Class #5!

It’s amazing how each week God seems to know exactly what I’ve been struggling with and needing to process in regards to our adoption!  Each class brings with it new challenges to consider, new emotions to deal with, and new scenarios to ponder.  I am so thankful that our agency has spent time and devoted prayer towards designing each class for us along this journey!

Tonight’s class was entitled a “Healthy Adoption Experience”.  We started out with a story and since it’s short I decided to type it up for all of you to read:

Welcome to Holland

By Emily Pearly Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising an adopted child after infertility.  It’s like this…

When you’re planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy, you buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  Several hours later, the plane lands.  The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!” you say, “What do you mean, Holland?  I signed up for Italy!”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan.  They’ve landed in Holland, and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horribly, disgusting, filthy place.  It’s just a different place.

It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.  But after you’ve been there for awhile and you catch your breath, you look around and begin to notice that Holland has windmills.  Holland has tulips.  Holland even has Rembrandts!

But everyone you know is bragging about what a wonderful time they had in Italy.  And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go.  That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

As I said last week I always thought adoption would be a means to an end.  I’ve got my baby so my life can begin.  However that’s not true and adoption carries with it some special circumstances and challenges that only someone who has gone through the adoption process can truly understand.  However it is my hope that through this blog I can give you a glimpse of how adoption feels and what it looks like. 

Tonight we discussed the “myths and fears about adoption”. There a lot of them out there—some more easily to identify as ‘not true” than others.  Some of the ones that stuck out to me were:

I will never be able to love someone else’s child like I would my own. 

To be honest I worry about this one!  I am praying even now that God will give me a love for our child that’s deeper than I can even imagine! 

Parenting is parenting—it doesn’t make any difference if it’s by birth or adoption. 

In a way this is true—parenthood comes with its challenges no matter in what way you become a parent.  However because our child will be adopted we will also have a special set of challenges and differences to deal with.  Our caseworker shared tonight that we need to remember that Adoption starts with loss—loss for a birth mom giving up her child, and loss for us since we wouldn’t have chosen adoption if not for our struggles with infertility.  However we don’t have to stay in that loss—we can move forward!

Maybe the infertility was God’s way of telling me I wouldn’t be a good parent, so I have to be perfect. 

Although I know the God I love and serve does not make infertility happen I do struggle with the latter part of this statement.  I want to be a parent so badly and have gone to great lengths to become one—thus I expect perfection from myself!  It’s interesting to note how some people have to try so hard to become parents while others have it so easy to the point where they didn’t really even make the conscious choice to be a parent—it just sort of happened!  (By the way when you talk to someone who has gone through infertility please don’t ever say, “That’s so weird.  I didn’t even have to try”.  This statement can really hurt!)

If my daughter/son thinks about her birth mother and wants to meet her, I have failed as a parent. 

This is an easy trap to fall into and believe.  For me there’s still a lot of insecurity when it comes to being a Mom—especially to an adopted son or daughter.  However I really liked what our handout said thus I quote, “If your child trusts you enough to talk about her birth parents with you, you have succeeded splendidly in establishing a healthy relationship.  Can you make a paradigm shift and view the birth mother as a natural, essential presence in your child’s life instead of as a potential threat?”  Ben and I have talked about how important it is going to be for us to have an open and honest line of communication with our child.  We want to talk to our kids about anything and everything—especially our faith in Jesus! 

We are willing to adopt a child of any ethnic background—race is not an issue.

I’m still processing this one.  For now Ben and I have marked on our “child desired” form that we are open to any and all ethnic backgrounds and races.  Tonight our caseworker shared that even if race isn’t an issue to you as family—it will always be an issue to others and our society, thus you need to be prepared to deal with it.  I feel really guilty in saying this but adoption is already such a huge deal for me to be taking on I’m not sure if I can add one more thing to my plate to make it harder.  This may mean that we go back and change our form, I’m not sure.  I almost feel like a racist in saying that I’m not sure if I could adopt outside my own race.  If anyone reading this has any thoughts or just could specifically pray for God’s guidance and wisdom regarding this issue it would be appreciated! 

Tonight we also talked about the adoption triad.  When you adopt there are three parties involved: 1) the adoptee, 2) the birth parent(s), and 3) The adoptive parents.  Although we all experience different emotions we also have a lot in common as well.  This was really interesting to note!  Let’s take Mother’s Day for example (which is in my opinion my least favorite day to go to church for fear I will break down in tears from once again not being able to stand and be recognized as a ‘mother’).  When mothers are asked to stand and be recognized, I don’t stand.  It’s not that I don’t want to be a mother, but I’m not one!  A birth mom, who has given birth to a child but placed it in the care of an adoptive family, may also choose not to stand because she doesn’t feel like a mother—even though she gave birth to a child!  The birth mother and I have both experienced pain and loss—just on different sides of the spectrum!

Another example that was brought up is that when a match meeting takes place usually adoptive parents worry about what to wear, what to say, etc.  We want the birth mom to like us and hopefully pick us to raise her child!  However the caseworker shared that when a birth mom comes to these meetings she is just as nervous as us if not more so.  She looks at us as the perfect couple who have it all together (if only she knew…!). 

Another topic covered tonight was called “The Building Blocks of Healthy Adoptive Families”:

Infertility Resolution:  Although I will always carry the loss with me that I may never be able to conceive and carry our own child, I have moved on and am choosing to grow our family through adoption!

Entitlement:  Although no one is “entitled” to parent a child, adoptive families need to take ownership of their desire to parent!  A lot of times insecurity can come in and disrupt the important bonding that needs to take place between parent and child.

Claiming:  Although the child we will adopt will never be “biologically” ours, we still need to claim this child as ours!  Just as I have a picture of Ben and my two dogs on my desk at work because they “belong” to me, so will I display a picture of my adopted child in the same way!

Empathy for birth parents:  We need to put ourselves in the birth parents shoes—they didn’t plan to have this child just as we didn’t plan to be infertile!  And we also need to remember that even on their very worst day amidst all of their bad choices, in the end this birth parent chose to give their child LIFE!  In today’s world there is an “easier” way out that a lot of women choose to take!  Not only did she choose life for her child she also carried this child with her for 9 months and then gave it away!  What an amazing love!

Acceptance of Need for birth parents:  This one really struck a chord with me.  When you have your own child you raise it yourself, on your own.  You are the expert on that child because you created it and are raising it.  However in adoption although my husband and I, as mom and dad, will play vitally important roles in our child's life we also need our child's birth mom.  We need information about their medical history and family history.  And one day our child may need to have questions answered that we, as their adoptive parents, can't answer. 

Adoptive Parenting is Different from Parenting by Birth:  I am so glad our classes acknowledge this fact!  As a teacher I have 23 different kids in my class--each one is unique and special in their own way.  Our adopted child will be unique and special as well and will also face challenges from being adopted.  I have been worrying about this lately but am glad to know I'm not alone in my worries.  All of the topics we have covered in our classes so far have really opened my eyes to all that adoption encompasses.  I'm so glad I'm walking into adoption with my eyes wide open so I can prepare to do the best job possible in raising our child!

Identity Formation:  This one has been a worry of mine as well.  We already know we want to teach our child who they are in Christ:  a beautiful creation!  However since our child will be adopted they will also have to learn who they are in this world.  We need to be prepared when our child starts asking about who they are and where they have come from.  We don't plan to wait to tell our child they are adopted.  They will know from an early age and will hopefully have contact with their birth family so they will understand even more about how they came to be a part of our family.  I don't ever want our child to think they can't ask these tough questions!

God is in control:  I'm glad they ended with this one.  No matter what happens or where our journey through adoption takes us, God is leading the way!  Our agency strongly believes that God has the perfect child waiting in the wings to be our family. I am embracing this belief as well!

All in all would it be easier to have our own child?

Of course!

But since we can't, we choose to grow our family through adoption--an exciting and beautiful thing!