Privacy Matters in Adoption

There was a great article posted on Rainbowkids this week that goes into a lot of details about the importance of an adopted child's privacy when it comes to their history and background and how we as adoptive parents need to be mindful of what information we share and when we share it with our child as often times, the child might not remember their history (depending on their age) and it can be very hurtful to find out details of their history from a family member or friend. Having just recieved our Referral, this article is very timely for us given that we now have a document that is about 20 pages in length with a lot of possible information that is really not ours to share, and are in the midst of fielding questions from friends and family that we might not be able to answer to protect our daughter' privacy. I hope you take the time to read it. Here is the link

http://www.rainbowkids.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=755

and an excerpt "I suggest that new adoptive parents, including those still in the adoption process, develop for themselves what I call the Privacy Plan. They decide what information is off-limits (e.g. birthparent information, certain details about early living conditions, specific reasons the child was available for adoption) and have a plan for responding to inappropriate questions. For example, when someone asks me what I "know abou" my child's birthmother or for some other information about his personal history, I’ve developed a standard reply: "That’s not my information to share." I try to keep it simple; I say it lightly and move on. People usually get the idea pretty quickly. They don't mean to overstep. Often they've just never thought of it that way before."

Official Referral!!!!

Yesterday, T got "the call" from our agency. They received the official referral from ICBF for our 5 yr old Colombian beauty!!! Last night I spent hours translating the 20 page document that came with the referral (our agency is working on the official translation but we were so excited we didn't want to wait!). I think I got the highlights. We were dissapointed there was not a more recent photo included as the one we have is about a year and a half old...so bummer there. They are going to make another request for one. They will be contacting us today wiht the next steps on how to accept the referral once we get the official translation and complete the I-800. My head is spinning!!! We were expecting to wait a few months for the referral and it came in about 2 weeks! At this rate, we will be off to Colombia before the end of summer! I had hear ICBF prioritizes special needs adoptions, but oh my, we are definately on some sort of fast track right now. In God's time, it is all in God's time. Based on the paperwork, it looks like we are under the Bucharamanga office of ICBF which means we might be staying at some of the same places that another family that just got back stayed. It is so exciting to look at their pictures and think we might be there in just a few months! Yah yah Yah!!!

Sorry, I've got to run...

That sounds like a cool bumper sticker, or the name of a blog. Maybe I'll change the blog title to that. I just sounds cool on a couple of different levels. Speaking of running...

Got out today for 6 miles. I'm ashamed to say its about the 4th time out in months. And it shows! It was a GREAT therapeutic run. It was also a nasty, hot, sweaty run. The kinda run where even after a cold shower, you sweat profusely for about 45 minutes. I was dripping still driving to work. Good think my officemate doesn't come into the office on Tuesdays, else I would have probably needed to bring a 2nd shirt. (ok its not that bad, but I do have some body spray if I start to believe I stink).

Sorry, but I've got to run! Today is a 10.0 on the days per week work load chart.

Therapeutic Who?

Part of the frustration of therapeutic parenting is that so many people just don’t get it. They fail to see that the child’s behaviors are not normal and when they turn the charm on around strangers, the “ohh and ahh” at how friendly and adorable they are begin. The child’s special needs are not visible to the world making it all the more easy to write off those behaviors. I am loving this blog post. How true this is and how much is sounds like our K. http://therapeuticmoments.blogspot.com/2011/04/there-is-nothing-wrong-with-that-child.html. We were at a graduation party last weekend and had not been at a social occasion with our little girl in that type of setting for months. It was agonizing to watch and in the end, we ended up excusing ourselves and heading back to the hotel. I would compare it to watching a train wreck, with me, glued to a lawn chair trying to figure out my next move, but too awestruck with the wreckage that happening in front of me to get off the chair and do something about it and at the time, not knowing what to do. In my mind, all the while, playing back the past months and how we could have progressed so little. As the week rolled on, I thought we were making headway back onto the right path, theraplay on Friday morning with some one on one time and nail polish, then the wreckage….. everything fell apart again at the doctor’s office when I came face to face with not 1 but 2 disregulated 4 yr olds that I might have had a fighting chance with some time-ins had I been able to instantly clone myself right there in the waiting room, but alas, the fiasco ended with 2 raging kids strapped in their car seats and still somehow managing to pinch, scratch and beat the tar out of eachother even though they were barely within eachother’s reach and me crying to T on the phone and trying to figure out how we were all going to limp back home in one piece. The Friday from Hell is an understatement as that was just the begininng. Time-in’s, lost privileges, therapeutic everything, you name it, I tried it, and collapsed on the couch at 10:00 that night only to find out the cat had barfed all over the living room. Saturday was a new day and we all needed some repair time which included the park, hours in the kiddie pool with the kids yelling “I LOVE MY FAMILY” before going down the slide, two picnics and a birthday party (another social situation…). And the clouds parted and the birds sang “Hallelujah!” K hung by me at the party, asked me for food and drinks and wanted ME to hold her not some random stranger (note picture...smiling K looking at me and not interested in random strangers in background!) (Insert shock and awe here). Now I can’t say it was not more exhaustion than attachment, but hey, after this past week, it is the little victories I am hanging onto to charge head on into this week.

Approved!!!

We got word yesterday from our agency that ICBF has approved us to adopt a Colombian child!!!! This is great news and we are excited that our paperwork is now heading off to the regional office where the child we hope to adopt is at. Once our paperwork is there, the regional office will review our file and decide if our family is a good fit for this little girl. If she is, they will update her file as necessary then send our agency an "official" referral for her and we will start showing off her picture to everyone we know and bragging on how adorable she is!! I think we will have a better idea on timeframe after this next step because if her file is out of date, it can take some time to get it updated. The quickest time to travel from the point we are at now that we have seen has been about 3 1/2 months, so that would put us about mid-Sept. We were also excited to see the two passports for E1 and K arrive yesterday after not being sure how long K's passport was going to take. E1 was jumping up and down and yelling "yah yah yah, I get to go to Colombia to get our new sister now!!!!" It was uber cute! I need to take some pictures of the Colombian shield on the stainglass in the basement that was bare until last week, I am going to complete a section each time we reach a milstone in our process. The first square was completed with the Colombia flag when our dossier was submitted to ICBF. I will add the second section now that we have approval and the third section once we get her referral. I am saving the last section for approval to travel. Hoping it will be a cool reminder of where we are at and how far we have to go!

Daily Intentions..

We have a prayer chain at our church. We get emails for those in need of prayer. For thanksgiving and for petitions. Included today was this prayer from St. Teresa. I just really though it was moving. So I wanted to share..

"O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace." - Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Peace

Powerful Speech - Turn Music off before playing

Gianna, fitting name after St. Gianna defender of life

Haves and Have Nots

I think a lot of adoptive parents find it somewhat cringe-worthy when they hear another family mention that they plan to adopt to “save a child”. If you read adoptive parenting literature, the key flaw in this can be related in the same way one might relate a relative’s attempts to “save” someone close to them suffering from an addiction. The flaw being that if that person doesn’t realize they have a problem, they also don’t realize they need to be saved. In the same manner, when you view a child that has grown up only knowing his or her environment, it stands to reason that they have accepted their environment for what it is and the thought that they would need saving has never crossed their mind. Compounding the issue is the concern that if a family approaches adoption as “saving” a child, there is also the potential that there might be an underlying desire for the child to express gratitude and parenting a child is not meant to be done to receive gratitude.
Now this is where I personally diverge and differentiate between “saving a child” vs “adopting where there is the greatest need”. This is also where I struggle. While ultimately, we chose to adopt for selfish reasons (because we wanted a family), over the years, we have also more and more weighed where the need is into our decision of where to adopt. With increasing ethical issues cropping up in international adoption, it becomes harder and harder to assess where the need is vs where the corruption is. And while I struggle to grasp the gut wrenching decision of a birthmom to sell one of her children to a baby handler to feed her other children, I would never be able to justify, in my mind, that the adoption of that child would ever be the right thing to do. At that point, it becomes a matter of social justice and I would probably be the first one with my hand raised to sponsor that family through an organization like World Vision to avoid a birthmom having to make that kind of decision in the first place. The other key issue I struggle with is the use of the orphanage system in many countries as a day-care. Families that are unable to educate or feed their children leave them in the care of an orphanage so that they may get the support they need to continue to grow and develop with no intention that the child would ever be adopted. But unfortunately, this sometimes isn’t how it works. The birthfamilies may be in constant contact with the children at the orphanage. So how does an adoptive family discern this if the child is really available for adoption? They don’t. And that becomes something that keeps me awake at night. We need to be the voice for the voiceless, ask the questions, and be a part of the solution, not contribute to the problem by greasing people’s hands and using the excuse that because we are “saving” a child the ends justify the means. This mentality benefits no-one and only serves to hurt those who are most vulnerable.
I am reading “The Hole in Our Gospel” by Richard Sterns, the CEO of World Vision. And while I would like to stay safely in our little cocoon in the good ‘ol US of A, the fact of the matter is that we are on the front lines of the increasing global disparity between the rich and the poor, bridged between both worlds through the adoption of our children. If we leave this world having seen the social injustices and haven’t stood up and taken action, hiding in our cocoon with our 4 beautiful children, I have to wonder how we would answer God if he asked us “Why?, why didn’t you do something?”

Very funny guys!

After hearing all the horror stories from our Trauma Parenting Group before Mother's Day about the standard "Mother's Day fallout", I kind of passed it off like, how could a 3 almost 4 yr old really appreciate Mother's Day enough to cause a big stink, she just isn't old enough right? Wrong! With E2 down with a fever causing him to become a curled up ball of love and presents and attention being showered on me, she had met her limit and was bound and determined to get the spotlight back by any means necessary including pulling my hair, sticking her fingers up my nose, choking me with my own necklace and exposing her neather region to the whole congregation....yes Virgina, it did all happen at church! So needless to say, when it came to the part of "Peace be with you", T got an "Also with you" that was attached to a 30 lb disregulated 3 yr old whose protests could be heard even over the "Ave Maria". Happy Mother's Day dear!

I then found out on Monday that my friend's daughter had a dream that I was preggers. As it turns out, every time anyone in that family has dreamed a pregnancy, it has happened. So I told her that unless I was preggers with a 40 lbs girl that spoke Spanish in the dream, she better retract it imediately! Just to make sure, I am listing my uterus on e.bay this afternoon.

A Night Already Devoid of Stars

“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.