too badly, we made about 1600.00 total. We had enough left over that we saved the good stuff and will be doing a smaller scale one at our place this Saturday. Smaller, and less involved. I pray we make at least 400.00 to give us an even 2000.00.

Today is my momma's birthday so we celebrated her amazing life with her, over good food, yummy cake and a couple of games of Banana Split. :) Happy Birthday Mom!!! You ROCK!

I am a bad bad blogger and didn't take my camera anywhere. This past weekend sucked all the energy out of my pour little body... I think it took a few brain cells as well.

I am so very relieved though to have that out of the way, and be DONE with it. The small one at my house isn't nearly as crazy and time consuming, so I am not fretting over it.

In other news, I got an email this morning from some dear friends in Ethiopia asking for prayer. One of the girls we ministered to while there tried to hurt herself... this led them to have to rush her to the hospital. The problem is that they do not have a car so they had to carry her on their backs to the hospital. They had another emergency that required the same procedure later in the week. It's crazy that they had to do this... please pray for them. Please pray for the heart of the young lady, T, and for the vehicle they so desperately need. It breaks my heart that we are so far away and can't help.

I am praying about how I can get them some help. Please pray with me.

In other totally exciting news!!!!! After the adoption that couldn't happen this past week, D and I have prayerfully decided to start the process again at the beginning of the year. Our HS will be renewable as long as we do it before the end of February. We will take the rest of the year to work out our budget, build up some money and then start afresh at the beginning of 2011. SO SO excited!!! God will have to work some MAJOR magic financially to get this to happen, but He is a God of miracles and wonders! I know He can do it!! Please pray with us!!

So...that's it for now...more to come....

How Come?

I have a picture of a baby that I pray for next to my mirror in my bathroom. She passed away not too long ago.

This morning N looked at the picture and this is the conversation it sparked:
N: Mommy how come that baby doesn’t have a family?

Me: She did have a mommy that loved her very much but was sick and couldn’t care for her, so she gave her to the people at the orphanage that she knew would take care of her and love her. The baby is with Jesus now.

N: How come she they didn’t take her to the Dr?

Me: They did, but they didn’t have the right medicine to save her, so Jesus decided that He needed her to come to heaven.

E: That’s sad. :(

N: How come they don’t have medicine over there? How come the Dr’s couldn’t save her? How come they didn’t have medicine to keep E from getting sick?

Me: Because medicines can be very expensive, and not everyone can get them. This is part of the reason why mommy went to Chicago last weekend. I went to talk to people about how we can help baby’s get medicine, and also help them get families like you and E. Because you are both so very special, and there are families that just don’t know yet how amazing it is to have kids like you in their lives. We are going to tell them.

N: Ok!
E: *hugs my neck*

How come?

How come we adopted?
How come we pray for these kids?
How come we chose to open our lives to this world?
How come we love a child with hiv?
How come there are babies still dying?
How come there are older children still waiting… and aging out of the orphanage system and still have no family?
How come there are countries that ‘age out’ kids from orphanages to scary places at the age of 5?
How come there are still places where babies are made to live their entire lives in cribs never to see the light of day of feel the loving touch of a mother?

How come?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that we have a responsibility to do something about it. You may not be called to adopt. That’s fine…not everyone is!!!
Adoption isn’t always the best option.
You could help sponsor a child to go to school and get food and medicine.
You could help a family raise funds that does want to open their homes and hearts to a family.

You could attend the Mid Atlantic Orphan Summit to find out how you can help or how you can get your church to step up with you.

You can buy a beautiful necklace from Project HOPEFUL that is made by Ugandan women out of magazine papers. The money goes to 147 Million, Project HOPEFUL(site is under construction), and Amazima.

You could sponsor a child to go to school.

You could donate money to help a family adopt a child. These kids are living on borrowed time. They need your help.

You could go to this Blog… and save the last bit of life this sweet baby has left.

You can PRAY.

Some Chicago Pics

What a weekend!

We were so busy talking we didn't take many pictures. :)

Carolyn and I shared this YUMMY pumpkin cheesecake on Friday night.
The fabulous Hot 40+ Moms On A Mission to UnOrphan The World (Audrey made that up... I borrowed it)
My roomy, Audrey. Amazing woman! We really stayed up too late talking and sharing... thanks for being such an amazing roomy and new friend!!!
And THIS, is Dasha. A itty bitty tiny ball of spit fire and beauty!!! Her momma Traci is the one on the far right in the pic of us all up above. She just came home from the Ukraine. How stinkin cute is she??!! Couldn't you just eat her up!

I wish I had more pics... I will do better next time. It was fabulous!! Can't wait to do it again!!!